Deal

Quote from my friend and coworker Fabienne's signature tagline on email...

"The measure of our future success and happiness will not be the quality of the cards we are dealt by unseen hands, but the poise and wisdom with which we play them. Choose to play each hand to the best of your ability without wasting the time or energy it takes to complain about either the cards or the dealer or the often unfair rules of the game. Play both the winning and the losing hands as best you can, then fold the cards and ante up for the next deal!"

Death of an innocent

Not sure I can write about this, but I need to. I need to acknowledge it and share this hurt, send it out into the world and see if there are any ripples.

Sitting in traffic this morning I saw a small dead animal in the middle of the road. I am a person that becomes deeply distraught when I think too long about the plight of the only true innocents on our planet, the animals, and their suffering at man's hand, so typically the moment that my brain acknowledges that what I see is an animal I look away... If I look elsewhere I won't think about it, if I won't think about it I won't have to deal with it, if I don't have to deal with it then I won't have to do anything about it. But today I could not look away, I stared. I thought at first it was a tiny red fox. As I looked longer into the face and and at the shape of this tiny victim, I realized that it was a very small fawn. Looking down its body and seeing the fragile spindle legs and tiny hooves shocked my mind into recognition.

I almost break down thinking of it. I wondered how it had gotten there, what had happened to its mother. As I thought more I realized that the week before I had noticed an adult deer that had been killed in the same area, its body laying off toward the woods on the side of the road, but unmistakably deceased. I wonder if this tiny fawn was its offspring, staying near its mother until finally, confused and starving, it wandered into the road to be killed.

Sweet sad little life, my heart breaks for you.

<<< 7:10 pm >>>

Driving home I struggle to keep my mind from focusing on where the tragedy happened. Eyes betray me in finding the small, snowy untainted flash of white on this tainted day.

I raise my hand to block the sight and recognize my unwilling tragic salute...

and whisper insufficient prayer for forgiveness of mankind, "one still mourns..."

Our Amazing Race to submit our Amazing Race application!

More to come this evening... But, at the very last possible moment, WE DID IT! Applications had to be received today (07/26) by 5 pm, our Fed Ex package went out last night, at the very last available Fed Ex dropoff, the place closed at 8:15 pm, we arrived at 8:05.

Cellar°y

We ate at a good restaurant last night, I enjoyed the food and the company, but the prices and the restaurant attitude (for lack of a better word, ambiance doesn't quite get it) were full of themselves to the point of being amusingly silly.

So, if I had an overpriced pretentious little restaurant like Watershed, I would call it Cellar°y. And, instead of having the claim to fame that everything is cooked in butter and heavy cream (even the burgers, ridiculous!), mine would have the claim to fame that everything would be cooked in olive oil and other light natural ingredients. And, of course, it would have a great selection of wines, including a bunch available on the cheap.

But, as my killjoy spouse likes to say "it takes more than a great idea to open a restaurant." Feel the love here? Thanks, babe.


{{{Amendment 07/25/05 9:05 am --- OK, I may have been a bit harsh, it has been a while since John and I have left Gwinnett for sustenance, so I think my view of prices and attitudes may be tainted by ongoing exposure to only common OTP suburban folk [which I myself am], forgetting the attitudes and pretentiousness that are simply part of the "In" ITP Atlantan landscape}}}

I am digging on Damien Rice

Damien Rice, The Hornblower's Daughter lyrics:


And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...


And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time

And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial


I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...


Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?


I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...

My mind...my mind...

'Til I find somebody new

Art du jour

Check out this webpage. Dogumentarian

I want to be this lady.

Check this out, it ROCKS!

Found an AWESOME anti-Bush game. Very educational, with lots of good info. Check it out!!



.

1/3 of the way through, I am loving this one !

It's official, I'm a dumb ass.

OK, so here I am puzzling over this recipe in the South Beach Diet (while prepping other food in between) over the course of the last hour. I read and reread (and reread) the recipe and finally come up here and start searching for it online, because I am SURE that it is missing a key piece of information, like OVEN TEMPERATURE! I could guess, but heck, it could be pretty darn important.

<<<<< Light dawns... >>>>>

Recipe is for "Broiled Flank Steak." That means "Broiled." For those of you who are equally oven-illiterate... There is only one temperature on that round thing in the middle that says "Broil."

Yes, I know the broiler is the part at the bottom, OK?!

Doi.

Spurlock's 30 Days

Spurlock's next big thing, 30 days, is pretty good. A tongue in cheek and condescending look at "poco profundo" Americans (the spanish word for shallow is so much more telling) outside their narrow little comfort zones. Makes you think, though, which is more than I can say for most TV.

South Beach Diet info moved

I was sick of cluttering up my general BLOG with info about my pathetic diet. If you want to keep tabs on me... And lord knows somebody probably should... Go to
http://c-rella1.blogspot.com/, or click the new link in the right toolbar.

Terrorists suck.

Yesterday morning when I woke up, the morning after the terror attacks on London, I had this moment about half way through my morning routine when I realized that the world could be in chaos and I wouldn't even know. I hadn't been listening to the radio. There are no TVs upstairs, so no TV in the background. I had this sudden mini panic attack of 'Oh my god, what if bombs have gone off at 50 other places since the last time I was paying attention?!'

I feel for all the lives lost and I am filled with sorrow for those innocent lives and all the surrounding lives impacted by these ruthless acts.

I think the worst impact is robbing all of us (British included, now) of our security. There was a time when it was safe to sleep through the night. When people felt they could tune in to music instead of news radio in the mornings. When we could all sleepwalk onto our trains, our buses, our airplanes, under the hypnotic spell that was the myth of our security, that is no more.

Is the time is coming for us all to shake off the sleepy head of egocentric apathy and unite toward a common resolve? Personally I think being in Iraq is stupid and pointless, and failing to accomplish anything except to reinforce negativity about the U.S. There must be some better and united direction to go to, rather than everyone existing on their own island of humanity, I do believe we must find it. We are compelled to find it.

I am no politico. I do not care to be. I will, however, unite and fight (figuratively - literally, to struggle, work, leave my comfort zones and make efforts in some way) to regain my sense of security.

Terrorists suck.

I want to be on the Amazing Race

3 minute video required, I think John's willing to apply... Suggestions anyone? Serious tactic, humourous tactic, drama tactic? No tactic, just boring selves?

Heathen addendum

I went back and finished reading my sis' article and have to say that it was very well written and thoughtful, and worth reading if you haven't already. We heathens can be a bit off-put initially by the immediate Jesus references, but this one is right on the money. 'Nuff said.

So I'm a heathen... So ?!

My lovely Christian sister (side note.... wasn't that an 80's rock band?) writes articles for the editorial section of the Wilson County News. You can check them out by clicking the link in the right bar of my blog, going into the Editorial section and looking for articles by Julie Smith.

So, her most recent article is titled "‘What would Jesus do’ today?." I'll be honest and admit I didn't finish reading, not only am I a heathen but I'm a political apathist. Feel free to comment on my worthlessness at will.

Anyway, it just made me laugh, because John (husband and atheist) and I recently laughed our asses off when I said I'd have to get one of those "WWJD" bracelets, except for me it would mean "What Would John Do?" ! Ha! Funny, right? RIGHT? Come on. Sympathy laugh or something here.

- The heathen.

Thanks to Erica for the laugh!! :)

I won't call it a wasted day...

In my recent quest for hobbies I stumbled across an Atlanta book club (http://bookclub.meetup.com/82/ <---- FIXED NOW, that's what I get for copying the code!) and wound up spending today reading Anne Tyler's "The Accidental Tourist." [[[If I could remember more of my English coursework from college I would put those references in the appropriate font types, but let's face it, its just too dam much work to research for too little reward]]].

I had seen and loved the movie several years ago, but you just can't do in film what you can on paper... Cases in point, a couple of excerpts that struck me:

"Gazing out of the window, he all at once recalled Ethan as an infant. Ethan used to cry unless he was tightly wrapped in a blanket; the pediatrician had explained that new babies have a fear of flying apart. Macon had not been able to imagine that at the time, but now he had no trouble. He could picture himself separating, falling into pieces, his head floating away with terrifying swiftness in the eerie green air of Alberta."


And, a conversation with a stranger about reuniting with your spouse after a separation, and floating through the relationship, still not connecting - "times I feel we're just hanging in there":

" 'Like someone who's suffered a loss in a war,' she said, 'and then forever afterward she has to go on supporting the war; she has to support it louder than anyone else, because otherwise she'd be admitting the loss was for no purpose.' "