Snapped Outta Brain Fog

So this morning the fog has rolled in. It started when I heard ld doing his morning routine. Ping, his computer comes on, footsteps down the stairs, shower running, cough cough. Big red digital clock says 5:45. Ugh.

I have a migraine. I try relaxation techniques learned from the internet but my head is having none of it. I pop the aspirin, flick on my laptop and crawl back in bed. I type:

Today’s stuff:

Buy Xpedex white bags
put air in tire (make GB help w/ this)
find song for Becca
prepare RS agenda
Visiting teaching, make changes
Cook, set out chicken to thaw
Clean out fridge, destickify the door
Order M&M’s
Address 10 envelopes
write thank you to Pat
find Cathy’s grandma rose stuff
visit....Call......blah....blah...blah

I stop typing and groan. Ugh. I don’t wanna do any of this stuff.
I remind myself to stay focused. I google ‘brain fog’.

Time passes. I get dressed. Seriously girl, get a move on.

I start reciting all my motivational mantras, like ‘it takes activity to create energy’ and my recent fav ‘I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has to get down to work’. Ahh, thank you Pearl S. Buck, author of the Good Earth. I start thinking about how much I love that book and the character Olan and how she delivered her baby while working in the fields. ‘Oh, Olan’, I think, ‘you had a really hard life’.

I become drowsy.

I think Biblical, ‘‘Thou sluggard, get the mattress off thy back!”

I turn to pop culture person Anne Lamott,

‘How am I going to get through this craziness?’
‘Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe,’ ....

I am depleting my arsenal of motivational ammo. I am thinking the day will be a total waste.

Wait.

A song slowly rises to my throat. I sing, hesitantly at first, but then with increasing gusto -

It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive.
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside.
And when you wake up ready to say,
I think I'll make a snappy new day...

I snap, snap, snap my fingers. I am smiling. I am dancin' a two step and bustin' out the moves. Mr. Rogers, good man that he is, may he rest in peace.

Look at me. I am movin’ through my day. I might even put on makeup.

It's a good feeling, a very good feeling, the feeling you know you're alive.

http://www.songsfromtheneighborhood.com/artists.cfm?id=3

Napkins and a Mirror Improve Credibility

Yesterday, Meghan and I were chatting each other up. It was scintillating and stimulating conversation. We covered everything from the Wedding to World War II. Really. And then just like that, poof, all the wind is sucked out of my sails. At the height of my verbal profundity, at the very point of my climactic and dramatic point, I am told this:

Megs: Hmmm. You may be right, Mom, but it’s just so hard to take someone very serious when they speak with chocolate ice cream all around their mouth.

Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?

Has anyone besides myself noticed and profoundly felt the absence of one of our favorite bloggers? JLA, what has happened to ye? Where have ye gone?

Those of you who agree with me and want JLA to resume his blogging wit and wisdom please say so in my comment section. Word out on the street is that if we get at least 8 comments begging him to come back to A.S.S blogging activity, he will. Sort of a write in campaign, kinda.

Each comment should contain the reason you want him to come back, what you promise if he does and a declaration of his inestimable value to Assdom.

Something like:

JLA, I want you to come back to your blog because I miss the pictures of Cibola and because you are funny. Without your blog I will die. If you come back to writing posts I promise to forgive you for all those times growing up when you sat on me and dangled a long strand of spit over me, or stuck a wet finger in my ear. Yeah, I will forgive you for even that, that’s just how serious I am. The A.S.S blogosphere is not the same without you. Puhleeeeezzzzzz come back, JLA. U r cool.

Yup, that should do it. Write in campaign starts now.

Moving, awe inspiring, life changing and whatever else you said...

Sunday night I was invited/talked into watching Saving Private Ryan by Megs and Kodison, my fav engaged lovedove couple. I had held off on seeing this movie previously for several reasons, mainly because

a) I don’t enjoy blood and guts and bombs and bullets

b) War movies are guy films. You know, violent, sexist and totally superficial. Guy movies always have a moral and that moral is : you must be brave and honorable, no matter the consequences and I am going to beat you over the head with my message.

and c) It’s rated R.

But my love for said engaged couple won me over and and after much cajoling I succumbed. I sank into the loveblob downstairs and watched. (The CleanFlicks edited version, mind you).

Oh. My.

Now I am not admitting to weeping (heresy, this is guy movie afterall ) but I am admitting, and to my FSIL II, that it was ‘moving, awe inspiring, life changing’ and whatever else you said I should own up to feeling if I was any kind of person with a conscience or heart.

I give. I freely confess to liking this movie. So much so in fact that I spent a good portion of my day yesterday reading articles and researching online World War II facts. I engaged Megs and later Kodis in conversation about all my new findings and insights. And yet again as today begins, I find myself still thinking about it. What’s not to love about a movie that produces this kind of response?

Saving Private Ryan. It is a violent movie, but justifiably so. Its themes are powerful and have to do with the very essence of the human spirit. What is the value of a single life? From where do courage and valor come? Why is it that human beings will die for one another? And what is it that we owe one another, our families, our nation, the human race, our God, as the price of our humanity? What is our responsibility at the end of the day for having been given the gift of our own lives?

I don’t think it much of a stretch to see this film as kind of a parable. There is lots of devotion and sacrifice and incredible courage as the squad carries out its assignment. Although they would not call it that, a bond of love emerges among them, about which Jesus once said, "greater love has no one than this-that a person lay down his life for a friend."

And it’s about stewardship. At the very end, many of the GIs are dead, Private Ryan will be saved. He comes upon the captain, lying mortally wounded. He says to Private Ryan-the last words of the film-his last words, "Earn this."
Earn it. You have been given a very precious gift. Your life has been bought at a very dear price. Others have died so that you might live. You have not earned this-yet. But now you can. You can live the rest of your life in a manner that honors the gift and the ones who paid the price. You can value the gift of your life at least as much as they did. Earn it. Basic stewardship, I think . . . the same message the Savior gave his friends just before he died.

Great stuff, great film.

And okay. I did cry. A lot.