I’m thinking Nate may have stewed a bit over yesterday’s behavior because he came out of his room this morning (yes, he actually did sleep in his bed last night, although I wasn’t aware of it until he emerged) and he was very pleasant. We talked. Sounds like a young lady he met while attending community college the last few years (before joining the Navy) has sort of 
crawled into his heart while he’s been home on leave. Hmm. Anyway, we played some Cribbage! It’s been a long while since we’ve done that, but it’s like riding a bike. I’d had a deck of cards made through Shutterfly with his Navy photo on them, which he thought was pretty cool, and we broke ‘em in. It was nice. I feel better about things. (He’s still a selfish brat at times, though!)
Then John and I drove into Seattle and met up with my brother and his daughter at the Boeing IMAX Theater to see “Avatar” in 3D. I’d never been there before, and I’d also never seen anything in 3D before. When I mentioned this to my brother he said, “Never? How old are you?” Yeah, I guess I don’t get out much! Heading into the building, the Space Needle looked like this:
What a beautiful day! Cold and crisp and not a cloud to be seen! When we left the theater nearly 3 hours later, it looked like this:
WHAT A MOVIE. The instant it ended John and I turned toward each other and we both said, “WOW!” It was the most amazing “thing” (let alone movie) that we have ever seen. Our eyes have never witnessed the wonder of anything as spectacular as this. What a visual experience! The IMAX theater is amazing in it’s own right; like watching a movie on the side of a towering building! (Thankfully the seats are high-back and you can lean back and rest your head and neck). Also, I don’t think there’s a bad seat in the place because it’s steeply sloped. We ended up being pretty far down which made me a little nervous, but it was great! The 3D effect was perfectly executed—no over-the-top “effect” just for the sake of it. It totally immerses you into this wondrous world. The heights and depths are mind-bending vast. In fact, if you have an issue with heights, it could make you a little queasy at first! There were several instances where these lovely white jelly-fish thingies would float down and it took everything in my power to refrain from reaching out and “catching” one. After all, they were right there directly in front of me!
The story itself? Well, like any epic, including “Star Wars,” “Lord of the Rings,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Harry Potter,” it’s about good vs. evil. I guess the extreme right wingers are grumbling about the plot because the “bad” are humans trying to take the planet from the natives so they can mine a valuable ore for energy consumption (since they’ve exhausted all resources on Earth as well as torn down all the trees. “Drill, baby, drill!”). It’s military and corporate greed vs. natives who are much more than nature-loving “savages.” But the context of the story is elevated with the lush environment, the intriguing natives, the fierce animal life, and an extraordinary scientific AND spiritual connection between all of them.
A masterpiece.
