It's just my opinion, but......

I like to read a book before it becomes a movie. Movies almost never do justice for a really good book. For instance, I wanted to read Dear John about the time it was coming out on film, but I just never found the time. So I didn't go see it at the theater either. I finally watched it on pay per view the other day and it was pretty good. I did, however, feel like something was missing. It's like an inside joke that you, the outsider never gets. I hated the ending, but a few days later I realized what had happened. The characters loved each other. But being selfless people they sacrificed their love to help others. He, by reenlisting after the 911 attack, she, by taking care of a terminally ill man and his autistic son. I think the book would have explained that much better and I would have appreciated the ending. Sorry if I just ruined the story for anyone.
Well, a while back I bought the book, Eat Pray Love. I couldn't get past the first couple of chapters because I disagreed strongly with this woman's view of God. so I put it down. Recently I saw a preview for the movie, starring Julia Roberts. Everyone is talking about it, chain stores are building merchandise adds around it and it hasn't even come out yet. I guess it's going to be a really big deal. I thought maybe I should finish the book so at least I could say why I didn't want to see the movie. Only now I do. I still haven't gotten that far in the book, but it's got my attention.
Here are some of the things I had a problem with.
In chapter 3 she says" Culturally, though not theologically, I am a Christian. And while I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, I can't swallow that one fixed rule that Christ is the only path to God" I say, then you are not a Christian. She says"Traditionally I have responded to the transcendent mystics of all religions" And it goes on...blah blah blah the gospel according to Oprah, we are the world yadda yadda yadda...
OK, so I think most Christ followers can agree with me that this is disturbing. But then I read on into chapter 8 where she meets her Guru and he ask her want she wants. She says "I want to have a lasting experience of God. I want to be with God all the time but I don't want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasures. I want to learn how to live in this world and enjoy it's delights, but also devote myself to God." hmmmm... Isn't that what we all want?

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The Official Trailer for The Darjeeling Limited

Travelin' Heavy

We took a little trip this weekend. We went to see a Rangers game in Arlington. It was a two day trip so, of course, I took everything I own.

These days it takes a lot more primping paraphernalia to make this girl presentable. One bag for what I am going to wear and what I think I might wear, a hanging bag for things that will look just as wrinkled if I wad them up and shove them in the glove compartment, and my duffel bag. My duffel bag holds make up and a complete hair arsenal. For example, products, I don't know if I will need gel or mousse or otherwise, blow dryer,curling iron and flat iron. ( Lord, why do I think I need a flat iron?) After lugging all this 500 miles, I discovered, when getting dressed for the game, I had nothing to wear and my hair was flat because of the humidity.

My husband is just as bad. He packs everything in his bathroom cabinet and forgets his blood pressure medicine. It kind of takes the fun out of things when, in Dallas traffic, I see that little vein throbbing in his forehead.

I had a great time, though. It's something we need to do every now and then but, I couldn't help thinking how much better I enjoy the games at home.

At home there is no line for the bathroom and I have already paid for the snacks and beverages which, again there is no line for, in my kitchen. At home I can turn the air conditioning up if the temperature gets above boiling as it always does in Arlington.

At home if someone is too talkative or I don't like what he is saying, I can leave the room. There was this young man sitting behind us at the game who, for someone with such a limited vocabulary, talked constantly. He used the F word to describe everything. Also, after the game, there was a concert, which I considered going to, until I heard him tell his friend there would be a lot of HOES there. I'm not sure what they would be hoeing but it sounded like work to me so....... In all seriousness, it made me angry to hear him refer to women this way. I just hope he was as transparent to all the young ladies he attempted to pick up at the concert.

When we booked our hotel, they said it was a short stroll to and from the ball park. It seemed a bit further, so we decided to ride the hotel provided trolley. Now I have seen movies where they try to cram as many people as possible onto one bus or train. But these scenes always take place in foreign countries, not in the wide open spaces of Texas, U S A. I learned more about some of the other hotel guest than I really needed to know. Needless to say, we chose the walk, over the trolley after the game. It was still very hot and I don't know if it was the heat, humidity or perhaps the flimsy flip flops I was wearing, but my calves were cramping. Soon I had a full blown charlie horse in each leg. I thought I heard someone say something about a death march. I envisioned a smiling Nazi meeting us at the door and saying we were all going to get a shower now.

And that's the story of how I spent Saturday night with 47,798 other Rangers fans. Other than the heat, humidity, obnoxious drunks and over crowding, it was a great time.

I am posting a trailer to a movie we saw a couple of years ago. I really liked this movie, if you haven't seen it you should check it out.

Summer, Baseball, Green Koolaide and Big Hair

My mind is full of memories of long lazy summer days. Little things bring them to me, a smell, a noise an old pair of cut off jeans, these things are my childhood. After playing with neighbor kids most of the morning, it was time for lunch. My mother's kitchen was always noisy. Everyone talked at once about their jobs or what they were doing that evening. There was ice clinking in glasses and dishes being set on the table and of course the sound of what ever my mother was frying for lunch. Yes my mother was a fry cook and my brothers and I have the arteries to prove it. All that noise and suddenly it was quiet when we heard "Like sands through the hour glass, so are the Days of Our Lives"

I think of mornings spent at Vacation Bible school, singing, learning, playing and having snack, green Koolaide and store bought cookies. It was an event filled week, beginning with a parade and ending with a picnic in the park. We lined up outside every morning for the promenade into the sanctuary. We pledged allegiance to the flag, the Christian flag and the Bible. After singing Jesus Loves The Little Children, we were given a scripture to learn and sent by age to our classes. I thought everyone lived like that.

I loved going to the beauty shop with my Mom. I watched as young women in white uniforms teased hair into lofty coifs. I breathed hairspray and waving solutions, never thinking about my lungs or the ozone layer. American Bandstand was on the television and Elvis and Priscilla were in the magazines. It's where I drank my first Fresca, or was it a Tab? I still love beauty shops today.

The best part of Summer was the Little League games. I'll never forget those hot sticky mosquito ridden nights at the ball park. The sights and sounds seem like a dream now.

I need to push myself away from this desk and my work and enjoy summer like a child. I need to smell the chlorine and mosquito spray and burn some hot dogs over a campfire. But for now, I'll be the responsible adult.....until this weekend. Texas Rangers baseball, I'm on my way.

Mrs. Bacon

I bought an old wicker rocking chair at an antiques store. It reminded me of one my grandmother had when I was a little girl. Hers was black and mine is brown, but I may paint it. My grandfathers rocking chair was a wooden ladder back. They always sat, side by side on their front porch in Cumby. That's a very nice memory for me.

I don't think I really noticed my grandmother much, until after Grandpa died. I was six years old, the baby girl of his baby girl and he had my heart, as well as my attention. Grandma was that sweet white haired lady who sat with Grandpa on the porch, made pallets on the floor and told us kids who was sleeping where. She cooked for us and called every meal supper. We'd wake up in the morning and she would say "come eat your supper".

I think the first time I really noticed her was after Grandpa's funeral. All her family was there and she wanted to give her son's something of their father's. She opened his closet door, looked at his straw hats and walking canes, then collapsed in tears. She had married him when she was fourteen years old, almost sixty five years earlier, and now she was alone. I needed to know my grandmother after that day.

I heard her telling my parents, once, "Sheila takes good care of me, but maybe she needs to go play". If it was a hint she wanted to be alone, I didn't get it. I stayed by her side every time we visited.

She told me about when she tripped over a tree root leaving church and broke her arm. It didn't heal right and she could no longer put her waist length hair up. It broke his heart, but Grandpa took her to the beauty shop to have it cut. He took a lock of Grandma's hair home and braided it. I asked her if she still had it and she said she threw it away after he died. It made her too sad to look at it.

She talked about traveling in a covered wagon with her parents. She said her father had changed their last name from Kirk to Wilson. She didn't know why, but sometimes he would wake them in the middle of the night and say they had to leave. I have since tried to research this, but found nothing.

Grandma was napping out on Aunt Lilly's screened back porch one day and when she woke up she told me about a dream she had. She said she was down in a valley, all alone, shivering in the snow. She looked up on the mountain and saw flowers growing in colors she had never seen. And there was my grandpa as the young cowboy she first met. He threw down a lasso and pulled her up. Years later I saw a man on TV talking about his near death experience. He said, in Heaven he had seen flowers in colors unknown to this world. I wondered then, if Grandma had been given a preview of Heaven.

She had so many stories, but soon she would loose the ability to speak and I wished I had started listening sooner. She would blurt out the occasional word. When my brother, Steve walked in the room, she would laugh and say Calvin. I think she was saying he looked like my father. She still said Imogene, my mothers name, and cried when were leaving. I felt a lump in my throat and a deep sadness for days after going home.

She died when I was seventeen, she was ninety something. I remember her in her pink shawl and butterfly pin. It looked so pretty with her white hair. Her funeral was in the little country Church where my cousin was pastor. It rained that day, and standing in the cemetery with my heels sinking in the wet ground, I thought about her life. She crossed Texas in a covered wagon, married the cowboy of her dreams and lived to see a man walk on the moon. She lost children, babies and adults and saw her sons go to war. She delivered at least two of my mothers babies. How awesome to bring your own grandchildren into the world. How awful to see your daughter go through childbirth.

I knew she was back with her love, happy and whole, but I missed her. I still do.

The Frisco Kid

This is my favorite scene from one of my favorite movies.
God gives you strength to make it through the dry hard spells of life and then sometimes, just like that........

Rain Dance.wmv