What do Sumatra and Gondor have in common?

Saturday night we watched the gore-fest flick Dead Alive which is supposedly peter jacksons second directorial project. So yesterday zieak wanted to keep with the theme and picked out The Two Towers for us to watch. We split a bottle of white wine, and so by the time the battle at helms deep happened, i was a little emotional. I was reminded of the war happening right now, and the fact that 4000 american soldiers have been killed. 4000 SOLDIERS. One of them a cousin of mine. A cousin i have never met, but still, a relative. A cousin who should not have died at the age of 21. When will it end? My hope is that this november will bring BIG change.

grumpy

I will write this post without including all of the cursing going on in my head right now.

Every single morning at 6:30 our cats decide it is playtime. Whether it is running up and down the stairs at full throttle (which makes quite a racket since their claws catch on the carpet every step), scratching at the bottom of the closed closet door, or Ash taunting Ollie by venturing too close and Ollie letting out a loud hiss or growl. If we were to shut them out of the bedroom, they would just scratch at the door. We havent been going to bed until 11 or 12 lately, so this hinders our 8 hours of sleep we like to get. Honestly, i just like to sleep until the alarm goes off - even better if its more than 8 hours!

What i want to know is, how the hell these cats know about daylight savings time. Shouldnt their annoying rituals have been beginning at 5:30 all week? But it has not failed - 6:27 this morning i am awoken by Ash digging in the sleeping bag by the side of the bed. Needless to say, i am grumpy and not really loving our lovable, furry, cuddling friends right now. I'll get over it.

da bull

Kitos has started bringing a mechanical bull to town every couple of months. Last time i was not brave enough to give it a go, but zieak was. This time however, my friend angie was able to coax me into going if she did... it helped that she also paid my $5 charge to ride. I had heard about the soreness that follows a bull ride, but boy i did not expect how awfully painful the days after really are. I did it on friday night, and today was the first day i was able to walk semi-normal. I still cant cross my legs. Heres a little clip zieak was able to catch with his camera phone... (mom, heres a hint: press play and then press pause to let the video load for a minute or so. then it shouldnt play choppy.)

Really? There are still decent human beings in the world?

This weekend we decided to paint our kitchen a deep red. "Crush" to be exact - in my opinion named so because the color resembles crushed tomatoes. Well, the third coat went on last night around 11:30, and we still werent happy with the result. So this morning I started a fourth coat at around 8:35, knowing i was back on regular store hours so i needed to be downtown by 9:30 to open the store. With Sirius pumping out some of my favorite 80's hits and constantly shooing cats away from the fresh paint, i lost track of time. I hadnt yet finished the entire fourth coat, but i left the house at 9:28, forgoing my usual morning ritual of making sandwiches for lunch.

Noon rolled around, and i had to admit to zieak that there was no lunch prepared for him. We locked up the store and put up the "back in five minutes" sign, (which i forgot to remove after we got back, who knows how many potential customers i lost) and quickly walked down to the convenience store to pick up something to eat. I noticed a woman with one of those huge shin-length gray casts on, trying to balance her packaged salad, yogurt, crouton packet and bottled juice while fumbling with a pair of crutches. I politely asked if i could help her, took the food tower out of her hands and walked it up to place it on the counter. She thanked me then, and once again before leaving the store. It was nothing really, just something i would hope happened to me if i were struggling in the same position. As the cashier rang up our lunch items, she said "15.90 please" even though "20.90" clearly showed on the register screen. Zieak asked, "how did that happen?" and the cashier said, "that lady left five dollars to put towards your lunch."

Here's to you crutch-lady who i have never seen before - you give me hope that people still care, and that the Golden Rule has not been forgotten in this busy, hectic selfish world.