Five Things

Five Thing You Don't Know About Me:
1. I am a book hoarder.  I know that's difficult to believe, but I have enough books in my house to fill a small library.  I can't help it.  I just love the feeling of holding a book in my hand, of turning the actual pages, and of highlighting my favorite parts.  Some people collect tiny spoons; I collect books.

2. I'm secretly correcting everyone's grammar/spelling.  When someone says a word incorrectly or uses an incorrect tense, it pops out like a big neon sign in my head. It just does. I don't want to be rude or condescending or anything that might hurt someone's feelings.  I just keep my mouth shut and just think about it. 

3. I was Girl of the Year once.  I used to volunteer at the Girls and Boys Club when I was in high school.  They elected me Girl of the Year. I'm still in shock  I have a plaque.

4. I do not collect Willow Tree angels.  My mother in law gives me a Willow Tree angel every year on my birthday and at Christmas.  They were cute the first couple of times, but I've moved on.  She's still buying them for me, and I have to keep them because she'll be hurt otherwise. 

5. I love cheese.  I don't really need to elaborate.

Five Things I Am Knowledgeable About:
1. Navigating Cancer.  After going through the diagnosis, the surgeries, the chemo, the radiation, I can say that.  Ask me anything!
2. Special Education.  It's my job, after all.  And I love working with special education kids!
3. Soccer.  Since my kid plays, I have had to learn. And I love the sport. 
4. The Walking Dead.  I've been watching since the beginning, PLUS I've read most of the comics.
5. Mel Brooks movies. I can quote Young Frankenstein practically word-for-word.   And I know all the in-jokes

Five Things I Know Nothing About:
1. Math.  You might as well be talking in Chinese.
2. Quantum Physics.  See above.
3. Woodworking. It looks easy, but it's really not.  Plus, I'm forbidden from using power tools as a result of my efforts. 
4. Internal combustion engines.  As far as I'm concerned, it's magic that my car starts and gets me from place to place.
5. Interior Decorating.  I like comfy, I like useful, but I'd like to be stylish.  Unfortunately, I suffer from paralyzing indecision when it comes to choosing colors, textures, etc.  I'd rather hire someone to do it for me. 

Five Things I Believe: 
1. Happiness is subjective.  Just because I'm not giggling and giddy doesn't mean I'm not happy.  I'm just not a demonstrative sort, but occasionally I crack a smile.  That doesn't mean I'm angry or sad.
2. Glenn is still alive.  There are other things still in store for Glenn, so don't count him out just yet.
3. Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.  Enough with the conspiracy theories.
4. People just need to calm down. There's too much overreaction and not enough reasonable discourse.  It's all about political theater. 
5. Adults need to play more, work less.  Adults get too uptight these days.  There's nothing wrong with taking a few moments during the day to play, and we should respect that.  No mudpies, though.


Go read other bloggers over on Kat Bouska's Writers Workshop! 

Time For Some Zombies

When my husband and I originally heard that The Walking Dead was being made into a television show, back in 2010, we were skeptical.  It wasn't that such a television show would be impossible to make.  It wouldn't, not with the technology and the makeup available.  No, we were skeptical because, let's face it, most television shows created are crap.  Television shows made from comic books are often worse than crap.  Hollywood is all about the bottom line. If it would sell more ads to have Batman drive a red Batmobile, it would happen, no matter how much Bob Kane rolled over in his grave.  Larry and I were worried that The Walking Dead would be hijacked by some producer who would demand that the storyline be changed to draw in the little old lady demographic.  We were also worried that the show would be cancelled after a season, just when things were starting to get good.  Why invest time and energy in a show when some idiot would decide to cancel the show, just like what happened to Firefly?

The idea of a post apocalyptic world overrun with zombies was intriguing, however.  So even though it was Halloween, one of the busiest nights on our street, Larry and I put Zane to bed and shut off all the lights.  We sat on the couch and watched as Rick Grimes woke up from his coma to find that he was the only living person in the entire hospital.  Sure, parts of the story were over the top, but that was kind of the point.  We were hooked.

A good television show is like a ride; there are curves and whirls, and you may of may not know what is happening next but oh-my-gosh you cannot. Wait. For the next scene. Even though Larry and I knew what was going to happen, we still startled and jumped and put our hands over our eyes .  Okay, so that was just me. 

We've been fans of the show ever since.

Never mind that an actual zombie apocalypse would be over very quickly instead of dragging on.  We happily suspend our disbelief for an hour or so.  It's a brief escape from the fact that we will have to be up at the butt crack of dawn on a Monday.   Our little problems are nothing compared to zombies wandering about looking to snack on you. I have great admiration for Rick Grimes and his gang of merry survivors. These people are hardcore.  The fight for survival has special meaning to me over the last year, and I wonder how far I would go, and what I would do, to survive.  Fight until you can't means different things to different people; The Walking Dead allows me to put my own fight into a different, if unrealistic, perspective.

My friends and I spend hours discussing various aspects of the show.  Daryl is a favorite character, because he gets things done without asking too many questions.  You need people like that, because zombies don't just stand around while the humans are arguing about how to kill them.  There's a faction of fans who insist that "If Daryl dies, we riot" for a reason.  We've even joked that if Daryl dies, we're all driving to Atlanta and burning down the writer's trailer.  (Okay, one of us wasn't joking, but we bought her another beer and she calmed down.)  

So tonight, Larry and I will be sitting in the dark, the television turned down low so that the screams don't wake up Zane.  There will be zombies, but there will also be determined humans ready to do whatever it takes to survive. 

I get that.

Random

Am I the only person who speaks to random wildlife?  I opened the door last night to call for Zena, spotted a raccoon in the bird seed, and all I said was "Hello, Mr. Racoon! How are you on this fine evening?"  I also routinely speak to squirrels, cats, possum, and a random skunk or two, even if it is just to say 'Hi!"  My neighbors must think that I am completely nuts.  That may not be a completely horrible thing.  If your neighbors think you are insane, they will be less likely to borrow your lawn mower and not return it. 

My husband's new school is wayyyyyy out in the boonies. As in, cow pastures as far as the eye can see.  Driving out there, down a two-lane road, Larry and I see lots of things that we never see in the city.  Like this bird, the Kara Kara:

Source: flickr.com via Tina on Pinterest

 I didn't even know these birds existed, but I saw one two days in a row on that country road, and I consider that pretty awesome. I've also seen hawks, turtles, cows, horses, donkeys, goats, and turkey buzzards.  It's a regular menagerie out there in the country. Except deer.  I have yet to see any deer out there, because they all seem to live in the city.  There are probably more deer within the city limits of New Braunfels than actual people.  Maybe they like the polka music they play at the Wurstfest. 

My son wants a dog for his birthday this Friday.  He wants a black dog.  Who is big.  Who is small.  Who is a puppy.  But who gets big.  We've talked about getting a dog, but not the particulars. There's quite a bit up for negotiations. A dog is a lot of responsibility for a boy, even if he will be five soon.  I don't know if he is ready for that responsibility.  After all, he doesn't even wipe his own rear end by himself yet. 

The Walking Dead just started it's third season, with a bang, I might add.  Of course, there's some huge questions as to the zombie apocalypse(all those corpses and nary a feasting bug?), but since the main point of the show is not that there are zombies, I'm cool.  I still wonder how we would handle an 'end of the world' scenario.  We would be fine for a week or so, then we would run out of toilet paper, and it would be catastrophe time.
 

Source: s3.amazonaws.com via Tina on Pinterest

I am over visiting the excellent Stacy at Stacy's Uncorked, checking out her wine list. Go visit!

Random Sunday Thoughts

I am looking forward to watching the next episode of The Walking Dead tonight on AMC. For those of you who don't pay attention, it's a show based on a graphic novel about a Zombie apocalypse. The show itself, at least what I've seen of it, is actually a pretty taut drama about a guy who wakes up from a coma to find everything around him decimated and his wife and son missing. It is NOT, I repeat, NOT, a show for children. Zombies are horribly disfigured and gross, and have TERRIBLE table manners besides. We certainly do not want children emulating them in any way!

Anyway, in my pantheon of things that scare the bejeebers out of me, Zombies don't make the cut. They just confuse me. They're dead, rotting corpses, but their eyeballs never seem to decompose. They make breathing sounds and vocalizations with lungs that are not inflating, and they want to eat. They can't digest food, why do they want to eat my brain? They never show zombies going #2, so obviously nothing is passing through their systems. What purpose is eating for them? They used to be human, and humans eat for energy. But you don't see the Zombies eating and then having more energy or enthusiasm, so I don't think that is it. I guess human beings are not the same as a Snickers bar.

Yeah, I think too much about silly stuff. Since I have a child now, my thoughts about silly stuff always seems to end with me thinking about how I would protect my offspring. My response to a Zombie apocalypse would probably be similar to the characters in this novel:

I would certainly hope to be practical about this sort of situation, should it ever happen.