Before books on tape or CD

I saw a good movie today.  Not sure about the reviews but I enjoyed it. "The Legend of Tarzan" took elements of the original Tarzan story and spun off a whole new episode much as the original author did in his series. As I watched the movie I was reminded of a family vacation sometime in the late 1970's or early 80's. This was one of our family's many driving trips out west.  While we saw many wonderful sites, this particular trip also involved some long stretches of driving across Kansas and Nebraska. No insult intended but these are not the visual highlights of our western states. To pass the time and keep the children and my husband entertained as he drove I started reading aloud the first of the Tarzan books.  I had brought along the first four and when these were done we had to find more.  Fortunately we found a bookstore in a small town in Kansas with an owner who was a huge Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. She had the next several episodes in stock so we bought and read the next five.  If you don't remember the series, each novel ends with a cliff hanger (sometimes literally) which compels you to read the next one. I did a lot of reading and not much driving on that trip. A fun time to remember.

I'm trying to be good

From time to time I try to get serious about loosing a little weight. This usually happens after I step on the scale. One of the best weight loss tips I've read is to not eat anything after 6pm each evening which is OK if you eat dinner at 5. But apart from the timing problem, even if I tell myself it's alright to keep eating until say 6:30, I'm still faced with another problem - evening TV commercials.  I'm pretty sure at least 30% of all evening commercials have to do with food, delicious looking food. Based on the Arby's add I just saw for brown sugar bacon, it's a good thing I don't live near any fast food places. I need to stop writing now.  My refrigerator is calling to me. I'm pretty sure it's the last of the lemon birthday cake rather than the celery that will leap out at me yelling "Eat me!!!"

Rubic's Cube magic

I think all of us have played with a Rubic's Cube at one time or another, you know, the little cubes with colored tiles that you can twist and turn until each side is a solid color.  Or, if you get really frustrated like me you can peal the little stickers off and rearrange them.  I'm not the only one who ever resorted to this solution either.  For a while you could buy replacement stickers to refresh your Rubic's Cube. This evening I watched a magician on America's Got Talent, one of my favorite shows because of the really weird talent that shows up, who did his magic trick with a Rubic's Cube. Somehow he managed to rearrange a cube, solving the puzzle, while it was in a paper bag. Actually he did several related tricks. Maybe you had to see it, but I thought it was pretty impressive. It did not, however, give me the urge to rush out and buy a new cube. I'll leave it to the expert.

more and more fireworks

I invited my family over for a 4th of July and birthday-eve dinner this evening. It's my brother's birthday tomorrow. The idea was that we would have dinner, visit, and about 9:30 walk to a nearby park to watch the downtown fire works.  However when we walked out of my building we discovered that there was a perfect view from the parking lot right here. So we found a comfy stretch of curb and enjoyed a spectacular show being shot off the top of the electric company building.  For a minute a had a twinge of balcony envy, thinking how nice it was for the people with apartments on the south side of our building to be able to sit on their balconies and watch the show. As I was riding back up in the elevator, though, I met a couple who live on my side of the building. They told me to be sure to watch from my balcony because fireworks would be going off all over the north side of Ft. Wayne and beyond and they were so right. There are sporadic bursts of fireworks all around me.  I'm also really intrigued with the 'glow balls' that people are sending up into the air.  In the dark they look like little orange balls of fire just quietly floating along - a nice contrast to the frantic pace of the fireworks.  My son tells me these 'glow balls' are fire (a candle?) supported by a framework under a small hot air balloon. As the interior of the balloon heats up the balloons float up, up and away. At night all you see is the glowing fire, very cool.  I want to launch one next year, maybe off my balcony???

Honor your father and mother.

Our pastors are working through a sermon series on the ten commandments this summer.  This morning the commandment was "Honor your father and mother...." (the 5th commandment if you're Presbyterian or Methodist, the 4th commandment in the Lutheran or Catholic list). I sat between two of my granddaughter as the pastor began his sermon thinking listen up girls, this is important for you to hear. Then as he got a little further into the sermon the pastor explained that this commandment was not originally given to children but to adults.  The sense of the commandment is for adult children to honor and take care of their aging parents. What a fine idea. Who shall I move in with?

something else I wonder about

Is there really any money there?  I love online banking, I really do. It's so convenient to sit here in my pajamas and transfer funds from savings to checking (it seldom goes the other way) or to schedule a payment on a credit card or utility bill but sometimes I wonder if there is really any actual money behind it all? I mean I know there's a little bit somewhere. I can, after all, do a quick drive through at an ATM machine and get actual cash out. But all these numbers that flit back and forth via wifi, mine and everyone else's, I just imagine numbers being passed back and forth endlessly without ever touching actual money.  I guess it really doesn't matter when you thin k about it.  After all, paper bills and coins are also just tokens of value that is supposed to be out there somewhere. Maybe I need to take a trip to Fort Knox to reassure myself.

an enthusiasm of fireworks

There are flocks of geese, murders of crows, herds of elephants and schools of fish so why not enthusiasms of fireworks?  I think that's what;s going on this evening. Fireworks are being shot off to the east and west of my apartment in at least four different locations.We're not talking little sparklers here but big splendid, high in the sky sprays of color and light.  All this and it's only July 1. I can't wait for the 4th.