I feel like the title for this one is misleading. While I’m looking at things to do this year, I suspect most of this list will move to NEXT year when I retire.

Let me start with movies. Psst…I have a secret. (looks left, looks right). I love movies! 🙂

So, there is something really confusing about a story from my childhood. I used it in my wedding speech, actually, but I didn’t have the details quite right.

I was about 6 or 7, and my mother took me to the movies — just me and her, my brother didn’t come, which was very rare. I used to think I was maybe 4 or 5, but the dates don’t line up. Anyway, I had been to the movies previously. At the drive-in, with my brother Mike and sister Marie, taking my brother Bill and I. There was a place for cars, a big screen, a swingset…and dancing hot dogs! I remember a movie where there were people shooting at each other on a fire escape…Matt Helm, maybe? James Bond? Not sure. They were terrible shots, everything ricocheted off the bars, nobody ever got hit until they were at the top of a big building, they would get shot, and fall to the ground below. Big stunts.

But this wasn’t the drive-in. This was our downtown “multiplex”. Just kidding…it was two theatres side-by-side, the Odeon and the Paramount, two theatres each. There used to be a third called the Capital, but that was before my time. I don’t remember which one we went to, but my mother drove us down, and I had to walk on the sidewalk along big George Street with her, holding her hand next to THREE lanes of traffic. She bought us tickets, she paid with cash; we got snacks — a drink, popcorn I think, and DEFINITELY jujubes — and I think she paid with change…no long-term financing required! We went into a HUGE theatre, with a curtain that opened. And we watched … dun dun dun … the Lives and Times of Grizzly Adams!

The confusing part of the story is around the movie. I was sure that was it. Except according to IMDB.com, it was released in November, and this was definitely NOT a cold day. I think it was for my birthday, and that’s in June (it definitely was NOT still in theatres then). But somehow, the magic of cinema is it WAS June, it WAS my birthday, and it WAS that movie. Go figure. Oh, and it says it was 1974, which seems too late to me (I would have been 6 already, and I feel like I was younger). Although I see that if it was 1973, it could theoretically have been Mary Poppins instead (a re-release happened that summer). I am sure I saw Grizzly Adams in the theatre though and it was rare for us to go to a theatre. Oh, well, I’ll keep my memories.

And while the L&ToGA did not win any awards and pretty much flopped, when you’re that age, and you get snacks and a movie on a big screen with BEARS, you think it’s a pretty cool universe. I still feel that way about movies.

Back in the late ’90s, when I first started blogging, I used to do movie reviews for a local filmsite that was trying to corner the market on movie showtimes. I wrote a few reviews, sent them to them, and they POSTED them. Eventually, after about 20 or so, they sent me free MOVIE passes where I got to sit in seats marked for PRESS. I thought it was another cool universe moment. Eventually, life intervened, the internet moved on, and I kind of lost touch with my reviews. And for a long time, it was really hard to go to movies without a car from where I was living. So I just didn’t. I tried setting up monthly outings, but couldn’t get enough resonance with people who had lives.

With the nonsense in some theatres (talking, phones, etc.), I just haven’t bothered and while Andrea would be willing to go, neither her nor Jacob are clamouring to go that often. Jacob hardly at all. Me? I’m willing to wait for it to stream.

Yet I miss the thrill of seeing movies before everyone else. And on a big screen.

When I retire, I’ll have time during the DAY to go. And not just on weekends, but actually through the week. I might have to put up with Mommy and Me events sometimes, but I can work around those obstacles. I’m excited to go, and I don’t even know if I care what I see. I’m reminded of being 14 years old, when Toonie Tuesday was at the Cineplex in the South end of Peterborough. Every Tuesday for about a year, I went to the movies with my friends Pat and Mark…sometimes all three of us, sometimes just one of them. But I went every week. Some weeks, we didn’t even know what we were going to see before we got there; we just rode our bikes down or took a bus in colder weather and showed up. It took about a year, maybe a few weeks more than that, before we showed up and we had already seen EVERYTHING that was offered that night. Surprised us, actually, as we had always had at least two or three choices before. Just hit a slow week for new releases. We repeated something action-ish, but that broke our streak, and it kind of fizzled after that for all three of us.

I would love to do a similar theme streak for a year. Like, 2027: The year of movies. Or 2028: The year of ice cream. Who knows? But for now, I’ll settle for watching more movies on streamers. Maybe I’ll start with the James Bond series. Or the X-Men. Or, huh, I’ve never watched all three LotR movies straight through. Could be a good one. I watched a bunch in November, binging some each night for a couple of weeks. I didn’t really keep track, and I never reviewed them. But I’d like to get back to that too.

For 2026, I’ll stick to streaming and some reviews.

On the music side, it splits into two. First and foremost, I want to review the best songs of each year from Billboard. I’ve done 1943 as a test, and I want to do every year up to now, working mainly from Billboard lists. I’ll aim to finish the 1940s this year; I’m not a slave to the work. I’ll have more time when I’m retired, but I’m not there yet.

Secondly, I want to learn to play the piano. I have a book, lots of apps, and online tutorials, and I may actually pay for some in-person lessons to get going. But again? Probably not until I actually retire. I’ll dabble until then.

Do you go to the movies regularly? Do you have any musical instruments you want to learn to play? What stops you from either one?