For years, I've been making my living as a freelancer, rather than with a regular paycheck. Barbs about not being able to hold a job will be properly ignored, but the fact is, I find the freelancing life quite congenial. I like setting my own hours, even if that does mean working more of them than the paycheck guys usually do, and I like working at home — I sometimes quip that I make two stops on my to work, the bathroom and the kitchen.

Of course, that means babysitting the grandkids a lot. But that's okay, because I really like them. Anyway, I keep a laptop in the living room, so I can get a little work done when they're here. Maybe I'm fooling myself, because they soak up a lot of attention, but that's what I keep telling myself.

One rule has gone far toward keeping me sane through two generations of descendants. No videotape (which now includes DVDs, of course) may be played twice in my house during a single month.

Recently, grandson Nathan has been bugging me to let him watch The Incredibles again, only a couple of weeks after the last time. He got pretty insistent about it, too, as only a 6-year-old can be insistent, and he kept it up for — I don't know, must've been eons. It only takes a couple of days for 6-year-old insistence to seem like that.

Grandma (who felt much the same strain) finally talked me into relenting, but I did get some chores out of it. Not that he's very good at chores, but I wanted him to earn it, and to realize this was a special deal and not something he can just badger me into whenever he likes. (First task was to formulate a convincingly contrite apology, none of that "sooh-ree!" business, for a recent tantrum on the subject.)

I figured what the heck, it'll keep him busy, and I can just surf the 'Net while it's on. But darned if I didn't get caught right back up in it again!

Even at my age, I enjoy a good superhero story. Problem is, most of the ones in current comic books are irredeemable dreck. That's not an "everything's going to pot" thing, but a "seen it all" thing. I look back on the stories I enjoyed when I was in my early teens (you might know that period as "The Silver Age", a term I tend not to use), and with few exceptions (Fantastic Four vs. Galactus comes to mind, but only the first one), they're dreck too.

But The Incredibles is a top-notch superhero story. It has appealing heroes, lots of terrific action, suspense, and a villain who is truly villainous and yet oddly sympathetic. All of which I've seen before, of course, but they're combined in a way that — that — Oh, what is it that makes a story great? If I knew, you could search my name on Amazon and find nothing but a string of best-sellers.

I used to say Pixar was the new Disney, back before Disney put the question to rest by buying the newer studio. I wasn't thinking just of Disney's high production values, tho Pixar sure has that part of it nailed. Thing is, lots of people try for that, and some have gotten pretty good at, but they're missing the point. What made Disney great was Walt's uncanny ability to home in on the story, and to tweak it and twist it and wrestle it to make every part of it work together so gosh-darned satisfyingly. That's why Pixar's products remind me of the Walt-era Disney.

Nathan can see it too. When Cars came out, all he needed to know was that it was by the same people who did The Incredibles, and he couldn't wait to see it. And needless to say, he loved it. (So did I.)

Another way that movie always gets to me is that it celebrates excellence. One reason the Parr kids were so messed up at first was, they were never allowed to cut loose and be as good as they possibly could be. Even the boy, maybe 10 years old, could clearly see and even articulate the fact. One of the villain's villainies, what made him basically a bad guy, was his hostility toward "supers" in general. There's so much in, say, the education establishment, that tries to mediocritize everyone, that it's not just refreshing to see a movie take this attitude. It's also encouraging that the attitude has been a factor in making it such a hit.

What with one thing and another, I'm glad I let Nathan talk me into watching The Incredibles again. It's just a good movie all around. No matter, apparently, how often I see it.

— DDM