Jurassic Park...Revisited. (aka HOLYFUCKINGSHIT, DINOSAURS!)

In June of 1993 I was seven years old. I was sporting a badass tomboy haircut, I'd just learnt to ride a bike, and I loved dinosaurs.

What the...!

Not Barney. NEVER Barney. I mean DINOSAURS.

Actual exhibit at the ROM that I frequented...'cause it's got freakin' dinosaurs!

Big, bite-y, scary-ass dinosaurs.

RAWR!

I was obsessed with dinosaurs, as is every child under the age of 10. I read books, I went to museums, I drew pictures...shit, I even have my old school project on the extinction of the dinosaurs from Grade 3...it used a surprising amount of glitter glue and cotton balls...

As the sun shone down on the end of my Grade 3 year, something wonderful happened...Jurassic Park was released in theatres...


OH. MY. GOD.


I begged my parents for weeks to be allowed to see it in theatres. For ages (likely a day or two) they refused, saying it would be "too scary"...I was undeterred. I pointed out that since one of my earliest memories was Toht's face melting in Indiana Jones a few dinosaurs wouldn't have any effect...

Oh Toht, we told you not to look at it, despite it being "beautiful"...

I was wrong...


One June day, as my mum picked me up from my after school program (MCLAASP fo' life, yo) she casually asked if I would be interested in seeing Jurassic Park that evening... After 10min of hopping up and down shouting YESYESYESYES, we got in the car and headed to meet my dad at the York theatre, bought our tickets ($4 and $8...mmmm, taste that artificial inflation...), and sat in the third row.




I was ready.

Dinosaurs...you may begin.

Lights down, curtain up...cue the music...

Dum da! Dum da! Da da dummmm da dum dum daaaaaaa!

The first death was terrifying...but manageable...no dinosaurs to be seen... just a bad ass hunter yelling "SHOOT HAAAAAAR!"...Then a jerk-kid gets put in his place...

...Mr. DNA, kids introduced...

Hello young female audience member...here is the character for YOU to identify with...She knows Unix systems! :D

Big gates...

I haz an excite...

Two no-shows, and one sick triceratops...all still fine...

Poo!

And then everything goes to hell...

...Within minutes of the electric fences losing power I had lept into my mother's lap, and begun a death-hug around her neck...completely terrified. Over the next 127 minutes I had a series of heart attacks...


Here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

"Okay Claire, I think we should leave..."
"NO!!!"


 Here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

"...Claire, I think we should leave..."
"NO!!!"


Here:

OHfuckOHfuckOHfuck

Here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

"Seriously...this is too scary for-"

"NEVER!!! hold me"

Here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

"AAAAAAA!!!!!"

*sigh*

Here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

 Here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

"Haha, OMFG, AAAAA!"

"...you sure you don't want to-"

"NOOOOO!"

Here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

"HIS ARM FELL OFF OMG I'M GOING TO DIE!"
"...Claire...I can't breathe...!"

 Here:

Ooo, jello! OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

 Here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

"...this is how I die..."
"leave?"
"never."

 Here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

Here:

...and finally, here:

OhfuckOhfuckOhfuck

...It was the most scared I had ever been...and the greatest movie I'd ever seen.

 It had everything you could ever want...kids defeating dinosaurs, mind-numbing terror, giant piles of poop, and even Jeff Goldblum!

Oh hey there ladies...I think my leg fell off around here somewhere...

 I, and pretty much every other kid, became Jurassic Park obsessed. I begged for the dino-damage toys, but never received them...alas... I played "Jurassic Park" in the playground every recess for a year...and when I got the VHS for Christmas, I watched it back-to-back for 8 hours straight...trying to extract every drop of what made it so incredible and stuff it into my memory.

Official merchandise?!

THRASHING ACTION?!!!

DINO DAMAGE?!!!!!!!

Even my favourite musician, Weird Al, got in on the dinosaur action!

*sniff sniff* Pure poetry....




Well, it's been almost 20 years since I first saw Jurassic Park...and it has been re-released in 3D IMAX.

Last night I went to see it again, trying to recapture the excitement, the terror, and the innocence of childhood or some crap like that...

The excitement was there, the thrill, the enjoyment...although, maybe not the unparallelled fear of a child who truly believes they are about to die... As the credits rolled, I sat back and couldn't help but reflect on the differences between the two theatrical viewings of one of my all-time favourite films...

Twenty years ago I watched the film sitting on my mother's lap, went to school the next day and flat-out lied to all my classmates about how I had seen it and not been even a little bit scared... Last night, I watched the movie sitting next to my husband (huh?), and then tweeted about it from a handheld computer (that is also a phone) on the internet (dafuq is dat?)...

With so much separating me from my 7 year old self, and the world of the early 1990s...I am very thankful that dinosaurs are still awesome, and that Spielberg made a film that is just as incredible today as it was to a 7 year old tomboy in June of 1993...

Once Upon a Time I Was on a Podcast

Once upon a time, I was on a podcast...

TRUTH, YO. <---Listen to my sultry sibilant S's here.

So. Much. Clop Clop.

And it looks like it is happening again...for better or for worse. Check out DrinkAlong.com in the next few days to see what exciting excitement is waiting for you!

You, after listening to DrinkAlong.com

I Got Sick.

I got sick. Real sick.

Which is to say I got a cold.

...a cold with a fever of 102.5F (39C for Canada and the rest of the modern world).

It was bad. It was unpleasant. It was, hands down, the sickest I have been since I was 12 years old with a fever of 103F, and stayed home sick watching "Batman Returns".


...Back then I had my mom to question whether or not I was really sick (or just had a case of "schoolitis"), and to nurse me back to health with Popsicles and subtle criticisms.

This time I was grown up sick.


...Grown up sick sucks.


Grown up sick means you have to weigh staying home and healing, versus not getting paid. It means that you run out of food because you can't go shopping. It means that your apartment looks like you died and cleaned nothing because...well...yea.


My husband took care of me on the weekend, but when he had to go to work during the week, there was no one to ask me if I was feeling okay. No one to make me food. No one to make sure I took medicine to keep my fever down...

...and as it turns out, without supervision OR Tylenol, I would most likely be dead now.

HOW DID IT COME TO THIS?!!

I woke up on the ironically named Good Friday with my throat feeling a bit dry. I wrote it off as a side effect of living with cats who habitually sleep on my face in an adorable attempt to smother me in my sleep.

We got up, bathed in coffee (as one does) and headed out to meet my folks and visit my Grandmother. All seemed good.

evil mastermind...obviously.

...but after visiting with my Grandmother, I felt...drained. Much more so than is normal when visiting family... We headed home, and discovered we needed some groceries. I managed to drag myself along with Mitch to the corner fruit & veg store to buy some lettuce. On the way back in the swelteringly hot 8C temp I insisted we grab some gelato and some more weather-appropriate ginger tea in an attempt to quash these were feelings of:

"OMFG I'M BOILING TO DEATH"
and
"OMFG I'M FREEZING TO DEATH"

Gelato was had, tea was drunk, but still, these nagging feelings of "YOUR BODY NEEDS YOU TO SIT THE FUCK DOWN" wouldn't dissipate...

We returned home. I sat down on the sofa, exhausted. My nose now running non-stop. I am alternating minute-to-minute between sweating and shivering...Solution?

"Mitch...can you make ramen...?"

Look, we all have our comfort foods...one of mine happens to be something that is shockingly not food-like, and is HORRIBLE for you. Oh whatever, I always add an egg...now it's a meal.


I weakly manage to eat my sad ramen meal...my body is disappointed in me. I am disappointed in my body...we have a short Mexican stand-off. My body wins by virtue of owning the playing field and I collapse into sickness.

For 3 days I barely leave the sofa. I wrap myself in a blanket, and watch a mix of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Doctor Who, and documentaries on the evolution of early humans...

As I slip in and out of consciousness, my core temp rising, I am plagued by guilt over the fact that I probably just infected my Grandmother and her entire nursing home with the most virulent plague-cold of all time.

Feels bad man.

...I am also guilt-ridden over not having done any work on my Doctor Who spec script (wherein they go back in time to see pre-historic humans, only to find modern day humans hanging around with Neanderthals...ooo, mystery!)

Also feels bad man.

Mitch heads out to visit his father...I am alone.





...the fever begins...the fever DREAMS begin...





Suddenly I am in my unwritten Doctor Who spec script...I dream of travelling back in time with the doctor to 50,000 years ago. We see Neanderthals and other early hominids...also some hipsters. I am overwhelmed by plot holes and claw my way back into waking life.

As I criticize myself for such a poorly written dream-world spec script, I notice that although I feel like I am freezing, my skin is hot to the touch...the thought of getting up and walking to the bathroom to get Tylenol fills me with dread...besides, there is a cat on me.

I fumble my way through Netflix...must find something soothing...something heart warming...AH HA! True Crime! Perfect!


My fever dreams now involve refrigerators full of body parts and vengeful lovers...I am disappoint in myself.

I'm Bill Kurtis...HAUNTING YOUR DREAMS!

Finally, Mitch returns home...I can only grunt in response to his annoying questions of "Are you okay?" and "Have you been drinking water at all?" and "OH MY GOD YOU'RE LIKE 1000 DEGREES!!!"

He gives me Tylenol, cold compresses, and takes away my blanket...the swine...! My fever begins to come down, in a semi-rational state I thank him...But I still want my blanket back...

He brings me Ichiban Ramen (because health?), and in thanks, I force him to watch "Keeping Up Appearances"...because my childhood of TVO and PBS demand it of me.

Dat face...

I fall asleep again to "Keeping Up Appearances"... my dreams are a horrifying cacophony of network-produced hallucinations...

hey gurl...

hey gurl...

hey gurl...

hey gurl...?

hey gurl...YOU GUNNA DIE!

Amidst dreams of Turkana Boy murdering his ex-wife and burying her in a shallow grave...I am awoken by explosions to this:

And this...

My dreams are becoming reality...Richard Bucket is working for angels who want to kill us all!!!!!





...or maybe I just need some more Tylenol.

Thanks for nursing me back to health Ramen...I mean, Mitch.