Back on

So our power went out around 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I called PGE, they said they had no estimate.

Our 10 year old son had already gone for a sleepover at friends house, so hubby and I took our 7 year old son to Red Robin for dinner.

After dinner there still was no estimate on power restoration, which generally is a bad sign if after 2 hours they have no timeline, so we were going to go to the mall and wander around for awhile ... then it occurred to me that we could go to a movie.

So our son got an unexpected treat when we went to see The Santa Clause III: The Escape Clause.

In the following paragraphs, you will learn why I'm not a book or film reviewer. I suck at it. But here goes anyhow. Spoilers ahead, but honestly with these Santa Clause films, does it really matter?

This definitely was the worst of the 3 films. I remember that I rather enjoyed the first one, where Tim Allen as Scott Calvin accidentally kills Santa Claus. Scott puts on Santa's coat, not knowing that there is a Santa Clause that requires that in the event of Santa's death, whoever dons his coat first will become the next Santa. This first film centers around the transformation of Scott Calvin into Santa Claus.

The second film was about Santa, a.k.a. Scott Calvin, being lonely and then meeting a woman who would eventually become Mrs. Claus.

This third film (spoilers here) involves Mr. and Mrs. Claus expecting a baby. Mrs. Claus is missing her family, whom she doesn't get to see often because they can't keep a secret, and the most important thing about being Santa is the S.O.S. (Secret of Santa). Scott manages to figure out a way to bring her folks to visit while making them think they are in [cough] Canada, eh?

Meanwhile, Jack Frost (Martin Short) is feeling jealous of "The Red Man" and all his holiday splendor, so he schemes to de-suit Santa. He finds out about "The Escape Clause", where if Santa holds a special snow globe and says "I wish I had never become Santa Claus", everything will go back to the way it was before Scott Calvin became Santa, giving Jack Frost a crack at it.

Jack Frost manages to get Santa to invoke The Escape Clause and Jack becomes Santa. Jack turns the North Pole into a theme park and wreaks havoc on the entire system. However, his success is only temporary. Meanwhile, Scott Calvin is working to return to the North Pole to reclaim the suit from Jack. In the end, Scott a.k.a. Santa wins, Jack Frost is thawed into a kind and gentle guy, a baby is born (hm) , and all is well in the world of Christmas.

Um. Hopefully this is the last in the series. I guess it was a pretty good way to spend a couple hours when our power was out, extenuating circumstances and all that. But please don't voluntarily choose to pay $23 to see it like we did.

Anyhow, when the movie was over I called PGE and the recording said most power in our area had been restored, but that some customers were still out. So I called my neighbor across the street (who incidentally had never lost her power) and got a visual verification that our lights were on, so we returned home, never the worse for having our power out for 5 hours. We were very lucky, considering the freezing temps here in the Rose City lately.

I'll try to catch up on comments later today.