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Monday, 16 November 2009

  • Currently
    Cracked Rear View
    By Hootie & the Blowfish
    Time
    see related

    Sunsets


    On a late afternoon last week, after receiving some very bad news, I stepped out the back door to gulp a few deep breaths of crisp autumn air and was greeted by a pink and orange sky.


    "Day is dying in the West;
    Heav'n is touching Earth with rest..."

    I hate the time changes. When I was younger I loved the fall time change because I craved that extra hour of night to study, party, or sleep. Now I gaze at the sun setting so early in the day and mourn the loss of light. It’s far too early for night to be falling. While the peace and beauty of day's end were balm for my soul that afternoon, the analogy of a day ending too soon was all too appropriate.

    I would give that extra hour of daylight back to him if I could; I would take that hour from my own life and add it to his. I think we all would. He’s the baby brother, the youngest child, grandchild and nephew. We all want to keep the sun from setting for as long as possible; stop the world and wrap him in the sun’s warm embrace for months and years and decades.

    “Here, take this hour of mine. I have more than I need; you keep this one.” If only life worked that way. If, like employees who donate their sick days to an ill workmate, we could each donate an hour, a day, a week, all we have left to a person who finds himself already looking at sunset in what should be the morning of his life.

    If we must turn the clock back, I wish we could go all the way back to a time when the day stretched before us with long, lazy hours to fill and nightfall was so far in the future it didn’t even cross our minds to wonder where we would be when darkness came.



Sunday, 15 November 2009

  • Currently
    Songs of the Old West
    By Roy Rogers & Dale Evans
    see related

    Sunday Morning Stream of Consciousness


    Love or hate Dan (and I love him) you have to give him props for waking up xanga from it’s usual Saturday stupor. His post with photos of shaving razors was actually quite educational for me. I had no idea what TWLOHA was about, nor that a picture of a disposable razor could be controversial. He got a huge conversation started on what’s usually a dead night and I, for one, had my awareness raised.

    All this talk of triggers. Who knew? Not I, but a lot of very passionate people who maybe struggle just a tiny bit with anger. That’s just speculation on my part, but the tone of the counter posts I saw was in the neighborhood of screaming fits of rage. Oh goody, another round of public unsubbing. Nobody. Cares. Seriously, do you announce to the world when you sub a site? No, because you know nobody cares who you sub. So why would we care when you unsub? The fact is, you’ve been played and you’ve reacted exactly as expected by a master of manipulation.

    Then, as also expected, came the sarcastic “trigger posts” poking fun at all the people who were upset about the original post. All part of the manipulation, too, but at least the people writing them knew they were playing their assigned roles. Trigger this and trigger that and photos of gun triggers and on one of them I linked a picture of this horse…



    …and got a “huh?” response. Come on, people! It’s Trigger! You know, Roy Rogers’ horse. No, not Mr. Rogers, he had a trolley. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, “Happy trails to you, until we meet again…”???



    The response? “Generation gaaaaaap!” Sigh.

    Does anyone out there read the Xanth books? The Gap Chasm runs across the width of Xanth and used to have a powerful memory spell on it so nobody knew it was there. It was how Xanth defended itself against invading hordes of Mundanes. Until the spell was detonated, leaving randomly floating “forget whorls” to catch the unwary traveler and cause them to forget where they’re going and why.

    I’ve been reading those books since I was about 19 years old and I’m finally catching on to the analogy of forget whorls to life. Why is it I can instantly come up with the name of a long gone singing cowboy’s horse, but I can’t remember why I’m staring into the refrigerator? Ohhh, I get it. Somehow, it’s less scary to think of it as an outside, randomly occurring force instead of a sign of passing the halfway mark of my life expectancy. That’s a nice way of saying I’m closer to being old than I am to my youth. And that’s okay; age has it’s compensations. Or so I’ve been told. I’ll blog about it if I ever trip over them. It will keep me occupied as I recover from the broken hip.

    Dear Dan,

    Your post last night crossed the line and triggered an urge in me to read bad fantasy novels filled with badder puns. It also made me feel old and caused me to forget why I was standing in the kitchen. I’m pretty sure it’s responsible for the recession, the stupid Ford commercials and the rain that blew in last night. It wasn’t raining before you wrote that post, after all. And if the Colts lose tonight, I’ll be sure to blame you and your triggers because they didn’t lose any games before you wrote that post. I wouldn't be surprised if that post of yours has started a chain of events which will end in all the major tourist spots in the world falling down and bad disaster movies making lots of money. It’s all your fault for posting a picture of somebody shaving. I hope you’re proud of yourself.

    Love and kisses, Vi

    P.S. I remembered - ice cream! Breyer’s Mint Chocolate Chip. All is right with the world now. Dan is off the hook.


Saturday, 14 November 2009

  • Currently
    The Essential Billy Joel (2CD)
    My Life
    see related

    Boring Update (Updated)


    Another life update, not because I have nothing else to say, but because I want to spend more time on what I’ve started and choose my words carefully.

    October was miserable; wet, cold and gloomy. November has been the glorious weather we usually get in October. Sunny days, blue skies, mild (for us) temperatures. It’s made it very difficult to spend my days painting the kitchen and, in point of fact, I haven’t spent as many doing that as I should. All I have left to do is the bottom of the walls. I’ve done a couple of small sections of wall, but got discouraged. I’m not a good painter for one thing. And then the only painters tape I could get at the village hardware store allowed the wet paint to bleed and pulled chips of the dry paint off with it when I peeled the tape from the walls. Hence my public service announcement the other day. I’ve taken the past couple of days off, but need to get back to painting this morning.

    Brett and I are probably going to see The Men Who Stare At Goats this afternoon. I’ve heard it’s funny. We haven’t been to a movie in months. And speaking of movies, I can’t decide whether to get the new Star Trek DVD for Brett for Christmas, or just buy it and watch it. Maybe we’ll watch it, then I’ll wrap it and give it to him for Christmas. That could work!

    The news from Texas regarding our nephew is not good and much prayer is needed. A miracle is needed. His situation has consumed me the past few days and I’ve been a bit of a wreck. Writing has been difficult. I will just apologize now for the bipolar nature of my posts, both past and future. They reflect the chaotic state of my emotions. Be patient with me; I’ll settle down eventually. Maybe.

    I went to the nearest Barnes and Noble yesterday, which happens to be in South Bend, Indiana. I called a friend and met her and her adorable son, Samuel, for a couple of hours catching up. Next time I go to South Bend I’m getting Samuel that “Yightning McQueen” toy flip phone from the Disney Store. Just because I love how he says “Yightning McQueen.” And because he’s pretty much irresistible. Next time I go to South Bend, I’d also like to meet my xanga friend who lives there. Maybe for a bit of geocaching. Maybe we should plan to go down there while this glorious October weather holds.

    While I was in Barnes and Noble, I found a really funny book. I’m thinking about a contest sometime after Thanksgiving and the book will be the prize. I have to read it first, you know. I’ll be careful not to break the binding. The contest will have something to do with zombies. And Christmas. It’s still in the development phase.

    It’s after 10 AM and I still need to shower and get dressed so I can start painting. Really, painting is not good incentive at all to get moving on a Saturday morning. I hope the rest of you are doing something much more fun today.

    ETA: The goat movie was.... bizarre. Funny, but weird. Brett says we'll watch the Star Trek DVD and I can get him Iron Man for Christmas. I like how the man thinks.


Friday, 13 November 2009

  • Currently
    Leap of Faith
    By Steve Martin, Debra Winger, Lolita Davidovich, Liam Neeson, Lukas Haas
    see related

    Merry Misfit Christmas


    This is my third attempt at writing a post for Featured Grownups. In the first two attempts I came to a realization: Our traditions, while fun family bonding for us, are pretty uninteresting for others. Nearly every holiday tradition we have seems to revolve around food and movies.

    • Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day.
    • Waking Ned Devine on St. Patrick’s Day.
    • A heart-shaped cake and a romantic comedy for Valentine’s Day.
    • A cookout for Independence Day.
    • Chili and Young Frankenstein on Halloween.
    • Traditional turkey dinner and out to a movie on Thanksgiving.
    • Almond braid and The Lord of the Rings at Christmas.

    Food has always provided a time of bonding. Allowing others to see how you eat when you’re comfortable, dribbling soup, scattering crumbs and talking while strings of melted cheese hang off the corner of your mouth, is a level of intimacy reserved for those whose love for us is unquestioned.

    It’s only been in the past twenty years that movies have become part of our family holiday traditions. The VCR created a culture change that seems to go largely unrecognized. It allowed normal working class people to build their own movie libraries. We have wrested control of our holiday movie traditions away from television networks which once insisted that The Wizard of Oz must be watched on Thanksgiving (and only on Thanksgiving). It’s a heady feeling to have the power to watch A Christmas Story on a night other than Christmas Eve, and only once. Why, we can even watch A Charlie Brown Christmas in June if we want to!

    With such power, a change came in how movies are marketed. A bad movie no longer stays in the theater long enough for a chance to “find its audience.” Now it’s rushed off to video where bored people browse the shelves looking for a movie they haven’t seen and decide to give it a shot. Video stores and discount bins have become the 21st century equivalent to the Island of Misfit Toys. The lucky movies, the Harry Potters and Star Treks and anything from Pixar are like the perfect, snotty toys in Santa’s bag while the misfit movies wait in their discount bin for those misfits of society who can appreciate something odd and different like Rustler’s Rhapsody, Strictly Ballroom, The Hudsucker Proxy.

    We should make it our mission to welcome such misfits into our homes. Over time, we may very well find that they aren’t such misfits after all. A gun that shoots grape jelly isn’t so very different from a paint gun; an airplane that doesn’t leave the tarmac is now the norm; the caboose with square wheels may have survived the Great Caboose Purges of the late 20th century precisely because it was different.

    Save the Misfit Movies! Make this your new holiday tradition. Dive into the clearance bin at Walmart and fight over Clue, A Mighty Wind and 50 First Dates. Grab one of the 500 overstocked copies of Spiderman 2 or X-Men III. Give them a chance to grow on you, or at least palm them off at the office gift exchange. This is the true spirit of the season. At least while we’re in a recession.


saintvi

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Chatboard (33)

  • my_final_username
    Nice to see another one of your entries on Xanga front page.
  • ramble_R
    I wrote a piece on critics and made a number of references to you post "Be Nice" you can find it here http://is.gd/Jc6B
  • kellyrobinson98
    hey there hope urte well ia vent had a chance in ages to say hello been so busy with church hope this finds u well drop by some time and say hello xxx k
  • saintvi
    @pamilvr - I actually just did that today. You are, in fact, quite observant!
    • Posted 2/24/2009 12:27 AM
    • by saintvi
  • pamilvr
    did you just put your name up there? -or am i incredibly unobservant?
    • Posted 2/24/2009 12:25 AM
    • by pamilvr
  • the_real_anna
    Thanks for adding me to the Prayer list!
  • The44thHour
    @saintvi - Happy Hallmark Day to you too! ;P hahaha
  • saintvi
    @The44thHour - Happy Valentine's Day, Amew!
    • Posted 2/14/2009 12:18 AM
    • by saintvi
  • The44thHour
    For chatboard they aren't very chatty...haha
  • pamilvr
    i just watch bugs walk by - no one to hero for here....
    • Posted 1/21/2009 6:45 AM
    • by pamilvr