Nashville, TN

My friends and I took in the latest and greatest of the Jason Bourne trilogy on Friday. We bought tickets to the 9:00 at the Carmike Cinema in Cool Springs. After securing our spots at the theater, we had dinner at the muoy delish Ghengis Grill nearby. If you haven’t been there yet, stop what you are doing right now and fix that. It is the Mongolian barbecue concept, and they have everything you could possibly want to throw on a grill with rice. Chicken, steak, shrimp, lobster, vegetables, fruit, seasonings, sauces, you name it. You won’t be disappointed.

After dinner, we had about an hour or so to kill before movie. We decided to walk around outdoors in attempt to settle the copious amounts of food we had just ingested. And not too long after we started walking, the inevitable happened. We needed to find a restroom.

Someone had the big idea that Chuck E. Cheese would suffice. I wasn’t too sure. I thought we had to buy admission just to get past the faux velvet ropes. So we sent in the lackey (the only boy in our trio) to get the sitch. As we peered through the windows like stalkers without restraining orders, we saw him gain access to the facility with little-to-no quandary. So we did what any good friends would do. We followed suit.

Sure enough, we too were admitted without so much as a puzzled expression. The door-master did, however, roll her eyes at us in exasperation when we tried without success to convince her that our “special adult friend” needed retrieving from the skee-ball stand, and that we were very sorry for letting him out of his car seat unattended.

So here we are, three adults wandering the child-packed Cool Springs Chuck E. Cheese on a Friday night, with no other business there but to…well, do our business. And had the entire restaraunt not smelled like stinky feet (I think that was the pizza), we might have stayed for a round of Caveman Crashers.

All I’m sayin’ is…parents beware. Not of us, of course - we’re harmless. But not all unsupervised adults aimlessly pacing a children’s facility are quite as safe as we are.

If you know what I mean.

Last night was the first time I ever went to Movies in the Park. It is held at Centennial Park in the amphitheater. I got there a little late, just as the sun was setting, and the movie had already started. I didn’t expect that half the population of Nashville would be there, but I’m pretty sure they were. I had to park almost 1/2 a mile a way. I was very lucky to have found my two friends that I was meeting there. If it weren’t for the Ben & Jerry’s stand landmark they gave me, and the fact that they were sitting right on the outskirts of the crowd, I would have resolved to sit alone.

The movie last night was Singin’ in the Rain, and I realized as I watched, that I had never seen this movie before. I was somehow shocked at my own lack of classic pop-cultural depth. I knew I had seen the play - a high school version - some 15 years ago, but the plot was a brand new concept to me. Also, who knew Gene Kelly was hot. Yes, yes he was.

Next week is the last night of Movies in the Park. Get there early. Bring a blanket and a little spending cash for pizza, drinks and/or ice cream.