Two Movie Recommendations For Those Wishing To Get In Touch With Their Inner Teenage Boy

1. The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Very funny movie, though quite crude, and sometimes bordering on offensive. Not appropriate for small children, those who get queasy at the sight of vomit or nipples, or your grandma. At times I thought they might just be improvising--seemed very real. You *will* laugh out loud.

1a. One of the characteristics of said 40-year-old virgin is that he drives a bicycle instead of a car. I also highly recommend, and believe in, the practice of using a bike as primary transportation. Of course, this is highly enabled by things like warm, dry weather and a Point B that is less than 5-10 miles from your Point A. Nevertheless, one of my most favorite things about New Haven is the fact that I can get around fine without driving for days on end--it's also much cheaper in the imminent $3/gallon gas era. For those actually in New Haven, I also highly recommend participating in Critical Mass -- it's like being in a big speedy bicycle street race, except without the speedy race part.

2. Wedding Crashers. Also very funny, less crude, but far more contrived. You will likely laugh out loud at this as well, and my grandma reports firsthand "I liked it. It was very funny. There was quite a bit of cursing, though." We saw this movie together the last time I visited her in Lakewood (NJ), two weekends ago. I spent well over six hours driving that weekend to spend just over four hours with her, but it was one of those perfect afternoons that you remember for a long time. Well, I will at least--my grandma has Alzheimers. She doesn't always remember our visits after the fact, but she definitely enjoys them a whole lot, and she still remembers that I'm her favorite granddaughter....seriously, though, the fact that I only get a few hours with her at a time has, over the past few years, significantly upped the quality of the time we do spend together.

2a. Grandma only had $2 in her purse when I picked her up at the nursing home, so I told her that I'd be thrilled at the opportunity to pamper her for the day. Little did I know at the time that I'd be pampering her in more ways than one; when we arrived at the movie theater after lunch, I was helping grandma out of the car when her face clouded over with that look of surprise with a touch of embarrassed horror that one gets when one has suddenly lost control of one's bowels in public. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that we were lucky grandma was wearing a diaper, even luckier that the movie theater had a spacious bathroom that stayed virtually empty during our 25 minute stay in it, luckier still that we had (in typical grandparent fashion) gotten there 30 minutes before the movie started, and luckiest of all that I'm a medical student who is paying a lot of money right now for the very privilege of learning how to do things like manage bodily fluids and creatively problem solve. (Note to self: if someone is wearing a diaper, that's your first clue that the situation might arise that would requiring needing to change it--always bring extras!) Afterwards, we got Rita's gelati, another recommendation, which we ate peacefully in the car parked at the shore of Lake Carasaljo, the quiet warmth of the Saturday afternoon wafting in through the open windows and sunroof.