The ups and downs of a Sunday afternoon.

DH and I went to see Hellboy II yesterday afternoon. DH had bought a DVD which had a coupon for $ off a ticket to one of four movies (Hellboy, Wanted, the newest Hulk, and the newest Mummy), so we decided to take advantage of it and avoid the heat.

For once, we left the house right when we said we were going to. Typically we are 5-10 minutes behind. Things were looking pretty good. We crossed the bridge over the interstate and traffic looked clear, so we decided to go into town that way. Yeah. Mistake. Someone had had an accident about 10 miles up which closed both lanes. And then other people had an accident because of the back up. As you can imagine, the stress level in the car just ratcheted right on up. "We're going to be late to the movie" kept running through my mind. I'm sure worse was running through DH's.

After a few tense minutes (longer than it would have taken if traffic was normal, but not hellishly long in reality) we were able to take the next exit onto an alternate route and were able to make up some of the time lost on the interstate. We even hit a green light right where we needed to to avoid a long light sequence.

We got to the shopping center with the theater and found a fairly close parking spot. By this time the start time had passed but we were bound and determined to watch the movie since we'd gotten this far. No line at the ticket window, but the young girls didn't know how to ring the coupon, so again we wasted precious minutes waiting for someone who did know. (Don't get me started on how when the local chain was bought out the purchasing chain upped the price of tickets and cut off matinée prices at 3pm vs. 5pm) We hustled ourselves back to the theater and walked in to the end of the animated Star Wars movie preview and a theater with plenty of seating and the AC set at 65(!?) degrees. Phew. I'm very glad I took a jacket because I was downright chilly by the time the movie ended, but would have been a popsicle without it.

The movie itself was OK. Like many movies, the sequel did not live up to the original. I could have waited for it to come out on DVD or on-demand, but since we only paid for one ticket (and a little for the other as the coupon didn't cover the full non-matinée ticket price), I'm not going to regret the extra we spent to watch it sooner. Our trip home wasn't bad, we went the back way and were able to see that the interstate was still backed up from the accident. What a nightmare!

When we got home DH got the idea to make margarita's. Frozen, as usual. Well, the first batch he accidentally grabbed a can of lemonade instead of limeade. Tasted pretty good, but not like a true margarita. So he goes to make a batch with limeade, and got it mostly blended when 2 of the 6 grips on the blender base (attached to the motor) broke off with no warning. He was able to fudge it enough to get the batch finished, but I think unless the good folks at KitchenAid are willing to warranty a 6 year old blender, I'm going to be shopping for a new one. Any recommendations (on the off chance that KitchenAid won't come through for me)?