a post script about sunday night

This is what you get when you suggest to Chip that you'd like to lay on a blanket in the backyard and watch a movie after your toddler has gone to sleep.

Yes, that would be an actual futon frame complete with foam mattress and blankets. The chairs were for our respective snacks.

I provided the all-important snacks (popcorn and a small glass of chocolate chips to balance the buttery salt).

One of my favorite parts of the evening was walking out there to view Chip's creation of our backyard movie extravaganza.

It really was extraordinary.

As were the stars.

The bugs? Another story. When one actually took a chunk of flesh out of my leg, I begged for pause and went looking for our decrepit citronella candles (the ones that are at least 7 years old--- is there an expiration for citronella?).

Once the candles were (sort of) lit, we amused ourselves with attempts to keep them lit. I won by balancing mine on a precarious angle and periodically emptying trickling pools of melted citronella wax onto a small circle of dirt. Have you ever noticed that doing precisely this thing with a candle is the Slippery Slope of Candle Demise? If you don't stop at just the right ratio of candle wick to standing melted candle wax, you're faced with a wick that keeps getting overrun by melted wax (and consequently snuffs out into Wick Oblivion). Unfortunately I crossed the Magic Wax Ratio and was forced to just keep getting up to empty wax onto the sad circle of dirt (and wax).

I still feel a little itchy just thinking about those bugs. (scratch scratch, especially my ankles and ears--- is that weird?)

We toughed it out and chatted companionably about a citronella ion cannon (Star Wars reference).

By the time the popcorn was gone, the chocolate chips had been eaten, and the whole sky was dark and sprinkled with a scattering of stars, the movie was over and the candles were nearing their life's purpose end. The temperature of the surrounding air had also dipped down considerably and we walked into a house cooled down and quiet.

Even if you aren't blessed with a MacGuyver husband who refuses to lay directly on the grass for avoiding the night-roaming Spiders of Unusual Size (S.O.U.S.), I would heartily recommend the Backyard Movie Viewing.

In spite of the bugs.