And now I'm EXHAUSTED...

...but not for the reason you think. You see, I watched a movie last night.

I don't watch movies, not REAL movies. The movies I've seen over the last few months include "Robots," "Monsters, Inc," "The Incredibles," "Toy Story 2." Okay, I've also seen "Enchanted," and "The Princess Diaries." But are you seeing a pattern? In general, I tend to watch, on the rare occasion I do watch, tame, light-hearted, family-oriented stuff. Stuff that makes you laugh and has a happy ending.

Well, the movie I watched last night was a little different. It had a happy ending, but it was not exactly light-hearted.

What happened was this: about a month ago, when Hubby and I were getting ready to go to Denver with Swede, I thought it would be a great idea to take my laptop along for the ride. I knew that I would have the backseat to myself, while Swede and Hubby chatted in the front seat and I was sure I'd get bored.

And I remembered that iTunes now lets you download movies to watch, so I thought, "Cool, I'll just rent a movie. I'm so hip!"

I did a little research, and narrowed my choices down to three, and the morning we were to leave I made my final selection.

It reminds me of the time years ago Hubby and I were on vacation. We were in Colorado Springs very early, while it was still dark, and we thought, "Hey! Let's watch the sunrise from the top of Pikes Peak!"

Oh the innocence of ignorance.

If you don't know-- like we didn't-- there is a gate at the bottom of Pikes Peak, that doesn't open till well after sunrise, and then you have to pay to go through it, and then it takes a good two hours to drive to the top.

We got to see NOON from the top.

So, about my movie.

I began downloading it, and was informed that estimated download time was eight hours. EIGHT HOURS? EIGHT? Are you kidding? Steve Jobs said nothing about it taking ALL DAY to download a movie. He made it sound quick and easy.

Suffice it to say that we were in Denver by the time the movie was downloaded, and it and the computer were at home.

All that to say, that since then I've had a rented movie waiting to be watched whenever I had a spare two hours. I finally got around to it last night. I figured I'd better, since I had two days before the rental expired, and that would be a total and complete waste of $2.99, not to mention the HOURS of download time, and the pain and agony of going on a trip WITHOUT MY LAPTOP.

The movie was Ladyhawke. Anybody seen it? It came out in 1985, and it was exhausting to watch.

The movie is set in the middle ages and the cast includes a man and woman in love, a disappointed and furious rejected would-be suitor, an immature sidekick who was in prison for pickpocketing, but escaped, a drunk monk, and lots of vicious soldiers.

The plot twist is that the man and woman have been cursed so that he is always a wolf by night, and she is always a hawk by day. They travel together, she as his pet by day, and he as her sort of wild pet by night. Always together, but always apart.

There is lots of killing (although DrummerDude said it's not as bad as Lord of the Rings--which, in that case, I've thankfully never seen), and Hubby said they left dead bodies scattered EVERYWHERE. There were also lots of swords, and horses, and beautiful scenery, and suspense. In fact, every possible moment of suspense was drawn out to the breaking point. To. The. Breaking. Point.

By the time the movie was over-- I'm seriously not kidding-- I was drenched with sweat and shaking. And that was after covering my eyes for lots of it and telling DrummerDude to tell me when it was safe to look.

At least it had a happy ending, but boy did we have to pay for it in emotional drainage. Doggone!

One of the very, very few light moments in the movie had the drunk monk telling the pickpocket, "I'd better see you at the Pearly Gates someday." And the pickpocket answered, "I'll be there if I have to pick the lock!"

So that's why I'm exhausted today. Completely aside from the hours of yard work I've done over the last three days, that made my muscles so sore I couldn't sleep last night, and had to get up and take aspirin and calcium and homeopathic preparations for muscle aches before I could finally rest. No, I'm not tired AT ALL from that.

It's all the movie's fault. Of course.