Ready to celebrate?

I got the job!

On the mountaintop...

Come sit with me, my friend
with pen and paper we shall sit
and from such views we shall write
wondrous tales of
Crossing the harsh Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter,
     skeletons along the way their stories untold

Wild flower

"Diff'rence 'tween a weed 'n a flow'r is which side of the fence it's on." Back bowed, she grips the porch's wooden support to ease her heavy frame down the step, white hair waving in the wind. 

...and waiting

I had my interview for the position of Lead clerk today (Wednesday). It went well according to the Senior who I work under (she told me at the end of the day- which was a little odd). 

Jellyfish and Cats

Browsing through my news sources, I was struck by several headlines that relate to global warming  and the environment and the species that live on our planet in a new way. Like this one:  "Jellyfish, With Numbers Increasing From Warming Waters and Pollution, Force Shutdown of Power Plants"

Sunday night at the movies

It used to be that each Sunday night was a "Movie of the Week". Remember those? Back when Television was watchable? (Well, it still is when PBS has a good Masterpiece Theater on...) It was generally (at least here) a movie that had been newly released to a television station. That was where I saw "The Poseidon Adventure" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" for the first time-such great classics! When my kids were growing up, I fell in love with American Movie Classics (AMC- yes! our friends who give us MADMEN which I ADORE!!! but that's another post!!!) where I saw, for the first time, some of the older movies and fell in love with an older generation of actors that had a grace and style that really can not be matched today, I don't think.


So, without further ado I shall introduce you to...  

Death of a Blogger

The characters and events in this post and all connected posts are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. 

The Final Post

            A bolt of lightning ridges out across the sky as torrential rains cascade down onto the asphalt outside your window. You glance up, too engrossed in what you are reading to be impressed by nature’s sudden onslaught except to reach over to shut the window to keep the computer screen from getting dowsed. A second take at the date on the blog entry and you’re convinced it’s time to move. Two days since the body was discovered and the case is already in active decay. Opening the file, you glance over the police report and nestle the receiver under your chin as you absentmindedly dial. “Can you get in here? We’re going to take another look into the Thebeauld case.” Without waiting for an answer, you drop the receiver into its cradle and tap out the seconds as you wait for the appearance of your reluctant partner.

Must see Monster movie!!!

picture courtesy of wikipedia

Hiding in a Landmark theater masterfully disguised as a foreign film with subtitles and was a little advertised flick from Norway that was also... a monster movie!  We were in the mood for a movie and we hit the artsy theaters in the listings because we weren't in the mood to see one of the summer's many remakes. As we browsed the titles, what do we see but this one: 'The Troll Hunter'.

I will be honest and tell you that I wasn't in the mood for a monster movie or a horror-thriller flick as it is described but I know that many of you love them and this one... (in spite of my negativity) was quite enjoyable! Filmed as a mockumentary, a group of students set out after a supposed bear poacher. In the process of trying to get an interview with the law breaker they follow him into the woods where they quickly learn the bear killer is involved in a government cover-up on a much larger (and scarier!) problem: trolls. And trolls that are out of control (for reasons we learn much later on). Allowed to follow along (as long as they aren't christian, as trolls have an affinity for christian blood) to document the troll hunter's exploits the students have to wash off their human scent and put on troll grease so that they won't be recognized in order to tag along. Reluctantly they do so but their unctuous appearances pay off. They are quickly rewarded with the appearance of a huge three-headed troll!

Filmed in the gorgeous forests and mountains of western Norway, the scenery is as magnificent as the Trolls are malodorous (and apparently they are quite fetid!), this film definitely goes down as one of my all time favorite monster films!Check it out now before it leaves theaters (hopefully you can find in a theater near you- it hit US theaters June 10) and is completely ruined by a remake! There are rumors!!! (NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!)

I love Key West!

And to anyone who has ever so much as peaked at my blog, they'd say, "DUH!!!!" but part of the reason I love Key West is that I love the ocean. I have loved the ocean ever since I stood here...

Samudra Beach at the tip of India

I'm not exactly sure this is the exact same beach, but I don't have a picture of the beach I was on and there are not tons of pictures of the southernmost point of India on Google images, actually. At any rate, we spent a glorious day here, body surfing and playing in the ocean. I had never felt the water the way I did here that day even though I had been in the Pacific Ocean a few years earlier. And standing there at the edge of the world was an amazing moment that I have been fortunate to feel several times since. In Key West...

But that is another post for another day.

A headline that breaks my heart caught my eye today on my blogroll- I have Al Gore's Blog if you scroll down to the "New And Current Issues" section you will see it there. The headline was "Mass Extinction". I clicked to see what new thing we were managing to extinguish and found this (which came from CBSnews of all sources!!!),

We have already done huge amount of damaging to our oceans with huge implications for all of us.

“The threats of over-fishing and to the world's fragile coral reefs have long been well documented, but now a panel of scientists say the threats to marine life are far worse than previously imagined.”

“The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) convened a self-described "first inter-disciplinary international meeting of marine scientists of its kind" recently, and they have released a report claiming,"multiple ocean stresses threaten globally significant marine extinction."

“Dr. Alex Rogers, scientific director of IPSO, said in a press release: "The findings are shocking. As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the ocean the implications became far worse than we had individually realized."

I gave up eating seafood because of the poisons in them and over-fishing but it seems it's too little too late. I'm just a little fish in a great big pond of gluttony which is how I feel about global warming. 

Sigh....