The kids had their wisdom teeth out on Friday…so this weekend has been one for rest and recuperation.
It’s kind of nice when I can “piggyback” in on the “rest” stuff. I can rest along with everyone else and get away with being kind of lazy….for the sake of solidarity.
That works for me.
So it was a quiet day….with two movies to enjoy.
Easy.
We ended up renting “Guardians of the Galaxy” (excellent) and this movie….”The 100 Foot Journey”.
They were pretty different choices.
I really liked “Guardians…” ….but I loved “The 100 Foot Journey”.
What a sensual movie.
Indian immigrants open a restaurant across the street from an established and popular French restaurant….and the resulting competition creates issues between the owner of the French restaurant and the Indian family.
The characters in this movie love food.
They love preparing it.
They love serving it.
Shopping for ingredients…..foraging for wild ingredients…..cooking the ingredients…..it was all so….and the word comes around again because my head is fuzzy and the caffeine hasn’t really kicked in yet and my vocabulary is limited and….awwwww….the word…..sensual.
So sensual.
Beautiful.
Full of love.
Maybe that’s what I liked so much about this movie….it was so full of love.
This is one to watch a couple of times….at least.
Good food….good movies….good company.
What a pleasure.
Lasse Hallstrom….who directed “My Life as a Dog” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” was the director for this movie.
Nate said that I should do my blog post this morning about monkeys.
“And a little child shall lead them….”
I told him I’d do the post about monkeys….and I keep my promises.
Here’s a Christmas video featuring some snow monkeys.
(Actually….a PS 2/22/2015….the video with the snow monkeys and the nice Christmas music was deleted by YouTube….but the monkeys looked like this….in their warm bath on a snowy day….)
WTH.
What the heck?!
What do monkeys have to do with Christmas?
But, wait….what doesn’t have something to do with Christmas?
What wasn’t affected by the Christmas story?
We don’t think of monkeys very often when it comes to the Christmas story….but they have more to do with Christmas than a bunch of shoppers fighting it out on Black Friday.
Our Christmas isn’t only about the mad rush to satisfy some need to ….satisfy some need.
A monkey in the snow has more of the real spirit of Christmas than someone with a full shopping cart and an already maxed out credit card….frantically grabbing something that might make someone else happy for a while.
A monkey!!
I don’t know what a monkey thinks about….but I know what I think about….and a monkey couldn’t be any farther away from the real spirit of Christmas than I get sometimes.
A monkey has a better chance of knowing than I do….sometimes…..and I’M A MAN….WITH DOMINION….SMARTER THAN A MONKEY!!
I miss some things…..I do remember what Christmas and the miracle is all about….I just get caught up in all the distractions like everyone else seems to do.
Nate told me that this morning it was all about monkeys.
And having my blog post be all about monkeys seemed kind of crazy.
Christmas monkeys…..crazy Christmas monkeys.
That’s weird.
But not any weirder than what we’ve turned Christmas into.
Go, you little snow monkeys with your zenlike appreciation of a miracle, go….you’ve got it going on, little monkeys.
I had a dream about the pond over at the property that we bought.
All the water was gone.
Almost all the water….there was still some goo at the bottom.
Goo….and stumps….maybe a refrigerator or two….flies…lots of dead fish.
Lots of dead fish….and 4 dead grass carp.
Here’s a picture of us putting the grass carp in the pond…..
Unless the pond actually drained overnight….those fish are still in there….eating up all the weird algae and grass choking the pond out.
So….I didn’t wake up because I was scared.
I wasn’t scared that the pond was looking kind of dry.
I think that I was thoughtful….thought-full.
I was excited that the house was quiet.
Dreams are still weird.
The heater in the Jeep stopped working…just in time for the deep freeze to come. I better figure out what’s going on and get it fixed.
I need heat.
I need heat because it’s hard enough to deliver the mail without something that I don’t have to concentrate on to fill up the edges of my day with something pleasant….like warmth.
I need good tunes….and I need the comfort that heat provides.
I don’t ask for much….just some good tunes, wheels that don’t grind off because I let bad hubs go too long and too far……and some heat.
I’ve got to get that heat figured out.
And this pond thing, too.
I’ll have to stop over at the property and make sure there is still water in the hole.
What am I going to do about it if it’s empty, anyway?
Cry me a river? Or a pond?
I don’t think so.
My former teacher, Flo, posted this movie trailer on Facebook yesterday.
It looks right up my alley.
Big disasters on the movie screen are easier to take than dreams about dry ponds….
And that’s a good reason not to worry about what the car is or isn’t doing, too.
If you’re going to get swallowed up by the earth anyway, what’s the problem with a little wobble or a bad bearing?
If you’re going to be swallowed up, what would it hurt to not have heat for a cold season?
I was looking for the movie called “On the Edge” this morning….and ran across this.
On the Edge is a running movie that Bruce Dern made a while back. I watched it when it first came out and haven’t seen it since….and thought it would be fun to watch it again sometime.
That’s the kind of stuff I do when I can’t think of anything to write my blog about…..look for old Bruce Dern running movies.
Anyway….the trailer for this movie was on YouTube…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaLZT3WZnAg
THUMB TRIPPING!!!!
How about that? That looks like a crazy kind of movie, huh?
Bruce Dern playing a crazy!!! That’s how crazy that old movie is!!
It’s entertaining to watch these bad old movies…..entertaining for me.
To the people around me, I think that it’s probably a cruel torture.
I’m not cruel….just not very discerning when it comes to old Bruce Dern movies.
Listen to the theme song in this one…..”YOU’VE GOT TO GO WHERE THE FEELIN’ TAKES YOU….”!!
This looks pretty bad.
I need to see this movie.
Here’s the movie that I was trying to watch sometime….On the Edge….It’s a little bit better quality story.
But….THUMB TRIPPING!! THAT’S THE MOVIE TO SEE! THE HOLY GRAIL OF BAD BRUCE DERN MOVIES….IT’S THE ONE.
It hit me this morning that, no matter how much we dress them up…. or how “grownupify” we make our homes….what we are really pushing for is a fort.
We need a tree house, a big cardboard box with some holes cut for windows and doors, a tent (!)….we need something that mimics the feeling we got when we made something for ourselves so “way back when”.
Biggest, nicest, most envy worthy….all are great things to shoot for, I suppose….but at the end of the day, it’s just cool to have something warm to lay down in.
Check out this guy’s tents….I haven’t seen anything quite like this before.
I’ve heard that a home is a good investment….an “investment”….and I know that can be true….but the real payoff is something pretty different than something we can put in a bank account.
Here’s another in a long line….a deep pool….a big pile….a…..bunch of videos that I’ve watched about people building something cool to live in and around.
This time, it’s a bunch of French dudes with hammers and saws, a good amount of imagination, and a lot of hard work who’ve crafted a neat place for themselves.
If you don’t end up leaving some good idea “inside your head”….and you’re a hard worker with some skill….you can craft a place that’s more special than something that someone else built by rote…..(“rote”….how do you spell “rote”? I’ve done it a million times….thought I could do it in my sleep….but I can’t remember exactly how to spell “rote”.)
All this stuff is “doable”. (How do you spell “doable”? “do-able”? I’m not sure I can do it correctly….maybe I should pick something that I already know how to do….already…..)
“I can’t do my house without the others” …..that’s a nice quote from our guide on this tour of funky homes.
Here’s another video about people converting something….in this case a schoolbus…. into a home to live in.
I’m obsessed with that…..and when I think about it, I have been for a long time.
There are so many options in this world and this life….
You can go the route of the “completely put together” home….new everything…fresh paint….no oil marks on the new concrete drive…or….
you can get something kind of different….like an old schoolbus….and spend some time and a little money to make something that’s not so traditional….but livable and paid for.
I think that “paid for” is the key.
I don’t like debt.
This isn’t for most….or even for everyone.
But for the few with the creative option to do something like this….it’s a pretty cool alternative.
Here’s another video of a person who made a home out of some old shipping containers.
I’m not sure that shipping containers make good homes, but it’s kind of an interesting option.
Both of these videos….and many of the videos that I’ve used on this blog…are by Kirsten Dirksen. She makes excellent videos of alternative building methods. Check out more of her videos at faircompanies.com.
The only other Norwegian that Jenny apparently knew before me was this angry guy out in Colorado who took all his family’s money….plus some mysterious secret stash of cash that he’d squirreled away somehow….and left for Alaska, leaving them all behind.
That’s her precedent with Norwegians.
I think that sometimes she thinks that I have the “angry” part down pat…..but I’m not going anywhere….so I must be a different sort of Norwegian.
Anyway….that’s kind of irrelevant information…except to point out that maybe there’s a reason for her to worry when I look at videos like this…and I ponder how cool it would be to be able to move my house whenever I wanted to.
It would be cool to wake up to a different sunrise every now and then….even if the sunrise I wake up to now is pretty nice.
That would be good.
Of course, when Alex Honnold demonstrates that there’s barely room for one in the back of his “move mobile”, he’s making the idea of cruising around in a van and sleeping in exotic natural locales kind of a hard sell.
It wouldn’t go over very well to get to where I’m going, turn to my family, and say, “OK….now where are you guys going to sleep?” as I tucked myself in to my luxurious pad in the back.
That wouldn’t go over at all.
Maybe I need a school bus?
Something big with bunks and giant banks of batteries to run all the gizmos we’d drag along?
A facilitation vehicle….something that would handle life on the road with a family of….6? 5? One’s away at college….soon to be two away….the other ones are little still.
The big kids do like fun….maybe they’d want to drop out and live it out on the highway, too?
Hmmmmm.
How big should this ark be?
I don’t have this figured out yet.
I’ll have to call Alaska and cancel the reservation….I’m not ready yet.
Look up “Alex Honnold” on YouTube….he’s a great climber.
I sit here in the morning and write in the glare of the computer screen….drinking my french press’ worth of coffee one cup at a time, and sometimes all I can think of is me.
That’s kind of gross, really….this self absorption….but I’m by myself….I’m in myself….so all I can imagine to write about some mornings is what I’m feeling at the moment..
Sometimes, I write about my family….but that’s kind of hard not to release all the “secret stuff” with my blabbermouth.
I’ve stopped short of listing all the dates of birth and social security numbers, though.
I do have some sense, after all.
I read this article last night….it appeared in the magazine Blue Ridge Outdoors this month….and one of the families that they featured is one that I’ve known for years.
I should re-phrase that.
I’ve known the “momma and poppa” for years.
I don’t know the kids.
Anyway, the family I know is from Birmingham, AL….the Davis family.
It was a great article….and one quote from their daughter jumped out at me.
“Bringing us outside and doing adventures with us was such an escape from an otherwise mundane life,” she says. “It took you out of your box, out of your suburban bubble. [My parents] prepared me to go out into the world and not be so self-focused, so caught up in this small view of the world, and to be more free from it.”
Of course, I don’t have permission to use the quote. I don’t have permission to do anything. I’m sitting here in the dark before “a creature was stirring”….before anyone else gets up….typing away all by my lonesome. Who would I even ask for “permission”?
I am by myself….and in myself.
“My parents prepared me to go out into the world and not be so self-focused….”
I will have to ponder that for a long time….here in my little temporary bubble.
( I’m kidding…..I get it….I don’t need to ponder.)
That’s a great quote.
The quote about the choice to not have a television set was a good one, too.
That’s what it comes down to….and I’ve written about that before…..choices.
That’s the only real power we have….the power of choice.
Of course, I will sit and numb myself with the dumbest stuff on television…..and think about getting outside for a run again sometime….and wondering, while I watch a lady demonstrate a really effective vacuum cleaner, why “sometime” never seems to get here.
Most of the things that I ponder the hardest is the stuff I know I need to change the most.
“Not be so self-focused”
Ah, that’s a great gift to give your kids.
It’s a great gift, too, that your children recognize what you did for them.
Listen for a line in this song about “freedom”….one of my favorite lines from Chris Rice….
“prone to wander” Chris Rice
I know that sometimes, your choices are “made for you”. There’s things that happen that kind of force our hands. Sometimes, things seem to be out of our control.
Sometimes, we’re just responding to events….never making our way towards something good because we’re convinced that maybe we don’t deserve it or something…or never getting a chance to approach good things because we think…or, maybe, KNOW…. that there’s a fire to put out somewhere.
Sometimes that happens….but not all the time.
I guess that “opportunity”…combined with “good choices” can make for a nice life.
Opportunity…..
Hmmmmm…..
I like the part about not being so self-focused a lot.
I am going to really have to work on that.
I can’t stop thinking about how self-focused I am, though.
I need to get my mind on someone else for a while.
