I ended today in my favorite way...sitting in a comfortable chair in my backyard, reading (Along Came Jones by Linda Windsor), a tall cool glass of unsweetened iced tea ready to drink, and the melody of the breeze blowing through the trees. I watched the muted hues of twilight slowly descend over the western horizon as the sun said goodbye to a day well spent.
I closed my eyes to enjoy the cool breeze drifting across my skin and thanked God for all He's blessed me with. The only way tonight could have been better is to have someone to share it with. Perhaps in time I'll be able to add that pleasure to my evenings; until then, what I do have is wonderful
Monday, but not your normal blah Monday!I woke up a bit late today, but felt well-rested. The normal sounds of morning greeted me...the fans blowing, my roommate's alarm clock and the water running for her bath, Jasper
jumping up on the screen meowing for me to let him in so he could eat, the ding of Crosswalk Forum's message center telling me there were new messages to read,
Eric Hogue ranting
on my radio...all was right with my world
Blossom
just joined me on the desk and says hello to everyone reading my blog. You have to listen closely, though, as she has a very faint mew. She's such a beautiful kitten, and has settled in well
She's sleek, black, graceful and lean, very playful yet feminine
Blossom drives Riley
insane...she absolutely adores him and follows him everywhere! Cute to watch, that's for sure
Work went really well today. Some great news...I had my review today, and it was AWESOME!!!!
I'll be getting a raise as soon as the paperwork goes through, and I'm excited about that
Other than that, not much else to add today. Sorry it's so boring, but glad you're here reading!
Oh, wait...I was listening to
Hugh Hewitt today, and he interviewed Arnold. I'm getting more and more convinced to vote for Arnold, and today's interview went a long way towards that! If you want to listen to the interview,
click here and look for the
Hugh Interviews Arnold link...it's one of the top articles on the main page right now.
Arnold is going to be interviewed by Eric Hogue at 8:30am pacific tomorrow morning on
KTKZ, so if you can hear them in your area, give it a listen!
Going back to Friday night...Well, I forgot everything I typed on Friday night that was deleted by Riley, so I guess it couldn't have been that important
If it was, I'm sure I'll remember it in the middle of the night when I wake up from a bad dream...
I ended my work week on the usual note of stopping at the village drive-in down the street, ordering teriyaki beef over fried rice with a chocolate malt, and watching America's Funniest Home Videos, which is one of my favorite shows. What better way to end a week of responsibility and deadlines than relaxing and laughing at the absurdities and pratfalls of life?
One of my favorite videos of all time was on that night...somehow a squirrel
had invaded someone's home, and they filmed video of trying to chase it out of the house. The poor squirrel dodged, ran, jumped and climbed all over the furniture, shelves and paintings while the woman taping the chase was screaming and laughing. The poor panicked squirrel ran up the stairs and she screamed 'he's going upstairs', to which her son replied, 'he's been up there before!' Now don't ask me why, but that was the funniest line of the whole video and I laid on the couch laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Riley was used to my hysterics and didn't twitch an ear as he laid on the windowsill sleeping, but Blossom had never seen me do this before, so she crept closer to me and sat down to observe my spasms and wheezing with an anxious stare. I love that show
I'd had so many glorious plans for the weekend...working on my website, adding a new page to the graphics section for all the new background tiles I spent hours creating, scanning photos from my vacation on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and going through all the books in my bedroom and getting them shelved. It's with a hint of shame that I announce that I accomplished none...that's right...NONE of my plans! Instead, I read a few books on Saturday and caught up with
forums on Crosswalk.com. I also talked to my sister on the phone for an hour. Basically, a very relaxing and lazy Saturday
I did a
FORBIDDEN THING on Saturday night...I felt wonderfully rebellious, as if I were disobeying my parents, but when I really stop and consider what I did, it's woefully pathetic. It wasn't a work night, I'm 38 and my parents no longer make the rules in my life, so there was really nobody to be rebellious towards, but I didn't let that stop me
I stayed up until 3am. That's right. I stayed up really late. Now, to those of you who are in your teens and twenties, this may not seem like a big deal, but as I approach the hinterlands of 40 I find that I grasp those moments of rebelliousness and revel in them as a gift to the child of years gone by, who had no choice but to go to bed at an unfairly early hour, even on weekends
Take that, Mom! So what, Dad! I am the captain of my soul, I am the master of my own destiny! I can stay up as late as I want! Try telling me to go to bed now! I laugh in your face! Hahahahaaaahahahaaaaaa!!!
It all began with Cops...one of the best guilty pleasures of television. Oh, the joy of watching other people get into trouble! Ha! I gleefully enjoy the fact that I'm not the one in trouble! Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
America's Most Wanted followed, but I'd wandered back to my computer by that time and was in my chatroom hanging out with my friends for an hour or so. Just like old times! Picking on dingbatman and watching the taters fly
I eventually went back to the living room to watch TV and found an old moral tale produced by the Lutheran Synod back in the 70s. It was on a UHF channel with the requisite static and snow, but entertaining nonetheless. Things got a bit blurry after the show, but I eventually discovered a Christian Video Show, reminiscent of Friday Night Videos, and I watched the Supertones ska dressed as janitors, Crystal Lewis with heavy eyeshadow and Audio Adrenaline.
1am approached, and to my delight, I discovered America's Wildest Police Videos with John Bunnel. Talk about fun! Watching desperate criminals attempt to elude police at high speeds, and watch the police throw out spike strips and do the pit maneuver time and time again! Take that, you fool! Attempt to escape the police helicopter? Impossible!!!
I was approaching a zombie-like state as 2am crept around the corner, and lay on the couch with my eyes barely open as I watched the ending credits of AWPV scroll by. Riley was asleep on the coffee table, and Blossom was sprawled out on the back of the couch.
I was contemplating the merits of dragging myself off the couch, down the hall, into my bedroom and falling into bed to sleep there when I heard the rasp of a key in the lock and my roommate walked in. She came to a dead stop upon seeing me and said, "You're still up!", to which I replied, "Yes, and I have no idea why.", as if someone had forced me to stay in the living room on the couch and glued the remote control to my hand.
Marcia laughed, then went into the kitchen to fix herself a yogurt sundae and came back out to see what was on TV. Local channels are a vast wasteland at that time of night, but we discovered that Stargate SG-1 is on at 2am, so we began watching it. It was interesting, but about halfway through the program Marcia wandered off to bed.
I wasn't long behind, and once the show was over, I turned off all the lights, said goodnight to the cats and made my way to bed and dreamland
An unfortunate side effect of staying up that late is sleeping in late, and when I finally opened my eyes and looked at the clock, it was 11am! I almost never sleep that late, and when I do, it ruins any chance I had of doing anything productive that day.
So what did I end up doing yesterday? I spent hours reading past editions of
The Bleat on
Lileks.com, a new favorite blog of mine
So passed another weekend into the halls of memory, never to be lived again but always immortalized here, on my blog page. And so, we dance...we sing...
...we celebrate that gift called life, which passes in such ordinary moments. And in those ordinary moments, we discover the things that matter most...our friends, our family, and most importantly, our God.
