Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Day 14

Boy am I tired. I don't sleep very well. I tend to think about work a lot and will often write leads to stories while trying to fall asleep.

We just got back from taking our granddaughter to dinner and speaking with our daughter. We were told that we couldn't adopt her – based on how she entered this country – when she was our foster daughter and frankly that hasn't stopped us from having a parent/daughter relationship with her.

When she came to live with us at age 15 after living in years in refugee camps, we soon discovered the great cultural gap that separated one Baby Boomer American, one Baby Boomer Scots woman and one Vietnamese teenager.

A few things helped. She loved, for reasons that were never really clear, "Married With Children." She seriously dug Al and Peg, despite the fact the humor was based a foreign culture.

Through her we became introduced to Hong Kong movies which certainly changed my film appreciation.

Best of all, she loved horror films.

My wife had a night job along with her day gig and when she went off to work, Chau and I would watch horror movies. She would sit next to me on the couch and have a blanket, which she drew up close to her eyes. it was there to protect her.

We watched "Aliens" and "Predator" back to back and she had such a bad dream she shattered the jade bracelet she wore. I was blamed for that.

She watched the first "Evil Dead" movie ( that was probably a bad move on my part) and one of the "Basketcase" sequels that earned me a bit of scorn from my better half.

We still talk about making a movie date to see something scary as she still likes horror films, but with a baby and a teenager in the house her time is limited.

I do think back to those times going through a video store with her, picking something that clearly filled her with a delicious dread and hurrying home to watch it with her trusty blanket.

Too bad my eldest granddaughter doesn't like horror movies.

© 2009 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

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