Day Off

Carter did not have school today. Although it had been on the school calendar since the beginning of time I somehow never put it on my calendar. I found out about it on Wednesday when Carter asked me if she and three friends could go to the fair Thursday after school. In what universe could she go to the fair on a school day? The one where she did not have school the next day. Oh.

Today turned out to be a fun day with my daughter. After getting her up earlier than she needed to because I mistakenly thought she had a hair appointment I made up for it by taking her to lunch and the movies. The movie was her idea. I thought she might want to go to a Rom/Com, usually the genre of her choice, but I was wrong. She chose a war movie, Fury.

Since the reviews online were good I agreed and off we went to sit mostly alone in the dark at one in the afternoon. I must agree with the reviewers. The first test for me was that I only fell asleep for a couple of minutes at the start of the film, but then was awake for the balance of the show. This is a miracle because if you put me in a warm dark room after having enjoyed a bowl of hot soup I am usually assured of taking a good long nap. I am very similar to an eighty-year old man. I guess that if you throw Brad Pitt up on the screen I revert back to being a young woman and am able to remain awake.

The movie was a tough look at a young man’s first week on the front as an artillery guy in a tank unit in Germany who has been together for the whole war. Carter was enthralled with the mechanics of war and had a lot of questions for me that I could not answer. She decided that she is interested in studying both the Great War and World War II in college. Maybe my lack of details was a good thing. If I had satisfied her curiosity she might not want to go deeper in study.

What she really liked was the relationships of the people in the war. It was not the battles, or the tactics, but the camaraderie. I think that she may want to study anthropology and sociology to really understand how teams and relationships work. As of right now I am not going to go that deep with her. I am just going to revel in the good day off we had together. I know these days are going to be fewer and farther in between.