With all of the time I’ve been spending on planes lately, I’ve had the chance to see a large number of movies I wouldn’t have the time for otherwise. So, in lightning-round format, here are five reviews of movies I’ve seen on small, glowing screens about two feet from my face.

• The Water Horse — I didn’t have sound for this one (I didn’t need it), and didn’t really have a choice as to whether I could watch it or not. 2/10.
• The International — “Hey, our plot doesn’t make any sense, let’s shoot it in a bunch of glamorous locations and hope people don’t notice.” 4/10.
• Watchmen — Meh. Not sure what the big deal was. 6/10.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — Not Fincher’s best, not Fincher’s worst.  A strange, lovely and–of course–curious film, one I suspect could grow on me. 7/10.
• Milk — Great acting by Sean Penn, although the film seems to skip over a lot. 8/10.

I wonder what I’ll see on the way back.

Despite the scheduling complexity in my life these days–one day this past week had meetings at both 7:30 AM and 10:30 PM–I’m trying to set aside 10-15 minutes every day to write.  So much going on, so little time to write or even think about it.

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Today is my second Father’s Day as a father, and my first Father’s Day without one.  Not much else to say about that.

Yesterday was Mathias’ second birthday.  We had a small party, and my mom was up in the Cities to celebrate it, along with Ben and his kids.  It was a lot of fun, but to be honest Mathias and Ben’s kids seemed to have just as much fun, if not more, running around the mega mall later in the evening.  (They closed the Lego store.)   Hopefully there’ll be some time to meet up with Ben and his family tomorrow morning before they head back to Two Rivers…

…And before I head back to Bangalore later in the afternoon.  I’ll be gone for a week.  This will be my first trip during monsoon season, so it should be interesting.  I’ll have a really packed schedule while there, but hopefully I’ll be able to get out a little bit, something I really wasn’t able to do last time I was in town.

Last weekend we were in Two Rivers and Green Bay, in what was essentially an in-and-out stop to hit the Day Out With Thomas being held at the National Railroad Museum.  Mathias had fun, but we’ll have to go again when he’s old enough to remember it.

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I can’t believe it’s almost July already.  It feels like the summer has just begun.  If I have time one of the evenings I’m in India, I may try figuring out when and where Lisa, Mathias and I can go camping.  I better do that soon, as before we know it I’ll be back in school and our brief Minnesotan summer will have faded to Fall.

I’m starting to wonder if I should be worried with my son’s ongoing obsession with clocks. “Clock” was one of his first words, and while there was a bit of a dry period where he only gave passing interest to them, his sudden realization last week that the speedometer in my car looks like “A CLOCK!!!!” has resulted in three to four hours of Lisa or me sitting out in my car his week so Mathias could jump up and down on the driver’s seat, play with dials and switches, and comment on the “clock” on the dashboard. (The fact my car has plenty of lights, another Mathias obsession, albeit not quite as severe, has exacerbated this issue.)

A recent purchase of a toy car big enough for him to ride in has not distracted him from his idea that my car is a plaything, but in all likeliness has actually made things worse.  We’ve had a number of cases this week where he’s run to the back of the house (towards the garage), sometimes pulling Lisa or me along, pointing and proclaiming “clock!” and “car!”  Refusal to take him out has a seemingly inevitable result: Mathias flips. The fuck. Out.

Last night while walking back from Sebastian Joe’s, we made the mistake of taking a route that allowed Mathias to make a beeline for our garage.  In hopes of directing Mathias elsewhere, I pretended that the garage door wouldn’t open, but Mathias responded with a trick of his own, his first four-word sentence, delivered with a high level of concern: “The car is stuck!”  Lisa and I looked at each other, dumbfounded.  After a few attempts to divert his attention, we let him in the garage, briefly.  The expected happened when we removed him, though.

As with many things relating to the junior member of the household, we’re assuming this is a stage.  I’m sure we’ll be nostalgic about it when he’s older, but for now, we kind of hope it passes quickly.

Only two more mornings of Putter waking up the family in an effort to get his breakfast.  His new owner picks him up on Sunday.  That afternoon, we’re going to start the tedious process of eliminating any cat residue from the apartment, just another step in our battle against Mathias’ respiratory problems.

Am I going to miss our cat? Heck yes. Putter has a long track record of driving Lisa up the wall, but it’s pretty clear she’s going to miss him, too.  There’s comfort in the fact Putter is going to a rabid cat person, someone who has cat-sit for him in the past, and who actually currently does cat sitting for a living.  There’s some concern Putter may have trouble adjusting to a house with other cats in it, not to mention the fact he’s on a special diet, but it sounds like his new owner has some creative ideas for dealing with those issues.  If worse comes to worse, we can help find him another home somewhere else.

Next weekend, it’ll be the guinea pigs’ turn, as they relocate to Northeastern Wisconsin.

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Other than that, life is the typical: Busy.  Depending on the weather this weekend, we may or may not be hitting the Minneapolis farmer’s market.  The same goes for Grand Old Days.  Priority will be given to cleaning and decluttering, though.  We’ll have family in town in a few weeks for Mathias’ second birthday, and this will be the only weekend to clean up post-Putter.

Between yoga class for Lisa, swimming and music classes for Mathias, and my sudden urge to bike all over the Twin Cities, it’s safe to say we’re a pretty busy family.  Next weekend, we’ll be in Green Bay. The weekend after that, it’s Mathias’ birthday, and my mom will be in town.  And on Father’s Day, I’m off to India for the third time this year.

Life is interesting.