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I made a little headway with the AIOTM script, though quite a long way to go, but then we had friends round for a late lunch so I had to hope that I can get everything sorted tomorrow morning (as we’re having birthday celebration in the afternoon).
We were welcoming my one-time boat-race enemy and rat-seducer Grub Smith and his lovely family. I don’t know how he managed to find a woman who would put up with his rat syphillis or father two amazing kids, but I guess that gives hope to all the middle-aged losers who seem to have nothing in their life and no hope, that things might actually turn out OK…. oh hold on, I just looked in the mirror and realised that I am another beacon of hope for those who have lost all theirs.
For those of you who haven’t been reading this blog for 12 years that is all a bit confusing, no doubt, but please read from the beginning to get the context.
About two years ago we dined with the same people (minus the little one who didn’t yet exist) and Grub gave us all the norovirus. But we didn’t take revenge by food poisoning him back. I roasted a chicken in my chicken brick, which I like to think makes me a cook, but as it only involves putting a chicken in the chicken brick, putting that in the oven and then waiting 90 minutes I am not sure I can take too much credit. The chicken had to put a helluva lot more work in to get to this point. Catie did all the hard work, making sweet potato fries and an amazing haloumi and lentil salad, whilst I went back upstairs and tried to write jokes about shop lifting. My attempts to live a grown-up life, interrupted by a job that keeps pulling me back to childishness.
It was fun to sit down and break bread (well chicken) with my old nemesis. And if Grub Smith and I can be friends, after the intense rivalry of a pretend TV rowing contest and an attempted poisoning, then why can’t all the world’s enemies make things work out?
Phoebe again proved she is my child by managing to snaffle one of the adult chocolates that were being passed around and stuff it into her mouth before anyone could stop her. I had to admire her stealth. I only noticed she’d done it because I saw her put half of the chocolate back in the box. We’d been telling Grub’s daughter that the chocolates were too rich for kids (I remember my parents pulling the same lie on me), so it must have been confusing to see a younger child happily eat one and ask for more.
We got to the end of Freaks and Geeks tonight and it was poignant on two levels. I wish they had done more so we could see what happened next to these characters, but now it’s too late, but I also wish I could go back to 1980 and have another go at my spookily-similar-to-the-geeks life, but I can’t do that either. Even though those actors are from the year 2000 and pretending to be from 1980 they are now too old to do the second series that any right-headed person could see that this show deserved. And they were so good at being 13 in 1980 (as I was) that I actually can’t get my head around the fact that these actors are all under 40 still.
At the end, spoiler alert, Lindsey gets on the bus to go (supposedly) to an Academic summer camp and says goodbye to her family and the stupid kid friends of her little brother. Even though she’s coming back (and not going where she says she’s going) they all know that this signifies an important life event. She’s leaving home and childhood behind. This stuff now tugs in two directions as I recall my own “escape” and think ahead to the moment when my daughter will go. You’re still a child but pretending you’re not. I am amazed that my own parents let me out into the world that I was unequipped to deal with (and didn’t object to me hitch-hiking), but there comes a point where you just have to do it. Somehow we get through it all and although humans leave it late to chuck the babies out of the nest, ultimately that’s the only way to do it. The parents in this show are played brilliantly and the look between Lindsey and her mother would have been enough to make me cry were my heart not made of stone.
It’s an amazing series to watch even if it doesn’t completely slot into your exact life and it’s deeply odd to feel a wave of nostalgia and regret about missed opportunities for two things simultaneously. I don’t really need to get another series of Freaks and Geeks to know how it turned out for the Geeks.
