Tamo was in town for 24 hours on a stopover as he heads down to Chile to snowboard during their winter. Just enough time to hang out, dine on the Danforth and compete fiercely on the Wii.

Tamo realizes Jon’s playing style isn’t so random

At the airport I briefed him on Jon’s unorthodox playing style: for instance, in bowling he shakes the controller as though preparing a cocktail, but the ball is generally on target. As Tamo started bowling against Jon, he chatted with us casually. After Jon got two spares in the first two frames, conversation died down as Tamo pulled out his chair, and focused on the game. 🙂 Have fun in Chile, Tamo!

Jon keeps Tamo sharp in Wii Golf

Jon came home the other day with several participation ribbons and two medals (real metal medals), for being on the third place team in teeball and second place team for floor hockey. He is very, very proud of his awards. It’s nice to see him so enthused about aspects of his life that we have barely seen.

In other domestic cuteness news, I purchased “Le Festin“, a sweet French song from the Ratatouille soundtrack (it’s a fantastic score—and like all good scores, seamless with the movie itself). We decided to play it for Jon without any hints about what he was about to hear, to see if he’d remember it. What were we thinking? Within a second he broke out in a wide grin, and immedaitely exclaimed “Ratatouille!” He instantly wanted it on his playlist, so I imagine he’ll want to know what she’s saying, and we’ll have to find the French lyrics.

So, I happen to be looking over Laura’s shoulder as she digs into the paper Saturday morning, and we both see the ad proclaiming a sneak preview Saturday night for Ratatouille, Pixar’s new pic. Jon has been anticipating this for quite some time, and has been almost literally counting down the days ’til June 29.

So we rush to the computer and book some tickets, and we decide that we’ll surprise Jon with it later in the day. We already had an exciting day planned, attending the market at the Brickworks and swimming at Grandma and Grandpa’s pool (and as Jon points out, Wii and computer too).

We had a early dinner—oddly organized and suspicious behaviour for us—so Jon had his guard up a bit. When we got to the theatre, he overheard the key word from some others talking, and he went into denial. “We can’t see Ratatouille. Ratatouille comes out on June 29th” We crouched by him. Yes, yes it’s true, we’re going to see it tonight. It’s called a sneak preview. Overwhelmed, Jon welled up with tears. “I don’t want to see it!”

Part of the emotion was a kneejerk sudden panic not to see the THX tag at the beginning, something that still bothers Jon. But that was just a convenient scapegoat: it was the shock of having all of his careful plans scrubbed and replaced by this. As he was going into shock, I had my own emotional moment, realizing with shame how profoundly unfair we had been to our boy in not telling him earlier. Still, having just paid forty bucks on tickets, there was no going back. (I’m such a dad! 🙂 )

Jon sat beside me in the theatre (because he’s in a wheelchair space, he can only sit beside one person), tray filled with snacks, nervous and jumpy. When the ads came on fifteen minutes before he calmed a little, and he wanted a full schedule of how it would go—ads, trailers, followed by Disney trailers (they tack those on to the feature), then the short Lifted (Pixar always has a short, I happened to know the title, good thing) then the feature. If the THX (which, when discussed, has to be named obliquely, the letters alone cause panic) shows up, it will be after Lifted. Second surprise of the evening: there were just a couple of Disney trailers, one being for Pixar’s next one: Wall-E, and then on to Lifted. There were no THX trailers. Jon lightened a little.

To the movie (no spoilers, but this is from Jon’s perspective): This a hard movie for a visually-impaired viewer without descriptive commentary. It was directed by Brad Bird, the same guy who did The Incredibles, so it has a mature visual sense: a lot of rich vistas with fancy, fast camera work. The character uses a lot of body language to communicate, wonderfully animated: so subtle; in other words, a lot is communicated in silence. It was tough for Jon to get a grasp on. (They released nine minutes of the movie about a month ago: if you care to spoil a bit—see what I mean?)

About a quarter of the way in, Jon suddenly brightens up. He realizes he’s seeing what he wanted to see, he’s at a sneak preview and everyone’s having fun. His own body posture brightens immeasurably. About halfway through, the delighted hugging begins. I personally didn’t get to see the whole movie, between getting hugged and having to try to keep Jon fairly quiet from delighted general discussion (“I’m going write a journal about Ratatouille tomorrow!!”). He often laughed with the crowd (how’d he catch that?), sometimes on his own (that happens—he delights in clever sound effects more than most), occasionally glancing around when he missed a moment that the audience is reacting to (the best moment of the film was one of these, but I imagine a lot of kids won’t fully get that one). Even when he can’t parse what’s happening, he absorbed the film-making: at one point he whispers “New scene”, at another “We’re near the ending”.

In retrospect, despite the fear and shame, I think the surprise did what it was supposed to do. He was high as a kite ’til nearly eleven, when he feel asleep.

Oh ya, Jon says we’re still going the opening weekend. 🙂 And Laura says she’ll sit beside Jon next time, so I can see the movie. 😀