A Dog’s Breakfast Movie

A Dog’s Breakfast is a hilarious dark comedy written and directed by David Hewlett who also starred in the show.

A dysfunctional family, a misunderstood fiance, a murder, and a body that won’t stay buried. Oh, and let’s not forget man’s best friend – his dog.

See it at http://www.hulu.com/watch/50266/a-dogs-breakfast

My Most Favorite Show Ever is Gone

January 9th was the end of five seasons of devoted Friday night viewing of Stargate Atlantis. Of course, we have been given the dangling carrot of a movie to keep us ‘loyal’. The movie won’t be out until (most likely) 2010 and we’ve yet to hear of ANY of the main cast being signed on, but in all fairness the negotiations could be under tight wraps.

The question is: Now that my favorite show has been kicked to the curb for some new and insipid sounding series why would I continue to watch SciFi?  ECW Wrestling?

I don’t think so. I wouldn’t watch wrestling on a sports channel much less of a SCIFI channel! SCIence Fiction people! Give me SciFi and Fantasy on my SciFi channel not sports. Of course, I suppose wrestling could be termed “fantasy” in a broad sense of the word.

So, it looks as though my Friday nights have now been freed up and my cable bill will be reduced since I no longer need the SciFi channel.

It’s over

Finally, Christmas is over. Twelve more months before I am subjected to endless repeats of Christmas music, Christmas movies, and Christmas cheer.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the holiday season well enough. I just don’t like having to listen to nothing but Christmas music all day long from December 1st to December 26th. They turn the radio station at work onto a station that plays NOTHING ELSE 24/7. It’s enough to make you pull your ears off!

And a couple of members of my family LOVES the movies. Classics. Classics are old. Old means you’ve seen them already for 30+ years. And if they aren’t Classics, they’re remakes. Bad remakes usually. I consider the season a success if I get through it without having to watch a single solitary one of them.  That means I have to make myself scarce at my mom’s.

A shame because I love my mom. I just can’t stand A Christmas Story or It’s a Wonderful Life.

Which brings me to the false cheer. If you didn’t like me in November, I don’t buy that you suddenly like me in December because come January you don’t like me again.

The Christmas season seems to make even the most honest of people into liars. We tell our children to be honest and then convince them that Santa is real.  We convince ourselves that Jesus was born on Dec 25th when we haven’t a clue. We portray 3 wise men at his manger when an UNKNOWN number of wise men went to visit him an unspecified time later in a house.

Christmas has been a lie since the beginning when Catholics took over a PAGAN festival and tweaked it in order to convert them into Catholicism. It wasn’t about Jesus’ birth at all. It was about converting unbelievers to the “truth’ with a LIE. Unbelievable when you truly think about it.  How do you convert people to the Truth when telling Lies?

From there it became commercialized. Now its more about the price tag of the gift rather than even the false front of religion. We spend money we don’t have on people we don’t like because ‘it’s the nice thing to do’ or is it really that we don’t want people to think badly of us?

Personally, if I don’t like you, I don’t like you. I work too hard for what little money I have to spend  it on someone I don’t even like.

And where is all the HOLIDAY SPIRIT when people are being trampled to death in order for you to get a good deal on a present? People are actually being killed at Christmas Sales!! How materialistic can you get? Is that what a person’s life is worth? A couple hundred bucks off a TV?

When did we all get so off track? When did what we have become so much more important than who and what we are?

THANKSGIVING

Well, I’ve finally recovered enough from the holiday to write. I had a wonderful meal at my mom’s with two of my brother’s and one brother’s girlfriend and son. We had ham instead of turkey so no after lunch snoozing. Mom’s homemade scratch cake with pour over icing (rich enough to make your teeth hurt) rounded off the day. Ahhh…..

It would have been absolutely perfect if my son had been there instead of at his dad’s; too far away to split the day. Instead we text messaged each other.  We talk more now that he’s in another state than when he lived in the next room.

Things I’m thankful for but don’t often think about:

A roof over my head. It doesn’t even leak and in about twenty years I’ll own it. By then it’ll leak.  It’s a small house, but it’s just me so it’s enough.

Family. Those annoying people who share the same bloodline with me. The one’s that are there when you need them even if it’s inconvenient to them. The one’s I’d be lost without. Family is complex. They are the only one’s allowed to hurt my heart and yet remain in it.

My dog. The mutt. Annoying, demanding, attention hound that cost an arm and a leg to maintain. Still better than an alarm system and on average cheaper. He loves me even when I’m in a bad (rotten) mood. He takes the blame when I come home in a foul mood and begs for forgiveness for doing something even though he has no idea what he did.  Talk about a living guilt trip. Moments after yelling you are guilt ridden which translates to a long belly rub and most likely a walk.

My car. Old and rattling. It gets me from point A to point B.  The heat works and so does the a/c.

My job(s). Complained about regularly I do realise that without them I wouldn’t have the house, the car, or the dog.

God.  He too is regularly taken for granted to my shame. I forget to pray. I forget to be thankful. I forget to tell others about Him. Yet, He is there when I turn to Him. Ready to forgive; to love; to help.  No one can take one of His children from Him, but they can walk away from Him.  I find my back turned from Him way too often in my busy life.

My health. Not perfect, but definitely better than many. And it would be even better if I’d take charge (responsibilty) for it and eat better and exercise more. This would make the mutt happier as well. The exercising not the eating better.

The sun. The rain. Flowers. Birds singing. The list could be endless once you sit down and really think about it.

What are you thankful for? Let me know.

Perfect vacation

The Smoky Mountains in the spring time; maybe early summer. That is where I want to be right now. One of those cabins on the side of the mountain with a spectacular view of the valley and the rest of the mountains. A fog drifting across the tops so the landscape is playing peek-a-boo with you.

 

When I think of my perfect vacation I’m there. In the mountains on a wooden porch sitting in a very comfortable chair, my dog laying at my feet while I read a book or just watch the day slowing glide past.

 

Vacation days would consist of not much more than long strolls where the dog is in sniffing heaven, reading, and hours in the hot tub. I’d run down to Gatlinburg when the refrigerator needed refilling. Maybe, maybe I’d spend the day at Dollywood, but the mountains are the draw for me.

 

Trails through the woods with no sounds except the wildlife. Trails that follow a stream or end at a waterfall. Me and my dog moseying wherever we wanted at our own speed. No deadlines; no clock watching; no stress.

 

No worrying about anyone else’s needs for a week. Just the opportunity to stop and see the world around me and recharge.

Annoyances

It’s funny the things that bother one person does not bother another. One of the things that bother me is drivers that are in such a hurry that they ignore common courtesy and endanger others.  Every day you can see countless examples of this and I wonder why the number of accidents aren’t higher.

Weavers. People who weave in and out of traffic only to end up at the same traffic light as you.  They usually do this without signaling lane changes – who could signal that fast anyway – and most often barely manage to avoid the front end of the car they just cut in front of.  More and more you see only part of their face because the cell phone is hiding the rest. 

Bumper kissers.  The ones that ride so close to your rear bumper that they would ‘kiss’ it if you had to stop suddenly.  Riding my bumper isn’t going to convince me to speed up. It’s just going to annoy me. Or are they afraid that someone might manage to weave in front of them and thus get to the upcoming red light two seconds faster than them?

40 in a 25. School zones. This upsets me the most. Kids don’t always look before stepping out into the street people! You can’t do 25 mph for three minutes?  If you are that close to being late to work, you need to leave a few minutes earlier.  I’ve seen a child hit.  I’ve had a boy run out without looking and hit my car. Thankfully, I was nearly stopped at a red light and he wasn’t hurt, but he could have been. If the light had been green. If I had been going 40 instead of 10. If I’d been yakking on my cell or putting on makeup or reading the paper (yes. People do that.) and hadn’t seen him step off the curb.

 Line cutters. You know what I mean. The places where two lanes merge into one usually at off ramps. These people are behind you in the same lane, but they cut into the disappearing lane and zoom up ten or so cars and then forcefully edge into traffic.  What gives you the right? What makes your time more precious than mine? Where are you going that you couldn’t get there five minutes later?

Car rockers.If I wanted to hear what you were listening to – I’d have it playing in my car.  How many times I’ve sat next to a vehicle their bass thumping through my car and body making both vibrate and thought: what would they do if I got out, knocked on the window, and asked them to turn it down. In today’s society, they might curse me out or get out and beat me to a pulp. Who knows which, but that thought keeps me in my car quietly fuming. Sometimes though it just ticks me off and I turn my radio up loud enough to drown their’s out.

Yeah. I know. Tit for tat. Two wrongs don’t make it right. That’s the human in me though. I don’t always do the right thing though I try. I try because I’m raising a child to treat people decently. I can’t do that if I don’t treat people decently even when they aren’t being considerate or decent in return.

I wonder if I spray calming lavender in my car if that would decrease my annoyance when I’m out on the road battling the urge to give into road rage.  Hmmm…..

Regrets

Maybe I should start my blog with something light and amusing, but today I’m thinking of my dad. He’s been gone for sixteen years now. A song on the way to work triggered the memories.

 

No one’s relationship with their parents is ever simple. I just didn’t realize until after he was gone just how complex mine was with my dad.  I went from being daddy’s little girl to someone who never did anything right to someone who could never make the right decision or stay the course. I never understood what I had done to change his opinion of me.

 

As I got older, we disagreed more and more. I thought he was old-fashioned, prejudiced and pigheaded. He thought I was disrespectful and wild.  His disapproval would egg me on to the very things he wanted me to stay away from – mostly men, motorcycles and alcohol.

 

When trying to get through basic training in the army with a bad knee the motivation to get back up was his voice in my head saying “You’ll never get through it.” I did get through it. I had bloody knees from falling so often and blisters from marching, but I proved him wrong and that, at the time, was all that mattered.

 

Mom says we were too much alike and that the disapproval I heard was really concern. I don’t know to this day the truth of that statement.  All I know is that by the time he died, we weren’t really speaking. Even when I went home the conversations were more like ones between casual acquaintances than family.

 

In my pride, I didn’t care. He doesn’t care anyway, I thought. I’ll be wrong whatever my opinion is, so why bother?

 

I was getting out of the army in March and taking my son to see him. Dad was looking forward to the visit so much Mom said. He died the last week of February. We got home late from work. My brother had left a message on the answering machine. “Call me.”

 

“Call me” and I knew. Dad who had fought emphysema since I was a little girl was gone. The heart stopping grief came out of nowhere. I just sank to the floor and cried. My husband thought I was nuts and called my brother. Sure enough, Dad was gone.

 

I could think of only two things in that moment. Who was with mom at the hospital and everything I hadn’t said to him.  The loss of the man I thought I wouldn’t miss left me completely devastated.

 

Over the next several months all I could do was rehash all the stupid, unimportant fights we had. Fights about friends and boyfriends, jobs and apartments. Fights with my sister that led to fights with dad. In my mind, she was his favorite. In my brother’s, I was. Who knows? Does it matter now?

 

Sixteen years and a song on the radio had me sobbing on my way to work. Writing this has me sniffling and dabbing away the tears before those near me can see me crying. Sixteen years and I still grieve for the relationship I could have had with my dad if I hadn’t been so busy being angry with him; too busy fighting to make my own decisions and lead my own life; too busy to see him – slowly dying and worrying about leaving his family without enough to live on.

 

When I run across someone estranged from a parent I tell them to really think about it. When they’re gone it’s too late to say ‘I’m sorry’. Is the fight really that huge; the differences really too big to overcome? Or is just pride? Stubbornness?

 

I raised my son to always say “I love you’ even when we were fighting. He doesn’t leave the house without knowing that I loved him – no matter how mad.

 

Sixteen years and the grief is just as fresh when I let myself think of him.

 

Don’t wait. Make things right. Don’t let pride overshadow love.