It was all a blur

Well I was over at my friend Ben's blog and he had Coldplay's new video up. I have said this before and I will say it again about Coldplay - you had me at Yellow.

Anyway, after the video was over I saw a few others that might be of interest (you know how YouTube does that don't you?

Anyway - I saw Blur's video: Music Is My Radar, and I just had to share it for a few reasons:
1. They are all wearing helmets
2. I love choreography





As far as Ben's 1970 year book picture, I can't take total credit - I saw it first from Kim. Anyway, if I had graduated in 1974 with my mother I would have looked like this:

Now I Understand!

Cutter (old post)

I have heard about recurring dreams, but I don't have them. I have had recurring themes, or places in my dreams, I have also had one dream that I have remembered for 25 years. I may have told you this before - but I had a very strange dream when I was very young. I was probably 4 or 5. Picture the scenery like you would see in a Tim Burton movie - because that is how I saw it (before I even knew who Tim Burton was). In this dream I went with my mom to a very tall building. I couldn't even count the stories, but the base of the building wasn't that big. The whole first floor of the building was a waiting room. We both went in and sat down and waited patiently. I wasn't sure what we were waiting for, I was just there. A nurse came out and called my mom's name. She told me to just wait. A few minutes later this huge, fat, ugly woman came into the waiting room with about 19 kids of various ages, and stages of dirty. She went to the receptionist's window and spoke with her a bit. The receptionist pointed at me and the large untidy woman with 18 too many kids came over.

"You are coming with me." She said in the gruff voice of someone who smoked way too much.
"No, I'm here with my mom. I'm waiting for her." I tried to say with boldness, but it came out more like a squeak.
"She isn't coming out. It has been arranged that you are to come with me." She said with a snarl.
"She told me to wait." I said with tears in my eyes.
"She told you to wait - she should have said you were waiting for me. She is never coming out of where they have taken her. You are part of my family now" She said with a chuckle.

There was obviously a joke I wasn't understanding. I sat there a minute and debated the situation in my head. There was no way my mom wanted me to go with this crazy, smelly woman with 19 kids that all looked like they had been eating dirt before coming here. That wasn't it. And why were we here anyway.

I weighed my options carefully and took off for the door my mother had disappeared behind. It closed just before my "future family" could stop me. I opened every door I came to until I found her. I ran hallway after hallway, stairs after stairs. I finally opened a door to see her lying on a table . . . only she wasn't all there. And by "all there" I don't mean mentally, I mean physically. Her legs were gone, and part of her torso.

"Mom, what is going on?" I screamed, but she didn't hear me. She didn't even stir.
"We are cutting her up into little pieces." said a voice from behind me.
I turned to see a doctor standing there with his knife.
"It is a little experiment we are working on. Now be a good girl and go back down stairs and leave with your new family." He said matter-of-factly. Just like it is EVERY DAY that he cuts people in little pieces just to see what happens.

I ran up to where my mom's head was and whispered in her ear, "Mom, wake up. You have to stop all of this. Make them sew you back together and we can go home."

She opened her eyes and smiled at me and replied, "That woman down there will be a good mother." Then she closed her eyes again.

The woman I was to go home with grabbed me from behind and started pulling me away. I started screaming hysterically - then I woke up.

*****

Now mind you this dream took place back around the time my parents were getting divorced. In my mind she was my security, she was the only person I knew that would take care of me. Not that my dad was a terrible person - actually quite the opposite. But he just wasn't there. And I was afraid of that same thing happening with her. That one day she just wouldn't be there, without any really good reason why.

Fast forward to the time when I was going to write this post back in May. My mom was having a surgery. When you are there with someone having surgery there is that point where you are with them and then you are asked to leave, and then in a few minutes you can come back. That image in my dream sticks with me when she goes in for stuff like that. That image was there 5 years ago when she had cancer, and that image was there when I walked back in to see her before her last. It is in those moments that I wish that I never remembered my dreams, because I think the memory makes the whole situation much harder than it has to be.

What A Feeling

Mandalorian Dance @ Yahoo! Video

Olympic Feat

For as much flack that has been thrown around China hosting the Olympics, I am glad to see that the Opening Ceremony turned out so cool. These pictures seemed to capture it well.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/2008_olympics_opening_ceremony.html

Running

I just got back from running - check the time. And it was HOT with a capital HO. More on that in another post (maybe once the running has actually made positive difference in my weight and I have something to show for it).

Anyway, checking on some blogs that I frequent and I saw this video: http://pauldateh.com/2008/08/03/45/

What makes this interesting is a few things.
1. I had just been listening to Beatles on my iTunes
2. Eleanor Rigby is my favorite Beatles song
3. How the HE . . . ck did he not know the words to the song?
4. He is a great performer. If you get a chance to listen to more of his stuff you should. I love his instrumental works the best.
Check him out on his web page: http://pauldateh.com/
On this video I posted: http://whereismycouch.blogspot.com/2008/01/paul-dateh.html

Trip

This is really the whole reason for my trip two weeks ago. Can't figure out who is who? Left to Right back row: Dad, Dana (sister), Brian (brother in law), David (brother), me. Front row: Keegan and Michael (sons of Dana and Brian), Josh (son of David), Morgan (daughter of Dana and Brian).

We had a great time - I still need to post some pictures of my own from the trip, but I am always slow at unloading my camera. Not really sure why my brother is giving Josh rabbit ears.

Death and Kickball (One of those never written posts)

There is this video called Kickball. I have seen it a few times at one ponding event or another and I find the same thought goes through my head every time - I really want that kickball (or whatever the kickball represents). For those of you who have not seen Kickball let me explain a little bit about it. It is a movie put out by Nooma and they are lessons written and given by Rob Bell (Are you able to catch up with all the links I am throwing at you? Just wait, it gets better!) Kickball in particular deals with the idea that God may take things away from you, or say no to something - but that there is something else better coming for you. Something you can't see. He uses the illustration of his son in the mall looking at a huge wall of toys (all of which would break after one use). Rob knew that when they left the mall they were going across the street to the sports store to buy a kickball. His son, however, did not know and all that he could think about was this one small toy in the mall. He wanted one so badly, not knowing that in just a few minutes he would have a much better toy. He equated that with our life, and the things that we want in life. Those things are not necessarily bad things, and it isn't wrong to want them - but maybe God knows something that you don't, maybe he has something better planned for your life.

Anyway at the last ponding event that I saw this (not my regular ponding a different pond) the room was pretty split on the discussion about it. But one person in particular stuck out. He just said it was hard to imagine that once God took something away from him that was so valuable, that there would be something better out there for him. He was sad about what was taken away from him, but he had hope in what may lie ahead. Two weeks before his fiance died of a terrible illness. He had spent the last year visiting her at the hospital 3 or more hours away. He would go to his classes, then work, then drive down and see her. Some nights he had to sleep in his car because they would not let him stay overnight at the hospital and he was too tired to drive home. One morning he came home at 5:30 in the morning and he couldn't remember if it was AM or PM, what day it was, even if he was getting into his car to leave or if he was getting out of his car because he just got home. He had hope that there was something better out there for him - as painful as that may seem at the time. I don't talk a lot in big ponding situations. I usually feel like most people have a good grasp on what is going on when others explain things the way they see it, so I don't really speak up - but they asked me to say something. I'm not really sure how to follow that up. What I lost was not a loved one, it was a job. And really not so much the job but what the job represented. The job said that I was capable of something, that I could survive on my own, that I was settled into a rhythm. Has the last 10 months been hard - you betcha. Have they given me a new outlook on life - yarp. Has it been better - sometimes. But when I find my way out of this puzzling maze I will have my kickball.