Remembering the Leonids

Leonid Meteor Shower

I love shooting stars.

Living in Los Angeles with all the bright lights, it's not easy to catch sight of them, so whenever I do, I get really excited. I'm stoked for the rest of the night!

Right now the Leonid meteor shower is falling, and I'm sad that I probably won't get to see any of it. Then again, I think I saw it at it's best a couple of years ago, in 2001. I'll never forget it...

That year, the meteors were going to be passing through the debris and dust of a comet tail, as they do about every 33 years, so the meteors were supposed to be more spectacular than usual. I was living in the Bay Area at the time, and Mt Tamalpais was probably the closest prime viewing spot, so I invited some friends to go, and we all agreed to meet there at about midnight on the peak night/morning.

I left home a little early, and I was so glad I did! I think the entire population of San Francisco decided to turn out for the event. I hit traffic before I got to the mountain, and I realized pretty quickly that there was no way I was going to find my friends once I arrived, and they weren't going to find me. In fact, soon after I got there, officials closed off the route to the top of the mountain, so some of my friends (including my sister) had to stay down at the bottom and find a spot to watch from there. So I was alone.

It was a freezing November night, or early morning rather. It was very dark; I saw flashlights waving here and there, bouncing over the ground. I heard the muffled sounds of strangers' voices. I got a blanket out of the car, lay down on the grass with hundreds of other people and fixed my eyes on the sky.

I have never seen anything like it.

Shooting stars everywhere I looked, seconds apart. Long ones with glowing trails that faded slowly. Short quick ones. And on that I remember as being more green than white, that seemed to fall through the entire sky in one huge fireball. Whenever the really big ones fell, a loud collective "oooooaaahhh!!" would rise up from the crowd scattered across the mountain.

I was there for about two hours or so, shivering in the pre-dawn air, absolutely in awe of the cosmic display. I couldn't tear myself away. I think I was there til about 3am. Even driving on the way home, along the eerily empty freeways (580 to Berkeley, 24 to Walnut Creek), I still saw a few shooting stars...bidding me a last goodnight.

It remains one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my life. I hope get the chance to see it again someday, because the thing is, I am never entirely satisfied with just once. I'm greedy, I admit it. I always want more of the good stuff.

But I'm glad to have had at least the once anyway.

And the Winner in the You've-Got-To-Be-Kidding-Me Category...

I find it amazing that with all the stuff going on in our world today, CNN manages to make room on it's FRONT PAGE for a link to a story about a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich which apparently bears the image of--the Virgin Mary.

Virgin Mary sandwich back on eBay

The owner of the sandwich, a woman named Diana Duyser, put the sandwich up for sale on eBay last week. You know how high the bidding went? Over $20,000. For a sandwich. A sandwich that has been sitting on its owner's nightstand for about 10 years. Oh yes, and she took a bite out of it too before she noticed the face in the bread staring back at her.

I am a born skeptic when it comes to manifestations of the miraculous in the present day, and sometimes this saddens me, because I want very much to believe in them. But in this case...I'm sorry, I just refuse. The shroud of Turin is one thing (perhaps), but the Sandwich of Diana is another altogether, and I for one am not buying it.

However, that won't make a difference to Ms Duyer, because in the second round of bidding, she's already being offered over $16,000 (eBay took the sandwich off of their site at first because they thought it was a joke).

I guess from now on I should pay more attention to my food before scarfing it down. I think once I found a potato chip in the shape of Africa. That has to be worth at least a couple hundred, right?

Sticking With It

Last night I picked up a book about holiness and the fear of God. After reading only a few pages, I wanted to hurl it across the room, not because I am opposed to holiness or God, but because I am tired of being confronted with my inability to be perfect in my life, especially when it comes to the area of my faith.

The book wasn't even about that, really. But somehow that's what I got out of it, and it set off yet another of my "temper tantrum" prayers to God, wherein I basically tell him to leave me alone because we would both probably be better off if he did. He doesn't let me get away with that attitude for long, but I'm not always thankful for his interference in my pity parties. At least, not right away.

I think this may explain why I go through what some call a "crisis of faith" about every two minutes or so. For me, the nature of my personal faith crisis has little to do with wondering about whether or not God actually exists, and a great deal to do with whether or not I want him to, because sometimes I think my life would be much easier if he didn't.

You would think that years of being a Christian, being active in church life, leading a high school youth group, leading Bible studies, playing and singing in a worship band, and being a missionary for nearly two years would cure a person of any lingering doubts about how great it is to follow God, but in my case that's far from the truth. I don't always think it's great. Sometimes it seems terribly hard.

Someone may ask, "So why do you stick with it?" Well, I guess it's like the apostle Peter said to Jesus ages ago, when Jesus asked him and some of the other disciples if they wanted to call it quits. A bunch of the disciples had, in fact, decided that following Jesus was too hard, and they said forget it. So Jesus turned to his inner circle and said, "What about you guys?" And Peter said, "Well, where would we go?"

Where would I go if I left Jesus?

The thought depresses me, because in spite of my struggles I feel like the world will be a lot emptier and lonelier without him. I don't WANT to go anywhere else. Even though sometimes I kick and scream and want to have my way, at the end of the day what I really want is to curl up in the arms of a God who loves me, who knows all about my imperfections and failures and unholiness and will take me anyway. I don't always know if I really believe God is like that, but when I look at his son Jesus, I get an idea that yeah, maybe he is.

So I'm not leaving him, not anytime soon. I'll hang on with gritted teeth and clenched knuckles and I guess if I fall along the way, or have trouble walking, well, I'll do my best to crawl. I have a feeling I'm going to have some bloody knees by the time I get to the end of this crazy road, but by the grace of God, I'll get there.

Here's hoping...

Tough Decisions

Tough Decisions
Originally uploaded by grackyfrogg.

In dating, as in politics, sometimes you are faced with choosing between the lesser of two evils.

The good thing about dating is that you can decide NOT to choose, without someone screaming at you about how you are shirking your civic duty.

All Thumbs

On Saturday I went to a friend's house. When I got there, practically the first thing he said to me was, "You have GOT to see this movie we rented last night, it's hilARious."

"Great," I said. "What is it?"

"I'm not going to tell you."

Immediately my suspicions were aroused. The last time I watched what he assured me was a "hilarious" movie, I didn't actually laugh all that much. And conversely, I watched _Waiting for Guffman_ after he told me it was totally lame, and I cracked up, laughing out loud at some scenes even though I was by myself when I saw it. I watched it a second time to make sure I'd seen it correctly, and still laughed, which is a good indication that I do in fact think it's pretty comical.

So I was a little concerned that our ideas of what constitutes a "hilarious" movie might be slightly divergent. My fears were not alleviated at all when the DVD selection screen came on and I saw the titles "Thumb Wars" and "Thumbtanic."

"You are kidding me, right?" I groaned, thinking longingly of _Fargo_, which was at that moment playing on cable.

Five minutes later, I was laughing my head off at a spoof of the Titanic movie with all the characters played by--no joke--people's THUMBS.

Don't ask me why this was funny, but it was. If the thumbs' little faces had merely been drawn on, I wouldn't have been half as amused. But thanks to the wonders of cinematic technology, these thumbs had real eyes and mouths and they make these weird faces, and it is just too hysterical to even describe. On the same DVD is a spoof of _Star Wars_ called "Thumb Wars." If you have seen _Star Wars (original trilogy)_ and _Titanic_, I really think you need to see these movies. The satire is great, and come on, it's a chance to see people's THUMBS, acting!! With little faces!! It's not something you see every day, trust me (if you do, that's weird).

One of the best bits is during the spoof of the Titanic sex scene. Those of you who have seen Titanic (many of you more than 10 times...do you realize that equates to about 30 HOURS of your LIFE dedicated to watching a ship go down as a dramatic backdrop to one of the most cliche'd love stories in movie history?) will remember that the sex scene takes place in a steamy car, which only gets steamier as Leonardo and Kate get down to business, and then there is the beyond-cheesy moment where you see this HAND come up and hit the window in what you can only assume is a moment of severe ecstasy, and then the hand drags slowly down the steamy window (blech). Well, in "Thumbtanic", the thumb playing Kate doesn't exactly have hands...or she does, but they are useless and don't really do anything besides wiggle around when she moves. So when the big moment comes, instead of a hand, "Kate" hits the window with her whole FACE (the thumb! haha!) and then falls slowly down the steamy window.

If you don't think this is funny, I don't think there is any help for you. I am laughing just thinking about it.

The moviemakers also get points for giving Princess Leia in "Thumb Wars" cinnamon rolls for hair, complete with icing.

But I admit it's very hard to do justice to these short flicks by writing about them--they really have to be seen to be believed and appreciated. I know they sound stupid; well, I'm not saying they aren't! But they are still FUNNY!

So I urge you to find a gullible friend that you can convince to rent this movie with you. You can find it at Blockbuster, as a 1-week rental. And don't talk to me about a waste of time...you watched _Titanic_ more than 10 times, remember?

Ok everyone, have a great day and may the THUMB be with you!

Singin' the Cowgirl Blues

My sister is a real cowgirl. She has boots and wranglers and a cowboy (er, cowgirl) hat. She also has spurs and a horse.

I remember when she was still going through school, in the animal-science program at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. One day I got an e-mail from her that said, "I castrated a pig today." Whoa. Now how many people do YOU know who can say that?

So she's a cowgirl for sure, but right now she is a salesperson. She does a good job, as far as I can tell. Better than I would do, anyway. I mean, she actually sells stuff, whereas I couldn't sell a steak to a starving man. I'd feel bad that he was starving and would probably give it to him for free. Giving things away is not salespersonly behavior.

But the point of all this is that my sister has a blog now. Check it out cowgirltunes. I like the part about the adhesive caulk. Don't ask me, just read it, ok? Tell her the frogg sent ya.

Ch-ch-ch-changes!!

As you can see, I have changed the look of my blog. I was bored with the old template. I don't know if I like this one but at least it's something different. I'll probably keep it for awhile.

I used to go through the same thing with my hair. Getting bored with it, I mean. Back when I was in college, and for a few years after that, I used to change my hair color every couple of months. I used Clairol Natural Instincts Semi-Permanent Haircolor in varying shades of reds. One time I colored it Burgundy. I kind of liked it, but I think Rosewood was my all-time favorite.

But of course the inevitable day came when I had a "hair disaster." My boyfriend at the time had helped me to put some cool highlights in my hair one day, with bleach. I had never tried to lighten my hair before. He did a good job, but I wasn't satisfied...the highlights were too subtle, and I wanted dramatic! So I took some of the extra bleaching powder and developer, and one night on my own I tried to add some more highlights.

Well, to make a long story kind of short, I messed up. I was sloppy with the application so that sections of hair that I did NOT want to color, got colored! I tried to fix it somehow, and ended up with hair that was very blond on top and very brown underneath. Talk about dramatic! By no stretch of the imagination could it be considered a "good look." I realized I was going to have to dye the whole thing to cover it up. But what color?

After some consideration at the local Sav-On, I finally settled on some shade called "Copper Penny" which looked absolutely fabulous on the box--a rich, gleaming, light auburn. On me, though, it was simply orange. I was horrified yet again, but what could I do? I mean, short of going to a salon and forking out the big bucks to have a professional try to salvage the horrible mess I'd created--I couldn't afford that. Stark two-tone colored hair wasn't quite "in" yet, so I stuck with the orange. That was also quite dramatic, especially in the sunlight.

I think I took a break from the whole hair coloring thing for awhile after that.