Welcome to Abu Halen.

If you listen real heard, you can actually hear the good times roll. Or at least limp. Maybe crawl.

Movie Night

Single-parenting is hard. Especially if you're a boy. Shannon has been in the hospital since Wednesday after giving birth to Grace Elaine. That means I've been single-parenting since Wednesday.

I really don't have anything to bellyache about; I haven't even REALLY been single-parenting, because mostly I just drop the kids at friends' houses during the day so I can hang with Shannon at the hospital. But I haven't written a post in a while, and I needed a catchy opening sentence. Don't judge me.

Last night, I decided it was time for Savannah and I to have some daddy-daughter time. So, since there aren't a lot of movie rental places here in Jordan, I drove downtown and found a gaudy DVD shop where they sell pirated movies for 1 JD a piece (less than $1.50). You can get all the new releases less than a week after they appear in theatres. I'm pretty sure it's illegal, but so is driving over 65 mph, and everyone does that.

So I bought eight movies, took some to Shannon in case she gets bored while convalescing, and let Savannah choose one from the rest to watch with me after Halen went to bed. She chose "Ice Age 3". In reality, Ice Age 3 doesn't exist, but sometimes you get funky things going on with pirated DVDs. It was really Ice Age 2, but some enterprising young Arab had got a little happy with Photoshop or something.

So we turn on the flick and, lo! Manny and Sid are speaking Arabic. Savannah is displeased. "Why are they speaking Arabic?" she demands. "I don't like Arabic! I like English!" Too tired to argue about how if she just sucks it up and learns Arabic now, she'll be more competitive in the job market in 20 years, I diffused the situation by suggesting we watch Shrek 3 instead. Phew. Despite the opening credits being in Spanish, the characters all spoke English. Crisis averted.

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