SCARY AS HALLOWEEN MXLV

I have 147 bumper stickers on my truck. Really. I do.

And I have very deliberately kept from have ANY political ones.

My bumper statements are designed to be thought-provoking, silly, funny and/or deliberately very difficult to understand. Examples - "If a man is alone in a forest and there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?" "If God doesn't exist, how do you explain chocolate mint ice cream?" "Happiness is not a destination, it's the journey."

My husband loves political bumper stickers, but he also is very happy to make everyone around him furious (in fact I think he works on it). He thoroughly enjoys having passing drivers made obscene gestures, scream at him while hanging out the window and driving 75 mph in a 35 mph area (politics definitely contribute to road rage), and take his magnetic bumper stickers (easily exchangeable then) off his car in the parking lot and probably burned in effigy of whatever political view they support.

My own reasoning is I do not want 50% of the driver's passing me furious, and political slogans on a vehicle obviously never permanently change anyone political stance - have you ever heard "Gee, I was a ZZZZZ, but then I saw a bumper sticker that said ABCDEFGH, so I am NOW definately a XXXX!"?

However, tonight I am going to stray into political waters regardless of my firm belief that I am only going to complain about a television news program.

I was, literally, forced to watch one hour of Fox news this afternoon.

Arriving at the doctor's office early for an appointment does in no way guarantee that you are going to be seen early. And today after driving two hours and approximately 102 miles, I could not convince the other irritated and delayed patients to 1) turn down the volume or 2) change the television station on the television in the waiting room, so I had to listen to Fox news for one hour.

And it was terrifying.

If you weren't scared about Obama's health care, they made it out to be horrifying.

And if that didn't worry you, then Fox news brought up that you should be at one of the shouting, threatening and inexplicable town-halls brawls to share your dismay.

And then if you weren't anxious by then, Fox news SCREAMED that you NEED to be AFRAID, very AFRAID that whatever health coverage you have RIGHT NOW before anything is changed or passed or in any way different IS NOT GOING TO BE ENOUGH and you are still going to DIE DIE DIE DIE regardless.

Geesch.

HARRY POTTER THE SECOND TIME AROUND

I watch certain movies repeatedly. And I don't mean just two or three times... like HUNDREDS of times.

Most of the time it's when I'm babbling on my blog or Facebook or working on a lesson - it's sort of a comfortable background noise. I don't have to pay attention, because I know every single line of dialogue, all the action in every scene, all the expressions on every actors face.

It's sort of like eating popcorn - it's sort of filling, but mindless, and really doesn't taste like much of anything, it just SMELLS so great.

So some movies - Aliens, Serenity, You've Got Mail, Jesse and Steven Go To Yale and Lose Their Virginity - just can get played over and over and over and over... and all the Harry Potter movies are, of course, in that same category.

But I am a HUGE JK Rowling fan - I love all of her H.P. books. So I am super critical of the movies when they stray AT ALL from the original plot.

Earlier this week, I took my daughter to go see HPATHBP. And sat there hating it more and more every step the director took away from the book.

So I got a chance for redemption this weekend - my husband wanted to see HPATHBP (and doesn't like to go to movies by himself anymore), we went, and I DID NOT THINK OF THE BOOK AT ALL.

And enjoyed it thoroughly.

ACCEPT REALITY AS IT IS

I have spent years, literally years, beating myself up about something I haven't done, did do, shouldn't have, should have , could have, couldn't have or forgot.

And I am discovering after fifty-some odd years ('and believe you me, they have been very odd years!" in a Groucho Marx voice), what a total and complete waste of time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete fatalist. I think you should try, you should plan, you should do you best.

But if it's in the future, and you have no power over it, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT.

If it's the past, LET IT GO.

I have regained 2.8 years just in the last two weeks, and have spent that recouped time trying in vain to beat Harmony's score at Bejeweled Blitz.

And failing miserably.

VOICES OF GLADNESS

I am not a great singer.

My lungs are the size of your average little yellow canary's, so while singing, I need to take a breath every three notes or so - sort on interrupts the flow of any song.

My voice keeps getting lower and lower - but only lower, so my range now is about an octave and a half... on good days. I can't even reach mid-range alto notes anymore.

But I do know how to read music - I can hit a note fairly close to the written one four times out of five - and I am getting comfortable singing the tenor part.

So I can get along with my pathetic voice when I sing with a choir... a large choir.

But when I was asked to sing with a small group for a friend's son's funeral, I couldn't say no. Well, I could say no, and perhaps I should said now, but I'm glad now that I didn't.

We practiced this afternoon, and if we can all get through the song without crying, it's gonna sound great.

Where can I turn for peace,
Where is my solace?
When other sources cease to make me whole?

When with a wounded heart,
anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart searching my soul.

Where, when my aching grows,
Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, where can I run?

Where is the quiet hand
to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?

He, only One.

He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching in my Gethsemane,
Savior and Friend.

Gentle the peace he finds
for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end.

Constant he is, and kind,
Love without end.

Wish me luck.

CONFESSION

As a significant of number of other human beings, I have a way of hanging onto my opinion even after I have discovered that I am completely wrong, just for appearance's sake.

I have maintained for years that DVDs should be released and viewed in 'wide-screen' format and only wide-screen format, my argument being that the direction had obviously taken filmed it in that format.

I am now ready to conceded that I have been mistaken.

Our newer satellite hook-up was (obviously) allowing access for the first few days to Encore, HBO etc. premium channels.

And I watched "Pride and Prejudice" one of those afternoons (not the BBC one, the one with Keira Knightly) in FULL-SCREEN format.

It's better.

And partially, I am certain, because my aging eyes are not seeing as much, so with this on full-screen, it was BIGGER and I could SEE more details.

Age brings wisdom - or aging admits defeat - or oncoming dementia leads to.... wait a minute, what were we talking about here?

PLEASE ALLOW ME TO BITE MY OWN TONGUE

Last night I wrote a silly blog as an obituary for my old blue jeans.

Tonight I found out a high-school buddy of my son's was killed in an automobile crash early this morning.

A mutual friend drove over to tell him this evening.

My heart is breaking for his mom. I can't imagine what she is feeling right now, even as an active Latter-Day Saint.

And I am sitting here feeling extremely grateful that I have been so blessed with my three wonderful children.

TODAY WE MOURN THE PASSING

My blue jeans, age three, died today, July 31, 2009, in Palominas of natural causes.

Mr. Blue Jeans was born October 3, 2005 at the Levi Strauss Company in Beijing China, of multiple denim sources, rivets and various blue dyes. He was packaged and shipped to the United States, where I purchased them at (of course) my local Target store.

Mr. Jeans had been involved in multiple paint jobs, horse training, long drives and blog composing. His color gradually faded from dark blue to the lightest possible blue, even after being washed reliably in only the cold water cycle.

Yesterday, an obvious worn patch was noticed when a portion of my leg became completely exposed to view, and today, tragically, Mr. Jeans was caught on a wire fence and torn terminally on the left side.

Mr. Jeans is being laid to rest this evening in the outside trash container, and will be conveyed to the landfill on Tuesday, our next scheduled trash pick-up day.

Condolences and any expressions of chocolate may be sent directly to this blogsite.