We drove down to Warner Robins today to visit with James' mom to celebrate a belated Mother's Day (she had to work last weekend). We usually take the bypass road, I-475, and as we approached the far end of Eisenhower Boulevard in Bibb County, we could see the damage done by the storms last week: motels with blue tarps across their roofs, missing billboards, and bent, cracked, torn and tilted trees (and former trees).

We'd been planning to take James' mom out for lunch, but she preferred to relax, so we sent out for Chinese food and watched some of those "cold case" type shows and also the movie Sphere (God, what a dumb movie—so they meet this alien that can manifest all their dreams and all they do is call up their fears so they join hands and send it away? gah...). She loves to read so we brought her some books. She and my sister-in-law had just been to a used book sale, so they have lots to read now!

We had come in through the usual exit, down the 247 extension to Watson Boulevard only to find that the city limits of Warner Robins now extend to the freeway. Watson at that end used to be scrubland and peach orchards, but now there is one superannuated, abandoned peach grove left and businesses creeping down the road. They have a Hobby Lobby out there now, and even a Bruster's and are clearing more land for either another retail center or an apartment complex. The traffic was so bad coming in that we decided to go out "through the back." Richard B. Russell Parkway used to end at Houston Lake Road, but now it goes all the way out to the freeway. There's some businesses on it, including the ubiquitous CVS, but it was a nice drive that way.

We got home just after seven and spent the rest of the night relaxing and finally watching the first two stories of The Sarah Jane Adventures. This is the children's spin-off of Doctor Who (since Who, originally conceived as a children's show, no longer is) centering around companion Sarah Jane Smith, a journalist. When Maria and her dad move into the house across the street (Maria's ditzy mom, who keeps showing up, ran off with a judo instructor, so her parents are divorced), Maria happens to see Sarah Jane speaking with an alien. Yadda yadda and she gets involved with aliens trying to take over the world through a "fizzy drink" company and also the return of the Slitheen.

Definitely this is for children and the background music is really drippy. Otherwise, I enjoyed it. It's not like the stuff they have for kids here, which might as well have a big "this is the lesson of the episode" pasted on every frame of the story, or these dumb crockily-drawn animated series we keep stumbling over. I never thought I'd long for the high art of Hanna-Barbera or the sparkling scripts of the Lippy the Lion! I also loved the photos up in Sarah Jane's lair of Harry Sullivan and the Brigadier, and her musing over names for her new adopted son like "Harry" and "Alistair." (She finally names him "Luke." Did I forget something? Who was Luke?)

Labels: family, television, travel

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