New Tax for Smokers???

Okay, okay, I know I'm taking years off my life and smoking is bad for you, yada yada, but what in the hell are these people thinking? And Obama, my hero, my knight in shining armor, passed this ridiculous bill that was presented by non-smokers to help people quit by going from .39 to $1.01 a pack starting Wednesday????

I don't smoke a lot, but I do smoke and I just think this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. They're going to legalize marijuana but they are punishing the smokers who aren't breaking the laws. I suppose they'll add that tax to marijuana, too?

Go to Cheri Burbach's blog here to voice your opinion. It just frosts my cookies.

KNOWING - THE MOVIE

You'll never believe in all your born days what I just did.

WENT TO A MOVIE!

It was BF's crazy idea. I know, I know...but he asked me if I wanted to go see this new movie out called, "Knowing," and the previews WERE fantastic, so I figured one time out of the house in the middle of tour season wouldn't hurt me and might give me a much needed break.

Okay, I'm not quite sure how to put this. It wasn't terrible and was good in some parts but the ending absolutely sucked! I don't know, I like happy endings...this ending was kind of weird. I remember when it was over and I kept saying to myself, "Did I like it or not like it?" Nicholas Cage played an alright part...I don't think this was one of his best acting job and the two little kids were alright, but I can't say they'd be up for an Oscar anytime soon. I hoped it was just me because the movie was so hyped up, but while I was waiting for BF to do his little tinkle tinkle after the movie was over, I overheard this guy talking on a cell phone. He said, "It started off good but then there were all these damn aliens."

It starts out in this classroom where the kids are putting together a time capsule. Everyone is supposed to draw a picture of what they think the world will look like in fifty years when the school digs it back up. One of the little girls, I can't think of her name, drew a bunch of numbers across the paper. So when they are burying the time capsule, the little girl is standing off the end of the schoolyard staring into the trees. The teacher calls her but she doesn't turn around. The teacher goes to do something and the girl has disappeared. She finally finds her hours later inside a storage closet with blood on her hands. She has etched some kind of date or something into the wall and she's yelling at the teacher to tell them to stop talking.

Fast forward fifty years and Nicholas Cage and this little boy who plays his son, Caleb, are at the "capsule unveiling." All of the kids are to get one envelope that is tucked inside. Caleb gets this number drawing and instead of leaving it at school, he takes it home.

His father finds it later and discovers that the numbers are the exact dates of these huge disasters that have killed people in the last fifty years. The thing is, if you're paying attention, the little girl who drew it in the first place, must have been able to see into the future, right?

Now the father goes to warn people that a disaster is about to happen, but no one listens. Sure enough, they do happen.

All along, these strange looking space aliens who are disguised to look like real people are trying to contact Caleb the same way they contacted the little girl fifty years ago. I know, it's confusing.

I won't give away the ending or more of the plot except to say I left that theater with a doom and gloom kind of feeling. It's not a bad movie...the special effects were pretty good down to the space alien spacecraft, but I don't think the acting was all that great at all. I don't know what was wrong with these people. None of them moved me. Even the king Nicholas Cage tried to put on a good performance but I don't think the part was right for him unless it was just me.

All in all, I can't really say it was a bad movie and I was glad I saw it but I wouldn't see it again nor would I rent it. Sorry...I don't like leaving the movie theater feeling as if the world is going to end any minute, but then, maybe that's what the producers wanted us to feel like. I guess the movie did make you kinda sorta think that.

But I'll tell you what I did take notice about. Have you ever heard anything as ridiculous as 2 boxes of popcorn and 2 drinks coming to $24? That was more than the tickets!

The Curse of Friday the 13th

Happy Friday the 13th everyone! I'm not superstitious, so the day can come and go without worrying I'm going to fall off the face of the earth, but it reminded me of a story I'd like to share with you.

My grandmother was like me. Not superstitious except for 2 things - laying hats on beds and coat hangers on doorknobs. You could never do either or something horrible - although we knew not what - was going to happen to you before the end of the day.

But Friday the 13ths would come around, year after year, and she wasn't any more paranoid about the day than a man in the moon.

When I wasn't even born, the story goes she was upset with my grandfather because he was across the street downing a few drinks with the locals at the gas station where older men often hung out for nothing better to do. It was a small town and I don't know if it was allowed or not, but drink and carry on they did night after night.

She couldn't take it anymore and was madder than a wet hen, so she goes flying across the street to tell his ass to come home. However, she never made it. A car struck her, she ended up in the hospital and came home with a stiff leg. Back in the day, they couldn't fix it, only save it, I guess. So, she lived the rest of her life with this one stiff leg. At first when I saw it, it made me feel a little uneasy being a kid and all, but I soon got used to it. And I also found out, stiff leg and all, that woman could race you around with a wooden spoon to tan your hide faster than you could run yourself.

Years later, I was in my early teens, and still living with my grandmother, Friday the 13th rolled around. Nothing was really said about the day; we carried on as usual. I went to school and my grandmother went to work at the local hospital.

We get a call. She has fallen down and broken her good leg by slipping on something in the floor. She recovered, the leg was back to new before too long and at least didn't end up stiff like her other one.

Every since that day, Friday the 13th took on new meaning for her. I guess you have to have something bad happen to you on that day to be superstitious when it rolls around.

My grandmother isn't with us anymore, but I imagine she's up in Heaven barricaded off with clouds and whatever else you have up there in Heaven and fully avoiding coming out.

How is your Friday the 13th? Do you lock yourself inside or go out as usual thinking nothing of it?

Hip Chick or Over the Hill?

Before I begin this blog post, I want to say how awfully sorry I haven't posted lately. The tours have been keeping me super duper overly occupied. I don't think anyone knows there's a recession going on because we've doubled our clients these past two months, which is a good thing being as I'm saving for that big screen TV..haha.

But it can get tiring. I'm not what you'd call an obsessive workaholic, but when it comes to my passion - my tours - I take on quite a few obsessive habits like staying up 'til the roosters crow because I want so much for my authors and I feel if I don't give my all, I have let them down.

But today I took a little me time and decided that since American Idol was coming on, I was going to take 2 hours and do nothing but become a couch potato.

However, a trip to Wal-Mart turned me into wonder woman and you'll find out why at the end of the story.

I told my daughter I wanted this fake bamboo tree from Wally World. I had bought a string of white lights over Christmas for a just in case time such as this and I'm so glad I did. I was going to move the furniture around and move the real tree (can't think of the name of it but I've had it for about 15 or so years and I call it my monster tree) over to the other side of the living room and place it in front of the second set of sliding glass doors that overlook the deck which is off from my living room and I was going to put the fake bamboo tree with the lights on the side of the living room that had the wraparound couch and in front of the first set of sliding glass doors that overlooked the deck also. If you're following, you're doing great.

So off to Wally World we go. The pickings were slim about this time and only 3 were left. I mean, this tree was only $30, which was really cheap, and I guess that's why there were only 3 left.

So I'm dragging the best one of the three through the store when I remembered I wanted to stop off at the medicine section and try to find some of those really cool pills I used to take for menopause. Now, listen, I'm no old lady, but they did give me more energy, something that was very much lacking lately. Unfortunately, the pills were still out of stock. I had been there 3 times looking for those suckers and all three times they were never on the shelf.

But...I decided to take a risk and buy some others that promised to relieve hot flashes, night sweats, irritability and FATIGUE. Well fatigue was the major word here. If it relieved fatigue, then it would mean more energy, right?

So we get home and put the groceries away and as I took them out of the bag, I decided I'd pop one.

Let me tell you ho-ney...this is what happened.

I grilled chicken and hot dogs while rearranging the living room singlehandedly which included moving a pool table to the other end of the room, moving the loveseat to the other end, scrubbed the carpet, moved the monster tree over to the other side of the room, put lights on the bamboo tree and situated that at the other side of the room, lugged a mattress and a boxspring again singlehandedly by myself down a flight of stairs and out to the carport to wait until they could go into the storage room tomorrow and played a few games of toss the ball with Max.

And what's even more amazing is that it's after midnight and I'm no more tired than a man on the moon and it didn't dawn on me until just now that maybe just maybe these might be the pills of champions.

When I start leaping tall buildings with a single bound, better come get me.

Happiness Video

This is long, but can you believe I cried at the end? So much for happiness video, lol!