
This confused me, and rightly so. I know GW liked the first two Hobbit movies, I know she loves big action scenes, and I get that she’s a big CGI girl. Plus, the flick has been out for a few weekends now and the local picture show wouldn’t be crowded. She’s not so much into crowded theaters, anymore, ever since the stranger sitting at her side put his hand in her bag of popcorn. So all signs pointed to = seeing the movie.
“I just don’t have time,” she said. “The movie’s about a hundred hours long, plus we have to leave early to find a good seat, plus we always go somewhere after. Even though it starts at noon, the whole rest of the day will be gone.”
“What do you want to do, instead?”
“I want to go to the gym.”
“Are the fire engines out back?” I asked. GW almost never volunteers to go to the gym, unless she sees the fire engines parked in the rear parking lot. When that happens, it’s a guarantee that a number of firemen are inside the building, lifting weights and doing cardio. My friend isn’t looking for a fireman of her own, I don’t believe, but she does enjoy the atmosphere. Maybe I do, too, but I'll never tell.
“I don’t think so,” GW said.
Which is when I realized it was 2015, it was January, and she'd made her annual New Year’s Resolutions. “Tell me.”
“Lose fifteen pounds. Hit the gym at least four times a week. Save more money. I am so cutting off cable once House of Cards goes off the air.”
I once discovered a government site that talks about popular New Year’s Resolutions – it's still there and you can find it, too, right here: http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/New-Years-Resolutions.shtml -- and she’d nailed three of the top thirteen goals in the USA. Then she asked, “Did you make any resolutions?”
I hadn’t made any formal resolutions but I realized I’ve made some promises to myself. I want to get Live Love Rewind out in a print version, I want to complete our next mail-order bride novel, I want the sequel to One Bride for Seven Brothers to appear. All of which I think will happen, none of which I wanted to jinx at that moment. Instead I told her, “I’d like to gain twenty pounds, eat chocolate five times a week, and start watching House of Cards.”
She laughed. “You’re not mad about missing the movie, right?”
I wasn’t, really. Instead, Glynn and I stayed home and watched Horns, a funky little horror fantasy starring Daniel Radcliffe. We even had popcorn. Not a bad way to spend a January afternoon, all in all.