Rocky Horror Picture Show

Wow, did I have a massive toothache last night. I had a root canal, which I've never had before, and the dentist warned me that it would be tender. So, as comes natural for me, I forgot to take the pain killers, and one thing led to another, and I found myself up late on Saturday because I took the pain-killer he gave me too late, flipping channels with my husband.

Earlier in the evening we'd watched Glee, which is one of my favorite shows, and they highlighted music from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and this piqued my curiosity.

Guess what was on late Saturday night, the day/night before Halloween? Yeah. The real thing. So my husband and I, both being the curious types, stayed up to watch it. I knew Meat Loaf was in it for one song (I found out that even in his very early days, he was fat then, too)

Why did I watch it? At first, curiosity. It's a cult classic, and the music had to be good because they did a bunch of it on Glee. So I got as comfortable as I could, and watched it.

The acting in the beginning was humorously bad, as well as the setting of the old castle and creepy face. Then there was a very appealing and fun song and dance number early in, and of course I was curious about the main character and the entrance.

It went downhill from there very, very fast. I can now honestly say that this is probably the worst movie I have ever seen on so many different levels. It wasn't just bad, like a normal bad movie. The plot was sick and depraved from early on and it only got worse, even when I thought it couldn't get more sick or morose or depraved. It was sicker than sick. The only reason I watched it was so I would know how truly horrible it was. It looked like it was almost set up to be a comedy, but it wasn't funny. There was even a very gruesome part with a dead body that turned my stomach late in the movie.

I watch Bones and CSI, and even though the dead/decomosing bodies they show are bad and are enough to often turn my stomach, this was different, made so much worse by the mood and presentation of the dead body, and the plot section circulating around it.

Since there are fan clubs of people who dress up and sing and dance in celebration of this movie, I kept watching thinking it had to get better, or that some character had to come up with some small redeeming trait. Nope. There was none. The characters were depraved, lewd, and ending was tragic and it was awful. There was nothing good about this movie. I didn't even have a feeling that justice was served when the depraved main character died in the end, because the movie, plot, and characters were just so horrible. When it was over my husband and I stared at the lighted globe with the closing credits scrolling in total disbelief. It wasn't scary (ie the title has the word Horror). It was sick. Very sick. There is nothing fun or funny about this movie, entirely the opposite, worse becasue the depravity is treated lightly, the presentation belittles the serious depravity of the plot and characters, deceiving the viewer. No one would make a "fun" movie like this about Clifford Robert Olsen or Robert Picton or Jack the Ripper or Charles Manson, even if they made the character ficticious. There is nothing funny or redeeming or entertaining about the actions of such people.

If you haven't seen it and have any questions, email me. I'll tell you why you shouldn't watch it. I'll also tell you why your kids should definitely not watch it.

Pumpkins, and more

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, which set me thinking to all sorts of things. Rather than give the usual list of things I'm thankful for, or a lecture on why we should be thankful for our blessings every day (which I am, by the way), I thought I'd do something different.

While the season has changed from summer to fall, I think the time around Thanksgiving is when we can definitely see that winter is coming. I know Americans have a later thanksgiving, and by then winter is definitely more upon us.

I wanted to blog about pumpkins.

On our dog walk today, my husband and dogs and I walked past the local pumpkin patch. What a business they have! Over the years they have changed their marketing. When my kids were little they were running a small day trip for preschoolers and primary students - a tour of a pumpkin patch, a hay ride, and a petting zoo, and at the end the children went into the field and got a pumpkin. Let me tell you, for the price of the admission, that was a pretty expensive pumpkin, for the size of what a 6 year old would take home. They had to pick it and carry it out of the field and to the parking area.

Now, they have a corn maze, a small store for honey and other "farm" products, crafts for sale, and more. They also don't only run it during school days, it is every day. Today is Thanksgiving Day, and the place was very busy.

Which brings me to my topic of pumpkins.

Here in Canada, this was Thanksgiving weekend, when so many families want pumpkin pie. The idea here would be that we gut the pumpkin, or whatever you call it when you scrape the innards out, and then it would have to sit for 3 weeks before you use the shell for Halloween, if you do that kind of thing. Actually, I've only used a real pumpkin once for pies, I've always used canned pumpkin. That aside, I can't imagine having a pumpking shell around for 3 weeks waiting for Haloween. Wouldn't it get kinda stinky and gross?

For Americans, do you do the Jack O Lantern thing with your pumpkins, and save the guts for your pies to use on your Thanksgiving, which is about four weeks after Halloween. So it's the other way around. Does it last until pie making time?

Or you can do what I have done for the last dozen years. Buy the pie at the supermarket, and hang a rubber spider by the door. All problems solved.

stuff happens - from nowhere

I have a story to share that was sent to me by my friend Dave Longeuay. I don't think this needs an intro. Here you go.

Dave Longeuay: Three years ago I went totally blind in one eye. It came out of nowhere, and developed in just a few days. After seeing three doctors, the Retinologist gave me an injection right in the eyeball. Yeah! It was as brutal as it sounds, especially since it was massively inflamed inside. I was finally diagnosed with UV eitis, which is chronic inflammation of the Uvea, the core of the eye.

For the next two years I was mostly blinded in the left eye by the rare disease. I was averaging 25 drops a day of prednisolone (steroids) to try and battle it. Finally the doctor at UCLA medical center, (World renowned for eye care.) told me to start taking Methotrexate, a chemo drug to prevent the eye from flaring up. It worked, but who wants to take a nasty drug like that for life with the life threatening side effects it has on its list?

When I confronted God about this (quite unhappily at that) He quoted scripture to me. Imagine that! God quoting scripture to me. A verse many of us have read and dreaded. (Hey, I'm just being honest. There are a few scriptures I wish I could delete. But the logical side of me knows that every single verse is there for a reason.)

God quoted, "My grace is sufficient for you." That's all He had to say on the matter and that's all I needed to hear from Him. "Okay," I said.

My take away from this ongoing life-long disease after having eye surgery last summer? It's not that I was going in any major bad direction before, but God has clearly rerouted my whole direction in life. I was heading one way and he has rerouted me elsewhere. While I'm not happy to revolve my life around my eye these days, I am happy He has allowed (Not caused) this disease to strike me for His purpose. Sorry to sound cliche on this but, I'm happy to "go with His flow". I'm also grateful that I have most of my vision back after years of treatments and surgery, but the residue damage is permanent until I get my new body, or until He decides to heal me in His timetable.

The irony: My career is videography. It takes a sharp eye to focus a camera in all types of corporate situations all day, and later edit with split frame precision, and have to color correct every shot for maximum quality. Many of these videos are viewed by military Generals, Homeland security and top government officials, so they have to look great. The miracle: My good eye does all the work! It completely takes over what the damaged eye lacks. Praise God!

I don't think I have anything I can add to that.

Have you ever had anything bad happen to you? What did you do to overcome it?

those oh-no moments, and what we think about after

Sorry I've missed a few days, we've had an unfortunate turn of events in our family - my son went on a trip to visit a friend, and on the drive there, he hit an elk. He's surprisingly fine, the car is injured, the elk is dead. During the weekend I drove up to get him and he's home now, and he'll go back to get his car when it's out of the shop. There's a lot of damage to the car, but it's fixable.
And this brings me to my topic of the month. It's those split-second oh-no moments - many times they are life altering. I don't know if anyone reading this has ever hit a large animal before, but I talked at length to my son about it, and it was terrifying. After the impact he managed to stay on the road, and the angle he hit it had it hit the windshield, breaking it, but not going completely through the windshield - if it had, the weight of it would have crushed him. He also managed to keep control of the car and get to a stop without going off the road and into the deep, steep ditch. This was at night, in the middle of nowhere. He said he stopped the car and his first thought was that he wasn't dead.
I've had one of those "I could have died" experiences, and I think I can say that most people who have something happen like that have a different perspective on their life after that.
I can't speak for my son - but I can speak for myself. For me it was a surgery that was supposed to be simple, but the surgeon made a "mistake" and I had to have an immediate corrective surgery or I would have died. That is, if having 2 complete anasthetics so soon didn't kill me, which I found out at the time, there is a significant risk.
My thoughts at the time were that if I died, I had no regrets, and I was okay to go on to heaven and leave all this behind. Well, I'm still here (waving). But I can say that I do have a changed perspective on what really is important in life.
Here is my thought of the day - I'd like to hear from you if you've had an incident that when it was over, you had a change of perspective, and how it changed.
I like to think that when something like that happens, we come out having learned something. Please, I'd love you to share how you felt, and what you learned.

wasting time - in proper order

My best time wasters are distractions, things that distract from what I should be doing in the first place. But my friend Shirley Connolly has this mastered.
Shirley Connolly: So much goes through my mind that helps me waste my time. Usually this comes about when I’m trying to think about that missing phrase in my manuscript.
Suddenly, I notice my treasured antique-teacup collection must be rearranged. The living room is out of order, too. How can anyone’s creative juices flow when that’s the case? I need to move the couch at this angle… no that one. There, that’s it. Am I ready now? Well, I was until it donned on me that I’ve not had my second cup of coffee. It’s no wonder I couldn’t think before. That’s better. It was, anyway, until I noticed those bookcases in my office somehow got out of order too. That’s no good. It’s no wonder I haven’t been able to find what I needed the other day. But when that is taken care of, I suddenly realize I should take a few minutes to search out those Scriptures I’ll need for this Friday Ladies Koinonia Bible Study I’m teaching. I won’t have time later, will I? But wait! What about the wall comments I forgot to respond to on Facebook yesterday? Isn’t now the best time to do that? I don’t want anyone to think I’ve forgotten them. Oh my! And while I’m at it, shouldn’t I also get to those emails and get rid of some of that stuff built up in my junk box, and read my user manual on my new Kindle? Otherwise, how could anyone have the time to really think?
I’ll get to that missing phrase in my manuscript maybe tomorrow. Yes, I’ll do that then. By now, I’m too tired with my mind full of all the other things that have required dire need of my attention.

I thought I had distractions mastered, except what distracts me isn't so constructive. I am awed that Shirley does something relatively constructive when getting lost from the things she should be doing in the first place. Shirley, my hat is off you you!
So here is my thought/question of the day. If you could get distracted from what you should be doing, if you were stil wasting time, what would the most constructive waste of time be for you?
You're invited to visit Shirely Connolly's website at www.apenforyourthoughts.blogspot.com

wasting time - a good day off is a good day wasted

For those of you reading on the north side of the Canadian/USA border, thank you for joining me on this holiday in most of Canada, Victoria Day! For those of you who are visiting from south of the border, I am waving at you because you have to work today, I do not.
As a FYI, Victoria Day is a public holiday observed across Canada except for the Maritime provinces on the Monday before May 25th, which is Queen Victoria's birthday.
Since the topic of this post is wasting time, I invite you to check out the history of Victoria Day on Wikkopedia.
In the days of my childhood, Victoria Day was more commonly known as "Firecracker Day" which of course meant a lot of fun after sundown, with most families buying fireworks and setting them off. In the interests of safety, we can no longer buy fireworks from unregulated vendors, and we can no longer set off fireworks any old place we want, without a license, so Firecracker Day has more or less fizzled. Fizzled. Get it?
Victoria Day has now become the kickoff for the summer - the official first long weekend of the summer season. When my kids were little we always went on a family camping vacation in our tent trailer on the Victoria Day weekend, where wasting time is an art form.
When my husband took the boys fishing, I would stay at the campsite with my pot of coffee and a good book. When my husband took the boys biking down the trails, I would stay at the campsite with my pot of coffee and a good book. When my husband and the boys would go to collect firewood for the evening campfire, I would stay at the campsite with my pot of coffee and a good book. Does anyone see a pattern here?
Unfortunately our camping days are over. So I will probably spend most of the weekend in the living room with my pot of coffee and a good book. Only now, instead of an uncomfortable webbed lawnchair with a strip missing, I'll have a nice soft couch cushion underneath me.
Which leaves me with my thought/question of the day. As time goes by, do you find you have the same patterns when you waste time now, versus what you did ten years ago?
I always end off my posts with a link, but it's silly of me to have a link to my own website. So instead here's a link to Barnes and Noble, where they will be featuring my new book, The Narrow Path, on a front table display next week. If you're at B&N and see my book, I'd love it if you could take a photo of the display and send it to me, since there are no B&N's in Canada.
For all you Canadians, enjoy the holiday. For all you Non-Canadians, I hope you had a great day anyway.

wasting time - with a good snack

There are big ways and little ways to waste time, and my friend Martha Rogers (Martha is a real person, not the fictional mother on the TV show Castle)(and no, watching Castle is NOT a waste of time!) wastes time with a few of my favorite things. Do we hear a song coming? No, but maybe another poem.
Martha Rogers: How do I waste time? Let me count the ways.
To the heights and depths my creativity can soar.
When the manuscript calls, I’ll find a way
To put it off until another day.
When edits are due, and deadlines crunch,
I take the time to find something to munch.

I’d go on, but I’ll spare you the torment. Instead let me tell you about a few of my favorite time wasters, which is a lot more fun than what I'm supposed to be doing. I can always find something to do to waste time. I most often do it by playing Spider or Eight Off Solitaire Games on the computer, or working crossword puzzles. I have books of them to use when I’m finding excuses not to do certain chores. I do the one in the paper every day at lunch to extend my lunch time.
Then there’s snacking. Some snacks can be eaten at the computer, but others call for two hands and concentration like chips and Queso dip or picante sauce or eating ice cream sundaes. Did I mention reading emails, checking up on Facebook, or checking on my friends?
The problem is that I have such guilty feelings that I will overcompensate and spend so much time on a manuscript that my seat hurts and my feet swell. Gotta be a happy medium somewhere.

Side note - One of my favorite snacks, that requires two hands is popcorn with grated cheese and Ranch seasoning mixed in, microwave for 30 seconds to melt the cheese.
I digress. Or do I waste time?
Of course I zeroed in on Martha's comment about extending her lunch time with a time waster. Do you ever do things like that?
Here's my thought/question of the day. If you have a little time waster like that, if you went ahead and did something you were supposed to be doing, just for those few minutes, what could that be?
You're invited to check out Martha Rogers' website at www.marthawrogers.com