I want to ride my bicycle; I want to ride my bike

We haven't been out to see a lot of movies lately.  First there's the issue of being new parents.  We took Dylan a couple of times to a show at the Cerrito (a theatre that has inherited some of the attributes of the old Parkway, with its couches and beer and pizza, although that has since closed but is struggling to reopen in a new location), where once every other week they have shows that welcome babies.  The idea is that it's okay if your baby starts screaming in the middle of the movie, since you're surrounded by a bunch of other people who are either in the same position, or at least can understand.  I think the last time we went may have been for the first half of the last Harry Potter movie.  He actually sat there and watched the movie for a large part of it.  Dylan has, however, outgrown this activity.  Not only is I believe the official cutoff at 12 months, but I don't think he would just sit still long enough anymore.  He'd probably be roaming about all over the theatre.  And given that it's in the early evening, he'd probably be tired and grumpy.

We recently started in theory doing a babysitting swap with another couple.  It's a pretty convenient arrangement.  Let's say we want to go out.  One of the people from other couple comes over to our house, hopefully late enough that Dylan has already been put to sleep.  Then we go out for a few hours.  The person at our house doesn't in the common case have to do anything, assuming that Dylan doesn't wake up (and can't get himself back to sleep).

In practice, we just did it once for them, and then my health started going downhill fast, so we kind of stalled.  I was coughing at least somewhat almost all of the time, which didn't really make for a very good movie going experience.  And overall I felt just bad enough that I didn't really feel like going out, even without having to pay for child care.

Now the coughing has subsided, but I'm mildly nervous about being in an enclosed space for 2 hours with so many strangers, given my weakened immune system.  Isn't it always in a movie theatre that they illustrate some disease spreading in bio disaster movies?  Maybe I'm being overly paranoid, esp. if we're now considering having a meal out at a restaurant.  Regardless, it had been many months since we had seen any movie in a theatre.

Our friend Kim is the assistant manager at a movie theatre in downtown Berkeley.  She volunteered that if there was a movie we wanted to see, she'd be willing to do a private screening for us.  The theatre normally doesn't open until the evening during the week, but she was willing to come into work a few hours early and load up a film on the projector for us.  So that's what we did today.  My Mom stayed home to take care of Dylan, and we saw The Artist.  It was great to get out and see a movie.  Thank you Kim!

And since the rain has subsided, and it wasn't too cold today, and the ride between our house and downtown is fairly short and relatively flat, we decided to bike there.  Normally this wouldn't be a big deal -- it's the main way we would travel for such a trip.  I hadn't been on my bike at all in a few months due to my health, so it was a bit of an experiment.  I did get a little more winded than seemed appropriate on the few tiny uphills we traversed on the way back.  This may have, however, simply be the result of being out of shape from lack of exercise, as well as from losing a lot of muscle mass in my legs.  Seeing the movie was great by itself, but being able to bike again was such an added bonus.  Life felt normal again.

Except for the part about there being nobody else in the theatre.  That felt a little bit weird.  Somehow we still felt compelled to whisper if we wanted to say anything.