“Any good movies on?” is one of my husband’s litany of questions. Usually I shake my head. He no longer wants to see the kinds of movies I never liked — “Silence of the lambs,” “Godfather,” “Psycho,” “Rocky” — so I look for lighter choices. We’ve watched a lot of children’s movies lately — “Nanny McPhee,” “Babe,” “Charlotte’s Web” — light, laugh-inducing films.
Recently, I surprised him. “‘Jungle Book’ is getting good ratings,” I said. “We’ll go at 4:00, then eat out after.” His eyes lit up like a child’s.
We enjoyed the movie, even though Kaa, the snake, made me cringe. Throughout, Peter asked over and over how “they got the animals to do that?”
“They aren’t real,” I said again and again, “that’s special computer animation combined with real animals’ movements…””How do…?”
“I dunno’ how…it’s magic,” I said.
Afterwards, as promised, we went to our favorite restaurant. Peter ordered his usual, and me, mine. “That looks good,” he said of my suguk wrap, as I knew he would. “I’ll order that the next time,” he added as he tucked into his kebab.
“You say that every time,” I laughed. “You ordered this once and liked it.”
He nodded. “I remember,” he said. “But, I’m not going to say, ‘any good movies on’, because we just saw one, didn’t we?” His eyes twinkled. “See, I remembered.” He was quite pleased with himself.
“Wow, I’m amazed. And what was the movie?”
“HA! ‘Jungle Book’,” he said proudly. That moment, a tiny glimmer of clarity, made us chuckle. “But, how did they get the animals to do that?” he asked. Again.
Well, the briefest flash of light through fog is better than no light at all.
Header photo: Mowgli and Bagheera in a scene from “Jungle Book” (2016)
Animation example: Screen Slam on YouTube (2016)
2016 National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ contest finalist. 
Yeah, a victory over a kebab!!!!
What a fun date!!!
It was, except for the snake. 😉