(The video didn't make it to Google Reader.... But it's on here.)

You've probably heard about the tragic plane crash in San Diego this week. I hope you've also had a chance to see this good, good man speak to the press about it. A military jet returning to Miramar crashed into his home when the second engine failed only two miles from the runway. The pilot ejected safely after attempting to steer the jet toward an empty canyon. 

Imagine the sorrow of this poor man. While he was at work, this totally insane mishap took the lives of his wife, his two baby daughters (one was 15 months old, the other a newborn), and his wife's mother who had come from Korea to help with the new baby. They had only moved into the home a few weeks ago. 

When we first heard of the crash and it still seemed like maybe there weren't any casualties, both Matt and I were questioning of the pilot's decision. Did he really eject and save himself while this plane was about to crash into people's homes? Seriously? We wondered. . . maybe he really had no control over the plane and had no choice but to bail. Or maybe he was panicked for his own life and was hating himself for not doing more. . . . 

If we had questions, I can't imagine what might have gone through this young father's heart. He spoke to the press the day after the accident and—imagine—asked us all to pray for the pilot, that he would not suffer because of this accident. He called him a treasure for our country, and said sincerely that he didn't blame him at all. It was heartbreaking when he said that he knew others had experienced even more painful things than this, and "please tell me how you do it—I don't know what to do. . . ."

I can't stop thinking about this man....

I've thought about how litigious our culture has become—how quickly we seek to lay blame on someone when we suffer. But here is one man who, in the crux of his unimaginable suffering, and not even knowing enough details to really be sure the pilot had done all he could do, here he is asking the public to remember him—the pilot—in our prayers. What an inspiring example he has been—a truly Christlike example in this tragedy.

I'm sort of hesitant to post this news video—I wish the extra commentary didn't make the story so trite. But I do hope people get a chance to hear Dong Yun Yoon's words. (His press conference—I think it was 7 minutes long—is probably on the internet somewhere unedited. It's worth watching.) I believe so much in the inherent goodness of mankind—of our truly divine natures. We are subject to so many frailties in this mortal world, and are rarely able to avoid them enough to act up to par with that nature. But we see so much goodness. We really do. And this week, Mr. Yoon showed us some of that great Light. It makes me feel so incredibly petty for the little grudges I sometimes hold. . . . I hope I can continue to grow away from that, and learn forgiveness and love like our infinitely forgiving and perfectly loving Savior. And I'm thankful to see His light in others.

Something Funny. . .

I read the Twilight series.

Ha ha! If you're not laughing right now, you probably don't know me. But, believe me, it's funny. I laugh every time I think about it. I read the Twilight series! Ha ha ha! (See? :))

Not that I never read easy-to-read books, because I definitely do. I just don't tend to be very interested in: A) novels written for 13-year-olds; B) novels everyone—everyone—is reading (makes me very skeptical... :)); C) novels written for 13-year-olds that 33-year-olds are acting like 13-year-olds over. Oh, and D) novels about vampires. Hehe. 

But, here's the funniest thing: I actually liked them! Ha ha! Not in a way to make me carve "I heart Edward" into my furniture or anything. . . . Hehe. Or to bang on Barnes and Noble windows with 100 wild women to get the newest release when the clock strikes twelve. . . . But I liked them. :) So much of the story was really very sweet, and I think Stephenie Meyer actually did a really decent job at creating interesting, whole characters (for the most part). It was kind of fun! 

(Oh, and don't worry—no spoilers here. :))

Here's my great sorrow, though. . . . Oh! The agony! I think my favorite book of the series was Twilight—and its big climax could have been SOOOOO good. You know. . . . The part with the. . . hand. . . . :) OooOOOoooh.... [While I shudder.] Could have been amazing. But it kind of fell flat. I finished and thought, argh! If only she hadn't written it from Bella's perspective! And by the fourth book, when she did experiment with writing from another perspective I was seriously mad at her. Why not in the first book?!!! Why?!! Why?!!! Seriously, it might just be silly teen fiction about vampires, but that one scene could have been a really awesome conflict. I drool just thinking about its awesomeness! But it doesn't exist. So sad.... (I do predict, however, that she's going to pull an Orson Scott Card one of these days, and rewrite the series from Edward's perspective. And then—then!—we'll get that scene in all its glory. We'll see! I think I'll be right. :))

One reason I had fun reading these is that the writing style totally made me laugh! Back before I had even heard of these books, a friend of mine asked if I'd read them, saying they totally reminded her of me! When Matt read them a long while later, it dawned on me that those were the books she was talking about—I told Matt what she had said and he started laughing his head off. "It's true! They totally sound like you! HA HA HA!!" And several others agreed as well. It made me curious to read them! But I didn't, and then I forgot again about all those people talking about it. When I was a couple chapters into Twilight, I suddenly had the thought that "haha! This sounds like me!" And then I remembered that I wasn't the first to think that. Hehe. Anyway, that made for some fun reading for me. Bella talks just how I talk in my journal! See what I mean that my posterity will have the all wrong impression? But I can't help it! It's just too fun to write that way! :)

So Bella and I talk much the same way, but there are also lots of other reasons we're kindred spirits! It was like reading a really tripped-out story about myself! (Not that I attract impossibly perfect vampires. :))

• She's lethally bad at volleyball! (Don't ever, ever ask me to play. Really. :))

• In high school, she was totally disgusted with herself when she was dumb enough to crush on someone.

• But she hardly ever had a crush on anyone. And she always rolls her eyes at shameless flirts. Hehe. (So dumb. Flirts are, that is. :))

• She'd rather wear jeans! Always. :)

• She loathes the idea of school dances. 

• At any time, she might randomly start comparing life to a scene or character in some book her audience probably hasn't read. :)

• She uses m-dashes and ellipses liberally—as in this sentence—to add dramatic impact to her run-on sentences. . . . Yes!

• She often accidentally led guys on (sorry all...lots of you... :-|) and then acts the same way about letting them down that I always did. Very stressful. ;-)

• She inherently distrusts any female who appears to spend more than two minutes on her hair and/or wears too much make-up.

• She always has a guy sneak into her room for the night. (Oh, um. . . . Uh. . . . ;))

• Her sense of humor is exactly like mine! Haha! Exactly! Especially when she'd crack some cynical little joke in the midst of some actually-horrible thing. That's me! Made me laugh.

• Oh, and she also deals with pain exactly like me. I was totally in her head on that.

• She's almost entirely unreadable and hard to get to know. Does not wear her heart on her sleeve, whether she wants to or not (but she usually doesn't want to :)).

• Her modus operandi (ha ha! That's such a ridiculous term!) is self-control! I was more than totally in her head about that. Bella never would have wanted to get drunk—way too creepy to not be in control. . . . Riding on the back of a vampire. . . ? Having needles stuck into you? Being really. . . thirsty? ;) I was always in her mind with stuff like that because I'm exactly the same! 

It was kind of weird! The only times I didn't feel like I was actually reading about myself were when she'd tell someone off with some beautiful quip—it was always the exact kind of thing I'd think but not have the guts to say. Then again, my life hasn't been quite so intense as Bella's. Hehe. Maybe under considerably more pressure, I'd actually say those things. :) If I hung around with vampires, that is. Ha ha! Anyway, it definitely amused me. Me and Bella. Twinners. :) Go figure. 

So my basic take on the stories were that Bella was fun, and that Stephenie Meyer definitely succeeded with Edward. (Could there be a better Prince Charming? The impossibly beautiful and powerful man who loves you SOOOO much he won't. . . um. . . . eat you. . . . Ha ha! Oh, but of course he really wants to. Because he's sensual that way. . . . Hehe.) And all the Cullens were great. Very intriguing. But I hated—loathed!—the whole Jacob sub-plot. Blech. When it was clear he wasn't going away, I almost stopped reading! Halfway through the fourth book I was starting to find him a little interesting. But up until that point, the whole Jacob story was really lame—and totally brought out things that were entirely uncharacteristic of people! It just didn't make sense. It was lame. I hated it! ("I look upon you with a disgust that amounts to absolute detestation!" :)) I don't think Ms. Meyer got in the groove on that one until it was way too late. . . . (However, to be fair, my favorite chapter in any book—since the hand scene wasn't quite what it could have been—was the one called "there are no words for this," or something like that. It was excellent!)

The rest of my take is summed up with saying that the first and fourth books were my favorite. And the second book was mostly really painful and boring. And the third book was somewhere in between. . . . :) Overall, I enjoyed them about 1000 times more than I expected.

Anyway. . . . Twilight books. They amused me. :) And kind of fun to have such a totally easy read. I don't, however, suggest reading the whole series too quickly. Hehe. I was trying to get the whole thing over with so I wouldn't have to bring any books home with me (from Matt's mom), and I definitely over-consumed. Ha ha! My dreams have been insane. It's really ridiculous! It reminds me of when we watched the entire series of Lost in a just a few weeks a little while ago—bad, bad idea! (Don't do it!)

Oh, and inquiring minds keep wanting to know if we're going to see the movie. :) Eh. Not without a substantial bribe. :) All we needed to see was a picture of "Bella" and "Edward" staring longingly into each other's pathetic teenager eyes to know we'd never see the movie. They were no WAY Bella and Edward. Fun books, but I'd bet my life they made a painful movie! Coffee-shop-flirty-nerd-emo-"Edward" and too-much-makeup-"Bella" can't be as fun a story. . . . :) And I can't watch movies of books, anyway, without the movie images replacing what my own imagination came up with (hence the reason I despise animated scripture videos—I'll never be able to picture Abraham and Isaac as non-cartoons again!). So. . . . No. No movie for us. Besides, it looks like there are a bunch of good movies coming out soon! We've gotta save up. :)

So tardy, I know—but I'm still in a Thanksgiving kind of mood! We've been out and about, and then tired, and then decorating for Christmas, so my pathetic little blog has been neglected. Then I thought it seemed anti-climactic to come back after so long without a post that was really, really special. :) Oh well, though—I'm back anyway!

I hope you all had a magnificent Thanksgiving full of much giving of thanks. And turkey breasts instead of whole turkeys. Ha ha! We were at Matt's parents' house for Thanksgiving—when whole turkeys were on sale for only $9.99, that seemed like a great deal. Until the gorgeous, perfectly roasted, tantalizing bird turned out to be. . . FROZEN on the inside! I had to laugh. I don't think I've ever seen a frustration-free Thanksgiving when a whole turkey was involved. They're just trouble. :) I feel to write yet another Ode to the Turkey Breast. Hehe. (Yum!)

We had a fun Thanksgiving—and even felt full of much thanks. :) A fun anniversary, too! I think our anniversary will be on Thanksgiving maybe. . . next year? That will be kind of fun. When we picked our wedding date we had mischievous plans to visit family for Thanksgiving, then ditch the kids and go off for mini-honeymoons by ourselves! YES! Muwahahahaha! But so far. . . we have yet to implement that plan. . . . Maybe next year will be the year. :)

Happy Thanksgiving. And Happy Christmas, too! :)

Mouths of Babes....

The other day we were in the car and Seth asked where we were going.

"We're going to Walmart! Doesn't that sound FUN? Wanna go to Walmart?!"

And he flatly replied: "No. NO go to Walmart.... I want to go to...CIRCLE Walmart."

HA HA HA! (I'm not sure if Target would appreciate that or not.... :))

Number One!

(Does anyone else enjoy The Most Extreme on Animal Planet? I love their countdowns! Maybe I should start doing "most extreme" countdowns of my own.... :))

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for! The unveiling of my favorite, and also Seth's new favorite (he asks to watch it over and over again! Yesss...:)) and also Matt's favorite-by-suggestion movie scene OF ALL TIME! There are so many layers of insanity! And nothing could thrill more than insanity! :) We have an insanely good and insanely dark Mozart piece providing the mood. We have Mozart going insane. We have a young Salieri going insane while watching Mozart be insane. We have an old Salieri who has been insane for years! On stage, there are a bunch of characters not only going insane, but also being DRAGGED TO HELL! Oh, the thrill! (Incidentally, Salieri has plans of his own to "triumph over God," just like the guy on stage who, oops, is... dragged to hell....) Add to that some good ol' 18th-century pyrotechnics and you have a recipe for a really great scene. :) I love it, love it, LOVE IT! Enjoy!

"And NOW...

The madness began in me....

The madness of a man

SPLITTING IN HALF!"

Love it. :)

And I love you, Mr. Editor, whoever you are, who did such a perfecto edit. In the words of Denzel Washington from favorite scene #3: you AMAZE me!! :)

And now in the words of the fun emperor in Amadeus (which is where this scene is from, by the way): "Well! There it is!" Since this top ten list is now complete, I feel I must recognize some honorable mentions! The bowl-fixing scene in The Road Home (a Chinese film that we LOVE—definitely in my top ten movies of all time! And it's a simple, sweet, pretty movie that I'm pretty sure just about everyone would relate to and love. Go find it! You won't regret it!); a few scenes from Stranger than Fiction (another top ten movie! Favorite scene is probably his interview with Dustin Hoffman. Ha! "King of the trolls...?" Or maybe one of the end scenes. Who knew Will Ferrell was such an amazing actor?); OH OH! the Al Pacino-with-the-gun-behind-the-toilet scene in The Godfather! (probably should have been in the top ten! I've only seen the edited version of the movie on TV, though, so I guess I forgot to remember I've sort of seen it...); the near-end of Pursuit of Happyness; the end of Psycho.... I'm sure there are some goodies I'm not thinking of! Any honorable mentions posted in comments will be honored (meaning I won't delete your comment, and it will live through the ages! :)). 

Number Two: The bad blood between Ronny and Johnny. Ha ha!

"What is life?! They say bread is life. And I bake bread—bread—bread. And I sweat."

HAHAHAHA!!! Oh man. I'm already laughing just thinking about putting up this scene. The first time I saw Moonstruck was with Matt and also Amy. When it got to this scene.... HAHA! We were rolling. (I'm almost as amused at the thought of us as I am at the thought of the scene! :)) If you ever want to entertain one of us, all you'd really have to do is blurt out: "I DON'T CARE! I ain't no freaking monument to justice!" (And even better if you go through the motions of the next couple of lines. :)) 

Or a decent runner-up might be: "Crissyyyyy! BRING ME THE BIG KNIFE!! [I won't do it!]...She won't do it... Do you know about me?" Haha!

And a note to anyone planning to audition for, say, a high school play or something: this would make a great monologue! I wish I were still doing stuff like that so I could figure out how to make it work for myself! :)

The basic plot before this scene is that Loretta (Cher) is engaged to Johnny, a totally boring and sappy baby of a guy, but a safe choice I guess (her first husband was hit by a bus, making her majorly superstitious about falling in love...). They get engaged, he immediately leaves for Italy to see his dying mother, and he begs Loretta to pleeeeease, while I'm gone, find my brother Ronny and invite him to our wedding! "We haven't spoken in five years.... There's some bad blood between us!" Johnny and Ronny—the bad-blood brothers. :) So Loretta goes to the family bakery to talk to Ronny (when she tried the phone, he quickly hung up after yelling: "THIS WRONG CAN NEVER BE MADE RIGHT!!" Haha!) and gets this great rant. Plus, an explanation for the "bad blood." 

It's Nicolas Cage at his finest! (I didn't even know I could like Nicolas Cage until I saw this. :)) Unfortunately, I have no idea if the beauty of this scene still comes through when you haven't seen the first 20 minutes of Moonstruck. But I'm posting it anyway. I hope you enjoy it! (And that it doesn't seem like a serious scene, because it's definitely not!) Go watch the movie—it's hilarious!

(The clip keeps going, but the first half is this great bakery scene—ending with a funny, pathetic little spiel that Matt especially loves from the girl who wouldn't bring him the big knife. I think the rest of the clip might end a tad bit scandalously so, you know, proceed at your own risk...! Hehe. No scandal in the bakery scene, though. Just loveliness. :))

Number Three: Oh, sweet Benedick! God give me PATIENCE!

Ha ha! This scene from Much Ado about Nothing KILLS us. SO great! This kid-like frolic in a water fountain is what a confirmed bachelor is reduced to after overhearing (from lying trickster matchmakers!) that the woman he loathes and continually fights with is actually in love with him. And when she overhears the same about him (from more lying trickster matchmakers), she melts just as bad. It's the best set-up ever! Made all the better by the great monologues about, "ew, I'll never fall in love!" and "I'm so excited to have just fallen in love!" Shakespeare is so great. :) (Especially when people know how to make him fun like he meant to be! :))

Kenneth Branagh's monologue always makes me think of my brother, Jordan. When he was only nine years old, I used to find him alone in the tv room watching movies you wouldn't expect a kid to enjoy. This was one of them—he watched it all the time! When Benedick gets all lovesick for Beatrice ("I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit BROKEN on me because...I have railed so long against marriage...." hehe :)), he asks the question, "shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor? NO! The world must be peopled!" Ha ha! Every time, Jordan would just start cracking up. It's a funny line, for sure—but made SO much funnier now that we always picture this cute little 9-year-old cracking up over it. 

I couldn't find any reasonable soul online who made a clip of just this scene. But if you think, "hey, I'd like to spend 10 minutes watching the funniest set-up of all time!" start the first clip (you can skip the first minute), and by the end you'll feel like you just have to start the second clip and watch the first minute to finish the scene. :) If you like House, you'll enjoy seeing Robert Sean Leonard being so silly.... Hehe. A bunch of silly people in this one: Denzel Washington, Kate Beckinsale, Emma Thompson.... Great movie. :) GREAT scene! Number Three on our countdown!

Number Four: Wit

If you don't watch any of the other clips we posted, watch this one (it's seven minutes). If you don't watch this one, go get the whole movie and watch that. And if you do watch this one, still go get the whole movie and watch it. This movie is... amazing. And not many people have seen it (it's an HBO film) which is really a shame. Emma Thompson plays a highly intelligent and clever and successful literature professor battling ovarian cancer, largely on her own. I think it was Roger Ebert who said of the movie that it "first breaks the funny bone, then breaks the heart." There are so many clever and funny things to laugh with—then such profound things to feel and reflect on. We can't recommend this movie enough. (We bought the DVD online a few years ago—Walmart or Amazon or something—for $4, I think. It's probably easier than trying to rent it. And you'll want to own it anyway!)

This scene comes in a rare moment when her tenacity and wit are all but gone—and when things have been the hardest, she's still been alone. Her old mentor from her youth tries to visit her at the university, and learns she is in the hospital. (When she asks about Donne, in the movie you've already heard Emma Thompson's character talk a lot about Donne—whose poetry she loves—in her conversations with herself.) Obviously, since it's in this list, it's one of our favorite scenes ever. While we're actually watching it, we'd probably have to call it number one. :) (And it's made all the more beautiful with the Arvo Pӓrt music—one of our favorite composers. You might not be able to read The Runaway Bunny again without wanting to shed a tear or two...!) Go find and watch this movie. You'll be so glad you did.

Number Five: Atticus Finch is my hero

Gregory Peck in one of the best scenes ever, ever, ever. :) 

I also love the scene when he walks out of the courtroom after the guilty verdict. His reaction, and the reaction of the people sitting up in the balcony, and the reaction of his kids.... All so powerful. (This is To Kill A Mockingbird, by the way. In case you're unlucky enough to have not seen it yet.... GREAT movie. :))

Number Six: Life Is Beautiful

I can't even bring myself to post this one. But if you've seen Life Is Beautiful, the near-end scene affected you as much as me, I'm sure.... When he's being led off at gunpoint, and he looks over to see his son watching him from his hiding place.... He winks at him, making his funny face, and walks his funny walk as he's led away. He knows he's going to be killed—he'll still do whatever it takes to make sure his little boy isn't afraid.

It's an amazing movie, and all boils down to that little moment. One of the best.

Number Seven: Charlie Kane's awesomely talented wife

Matt and I first watched Citizen Kane a few years ago for the sole purpose of being able to argue against it! Ha ha! It was so universally regarded as the best film of all time that we were just sure it would be a totally clichè "good film" movie that was actually totally dumb. Something trying to be artsy or something, and really just stupid. So we started watching it in a totally critical mood, ready to TAKE IT DOWN!! Yeah! Instead, about ten minutes into it we looked at each other, all surprised, and said "this is actually REALLY GOOD!" By the end, we were different people. Hehe. Not sure how I lived life before Citizen Kane.... :) (Ha ha!)

The movie doesn't have a ton of stand-out scenes (it all goes together so perfectly... :)), but this one is pretty great. Charlie Kane, with his totally complex superiority (or adoration...) issues, builds his wife an opera house when her singing can't get her into any other venues. The biggest opera house in the country, of course. She doesn't even want it (she's content with being mediocre), but he is going to get her recognized. This scene is her painful performance. (I've sat through a few operas where I wanted to be tearing my program up like Joseph Cotton is! Hehe.) 

The moment where he stops clapping as the lights come up is my favorite moment of the whole movie! (Which is where the scene actually ends even though this clip will keep going... I don't feel like doing any work to post just the first few minutes. :)) Great acting. 

(The other scene we initially thought of as the best is when Kane is old and his wife finally leaves him, and he tries to manipulate her into staying like he manipulated everything else but she just walks away. When he finally loses it and destroys the room, totally in character as an old man Charlie Kane, then walks out after picking up the snow globe.... Ahhhh.... So great. :))

Number Eight: "No, it'll be ok!"

HA HA! We only recently discovered the beauty that is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Paul Newman is always wonderful, and I think Robert Redford is at his absolute best in this movie (even outshines Paul Newman I think...). After being chased by unknown chasers for approximately a million times longer than they've ever been tracked before ("who are those guys?!" hehe) Butch and Sundance come to a crossroads. Or a cliff.... :) And Butch has another one of his brilliant ideas. Couldn't love Robert Redford more than in this scene! (If you don't know the movie, you should watch it! Very fun. This scene is so much better in context. :))

And here's a bonus scene which is awesome even OUT of context! Ha ha!

Number Nine: Signs

I know the public didn't seem to enjoy this movie, but we sure did! (We're pretty sure Shyamalan was making fun of his audience with this one! Can't help but enjoy that. Hehe. Plus, the acting was great....) I can't for the life of me find the scene I want, though! When they're down in the basement and they think the alien is going to come get them, and the kid has the asthma attack.... And the dad holds him trying to talk him through it, while at the same time wanting to panic himself, and also wrestling with faith in this horrible moment....

Mel Gibson's acting there is totally wonderful. Love, love, love it. (Sorry I have no clip.)

Favorite Movie Scenes

Last night we were fishing around for fun movie scenes to show Seth, and he ended up latching on to what may be my favorite movie scene of all time. Like mother like son! (This boy has GOOD taste. :)) So after watching it a few times, and saying "ah! What a great scene!" it got us talking about other great movie scenes! We made a top ten list—we'll see if I can find all the clips. :) When I added the following clip, Matt accused me of diluting the strength of the list. It might be silly, but I still LOVE it!

#10—Meet the Parents airport scene!

Ha ha! "All I have to do is do what *I* wanna do and all I wanna DO is keep my bag and not listen to YOU." ..."You said bomb on an airplane...." "I said it's not like I HAVE a bomb." Bomb-bomb-bombbomb-b-bombbomb-b-bomb.... Love it.

My Humble Retraction

My blog was inspected for wholesomeness (turns out it's very wholesome :)) and when I saw the stamp I realized the error of my ways! I'm pretty sure when I blogged about voting that I didn't mean FDA when I said FDA. I'm pretty sure I meant the USDA. :) Then again, I may have just been trying to further illustrate my point that I don't know a thing about the farming industry.... Hehe. (Very clever, Auburn! :))

California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 2, by the way. Even though we don't know squat about farming—and even though the USDA (not the FDA :)) exists and does—we just can't resist campaigns for animals being able to do the hokey pokey. Let's just hope all the other ten pages of text in that thing we approved made some sense...! :) Hehe. Because, going back to that one single thing I know about this, the California farming industry is ginormous. :) 

Let's just make all the eggs free-range. Those are great! Yum.

As for the criminal justice ones, I still don't know what they mean—but the kindergartners wanted haggis, and Californians wanted a couple yes-es and one no. Or was it two noes and one yes...? Hehe.

Because Churchill Told Me To. :)

OK. Yes, Sir. (Could anyone argue with that?)

Hehe. I like it. :) But I liked this picture, too:

The problem is, we just couldn't agree on how to take that pain down.... Scalpel or hatchet?! 

"Well, I say a hatchet first and then a scalpel."

"Well, I say you go in very, very intricately with a high-quality scalpel, and leave the hatchet in the garage."

"No, no, no. You should have a plumber bring a hatchet. Then crush away with no mercy! RARRRRRR!!! ...then get a scalpel. And delicately shave all the tiny pieces into even tinier pieces...."

The argument could go on for years, no...? Hehe. (Especially once the plumber is involved. :))

But because Churchill told me to (I hear he was anti-headache), and because pain is nothing more than a 30-ft. piece of cement sculpture looming over me, crushing my head for months on end (easy foe, right? :)), we decided I should try to deserve victory. Hehe. Or something like that. Actually, I just went to my follow-up appointment with the neurologist to talk about... the infernal headache. [I hope you still read that with a booming voice! Hehe. :)]

Since the drug he had given me several weeks ago seems to lessen the average intensity of the headache I have all day long, every day, he thought the infernal headache that I still get once or twice a week sounded a bit more migraine-y now than he originally thought. And he gave me a migraine medication to take when I felt a wicked one coming on. 

Rewind these past, what has it been now...? Five months! These past five months I've had a constant headache. The one drug over the long-term has seemed to help a bit as a prophylactic, but no drug or combination of drugs (and we've tried everything!) to try to kill the headache or even lessen the pain has ever done a thing. Nothing. At all. The other night I started to get another kill-me-now head explosion and I took the new migraine medication! And...whoa! Blessed surprise of all surprises—it worked! It not only reduced the horrible headache back to status quo headache, it actually wiped everything out altogether! So for the first time since June—June!—I was...ahhhh.... Headache-free.... For a few hours. Hehe. But it was a great few hours.

Anyway, so that's the update! A shocking discovery after all these months—they've been migraines after all. So now we try a few more dosage combinations and see if we can knock this out entirely. Strange to all of a sudden be a migraine sufferer—and around the clock, too. In my sinuses. Weird. And for all this to happen as I move back to our dreamland? Hehe. I can't imagine San Diego was the trigger! Haha! Who knows.... It's all pretty weird. 

But after a million theories, we're narrowing it down. I'm not sure if we used a hatchet or scalpel.... Hehe. I'm leaning toward trying a bulldozer now. :) Maybe a wrecking ball. Or hot lava. (Hey, Amy, tell Finn I need him to throw hot lava at my headache! Haha!)

I love what happened last night. :)

I don't think I could ever be more thrilled to see the candidate I didn't vote for win the presidency. I even shed tears, I was so happy.... Really. (And I keep feeling teary today, too! When will this end? Hehe.) Though I don't generally agree with Barack Obama's political ideas, I feel like whatever harm a leftist government could do might actually be made up for with how good it can be for our country to be led by a black man. Would anyone have believed it so few years ago when, insanely, Jim Crow was the law of the land...? (Gosh, I'm crying again!) Did anyone really believe even just months ago that America could really do this? The looks on the faces of African-Americans with this win say that, no, it was too good to be true. 

So, I may not even care if he turns out to be a socialist cat, stealing my burritos! Hehe. He seems to be a classy, good man. If his leadership can heal some of the divides that still persist in this country, can inspire disadvantaged kids, can help more of this country celebrate diversity rather than fear it... then hallelujah. In the true sense of the word. :) I'll remember forever the images from Obama's rally: a crowd of all types of people—white, black, hispanic, gay, straight, old, young, very old and very young—joining together, rejoicing together, celebrating together. THAT'S the America I've longed to see. And I'm a white girl born in 1981.... Imagine—just imagine—what this means to countless others....

What a tremendous election day. I can't wait to see how things play out.

[P.S. Prop D passed! WOO HOOOOOOOOO!! Thank you, 53.15% of San Diego!]

Ha ha! Such sadness....

Ha! After three days of positively gorging himself on candy, Seth just went to his halloween bucket to discover it's... empty. He gasped and said "NO! All gone!" A minute later he was chomping on a sweet tart and came up to show me. He said, proudly, "look! Look what I'M eating." Hehe. I guess he found one on the floor or something. I congratulated him. A couple minutes later he came up and got in my face (I guess he couldn't find any more on the floor...), putting on his cutest, smiliest look, and said (I swear he was even batting his eyelashes...), "Get more circle treats at the store, mom? Yeah?" He nods a few times, smiling. "Yeah?" Then a nod and whisper, "circle treats? Eat at the store? Yeah?" HA HA! He's a problem solver, I guess. Oh, the bitter disappointment when you first discover your halloween candy doesn't last forever! 

Something I *Don't* Like about November

Sunset at 4:45...? ¡Què horrible! :-(

At least Congress got smart—almost—and pushed standard time back so we don't have to have 5:00 darkness in October, too. But you'd think when Congress said to themselves, "hey, daylight savings saves us tons of resources!" they might have followed the thought with "let's keep it all year!" instead of "let's start wasting resources in November instead of October!" I mean, really, does it make any sense? 

I'm going to write my congressman—by candlelight in the middle of the night (6:00 maybe :))—and beg for reason. :)

I Love November!

Hello, my favorite month! I'm SO happy for it to be November finally. All the Halloween decorations go away (they just aren't pretty.... And if pumpkins are involved, they stink too!). Christmas decorations come out (which is a good thing, since turkey and cornucopia decorations are also very ugly...). The weather (here in California, at least) is AWESOME. And, as if all that weren't enough, Matt and I get to celebrate not one, but TWO anniversaries. It's fun. :)

First, we get to celebrate the exciting day we met each other. Aw.... We actually remember the date! It wasn't one of those slow-to-get-to-know-each-other friendships. We met one night, and were best friends right away (he totally fell in love with me—ha! ;)) making the date a little more memorable. That was TEN years ago this week! Ten years! It's hard to imagine how the same amount of time elapsed between being 7 years old and meeting Matt, as between meeting Matt and now. We've been a part of each other's life for a whole lot of our life now...! I'm so glad. :) (Imagine how cool it must be when you've been together for a hundred and ten years! Ok...maybe that's stretching the possibilities.... :))

A couple weeks later, we'll have our sixth wedding anniversary. We're hoping for a great dinner to celebrate, maybe a day up in the mountains for some good ol' romantic skiing. :) (We'll be in Colorado—we've just GOTTA ski!) November has treated us well. So, happy 10th and 6th anniversaries, Friend! And happy November to everyone—the best time of the year! (Unless you get snow soon, in which case...I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry. Go skiing! :))