I, moviegoing, smoked-meat-eating mother

We retrieved Helena Saturday morning. Our break from each other was a little too long. I missed her terribly.

Now that we're home, she won't stop following me around, and that's kind of nice.

Helena has a very big bruised bump on her forehead. Apparently she slipped and fell down the bottom four stairs. I wanted to scream and point fingers, but I took a deep breath and realized it wouldn't make any difference. I didn't bother to ask for more details. Helena was in high spirits, no bones broken. J-F meanwhile chose to scream and point fingers. Sigh.

Of course,it was great to have a night out on the town, so to speak, just the two of us. After much drinking, we needed food.

We headed to Ben's Delicatessen. (We prefer Schwartz's, but Ben's is around the corner from the cinema. Still, we end up there once or twice a year.) J-F usually starts into some hockey anecdotes, inspired by the signed photos on the wall. This time, we were seated along the Celebrity Wall of Fame, and we got a good look for the first time. It seems Ben's patrons have included such diverse characters as Catherine Deneuve, Liberace, Colonel Saunders, and Iron Maiden.

The movie was entertaining but far less than great. I feel a little misled by its title — I'm a sucker for a post-apocalyptic movie, the apocalypse itself I don't particularly care for.

What I miss most about going out to the movies is seeing trailers. I'm looking forward to I, Robot. It's the first science fiction I ever read — assigned reading in grade 7, can you believe? (I think it was part of an ethics module.) Time to revisit the past's future.

I don't remember anything of the stories, but the three laws of robotics have stuck with me:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

There's enough of the stories both in my subconscious memory and in the movie version that seconds into the trailer I was saying to J-F, "Hey, it's I, Robot."