Whatever you want

I thought this was a funny story. A friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) is at a conference this week in Chicago on her own. After hitting the gym at the hotel after her last seminar, she went back to her room and called down to room service to order up some dinner. She ordered her meal and a glass of pinot noir. Thinking out loud, she said, "Can I order two glasses of wine?"

The woman taking her order laughed and said, "Honey, you can order whatever you want."

Yippie-yi-yo-ki-yay

I had to stop by the Post Office today at lunch to get some more stamps for first of the month bills and such. They didn't have very many choices to chose from, but they did have these awesome cowboy stamps!! (I may have surprised the man at the counter when I gave a little excited squeak about the cowboy stamps. I don't really look like a cowboy fan.) I can't wait to send out some cards using them!



Definitely sending a Roy Rogers one to my mom; she loves Roy Rogers. (Personally, I like John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, but he wasn't one of the cowboys in this bunch.)

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Happy birthday, Will Shakespeare, and Happy St. George's Day, England!



We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Henry V.iv.3

Perspective

Aunt E forwarded me this email, and I really liked it a lot, so I am sharing it with my blog readers. It is about keeping things in perspective, which I find hard to do sometimes.

As is the way of email "forwards" some of the truth of this original column was lost, and with this post I am trying to restore the truth. The original email came with this header: "Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio 'To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:'" I Googled Regina Brett, and she is not 90. That is an urban legend; she is in her 50s. (Either that or she has some DAMN FINE genes.) Anyhow, these are Regina's perspective on perspective.

Regina Brett's 45 life lessons and 5 to grow on

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.

It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolls over to 50 this week, so here's an update:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: "In five years, will this matter?"

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

42. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

45. The best is yet to come.

46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

48. If you don't ask, you don't get.

49. Yield.

50. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift.

Happy Earth Day!

This is my little bit to show how much I appreciate our environment. (It makes for AWESOME viewing!)

British Rock Films

On Monday night, I watched Pirate Radio, a Richard Curtis film that is known in the UK as The Boat that Rocked. The film is about a pirate radio station on a ship off of the coast in the 1960s that broadcast rock and roll 24 hours a day back when British broadcasters didn't allow that sort of thing! (Egads!) The movie was really entertaining and was chock full of some of my favorite Brit actors. Kenneth Branagh and Jack Davenport play the government officials hell bent on bringing down the pirates, while Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Chris O'Dowd (ROY!), and Nick Frost play a few of the pirate broadcasters. (ARGH!) Two of the sassiest girls from St. Trinian's and the ever excellent Emma Thompson make cameo appearances! Yay!!

Being set at a radio station, you can imagine that the soundtrack is killer. It is some of the very best '60s music, including The Kinks, Turtles, Beach Boys, Who, Rolling Stones, Moody Blues, Dusty Springfield, and Procol Harem. I was totally singing along with much of it. Rock and roll from that era was such fun, and this film really highlights that.

This film actually resonated with something very personal to me. Back in the day before our local alternative station here in Boston was streaming on the web, JR and I had each downloaded the Virgin Radio UK player onto our computers and would listen to that all day. (I actually can listen to music and work at the same time. I actually work BETTER - and not just when I am collating - when I have music on in the background.) There was tons of our favorite music, and yet, every day, at random points during the day, one of the DJs would play Guns and Roses' "Paradise City". It was so incongruous with the rest of the music on the station, artists like Blur, Supergrass, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Manic Street Preachers, Morrissey, and Kylie (that's Minogue.) We would email each other when it was on and laugh and laugh. Now our station does stream on the web, but a few years ago, it was the Virgin player that got us our daily dose of Brit pop.

North Americans be forewarned: there was a significant amount of editing from the way this film was shown in Britain to the way it was shown in America, so people watching the Region 1 disc should be sure to watch the deleted scenes to appreciate the scope of director Richard Curtis' original vision.

This film is definitely getting added to my list of favorite British rock and roll movies: 24 Hour Party People, Velvet Goldmine, and Sid and Nancy (although I have problems with that film, mostly because I hate Nancy SO MUCH.) I still need to see Control, and I want to see Nowhere Boy, even though I am not a big fan of the Beatles. (I know, I know, take away my Anglophile card.) I also really want to see the Blur film, No Distance Left to Run, but that is proving difficult to find.

Do you have a favorite rock and roll film that you think I should watch? If you do, be sure to let me know in the comments, and I will let you know in another post what I think of it!

Exhuming McCarthy

On my drive home from my doctor's appointment after work today, I was listening to Tom Ashbrook's "On Point" on WBUR where the topic for the first hour was "Examining the Socialist Charge". This was prompted by today's Tea Party rally on the Boston Common, starring Sarah Palin. (While I don't agree with many of the tenets of the Tea Party, I can understand its members frustration with the course things are on at the moment. However, the fact that the Tea Party has a politician who used state funds for personal expenses as their spokesperson makes my head hurt.)

My favorite moment from the show was when a caller who had grown up in East Germany but now lives in the States said that Americans have no idea what Communism is. It gave me pause. Because we don't know what Communism is. Even though we have to pay taxes and bail out the banks and things are hard right now for middle class people (like myself) in America, at least we can go to school and study things that we want to and take jobs in fields we are interested in rather than be assigned a job in a field just because there is need. We don't need to get permission from the government before we get married or go on vacation and be told by them where you have to live and have them tell you that you can only have one kid (but if it is a girl then you can try one more time for a boy.)

"Communist" is a word that has been thrown around a lot lately. It reminds me of McCarthyism. Let's not go back there, America. Find another word, find another way.