Can it get any clearer than this?
(borrowed from FlakCat)

Flag-draped coffins are secured inside a cargo plane on April 7 at Kuwait International Airport. Military and civilian crews take great care with the remains of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq. Soldiers form an honor guard and say a prayer as, almost nightly, coffins are loaded for the trip home.
“The administration cannot tell us what we can and cannot publish,” David Boardman, managing editor at The Seattle Times told Editor and Publisher on Monday.
Deep Thought:  If you want to sue somebody, just get a little plastic skeleton and lay it in their yard. Then tell them their ants ate your baby.
Today I am grateful for:  Bob Woodward

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Went to an actual movie out at the theater yesterday.  I have this lunch/movie friend I go with a few times a month and lately I’ve been going to her choices, but Connie and Carla I just couldn’t do so I exerted my will to see this one, which was actually the best of a seriously poor selection this weekend. I like Jim Carrey when he isn’t being a total oaf, and Kaufman is an interesting writer.  Plus it was getting good reviews.  My friend, however, made dragging her feet noises, and I persisted in spite of it.  So it made surrendering to the film difficult because then I felt guilty the entire time.  And it’s a film that demands surrender.  You wouldn’t want to be on drugs to watch this movie, because it’s about as surreal as it gets.  But if you let yourself go with the flow you can be reminded of that bruised feeling the heart gets when all its signals get confused and silly mistakes get made that influence the course of events, taking you sideways or backwards just when you wanted to move forward.  These are your two classic Flawed Characters, but lovable and loving.  I’m going to have to get it in DVD when it comes out so I can really kick back and soak it in no holds barred.

Deep Thought:  People need to realize that every time they talk about how “fragile” our planet is, it’s just like asking outer-space aliens to come invade us.
Today I am grateful for:  Scotch tape

THINGS THAT REFRESH MY SOUL

Hands

These are the hands of my aunt Marjorie who lived to be 98 and was still creating collages (that were sold by her gallery for over $1000 apiece) out of rice paper. (You can see some of them here.) She began to do art when she had retired from a lifetime of teaching as a way to find relief from headaches. It opened a whole new world for her. Her hands were still busy till the day she died releasing her imagination for everyone to see. Hands symbolize so many things – creativity, strength, love, cruelty, hard work. Hands give us music. Hands built our homes. Hands delivered our babies. Hands pray for us. And who does not know the comfort of a hand gently touching us in a time of grief. May you find good use for your hands today.
Deep Thoughts: Most of the time it was probably real bad being stuck down in a dungeon. But some days, when there was a bad storm outside, you’d look out your little window and think, “Boy, I’m glad I’m not out in that.”
Today I am grateful for: All Five Senses

Saturday Thoughts

Here’s a photo of what I see from my office in the morning. My workplace is up on a hill overlooking the river and its east side (where I live). I almost always get to work between 6-7 am, so I usually get to see a sunrise. Walking across this particular stretch is always a spiritual hit for me to begin my day.

Here’s one of those interesting tidbits from The Da Vinci Code that I certainly didn’t know before:
“This number PHI…1.618, is a very important number in art…The number PHI was derived from the Fibonacci sequence–a progression famous not only because the sum of adjacent terms equaled the next term, but because the quotients of adjacent terms possessed the astonishing property of approaching the number 1.618–PHI!…Despite PHI’s seemingly mystical mathematical origins…the truly mind-boggling aspect of PHI was its role as a fundamental building block in nature. Plants, animals, and even human beings all possessed dimensional properties that adhered with eerie exactitude to the ratio of PHI to 1. PHI’s ubiquity in nature…clearly exceeds coincidence, and so the ancients assumed the number PHI must have been preordained by the Creator of the universe. Early scientists heralded 1.618 as the Divine Proportion….Did you know that if you divide the number of female bees by the number of male bees in any beehive in the world, you always get the same number? …PHI…Sunflower seeds grow in opposing spirals. Can you guess the ratio of each rotation’s diameter to the next? PHI…Nobody understood better than DaVinci the divine structure of the human body. He was the first to show that the human body is literally made of building blocks whose proportional ratios always equal PHI. …Measure the distance from the tip of your head to the floor. Then divide that by the distance from your belly button to the floor. Guess what number you get. PHI. Measure the distance from your shoulder to your fingertips, and then divide it by the distance from your elbow to your fingertips. PHI again. Finger joints. Toes. Spinal divisions. PHI. PHI. PHI….When the ancients discovered PHI, they were certain they had stumbled across God’s building blocks for the world, and they worshipped Nature because of that…Even to this day there exist pagan, Mother Earth-revering religions….The symbol the pentagram–or pentacle–is considered both divine and magical by many cultures…The ratios of line segments in a pentacle all equal PHI, making this symbol the ultimate expression of the Divine Proportion.”
Kind of neat huh? Ok Trivial Pursuits over and out.
Deep Thought: If you make ships in a bottle, I bet the thing that really makes your heart sink is when you look in and there at the wheel is Captain Termite.
Today I am grateful for: My Recovery

Friday Five
1. What do you do for a living?
My job title is Web Specialist II. I’ve been making my department’s web pages since 1996, when I volunteered to learn how. At that time, I was a Medical Transcriptionist and mostly typed patient letters, chart notes, and academic stuff for the doctors I work for. As the web pages expanded, it took more of my time and eventually my institution figured out they should make a job classification just for web pages, so I reclassified and my salary jumped. Now I get paid to do what I volunteered for for years first.
2. What do you like most about your job?
I like that I get to be somewhat creative. Web pages consist of information, but you also have to design their format and graphics. I also like that I have a lot of autonomy. I can get up and go for a walk and nobody notices. Or I can make a personal phone call from time to time. Or I can visit Xanga – heheheh.
3. What do you like least about your job?
I have a co-worker in my small office who sits directly behind me when she’s there. It’s like having someone breathe down the back of your neck. Fortunately, she does a lot of her own stuff, so I know she’s not “keeping an eye” on me. Also, some of the doctors can be pretty arrogant. One of them was just a bit too cranky to me the other day. He’s now on my s____ list.
4. When you have a bad day at work it’s usually because _____…
See #3. Or because I work in a hospital, sometimes I see very sick people and it makes me sad.
5. What other career(s) are you interested in?
I’ve never had a career in my life. My job is a job. It’s too late for a career for me. Careers always bring to mind power lunches and power clothes and power hours. Yuck.
Deep Thought: Many people don’t realize that playing dead can help not only with bears, but also at important business meetings.
Today I am grateful for: Whales

The Da Vinci Code

(by Dan Brown)

This is my current bathtub book.  Yes, I do all my reading in  the morning during my regular sudsing.  It’s amazing how many books I’ve ploughed through this way.  I was interested to see what all the fuss was about with this one.  It’s been on the bestseller list for months.  Still not out in paperback so I ordered it from the library and it took quite awhile to arrive.  I’ve read about 100 pages in now and I can report that it’s not great literature, but it is a very enjoyable potboiler, pageturner type mystery novel.  Its fascination for me lies in the many little historical gems that are dropped into the plot – which so far appears to revolve around uncovering some kind of religious cult/sect that is up to no good.  It looks like it’s going to have a standard hero and heroine.  In the opening pages, a curator at The Louvre in Paris is found murdered, having arranged his body in the position of the Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci (see picture) and left some other clues.  So far so good…..

Deep Thought:  When he was a little boy, he had always wanted to be an acrobat. It looked like so much fun, spinning through the air, flipping, landing on other people’s shoulders. Little did he know that when he finally did become an acrobat, it would seem so boring. Years later, after he finally quit, he found out he hadn’t been working as an acrobat after all. He had just been a street weirdo.
Today I am grateful for:  Bach

Something’s Gotta Give

I’ve been meaning to review this film, which I saw on DVD recently. Got to mention at the outset that it is about rich people (check out the beach house) and has that very pretty slick look that some movies have, but if you can get beyond that (and I found it pretty easy) you will find a really charming romance. Diane Keaton looks great (I envy how trim she is) and Nicholson is his usual Real Self. They both have amazing choppers. I so much admire JN for allowing himself to grow old and flabby before our eyes. In the story, he’s apparently much like in real life, a lothario for younger women. But he meets DK and gets struck by love, causing him quite a sea change. It’s like watching a butterfly emerge from a cocoon. What I liked best about the developing relationship between them is how they portrayed the vulnerability we all must experience when we allow someone access to our inner self. And how they let themselves FEEL. A nice side note is the subplot of Keanu Reeves falling for DK – now there’s a twist. There’s also a cameo by Frances McDormand, one of my favorite actresses. So even if you’re young and the thought of romance between “seniors” is gross, try this out. I think it would please anyone.
Deep Thought: Before a mad scientist goes mad, there’s probably a time when he’s only partially mad. And this is the time when he’s going to throw his best parties.
Today I am grateful for: Direct deposit

The Meaning of Life

On days when I can’t think of a damn thing to say, I start contemplating the meaning of life.  (I can’t help it, I’m an old hippie.)  So I did a quick search and found another soul out there in cyberland who apparently also contemplated it.

————-

Why do you want to know the meaning of life?

Often people ask this question when they really want the answer to some other question. Let’s try and get those people back on track with some “pre-meaning of life” advice:

• If you’re questioning the meaning of life because you’ve been unhappy and depressed a good bit, click here.
  
  
  
• On a related note, if you want to know the meaning of life because you feel useless and worthless, click here.
  
  
  
• If you want to see our answer so that you can prove your intellectual prowess by poking holes in it, click here.
  
  
  
• If something awful just happened to you or someone you care about and you don’t understand why bad things happen to good people, click here.
  
  
  
• If you would like to help the world but most of the rest of the world seems completely insane, click here.
  
  
  
• If you wonder why there is so much hatred in the world, click here.
  
  
  
• If you wonder why there is so much violence in our society, click here.
  
  
  
• If you really don’t care about the meaning of life, you’re just surfing and ended up here, click here.

If after perusing the questions and side issues above, you’re still wondering what life is really all about, you may be ready for the next step in this exposition on the meaning of life. Of course, if you’re like most people, you’ve read all of the above links and now you want to find out what bombast the authors of this site will spew next, so click on to:

The Meaning of Life – Part II

Comments? Bored? Email is almost free. You can Email us here.

_________________________

Deep Thought:  If you think a weakness can be turned into a strength, I hate to tell you this, but that’s another weakness.
Today I am grateful for:  More than one way to get to work.

The Latest Popular Xanga Quiz
(Borrowed from jkhsquonk)
1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says.
“Truly I was filled with longing and I thought: I wish that both Siddhartha and I may live to see the day when we can hear the teachings from the lips of the Perfect One.” (from Siddhartha by Herman Hesse)
2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What do you touch first?
A round gray and brown incense holder.
3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Imus in the Morning. Interviewing Mary Matalin. Yuck.
4. WITHOUT LOOKING, guess what time it is.
5:30 a.m.
5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
5:28 a.m.
6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
A car driving by.
7. When did you last step outside?
Yesterday afternoon around 5:00 pm to water my back yard. It got over 80 in Portland yesterday for the first time. That’s typical weather here – one day it’s pouring rain, the next day it’s 80.
8. Before you came to this website, what did you look at?
My Delphi forums.
9. What are you wearing?
A dark red long-sleeved T shirt, brown corduroy slacks, and light brown suede Birkenstocks with brown knee socks.
10. Did you dream last night?
Yes, I think so. All I can remember is trying to learn to sell something on eBay.
11. When did you last laugh?
Watching Something’s Gotta Give.
12. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Pictures and other art objects made by my grandchildren. A photo of one of my cats. A bulletin board with various flotsam on it. A Van Gogh print, a calendar from my oil heating company, and a print of a late 17th century Japanese screen.
13. Seen anything weird lately?
The dead mouse my cats deposited neatly on my bathroom rug during the night.
14. What do you think of this quiz?
I like it.
15. What is the last film you saw?
Without Evidence – an awful video but interesting because it was about a true incident here in Oregon and Angelina Jolie has a bit part. The rest of the actors were unknowns.
16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight, what would you buy first? 
Investment funds for each member of my family. Payoff of all my debts, including my mortgage.
17. Tell me something about you that I don’t know..
I have arthritis in my thumb joints. This makes it very difficult for me to write in longhand. But typing is still quite feasible. Good thing since it’s what I do for a living.
18. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Give free health care to everyone.
19. Do you like to dance?
I never think about it anymore but I enjoyed it off and on during my life.
20. George Bush: is he a power-crazy nutcase or some one who is finally doing something that has needed to be done for years?
He is a symbol of a group of folks who are extremely greedy, arrogant, and power-hungry. And I’m afraid he will be overwhelmingly reelected thanks to all the money he has to spend on publicity.
21. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
I’ve already had my first child who is a girl named Jane.
 21. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
He was the second child, named Josh.
22. Would you ever consider living abroad?
No.
 23. Will you pass on this survey?
Anyone who wishes to use it on their site is welcome to it
Deep Thought: “I’ll take that little one, way in the back,” I said. “That little collie mix?” said the animal shelter guy. “No,” I said, “the other one behind him.” “The gray terrier?” he said. “He’s gray,” I said, “but way in the back, in the corner.” “You mean the water faucet?” he said. I realized then it was a water faucet, but I didn’t want to look like a jerk, so I said, “Yeah, that’s the one I want.” It ended up costing me almost five hundred dollars to get that faucet removed. But you know, I’ve still got that faucet, and I wouldn’t trade it for any dog in the world.
Today I am grateful for: Red grapes

Happy Easter!

THINGS THAT REFRESH MY SOUL

Gardens

This is not a particularly good photo of my mother or of a garden, but it is the last photo I have of my mother gardening before she was gone. It remains in my heart as a symbol of who she was – someone who looked for the good in everything and raged against the bad all her life. She was an extraordinary grandmother to my two children, a devoted wife of over 50 years to my father (though it was not an easy relationship) who gave him meticulous care over his own last years as he sank beneath the combined forces of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, and a vigilant mother to me (as I battled my own demons). She loved on a large scale – she loved humanity. She was political and spiritual equally – she made them seem like the same thing. When I was a child she planted the flowerbox in the miniature house my father built me on the farm, and when she died I left her ashes in her last garden. I am old enough now to need a small chair to sit on when I garden like she does in the photo. And every time I experience the pleasure of my garden – the warmth of the sun on my back, the warmth of the earth to my fingers, the smells and colors of nature – I think of her.
Deep Thought: Sometimes kids are so cruel to animals, especially insects. I remember one time I caught this grasshopper, and I made him wear a little straw hat that I had made. Also a little pair of denim overalls. And I made him hold this little tiny pitchfork. So guess what he looked like? What is the enemy of the grasshopper and the one thing he wouldn’t want to look like? That’s right, a farmer.
Today I am grateful for: Worms