Sword & Shield

Had a bad day yesterday. Melted a few telephones and burned a few text messages. Better today.

You have a choice now. The first link is poor quality, but it has two songs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B48iBM01Fs&feature=related

The second is better quality, but only one song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qx8fFpWcFQ&feature=related

Life is full of choices. Or, you could choose not to watch either. :)

Tempus Fugit

Brief and to the point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxEPQcX0NJU&feature=related

Three Statues

So, I've mentioned before how unaware I am sometimes. I try to pay attention, but I get so focused on one thing that I block out other things that I need to be aware of, also. I go outside each morning to change the water in the bird bath and fill the bird feeders. I will also often pull a few weeds in one of my gardens, or pick up twigs that have fallen from the oak tree. This morning I noticed that one of the squirrels had been digging in my day lily garden, and had scattered dirt on the bricks that edge the garden. I bent over to brush the dirt off. I have two little statues in that garden. One's an angel, and the other is a blue bird. I was so focused on the dirt that it took a moment before I realized there were three statues. What!?! It was a dove, sitting perfectly still, in exactly the spot that I would put a statue if I get another one, evenly spaced with the other two. I took a few steps back to make sure I didn't frighten it, and talked soothingly to it. After a few moments, I went back inside. I really enjoyed being that close, and it didn't seem nervous at all, or maybe it was paralyzed with fright. I went out again a little later to make sure it wasn't injured or sick, but it had left. It was a nice peaceful encounter that I will hopefully remember for a long time. Now, if it had been a snake, it would have bitten me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI0gdIWJ4-w

We Are Family

I haven't posted in a while - did y'all miss me? :) Didn't have much to say.

I had a good day with my sister today. We are preparing for Halloween (it's getting closer!). We went to different Halloween stores, and looked at costume patterns. My costume is ready already. The weather is getting cooler, so it's starting to feel like fall (it's getting closer!). So, I enjoyed the time spent with my sister.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw6F3Sf-PGw

I have started reading Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson. It is very bawdy, but as he says, he is European.

Enjoy the day, and this beautiful weather!

Ne Me Quitte Pas

My daughter was lucky enough to see The Magic Flute last night and La Boheme tonight. It was a great opportunity. Thinking about La Boheme got me to thinking of the song La Vie Boheme from the play Rent. I thought about including that link as today's video, but I know some of y'all read this at work, and that is R rated. So I thought of another French song, which I like a lot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE3TofjbcfE

Otherwise, it was an average day. Sometimes boredom is a good thing. :)

Fairies

Boring day, not much to say, but I did come across a song I had not heard before. It's harder rock than I usually listen to, but I love the title, so enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvbA8FBd_Vo&feature=related

Life Is Bizarre

I'm glad Hurricane Ike did not cause more destruction than it did. Galveston is a great city, but there's no way I would live there, and risk losing so much. We got just the right amount of rain.

My living room is dusted, the kitchen is almost clean, the bathrooms are almost clean. Yeah! Not exciting, but much needed.

Not much else going on today, but last night's dinner was very interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4nVKn0l2mo

How High Is The Water, Mama?

So far we are just getting some nice showers from Hurricane Ike. I hope it has done all the damage it's going to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSz6X5NMXnM&feature=related

I made it to Bird Mart today. So many pretty birds! I bought a toy for each of my birds, and some bird seed. It was very hard to find a parking place because there was a gun show also going on. I saw my friend, Michelle, and we enjoyed chatting for a while. She breeds birds, so she bought quite a few.

As I was about to fix some lunch, I looked out the back window and saw a very pretty yellow parakeet. I often see a parakeet after Bird Mart. At first I thought it was just random, but it does seem to happen frequently during a Bird Mart weekend. About a month ago, my daughter and I saw a white parakeet in a neighbor's yard, but that one must have been random. I wish I could have caught the parakeet and found a good home for it, but they are so hard to capture. I did put a spray of millet out for it, so maybe that will help it get by.

Love those pretty, pretty birds!

Backwards

I did what I said I was going to do, well, sort of. I did clean up the kitchen a little, and dusted the furniture in the living room. At least it's a start. While I was dusting, I moved the cage of Patrick, my parotlett. I cleaned his stand, put his cage back on it, and continued dusting. After a few minutes, I noticed that he was looking at me with a strange attitude. It took me a moment, but I finally realized that I had put his cage back on the stand backward. I apologized to him, and promptly turned it around. He looked much more at ease. As a general rule, birds like consistency, and get stressed when the routine patterns are changed. Even a new food or toy can stress them for a while.

The backward cage reminded me that so often I get things almost right, but there's always some little detail that I've overlooked. Usually it's just a minor thing, and I'm being overly critical. But I often have the "Doh!" feeling. I think that's what I like about Zen. There's a parable of a master and student who take their shoes off and put their umbrellas down before entering a house. The student was celebrating moving on from being an apprentice because he had studied with him for so long. After they were settled with their tea, the master casually asked the student which side of his shoes the student had placed the umbrella. The student realized he was not as self-aware as he thought, and studied with the master for seveal years after that. Now, umbrellas and shoes are not critical life choices, but too often we do miss the important details. So, I'll try to be more aware of what I'm doing. And my umbrella is nowhere near my shoes. :)

So, here's my apology to Patrick, and I like the song a lot myself. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-EwIsqjNk

Breaking Dawn

I haven't posted in a while because I've been reading Breaking Dawn. It's over 700 pages, but I couldn't put it down. I'm too old to be staying up that late to read and read and read. Stephenie Meyer also has written a book called Host, I think. I'll have to check that out. I've also heard that she is back on her Midnight Sun project, so let's hope it's in the works.

Now that I'm getting my life back, I need to get caught up on house cleaning and other mundane chores. Sigh. Fantasy is so much more appealing than cleaning. I like the saying "My house is clean enough to be healthy, but dirty enough to be happy." It's time to balance it out a little bit more.

The song for the day is from Muse, a group that Stephenie Meyer praises quite a bit. I wasn't impressed when I listened to snippets of their music on iTunes, but I think it's growing on me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCddbntc1I&feature=related

Quazy

Don't ask me why, but Quisp cereal has been on my mind today.
http://www.quisp.com/cartoon/index.html
It was one of my favorite cereals when I was young, probably because of the space theme, but also because it was good. It's still made, and can be bought over the Net, but it's not sold locally. :( It also reminds me of Noodles Almondine and a few other foods that I liked but cain't get anymore.

I also used to like Yardley makeup, especially Floating Island Blush nail polish. It's funny that I can't remember where I parked the car, can't remember important details, but I can remember the name of the nail polish, back 30+ years ago. The mind is a strange thing.

I am *so* enjoying Breaking Dawn. In a way I want to read it as fast as I can to see what happens, but then again I want to take my time and savor it. This may be one that I read twice.

Have a quazy day today!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80TAVW3paBA

OMG!

First things first. I knew I'd think of a song to go with my last post, and here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdnSxVK0WzM

Okay, now, OMG! I finished reading New Moon this morning. It was so funny - I was reading in the back room, and my daughter was reading in the living room. We met in the hallway because we finished at almost the same moment. I immediately marched myself to the library, so afraid that all the copies would be checked out or on reserve. They had two copies! Yeah! Otherwise, my daughter and I would have been tooth and nail to read it first. :)

I read the preface in the parking lot (couldn't resist) and OMG! Stephenie Meyers writes wonderful hooks in her prefaces to get the reader hooked. OMG! My son has just started the series, and one of his friends is now hooked. OMG! All these readers working on the same series. It feels a lot like Harry Potter, with the same desperation to read, read, read.

One sad thing about this series. Meyers had started another one, Midnight Sun, but she was too trusting. She sent a rough draft out to be read by a few close friends, probably the same people she thanks in her previous books, but one of the $%^&* leaked it onto the Internet. So sad that the people she most trusted ended up stabbing her in the back. She said she is so disheartened that she has put it aside for a while, and may scrap it altogether. :( Let's hope she becomes inspired to pick it up again.

It's become a fever in my blood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYxoAJ3Boyc&feature=related

Laterna Magika

It's interesting how one thought will lead to another. All day today there has been an ad to the side of the screen showing a magic lantern. I didn't even pay attention to what the ad was for, but it got me thinking about a show called Laterna Magika that I saw at HemisFair in 1968 in San Antonio. I bet my sister remembers. It was a projected movie with live actors in front, which was very advanced for the time. I went to their Web site http://www.laterna.cz/. They are from Czechoslovakia, and are still performing.

I also remember a fountain that people could turn the knobs and control the flow of water; very cool. There was also a fountain or sculpture of a bird or a flock of birds. I need to dig out those old photos and look at them again. I also had my first taste of curry there, and man was it hot! I could only take a few bites. Now I love curry, but I like to add just a little, not enough to set the plate on fire. Even though I'm from Texas, I'm not much on chili peppers. Just a few on my nachos is all I care for.

It was a good trip, and my family and I enjoyed it. If I put more thought into it, I could probably think of a good music video to link to, but it's late, and I really want to go back to reading Eclipse. I'm halfway through, and it's addicting! (But I ain't going to rehab).

Who Is John Galt?

Since my nails are still black (and beautiful!) I decided to wear my black John Galt T-shirt. I loved Atlas Shrugged. I do consider myself to be an Ayn Rand capitalist. I want government to stay out of my life as much as possible. I think the budget would be much smaller if there were not so many pork projects and special interest groups. Protect the borders, maintain national transportation structures, such as roads and bridges (but not a bridge to nowhere!), but otherwise stay the hell out of my life.

Ayn Rand was around 12 years old when the Russian revolution turned her world upside down. Her father, who was in the pharmaceutical business, had his whole livlihood taken over by the state. If I remember correctly, the family home was also overrun, and others took up residence. No wonder she hated Communism so much.

I think it goes against the frontier spirit for so many people to have their hands out, waiting for the government to give them so many things. I feel sorry for the people affected by Hurricane Katrina several years ago, but I read an interview with one who was upset with the apartment she was "forced" to live in. Nice apartment, big screen TV, but it wasn't good enough for her. Tough cookies! As Thomas Paine said, "That government is best which governs least."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gutY7NnNuyA

Miscellaneous Musings

I had a good day dancing today. I had my black veil, and my nails were painted black, so it was a good day. I got lots of compliments, even from the teacher. Yeah!

It's been cloudy yesterday and today, but only a very brief shower from Gustav. Maybe we'll get some rain today. I didn't water my garden yesterday, because I was sure we would get more rain. I watered today, so I bet we'll get a lot. Sure would be nice.

Viva La Vida is on the radio now, so that also makes me happy.

I checked out Eclipse from the library, because I cain't wait until it comes out in paperback. I'll buy it when it does come out. I've only read the first chapter, but I like it so far.

Today's video is Jerry Reed. RIP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni8KBhnebwE&feature=related

Pictures At An Exhibition

These are the cakes I made for Mom's birthday and my parents' anniversary. There is a huge fake diamond on the anniversary cake, because the 60th is the diamond anniversary. There are two dove at the front of the cake that are kind of hard to see. Thanks to my son for teaching me how to post these. Love ya!

Heaven and Hell

Here's a little bit of Heaven:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VAlPq2dc4w

Now that we're down to 2 months before Halloween, here's a taste of Hell:
http://web.mac.com/spacedout17/Gargoyle_Manor

Can't wait for Halloween!!!!!!