flinging the bling

See those blings? I gots them.

The first, oh so charming bling is from none other than Avery Gray. She worked her delicate fingers to the bone making not just one, but THREE blingy badges for those she deemed worthy. And I am truly honored to be a recepient of a Nerd award. This is the badge I liked best. So those of you that I gift it to are stuck with it. Or you can go to Avery Gray and claim another Nerdy award as your own. As to whom I choose to grace this lovely with, well, I am always going to foist new awards off on MM. Because I can. Besides, he (by his own account) is somewhat nerdy, and his blog is way cool.
I also think my new friend, Pale Fighter is really cool. He is working himself back into shape, physically, and chivalric wise. Go over there and give him some support, huh? Chivalry is not dead. Besides. I may run into him at a Ren Faire one day. That would be cool.
Since I seem to be leaning towards flinging this bling at all the male bloggers hanging out over there, lets foist this one off on Jef, too. His blog always makes me think. Oh, and David's squared, both David in DC,who is one of the first blogs I "found" on my own and have been really enjoying, and also, David over at authorblog who posts some of the most amazing photo's I've ever seen. And, fear not, Troy. Not only are you world famous, but you are way kewl. I would toss this to The Droid Whisperer, but he has been too busy lately to entertain us with bloggy stories.But I can fling it over at Daddy Kaos, my Uncle, illustrious father to CamiKaos and the forementioned Droid Whisperer.

Alright. And the second blingy love. I got that from Holly. Sigh. We all love Holly, right? She's so tough, remaining on the no chocolate train. And she posted an excellent cookie recipe. I made lots of friends at a Superbowl party with the Nutty Hollsters. (I added hazelnuts. YUM!).
Ahem. Okay. Now this one, it's harder to hand out. How about this. Since I gave the men the lovely Nerd award, I am going to give the love award to the women. So, all you girls over there in my sidebar, this one's for you. I love you all. Oh. And MM. Once again, because I can.
And, because tomorrow is his birthday, and he deserves to have bling flung at him for his birthday, right? Of course right.

Now, as just a general announcement. I am going to try something new this Saturday. Something I've worked on a bit here and there during the week. I call it "short story saturday". We will see how it works out. But I've enjoyed writing the first story, a lot.

Alright, you lot! Go out and fling some bling. I'm going to go see if I can pry the jello out of my legs.

Wordless Wednesday

I've tried the Asian Pears

Yesterday, I was in the grocery store, smelling mangoes and prodding papaya fruit when this little, tiny elderly lady came up next to me. I heard her sigh, as she looked at all the fruit, and she turned towards me and smiled, wistfully. "Look at all these kinds of pears" she said. I looked. There were red pears, Bosc, Asian, Anjou, and, "regular" pears, Bartletts. "I've never had any one of them, but these" she said, pointing towards the Bartletts. "I always wanted to try the different ones... I've never even seen these before" she said, pointing to the red pears.
"Try the asian pears" I encouraged her. "Really, they are my favorite ones, and I have had most of those". She smiled, and started picking up the Asian pears. I helped her get some ripe ones. Her husband looked a little bewildered when she put the foreign looking pears in their cart, but he didn't say anything. She looked happy, and, I would bet they've been married FOREVER, but he probably still thinks of her as his bride, and wants her happy. So he'll eat them. I hope they liked them. I hope she'll try something else new the next time she is in the pear aisle.
Of course, this sweet little lady got me thinking. (I have waaay too much time on my hands to think, sometimes.). Have I tried all the pears? I don't mean literally, either. I don't want to be the little old lady standing there, needing encouragement to try something new. I want to have either tried it, or have the gumption to just do it! I've done many things in my life. Things I don't regret. Yeah, some of them didn't turn out well at all, but some of them? Turned out waaay better than I expected. I want to be the lady that will buy all the pears, chop them up, and make them into pear salad. I plan on being that lady.
So, how about all of you. Have you tried all the pears?

could you?

Have you ever really sat and considered your own death?
Me neither. Well, not entirely true. I've thought about things that I don't want to happen to me. Especially strokes, or a long, debilitating disease. I want what mostly everyone else does. To die, in my sleep, when I am old.
I've watched this movie, though. A few times. The one where Will Farrell playes an IRS agent named Harold, and there is an author narrating his life in his head? (Emma Thompson). I forget the name. It's a quirky little movie. If you haven't seen it, and you think you are going to, don't read any further, as I will ruin the ending of it.
Harold is destined to die, you see. Emma has a hard time deciding how she's going to do it, and goes through all these scenario's. And he hears most of what she's writing. He knows she is trying to kill him off. She doesn't realize Harold Crick is a real person. When she finally does realize it, she's already written the end of the book. He is supposed to die. She lets Harold read the book, and decide what to do with it.
I should mention here that Harold, by this time, has fallen in love with Maggie Gyllenhaal, the local baker. He is finally happy in his life. He doesn't want to read the book. He does, though. Eventually. And then, Harold does the bravest thing I think anyone could do. Knowing he is going to die, he goes forward, to his death. He accepts it. Embraces it even. Because he has to.
Now, with my job, truthfully, I meet many people who "have to". The people who have been battling disease or medical problem. Ones that always seem to win, in the end. Cancer, COPD, strokes, even, just to name a few. In fact, most of those people have had a long time to reconcile their death. Most of them go very at peace. And most of them, thankfully, are not young. (The young deaths always get to me, though, no matter HOW at peace with it they are. I hate it.). I think that these people are incredibly brave. But the Harold Crick thing.
Yes, I know it was a movie. But put yourself in that place, for a moment. He died, walking in front of a bus to save a child. He knew he was going to do it. And it would probably hurt.He'd had a full day to even think about it. To do, for one last time, the things he wanted to do. To live his happy life.
Could you purposely walk in front of a bus? Knowing that you were going to die? After all, it saved a child. I think I could, to save a child. But I'd be trying my damndest not to get hit myself, no matter what the "author" said! Or I'd be searching the area for that child to prevent the situation, if I could.
So Harold died. But the good EMS system shocked him back into life. Emma compromised the ending of her book, for the greater good of Harold, and his baker lady.

cool

EA-6B Prowler You are an EA-6B. You are sinister, preferring not to get into confrontations, but extract revenge through mind games and technological interference. You also love to make noise and couldn`t care less about pollution.

the link doesn't come out right, so here it is

airplane quiz

Jump in with both feet, why don't I?

Well, I did it
After months of hemming and hawing
oohing and aaahing
and just generally contemplating what it is I wanted



I bought a new laptop. Well. I ordered one. That is being built and sent to me.
AND


its a Mac.

Yep. I bought a mac. The Macbook Pro, to be exact. With all kinds of bells and whistles and memory and and and and

and I honestly don't remember all it has.

But I looked, I researched a few other lap tops. And I decided, after some discussion with MM and Celtic Rose, to go with a Mac. It should be here sometime. This coming week maybe even.

So if I dissapear, and you hear screams and general hair pulling and the gnashing of teeth coming from the general direction of the republic of Cali?

That's just me, trying to figure everything out.

Artemis lady with the limp.

This, my friends, is Virginia Hall.
Never heard of her, right? Neither had I.
Virginia was a spy. Cool, huh.

She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1906, where her father owned a Cinema. She went to college at Radcliffe, and developed an affinity for languages. By the time she was finished, she was speaking French, Italian, and German.
In 1931 she accepted a position working for the American Embassy in Poland. She also, in the next few years worked at embassies in Estonia, Austria, and Turkey. While she was in Turkey, she was in a horrific accident, which resulted in her losing a leg, from the knee down. The US State Department, her employer, has a regulation that prevents anyone with the amputation of limbs from working for them, so in 1939, she had to resign. Interestingly enough, when she got her prosthetic, she named it "Cuthbert".
The beginning of WW II found her living in France. Not one to sit on her laurels, she joined the French Ambulance Service Unit. But rather than stay in occupied France, she made her way to England, and managed to secure a job in the American Embassy.
In 1941, she was recruited by the Special Operations Executive to become a British special agent. Her code name was "Marie". (imaginative, no?). She was sent back to France, posing as a reporter for the New York Post. While there, she assisted in setting up some resistance networks in Vichy. After Vichy, she moved on to Lyon, and worked with the resistance, there. The Germans became suspicious of Marie, though, and she had to leave France again, for her own safety. She barely made it to Spain, where she worked for a while, and then found her way back to London. She returned to France again, in 1944, working now under the Office of Strategic Services. This time she went to the Brittany Coast, with the code name "Diane", joining the resistance in the Haute-Loire region. By this time, the Gestapo were aware of her activities, and referred to her as "the lady with the limp", and also, Artemis. Despite them knowing of her, she still gathered intelligence, and was able to tell the allies when the Germans changed their headquaters from Lyon, to Le Puy. She also was responsible for helping to train three battallions of the resistance in the art of guerrilla warfare so they could practice it on the Germans.
In 1945, President Truman awarded Virginia the Distinguished Service Cross. It was the only one awarded to a civilian woman in WW II.After the war, she took a job with the CIA, where she became an intelligence analyst of French parlimentary affairs. In 1950, she married Paul Goillot, who had also been an OSS agent. She retired in 1966, and died, in 1982. Not bad for a one legged dame, huh?