Month: September 2013

  • Secret Society

     

    tm1

    929 tm

    Rumor has it there is another one in the area, but I haven't seen it yet.

    What can it mean?

    I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

    No, I'm not that violent. I'd just hurt you a little...

    ... or maybe just not give you a cookie.

    It's a secret.

  • BWAHAHAHA!!!

     

    926

    Well, technically one of us was sleeping at the time.

    926b

    But Boris... er... Brett caught squirrel in attic.

    926 a

    Moose got away.

  • Waking Up With Shakespeare

    01v/11/arve/G2582/016

    Shakespeare was a morning person. I don’t know why that thought popped into my head the other morning; I was mostly incapable of coherent thought at the time, but that thought sneaked past the general panicky confusion of suddenly awakening to loud music in my ear and blinding light in my eyes.

    In case you were wondering, I am not a morning person. By the time I wake up, the sun is usually well past the point on the horizon where it takes direct aim at my bedroom window, and besides, I usually have the blackout blinds pulled all the way down. For some reason, the blind over the window next to my bed was raised a few inches that morning and when I reluctantly opened my eyes, they were seared by the rising sun slanting through the window directly into my eyeballs. I groaned, screwed my eyes shut and Shakespeare popped into my fuzzy brain saying,

    “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
    It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
    Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
    Who is already sick and pale with grief,
    That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.”

    Now, before you think I’m some sophisticated, artsy-fartsy type who quotes Shakespeare in my sleep (which most of you really should know better by now), I will admit up front that I’m not quoting Romeo from Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, but Gwyneth Paltrow, a.k.a. Viola de Lesseps, a.k.a. Romeo from the movie Shakespeare in Love.

    I had been awakened a few seconds earlier by a cacophony of sound blasting in my ear and had reacted in the rare-for-me reflex of slapping the Snooze button on my alarm clock. Something was horribly wrong. I had my alarm set to softly play the gentle opening guitar strains of Stairway to Heaven and gradually build to the louder climactic guitar solo. Why was it blaring the loud part so... loudly? I groaned and closed my sun-blinded eyes, waiting for the spots to go away. I was just going to rest them for a moment, but suddenly the guitar was screaming in my ear again and I opened my eyes to blinding sunlight again and seared my eyeballs again, so I hit the Snooze button again and Shakespeare popped into my groggy brain again.

    “Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day:
    It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
    That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
    Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
    Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.”

    “It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
    No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
    Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
    Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
    Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops…”

    Well, I wouldn’t refer to Led Zeppelin as either a nightingale or a lark, and once I stopped snorting at that thought - and the phrase "jocund day" - I realized what had gone wrong. I’d used the alarm the previous morning and had forgotten to reset it to the beginning of the song. The temperature had dropped in the past 24 hours; I had my alarm volume set to compete with the noise of an air conditioner and three fans, all of which were now turned off.

    I squinted my eyes open, reached over and turned off the alarm clock before it could blast my eardrums apart for the third time. A cold draft blew across my arm and I pulled it back under the covers wondering why I was about to come out from under my warm comforter in order to go jump into a cold swimming pool. It would be so much easier to smother all thoughts of Shakespeare with my pillow and snuggle down for another hour of sleep.

    “I must be gone and live, or stay and die.”

    Okay, so it’s not quite that serious, but I must keep jumping into that cold pool a couple of times a week if I want to keep my knees working. If I start down the road of only going when I feel like it, I’d almost never go. So I did the heroic thing and dragged myself out of bed, into the cold, blindingly bright morning, and to the pool. I just hope when I make the heroic choice it will end better for me than it does for most of Shakespeare’s heroes. My life is more of a comedy than a tragedy, so I figure there's a fair chance it will end well.

  • Top 100 Movies of the Last 100 Years

    Our local movie theater has recently been offering $4 showings of movies that are about to be released on DVD. My husband and I took advantage of the opportunity to see Star Trek: Into Darkness and Iron Man 3 on the big screen one more time. While we were buying our tickets for Iron Man 3 last night, I picked up a flyer for some classic movies that they are showing in the next few weeks, and on the back of the flyer is the American Film Institute list of the top 100 movies in the past 100 years. Here they are:

    0 AQ

    1. Citizen Kane
    2. The Godfather
    3. Casablanca
    4. Raging Bull
    5. Singin’ In the Rain
    6. Gone With the Wind
    7. Lawrence of Arabia
    8. Schindler’s List
    9. Vertigo
    10. The Wizard of Oz
    11.  City Lights
    12.  The Searchers
    13.  Star Wars
    14.  Psycho
    15.  2001: A Space Odyssey
    16.  Sunset Blvd.
    17.  The Graduate
    18.  The General
    19.  On the Waterfront
    20.  It’s a Wonderful Life
    21.  Chinatown
    22.  Some Like It Hot
    23.  The Grapes of Wrath
    24.  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
    25.  To Kill a Mockingbird
    26.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
    27.  High Noon
    28.  All About Eve
    29.  Double Indemnity
    30.  Apocalypse Now
    31.  The Maltese Falcon
    32.  The Godfather Part II
    33.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
    34.  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
    35.  Annie Hall
    36.  The Bridge On the River Kwai
    37.  The Best Years of Our Lives
    38.  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
    39.  Dr. Strangelove
    40.  The Sound of Music
    41.  King Kong
    42.  Bonnie and Clyde
    43.  Midnight Cowboy
    44.  The Philadelphia Story
    45.  Shane
    46.  It Happened One Night
    47.  A Streetcar Named Desire
    48.  Rear Window
    49.  Intolerance
    50.  The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
    51.  West Side Story
    52.  Taxi Driver
    53.  The Deer Hunter
    54.  M*A*S*H
    55.  North By Northwest
    56.  Jaws
    57.  Rocky
    58.  The Gold Rush
    59.  Nashville
    60.  Duck Soup
    61.  Sullivan’s Travels
    62.  American Graffiti
    63.  Cabaret
    64.  Network
    65.  The African Queen
    66.  Raiders of the Lost Ark
    67.  Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
    68.  Unforgiven
    69.  Tootsie
    70.  A Clockwork Orange
    71.  Saving Private Ryan
    72.  The Shawshank Redemption
    73.  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
    74.  The Silence of the Lambs
    75.  In the Heat of the Night
    76.  Forrest Gump
    77.  All the President’s Men
    78.  Modern Times
    79.  The Wild Bunch
    80.  The Apartment
    81.  Spartacus
    82.  Sunrise
    83.  Titanic
    84.  Easy Rider
    85.  A Night At the Opera
    86.  Platoon
    87.  12 Angry Men
    88.  Bringing Up Baby
    89.  The Sixth Sense
    90.  Swing Time
    91.  Sophie’s Choice
    92.  Goodfellas
    93.  The French Connection
    94.  Pulp Fiction
    95.  The Last Picture Show
    96.  Do the Right Thing
    97.  Blade Runner
    98.  Yankee Doodle Dandy
    99.  Toy Story
    100. Ben-Hur

    Of course I take issue with the inclusion of some movies, the exclusion of others and the order of most of them Like all art, movies are subjective; people like what they like and dislike what they dislike. I dislike paying to cry or cringe my way through a movie, but don’t mind paying to spend a couple of hours laughing. I did find it interesting that only one of these movies is from the current century.

    I was somewhat surprised that I’ve seen less than half of these movies. I know I’ve seen 36 of them, and there are several that I think I saw long ago, but my memory of them is a bit fuzzy.

    How many of these movies have you seen?

  • Staying Busy

    Sorry I've been MIA on Xanga lately. On top of my regular routine of water aerobics, tai chi, volunteer work, and barbershop chorus rehearsal, I've been busy researching prices and photographing stuff to sell on eBay.  It's not particularly hard work, but it's very time consuming. I start taking photos at 10 or 11 in the morning, and next thing I know it's 4 PM and I've let another day slip away without getting the ironing done, or the shopping list made, or walking the dog, or blogging. It's interesting that the things that were easiest and most fun to look up for pricing were usually the most tedious to photograph. There were a few exceptions, including what may be my favorite of the 500 or so photos I've taken in the past three days.

    DSC06414

    And for the most part, the items that were hard or impossible to find online were pretty easy to photograph. Like this old brass music box (that plays Edelweiss in case anyone is interested).

    DSC06398

    I think I'm done with this round of photography. We'll be bringing my old toys down soon and I'll be up to my eyeballs in Barbie stuff. I have a feeling it will be more tedious than the Batman and Star Trek photography.

  • What the...?

    My session expired? Seriously?

  • can-o-cash

    When I was a kid in the early 70s, one of the banks in Corpus Christi, Texas, had a Christmas promotion. They had money sealed up in tin cans and sold them, or maybe they gave them away with new accounts - I can't find anything on the internet about it. Most of the cans had a dollar bill in them, but there were all denominations up to $100. My siblings and I each got a can-o-cash for Christmas that year.

    Guess what I found in a box in our attic?

    can

    I may be the only person in Corpus Christi who never opened my can. It's a little rusty; it's been dragged from the Texas gulf coast to Arkansas, Mississippi, Hawaii, California and Michigan. Lots of humidity in most of those places.

    can top

    can bottom

    When I shake the can, that brand new, crisp, folded bill still rattles inside it. We are going to sell a bunch of our attic treasures. I can't find anything like this on eBay or on a general Google search, so I thought I'd get opinions from random people on the internet. How much do you think we can get for an unopened can-o-cash?

  • Grape Faily and Other Highlights

    I blogged yesterday about our anniversary on Saturday; here are the rest of the highlights from the weekend.

    As many of you are aware, I have a bit of a phobia about going to the dentist. In fact, it's been about twenty years since I've had my teeth looked at. Recently, I've been having some discomfort in my lower left molars. It's not exactly pain. Sometimes it feels like I have a raspberry seed or a grain of rice stuck back there; other times it just feels kind of numb. But it doesn't hurt to eat or brush my teeth. So I finally bit the bullet, so to speak, and made an appointment. I was embarrassed to go to the same dentist my husband and daughter have been seeing for the past 2o years so I called a newer dentist in the area who advertises "Nap Dentistry." That sounds right up my alley. Unfortunately, they didn't accept our insurance there, even though it's through the largest employer in the area. I looked at all the dentists listed in the Yellow Pages and it was just too overwhelming, so I broke down and called the one my family uses. When I gave my name, the receptionist asked, "Do we see your family here?"

    "Yes."

    "But we haven't seen you before." (Statement, not a question.)

    "Yeah, I have a thing about dentists."

    "Do you have the same contact and insurance information as Brett?"

    "Yes."

    "Okay, we'll see you on the 18th. Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"

    "This wasn't the part that worried me."

    I was psyching myself up all last week for my appointment on the 18th. Then, last Thursday as Brett and I were knee deep in boxes and dirt and flying squirrels from the attic project, the phone rang and the dentist's receptionist said, "We had a cancellation for tomorrow morning at 8:40 and thought maybe you'd like to just go ahead and get your appointment over with."

    So Friday the 13th found me dragging myself out of bed much too early and going to the dentist five days ahead of schedule. They x-rayed, examined, tapped, scraped, and everything else they could think of and couldn't find anything wrong with my teeth and gums other than the need for a long overdue cleaning. In fact, my teeth are in good enough shape they couldn't believe it had been 20 years since they'd been examined and cleaned. So why the discomfort? Stress. Apparently I've been clenching my teeth more than I realized. Probably in my sleep. So when I'm awake I'm making a conscious effort to relax my jaw and not clench my teeth. I have an appointment in November for cleaning... earlier if they get a cancellation.

    On Sunday I skipped church. Actually, I slept until 9:30. I'd had a little trouble getting to bed and falling asleep the night before. I ran to the store to buy sugar and pectin, and I spent some of my pie contest winnings on a canning pot I've had my eye on all summer. I went down to the basement and pulled out some jars and my big bag of rings, lids, labels and related paraphernalia. I got everything washed and prepared for jelly making. When the Colts game got to halftime, Brett and I bundled up and went out in the rain to cut grapes from our garden. We cut 5.5 pounds of tiny little grapes and spent the next 2 hours rinsing, picking, and rinsing again. The next few hours were spent running them through the blender, boiling them, and waiting for the juice to run through the jelly bag and the cheesecloth. By about 8:00, I'd had enough. It was apparent there would not be enough juice to make a batch of jelly, it was dark and still raining, and there was almost no scent to the grapes, even though they were ripe. I dumped the juice and Brett washed the dishes while I hauled all the jars and stuff back down to the basement. It was grape jelly fail. We decided the grapes make a lovely decorative backdrop to the garden and that's all. No more trying to harvest them. You may now take bets on how many summers it will be before we try again.

    I'll leave you with a photo of the weekend's attic treasure.

    914 attic

    My "Peaches and Cream" figurine and the Snow White figurine that came with the watch I got on my 9th birthday. Neither one is worth a lot of money, but they are dear to me, if for no other reason than that they survived. Most of my early childhood toys were lost when our house was destroyed by a hurricane in 1970.

     

  • 33 Years

    Yesterday was Bookmark61's and my 33rd anniversary.  We usually just go out for dinner and a movie for the anniversaries that don't end in a 5 or a 0. There are almost never any good movies out this time of year; this year was no exception. We opted to go out to a late showing of Star Trek: Into Darkness on Friday night. The tickets were only $4 each so we were able to afford candy and bottles of water, and we enjoyed seeing the movie on the big screen again. I love cheap dates!

    Brett had departed for his usual Saturday morning ministry by the time I got up yesterday. That's how it is most days; I am not a morning person and Brett respects that. I found a couple of roses, a card and a gift on the kitchen table when I came downstairs, but I left them untouched and ran off to the pool for an hour. After I got home and showered and dressed and started the towels and my swimsuit washing, I left to run a couple of errands. The main thing I needed to do before Brett got home was pick up the cake I'd ordered.

    Those of you who have been reading me for a while, may remember the post from my 30th anniversary. I'd decided that 30 years was long enough and it was high time we had a wedding cake. Now, before you ask, we had a lovely and delicious wedding cake 33 years ago, baked and decorated by my aunt. We each got one bite of it - the one we fed each other (with decorum) for the photographer. We were then hauled around to meet people and be congratulated, and never got a chance to actually eat a slice of cake. (This was in 1980 when it was perfectly acceptable to have a simple cake and punch reception.) So 30 years later I ordered just the top layer of a wedding cake from a local bakery and smuggled it in the van with us and into the hotel room refrigerator without Brett noticing. It was so delicious, I've gotten a wedding cake top layer every year since.

    It's so much fun to flip through the wedding cake book at the bakery and pick out a different cake every year. I always get the traditional white cake with white buttercream icing, but I pick a different design every year. This year I chose yellow roses.

    914 cake

    The lady who took my order this year got so excited about my tradition; she got married by a Justice of the Peace 40 years ago and didn't have a cake at all. She'd never thought about ordering a cake top. She spotted me as I was approaching the bakery counter and shouted, "Your cake is so pretty! I can't wait to get mine next weekend!"

    When Brett got home we were both pretty hungry so we decided to go out for a nice lunch instead of dinner. One of the local wineries has started a brewery and opened a Public House not far from where we live and we've been wanting to go there. When we got there and looked at the menu, however, we discovered that they are currently only serving beer and appetizers. Their kitchen won't be finished for another three weeks. There was another beer and food place a few blocks away so we went there. The menu was fried this and deep fried that... seriously, a deep fried hamburger?!?! I finally spotted a grilled chicken wrap on the menu and ordered that, and Brett noticed a grilled chicken sandwich and ordered it. Not exactly the nice meal we'd planned, but we were going hiking and geocaching afterward and, as I told Brett, "I don't want a gut bomb to go off in the middle of the woods."

    914 McCoy Creek Trail

    Turns out, even the grilled chicken was a gut bomb. I don't know what they put in the sauce, but Brett and I were both feeling it after only a half-mile hike. By the time we hiked the half-mile back to the van and drove the 12 miles home, I had called dibs on the downstairs bathroom.

    The good thing about the restaurant we ate at was that it had a paper cover over the tablecloth, so Brett was able to amuse me, our server and himself by drawing an anniversary picture. Here is the artist at work:

    914 Brett

    And here is the finished product, a tribute to the song sung at our wedding:

    914 drawing

    If a picture paints a thousand words,
    Then why can't I paint you?
    The words will never show the you I've come to know.
    If a face could launch a thousand ships,
    Then where am I to go?
    There's no one home but you,
    You're all that's left me too.
    And when my love for life is running dry,
    You come and pour yourself on me.

    If a man could be two places at one time,
    I'd be with you.
    Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way.
    If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die,
    I'd spend the end with you.
    And when the world was through,
    Then one by one the stars would all go out,
    Then you and I would simply fly away

     And then, just for kicks, he drew this before we left:

    914 hand

    After the geocaching and the hiking and the gut bombs and the rush to get home, we relaxed with slices of cake and the 8th Doctor Who Anniversary Special which we hadn't yet watched. I searched the internet for some of the stuff from our attic while watching TV. We'll get a tidy little sum for all our forgotten treasures if people will pay us what they're worth. I'm not really that naive, but it would be nice.

    That's how we celebrated 33 years of marriage. Except for the gut bombs, it was a lovely day.

  • Getting up early to do something unpleasant.

    Well, folks, this is it. I've been threatening for several years now to think about the possibility of maybe going to the dentist. Not only am I going to the dentist today, I'm going at an ungodly hour of the day. The only plus here is that maybe I'll fall back asleep in the chair.

    My dental history highlights include:

    • An alcoholic orthodontist who messed up my mouth for two years before anyone realized.
    • Two years of rubber band and head gear torture to correct the first orthodontist's mistakes.
    • Wisdom teeth removed by a Navy dentist. I tried to count the number of shots he gave me in the roof of my mouth, but lost track at 40 something when his assistant distracted me by blindfolding me.

    Is it any wonder I have a phobia about dentists? But I had to face reality; my teeth don't feel right. I'm hoping it's something simple like the old fillings needing to be replaced. It's a feeble hope, but I'm holding onto it for dear life.

    I have to leave in about six minutes. Guess I should put on some shoes and brush the toast and banana off my teeth. If you never hear from me again, take comfort in knowing that your end will not be as lousy as mine.