Cammie and I tried to combine an appointment with our financial adviser with a day date in DC this past Monday. It was fun, but not exactly as planned.
First, our appointment with the financial adviser went extremely well. Cammie and I have gotten so good at fighting about money that we don't have to actually fight. We got down to two fights a year for a while and now, I just point out the issue and ask if the fight is necessary. Most of the time, it is not. Cammie did ask if Jim had praised me in the previous meeting with him for saving money on clothes and my car, but I took the slight in stride.
Jim analyzed all our finances and let us know that many of our investments were stinkers and moved our money around. He also analyzed our insurance and decided that Cammie was under-insured and started explaining why she needed more Universal Life. I don't remember anything else he said, but when he got to the part about Universal Life paying for somebody to help her if she could no longer dress herself, I said, "We'll take it!" I don't want to seem unloving, but I can not imagine a more demanding task than dressing a woman who tries on six outfits prior to leaving the house each day. I did not know there was insurance available to make sure I never had to do that for her, but now that we had a chance to buy it, I could not hesitate!
After we left Jim's office, we went to lunch using one of our Christmas Gift cards. This is the second mention of gift cards we received and I think I should go on the record and say that I may have fouled up the gift exchange plan this year. I made contributions to World Vision for our family members, but they mostly sent us gifts. I am afraid we did not coordinate this like we should have, but at least I didn't donate to the "HUMAN FUND" in their names (George Costanza reference for you younger folks). There still may be an airing of grievances, though. That is on me, so all future gifts to the Benefields can be World Vision donations from now until eternity. Despite the possible gift exchange faux pas, we enjoyed a very peaceful and tasty lunch - thank you Steve and Sabrina.
We left lunch and started downtown to visit the American History Museum and the Botanical Gardens. There were many people who had similar plans. The National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian National Museum of American History and the Botanical Gardens all had lines hanging out of them representative of a convoy of clown cars and tour buses emptying out. Thus, we ended up leaving downtown DC and driving back to Herndon to see Avatar, the spiritually confused film with the freaky blue people.
I know the special effects in Avatar were spectacular, but as Charlie Daniels told us, the Devil plays a pretty mean fiddle, too. I am going to be in the minority when I say this, but Avatar is a dark and evil movie that substitutes emotions for truth and elevates tree worship above worshiping God. If you think its just a movie, then I would recommend you see The Passion of the Christ just before you see Avatar so you will at least have seen the truth first. Just so everybody knows that I was not the only one, Cammie was also deeply disturbed by this movie. I thought having a wounded warrior Marine as the central character might salvage the movie's political message, but its message went beyond political into some very dark spiritual themes that could not be salvaged if John Wayne himself had starred in it. Hollywood is going to fall into the ocean soon if Avatar is typical of their worldview and Sodom and Gomorrah is any indicator. I am still waiting for all the war movies about Iraq and Afghanistan that tell the story of all our brave warriors who have shed blood to liberate millions and protect their homeland. Not many movies about God and Country these days, I guess.
We returned home from our date and played Wii with the kids. Despite our wasted time downtown and the disturbing movie, we still had a good time and I can rest easy knowing that I won't ever have to dress Cammie if she is not able to do that herself.
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