Je pars pour Paris le vendredi

I am off to visit Bea. Yes, I am a lucky girl. Perhaps I will blog from Paris, perhaps not and I'd like to say I think of you while I'm there, but I might not. But what I will do is walk the streets and as always be memerized by this city I love.

Au revoir et attendez une carte de poteau

Pour assurer ceux de vous qui pensent que mon Français s'est amélioré rigoureusement, examinez ceci dehors !

The Voice of God

Last night I was driving home listening to the radio and the voice of God broke thru. Well ok, so maybe it was actually OnStar, but for just a minute I thought I was being called home. When the reality is OnStar came with my new car and they were just calling me to ask me to complete the registration process. So I call them back and talk to a person thru my radio and they could hear me. The told me amazing things. If I ever lock my keys in the car, I can just call them and they can unlock it. The car has its own phone number! I can voice activate a phone call. It is so very cool. The car will e-mail me when it needs service. What is next?

New Word

Electile Dysfunction: the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election year.

Blog de plume

I got my first request to change a blog de plume. I will bow to the wishes of XXX XXXXXX and find another name for her. I will have to sleep on it.

Ticker Change

You may notice my ticker has changed - the days left until the Colonel comes home. His departure from Iraq has been moved up! Yeah - 3 less days. We are almost doing the happy dance!!!

Space Pool

There is a wayward spy sattellite that is hurtling thru space towards earth. An object the size of a school bus free falling 18,000 miles a day. It seems that the earth is 75% water, so there is a 1 in 4 chance that it will slam into land somewhere. Those don't sound like real good odds to me. It makes me wonder if the peeps at NASA have a space pool going. When will it hit and where will it slam into the earth. I guess if you were really morbid you could even put in how many people will it kill if it hits a populated place. Spy Sister any chance we mere mortals can get in on the action?

Death News?

OK, I will start off saying that I do feel a little sad at the death of actor Heath Ledger, however I must ask "Why is the lead story on news programs"? Why with everything else going on in the world is the unexpected accidental death of a young handsome actor so important to those that did not know him? We live in a world where entertainment and news seem to be combined. It makes me confused. If news stories want to make this the lead story, how about talking about that nut Phelps says he and his flying monkeys are going to Austrialia to protest at Mr. Ledger's funeral. Why you ask? Because he PLAYED a homosexual in a movie! Now that is news to me! Why are we not examining this messed up thinking? But then again, maybe giving them any kind of time gives them just what they want.

For those of you that don't know who Phelps is, look him up. I won't put a link here to anything about him. But he sure does make it hard to believe in free speech and the freedom to gather. It makes it even more difficult when the flying monkeys decend on a funeral of someone that has died in Iraq or when you see the offensive url that takes you to their sick website.

A new obsession

Unless you know me really well, you don't know something about me. I just didn't think anyone would understand. So I kept it to myself, sat in the dark, cheered late into the night and channel surfed to find every single WWE event I could find on TV. Yes, I was/am a wrestling fan. Chief Matron Mare was finally conned into watching and we would "watch" together over the phone late into the night. We went in person once or twice. I kind of lost interest, I will watch when I see it on tv. But now, oh now my new obsession AMERICAN GLADIATOR. Yes, I am addicted to it. Gotta be at home at 8:00 on Monday nights to see people joust over water, get hit with tennis balls going 50 miles an hour or climbing a rock wall with a person grabbing at their heels trying to pull them down. Yes, it is silly. Yes, it is just stupid. Yes, I will watch Laila Ali and The Hulk introduce these crazy people just because I can't stop.

580 Trash or Treasure

So travel down 580 today was just a trip to the dump. It looks like an entire truck of cotton was let loose around Castro Valley. The sides of the road are just covered, it looked like snow the first day I noticed it, but now it looks like slush. Then there was a package of insulation, pink and untouched - I'm sure that will end and it will join the grey cotton all over the road by tomorrow. I just wonder how this stuff gets out of people's cars and trucks, just don't get it.

Dead Zone

The Obits just draw me in every Sunday - I just gotta read them! Sometimes they are full of nothing, sometimes they are full of dead people I would have liked to meet and there are some that just flat out scare me! There was Eddie "Bozo" Miller, a gustatory giant! A what? The man once ate 27 chickens in one sitting on a $10,000 bet! He made it in to the Guiness Book of World Records.

There was Libia Foglesong - I mean just the name is great! Libia was an avid gardener and she dropped dead working in her garden.

Then there was the woman after my own heart. No sooner had she returned from one trip than she began to plan her next. Irene was a loving mother and a dedicated and passionate partner in her 32 year marriage.

People often ask me, why do read the obits? It is not because I am getting older and feel as long as I don't see my own name... That is not it. I just enjoy reading about people's lives. How do you fit an entire life into just a few words. I have told you in the past that I read them because "he loved pickles" what a wonderful thing to remember about someone.

This week I have another reason: Pete Miller lived a long life, he was born in 1914 and believed in fate and destiny. He met his wife when she was directed to a wrong number and it was him. His favorite word was "why". He was filled with wonder at the progress of technology. After retirement he learned Spanish and ran with the bulls in Pamplona. He will be interred with his wife Blanch who died in 2003 after 60 years together. He did not want to be remembered with flowers, but by following his advice to live life well and happily. But what I liked most was that he would say good bye to friends with this words: "Thank you for being my friend".

So, if I don't say it to your face I want to say it here: "Thank you for being my friend".

Flying Hubcaps

As you know, I travel 580. This past week I noticed hubcaps. I noticed them on the side of the road, only on the left side of the road. Now maybe that is because I drive in the left lane and can't see the right side, so there might be some there as well. But I did start to wonder, how do they come off? Do they fly off like frisbee's? Fhew!! across your hood! Do they wiggle loose and just spin off and roll until they hit the jersey barrier? I counted 15 on the road and wondered are the cars limping around with three hubcaps? And whatever happened to that guy that used to collect hubcaps? Does he no longer do that? He used to hang them on a fence and you could drive there and look for a matching one for the one you lost driving down 580.

Buildings of the world

Check out the Door Dykes new blog. She is trying it out, so comment to her and encourage her to continue.

Is there?

I ask, is there anything funnier than a baby cow running thru a field? I don't think so!



OK, so I did not see a highland cow today, just a little black one, but this video was cuter.

A Visit

I like to think that when I come back from the dead (which I will) I won't choose somebody's sonagram to make an appearance.

It seems that the family involved here feels that the teddy is the mom's recently departed cousin. I do wonder why they feel that. Did the cousin like teddy bears? Was their name Ted? Maybe they just looked like a teddy? If I am going to expand all the energy required to come back, I tend to think it takes lots of energy or everyone would be make appearances, I am going to come back first as something much better looking than a teddy bear and someplace a little roomier than inside some knocked up chick.

Ticker Countdown

Today my ticker countdown for the Colonel's return is at 29 days. Today I complained that I did not feel well. Today I drove my car. Today I was surrounded by people that love me. I cruised the internet. I read CNN.COM, which brought me to this: Obsidian Wings, which brought me to Andrew, which brought me to tears. As I read I wondered how many people that go off to war write a letter to be delivered "just in case". Following some of Andrew's links leads me to believe that many do. My point is that today my life went on as normal, I have never had to think about writing that "just in case" letter, but I am pretty sure the Colonel has and I pray and will continue to pray for the next 29 days that I never have to read "that" letter. Andrew's blog will eventually fade away, his thoughts will become whispers, his Babylon 5 references will become questions in Trivia Pursuit, his spirit will live forever in the hearts of his loved ones. Beauseant, Andrew!

My Favorite Brownie

It seems my niece has entered the world of sales. She is a brownie and brownie's sell Girl Scout Cookies. So, from across the country she calls me and leaves a message asking me to buy cookies. She ends the message with "I love you Auntie M". How can an aunt, no matter how heartless, not buy cookies after that message. So, not only do I buy cookies, I buy cookies to donate to Marines in Iraq and then my own have to be shipped across the country. Whatever happened to that little girl scout knocking on my door, looking cute and a delivering thin mints to my door?

The New Year!

Well, I have been sick since just after Christmas. I have Walking Pneumonia, which leads to the question, what is Walking Pneumonia? Why do they call it that?? What does it mean? It seems it is just a mild case of pneumonia. Even if left untreated Walking Pneumonia rarely results in hospitalization. So I am tired, coughing and just cranky. Antibiotics will take care of it - ah modern medicine.