Downtown Saturday Night

The very best thing about concentrating on home improvements is thinking about ways to take a break from home improvements. On Saturday night, I put down the power tools and took Em and Clem Downtown to Loews Jersey City Palace Theater. Talk about your home improvement! You can read all about it at their site, but us girls were overwhelmed with delight at the sparkling chandeliers, sumptuously restored staircases and $1 popcorn.

We went to see golfer W.C. Fields in Never Give a Sucker An Even Break. I've only ever seen this movie on the very small screen, but seeing it on a big scale like this gives it an element of surrealism and anarchy that was startling. Along with a golf lesson, wild car chases, unapologetic alcoholism and Jersey native Franklin Pangborn, there was knitting: Fields gets jabbed in the keister when he sits on the needles of his Dear Mrs. Hemoglobin.