The Halloween costume hunt for my daughter was interesting. She wanted to be Alice in Wonderland, not necessarily the Disney Alice but that would do if available. We went to several places and struck out. Particularly disappointing was the local costume shop that had 6 or 7 costumes that they called Alice but were totally wrong. The apron wasn't a pinafore and there was lace (really cheap tacky lace too) on the collar and sleeves...which were long and that was just NOT RIGHT.
We found more suitable outfits at the Assistance League place but only one was in even close to the right size and we didn't get it last week. We went back today, but they're closed on Sunday. Why close the Sunday before Halloween? oh well.
We tried a few other places and ended up at the mall. As we headed down the escalator my daughter got inspired. She'd buy an outfit from Abercrombie & Fitch. Ok...how is that a costume? Well, being that my daughter wouldn't be caught dead in anything Abercrombie any other day of the year and *all* of her friends would "get it" that makes a costume. Reminds me of the year she went in a pink satin gown with white fake fur on the collar and hem and a tiara...she was a princess and everybody thought that was so funny...I just thought she looked adorable but I'm her mom. Go figure.
Oh, and me, what about my Halloween costume? Sadly I can't dress up. Maybe someday I'll be able to do that again but in the current job I don't think it's a smart career move. Somebody would probably get all offended and if there's one thing an HR manager has to try and avoid it's offending people. *sigh*
Well, to anyone who manages to stumble upon this post...Happy Halloween!
I absolutely love the online community that resides atWWdN's Soapbox. I started reading and posting there in August and have spent way too many hours browsing the forums and occasionally posting something. I was reading a thread today about being a "thirty-something" and only saw a couple of posts by people at or over 40...seems like most of the "monkeys" are in their 20's and 30's.
I do find it interesting that I don't feel completely out of place in that world of 20 and 30 year olds. Is it the geek factor? I'm not terribly technical, although I love technology but my kids think I'm pretty geeky or nerdy...it varies from time to time depending on how I've embarrassed them this time...I've been a science fiction freak since childhood, had a personal computer back in 1983 that I ordered through "Science News" (It was the Sinclair ZX83) and was chatting and playing Trivia online with my Commadore 128 back in 1991 on QLink. That's also when/where I met my significant other and we've been together for over 12 years now.
To top it off I currently work as an HR manager for one of the "big" Silicon Valley high tech companies supporting clients in the IT organization...everywhere I turn its Nerdvana...and don't get me wrong. I love it here.
So is the internet keeping me young at heart or do I love the internet because I'm young at heart? If I figure that one out I'll post the answer.
Finally sat down and watched A Mighty Wind tonight. Although it's not a movie that you laugh all the way through, it's one that, especially (I think) for someone my age, just makes you grin and grin. There is one really "laugh out loud" moment at the end of the memorial concert...won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie and Harry Shearer gets to throw the final curveball of the night right at the end.
If you watch it, pay careful attention to the lyrics of the songs, they're priceless. And the couple that worship color...Oh. My. God.
Anyone else born in the late 50's might have had some of the same experiences I had as a child. My parents were fairly young when they had me, Mom was 20, Dad 21, and maybe for them and their friends folk was cool. Although later as folk became more about protesting the war my Air Force sergeant father probably didn't listen to it anymore.
I remember them listening to The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary...could have been others. When I saw the New Main Street Singers in the movie I was reminded of the Christy Minstrels (and, yes, the New Christy Minstrels *grin*) as well as listenening to Sing Along With Mitch and the group I think of as Up With People but I'm not really sure if that was their name, it's been sooooo long. What worries me is that think I actually enjoyed it.
This could explain a lot about me. Even as a teen I could listen to folk music without cringing...when the family went to Disneyland and saw Up With People I didn't mind. The Boone Family (yeah, Pat Boone and Debbie "You Light Up My Life" Boone plus her sisters) at Magic Mountain, heck (you can't say *ell in the same sentence with the Boones) I liked that too. I also liked rock, pop, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Andy Williams (what an amazing range he had).
Well, I just have to remind myself that the answer, my friend, is blowin in the wind...
On the Star Trek forum at WWdN I’ve witnessed some distaste regarding the new Enterprise show and its theme song. I was thinking about this and thought I’d try to capture my thoughts about the song and why I like it. I have to set up my reasoning with a little personal history:
I was born the same year Sputnik was launched, 1957, started reading SF in the second grade (1964). As I grew up, I explored the galaxy in my imagination thanks to some of my favorite authors: Silverberg, Bradbury, Heinlein, Asimov, Norton, L’Engle. I’ve witnessed the space race from its infancy, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo. From 1964 to 1975 I lived on Edwards AFB where experimental rocket planes flew from the salt flats of the high desert out to the very edges of Earth’s atmosphere. The sounds of sonic booms were everyday occurrences. Sometimes my friends’ dads didn’t make a safe landing, I was exposed to the tragic side of reaching for the stars at an early age. I sat for hours in front of the television with my family the day Neil Armstrong first stepped on the Moon, tears in my eyes. Although I dreamed about a future where I might be a part of our first tentative steps into space, it wasn’t meant to be, but I never stopped reading SF and I never stopped believing it would happen. I was home from college the weekend the prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise made it’s maiden voyage and landed on Rogers Dry Lake. Years later I comforted my infant son when the sonic boom of other Shuttle landings startled him and I smiled to think of the astronauts who had just streaked past miles overhead. I grieved over the loss of Challenger. I still cry when I hear the poem “High Flight” because of the Challenger memorial:
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings:
Sunward I‘ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence: hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew --
And, while the silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Lately I’ve grieved again at the loss of Columbia; perhaps the loss of our national will to continue the space program. I thrill to the prospects of a successful fight by SpaceShipOne (http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/) and hope that it is the first real step towards a future where mankind regularly travels from Earth to other planets, maybe other stars.
When I discovered Star Trek in 1968 I was only 11, so I don’t think I had a conscious, well thought out reason for loving it. I know now that I liked it because it was a show which brought to life the worlds and situations of the science fiction I read and loved; it had become real and it was a reality that I think I understood even then was shared by thousands.
I became an immediate fan. I believe now that my attachment to the series comes from how Star Trek reinforced my deep held convictions about why we had to keep striving towards space. When the show went off the air I kept Star Trek a part of my life by reading all the novelizations by James Blish, then the series of books. Finally, The Movies! By this time I was an adult but I had never lost my love of SF or Star Trek. I didn’t really think too much about the music, either the themes or the internal sound tracks, but the music is as much a part of Star Trek as anything else, so I can see why there’s some energy around the current series’ theme.
The original series theme was perfect for the late 60’s and captured the feeling of anticipation about boldly going “where no man had gone before.” Then the movie themes that had one soaring through space with the Enterprise and gave one a sense of the drama waiting between the stars. It was completely appropriate for the later TV series of the 80’s and 90’s to continue with these types of themes, they were set in the same far future universe of the Federation, we’ve come into our own in the community of space, it’s about joint ventures with other races of the galaxy and the leading role we play in that community...this is big, grand, it should take a symphonic orchestra to capture that.
But Enterprise is about something smaller, more human, closer at hand…this story is about the descendants of Chuck Yeager, Gus Grissom, Buzz Aldrin…and hundreds of test pilots and astronauts of our time, as well as scientists and dreamers like me. Yes, there is something deeply flawed with the show, the writing and the plotting leave a lot to be desired, I agree, but sometimes there’s a glimmer of truth amongst all the dreck; an acknowledgement of the dream…I like the idea of Enterprise for that, for trying to show what we might finally achieve.
So, for some reason, because of all I have said above, the Enterprise theme hits the right chord with me. Forget the music for a moment and just read the words:
“It's been a long night
Trying to find my way
Been through the darkness
No I've finally had my day
And I will see my dream come alive at last
I will touch the sky
And I will see my dream come alive at last
I will touch the sky
And they're not gonna hold me down no more
No they're not gonna change my mind
'Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith, I’ve got faith, faith of the heart”
Sometime in my past, I think I must have ordered something at a drive thru and annoyed a mysterious gypsy. I was cursed to have problems at fast food places forevermore. Now you’re probably thinking I exaggerate. Here is my story, judge for yourself.
I could go back to the early 80’s but I’ll start in the 90’s…I lived in Bakersfield, it’s probably 1995. I’m at the drive through of a fast food place specializing in deep fried seafood and balls of fried cornbread called hushpuppies. I can’t stand the stuff but my boyfriend likes it and there are kiddie meals with chicken chunks, so here I am.
There are two windows but only one is in operation, the one at the end of the drive through. I’ve given my order at the speaker and have made my way up within a car or two from the front of the line. I’m in my station wagon; the two kids are in their carseats in the back. My window is still down from giving the order. I creep forward and now my open window is next to the 1st drive up window. I hear a “thunk” on the roof of my car.
“Wonder what that was” I think to myself.
Then something smacks me in the head, rapidly followed by something streaking by my windshield. I look down and there’s a chunk of frozen fish on the floor of my car. I’ve been hit by a fast food missile. I’m incensed!
I drive up to the next window where I inform the cashier that I’ve been struck by flying frozen fish chunks and I am very unhappy about it. I hold up the offending bit of fish as proof of the infamy.
She says, “Oh, they must be goofing off in the back we’ll tell them to stop.”
Not “sorry, we’re so, so, sorry! Are you ok? The meal’s on us” or even a discount…no, the surly teenager just wants my money and that’s that. Can I speak to the manager? He’s not there. How do I contact the owner? I donno is the answer.
I’m definitely dealing with the teen queen of apathy. The kids are starting to fuss so I really don’t want to get out of the car and tirade around this place with them in tow. Defeated, I pay and drive home. It was years before I went back; I wanted to make sure the surly teen was long gone. Too bad I wasn’t injured, what a lawsuit that could have been.
My daughter tried to help me name this blog last night…instead of cleaning her room. Suggestions included: California Carnage, Pufflubby Livin’, Large Men in Kilts, Toot the Flute, Grr! Bring Me My Taco, I’m Going to Sing the Doom Song Now, Drive-by Booking, Louis Vuitton Got Nothin’ on These Sketchers, Jet Skiing Pandas – Beware, Band of Bagels, I Dream of Little Purple Bunnies, Hella Old School – Yo, Superficial Space Monkeys, Rollin’ With My Homies…
All of these do vaguely and randomly have something to do with me…but none of them really appeals to me as a blog name…*sigh*
I finally decided on a name! And all by myself, so don’t blame the girl.