Family Film Festing

Sorry for the very absent blogging...my parents were in town all week until today and we've been terribly busy. But! That's no excuse.

Let me recap what's been going on.

Today I had my first physical therapy session with a woman named Morgan. By means of a recap-I hurt my knee months ago during an extreme off-track run and, though it has it's moments of release, for the most part it's been terribly painful, especially when I go up steps or walk on it a lot. The weird thing is, it hurts after I'm done with said activity (except the stairs-it hurts ON the stairs, not after), and they took an MRI to see if it was a tear or bone bruise or torn ligament or anything, to no avail. So the doctor at the health center sent me over to Peak Performance for some P.T. to fix it. If it doesn't get better in four weeks, they will go in there and see what's up. I'm hoping it'll just be fine!

I realized it was hurting a while back, but the day I went to the doctor, it sort of felt ok. Figures, right? When I left I wondered to myself, "Am I a hypochondriac or something? I don't even feel any pain? Weird." Then my parents came to town for the True/False Film Festival and it all went downhill on day two (Saturday!).

The True/False Film Festival is a series of documentaries that comes to town. The True/False org puts it on once a year and it begins on a Thursday night. It's pretty amazing since they also have sponsors and collect enough money to fly some of the actual movie-makers into town. Most of them are pretty independently done and some of them have been recognized at Cannes...etc. After the film ends, the director/producer/subject of the doc will come up on stage for a Q&A. In general, it's one of the more amazing things we do here in Columbia and my parents drove all the way up just to come see it (they'd been here one other time at the same time the festival was going on). So we got a pass for the films and saw one on Friday night followed by four back to back films on Sunday and Saturday. This is awesome. I love docs and I love my parents and I love changing my routine up, plus I was excited to walk around a lot since the theaters are spread out around the city and, by no means, terribly close to one another. We usually had about 10/15-30 minutes to get from one screening to the next (and Good Lord! was it cold!) so we ended up really running a lot, which strained my knee just in time for my follow-up with the dr. yesterday and my first P.T. session today. Whew! It sucked, but the festival was awesome. Somehow we picked mainly depressing movies, but most of them were just fabulous, so it was worth it. Here's a rundown of the films we caught:

Afghan Star

Blood Trail

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Waltz with Bashir (which may be opening in a theatre near you!)

We Live in Public (totally makes you rethink your online presence...freaky)

Rough Aunties

Over the Hills and Far Away

Burma VJ (I feel like an ass saying this, but I fell asleep during the first part)

Loot

Overall, a great experience.  The following pic is the Missouri Theatre-redone and looking fab, of course! The T/F logo is cast on the newly gilded ceiling and I thought it looked elegant, so here's that:

Unfortunately, it was freezing out, as usual when my parents come. We'll have unseasonably warm weather, then the parents will visit and it'll drop down to the single digits! Here are the parents and the Fi waiting to get into the first movie we saw (Waltz with Bashir) on the very first night of the festival. Don't they look cold? Awww. Poor lovies!

There were other guest appearances in store for our weekend, but I will hold off on those and let GG have her update afterwards (you know what GG signals, AP fans!). Plus, who doesn't miss new GG episodes? Seriously? I know the cast needs a vacay, but this was just waaay too long!

We were lucky enough to catch up with some of the people we love most, aside from my parents, and to introduce them to my parents, as well. Connie and Kris (my parents) liked everyone they met a whole lot and kept asking when we'd all get to see them again. If only we had more time between films!

At any rate, other fun things my parents did while they were here is as follows:

If you guessed that they had a Nerf Gun fight...or many...you were right. D and I have these Nerf Guns just hangin' round the house so when my dad spotted them, he immediately figured out how it worked and shot the entire round at my mom before she even figured out how to get hers going. Needless to say, it was the start of a week-long barrage of Nerf-bullets soaring through the house.

Had drinks at one of the best "burger" places in the country, Booches. And ran into people we knew at the table behind us.

Had a tasty, but not efficient lunch at Coffee Zone (it was conveniently located next to the theatre where we had two back-to-back films...the one and ONLY time, I might add!) 

We took a trip to the rec center where my dad kicked D's butt in racquetball (he's ridiculously good, even though he hadn't prepared by bringing the right clothes for a day at the rec).And, lastly, they took a trip with me to the Student Health Center where we were not allowed to take pictures. Unfortunately, I have always had a bit of a problem with certain rules and the fact that I find them stupid...unfortunate for the Health Center staff...but we did walk AWAY from the Health Center itself for this photo, so I think it was ok. Note the look of concern on our faces. We thought we were about to be busted.

My parents left today (sadness), but we will see them again in a few weeks. Meanwhile, I have been working on wedding party gifts. Top secret business, everyone! And am feeling sore from therapy and tired and kind of sick (weird). Hopefully, now that I've played a bit of catch-up blogging, I can play some catch-up blog-reading!

Hope you're still reading and haven't given up on us. Stay tuned for a GG update any hour or tomorrow now :)

xoxo

N