Silver Liningness Sunday

Happy Sunday and Happy Halloween! Since this Sunday lands on a spooky one, I thought I'd changed things up a little and present a few of my favorite spooky film characters in no particular order.

Now, yes, there are the obvious ones - the Darth Vaders, the Hannibal Lecters, the Jasons, the Freddies, etc. What I LIKE in a good scare are the ones that seem absolutely plausible. The ones that could be the guy next door, or the guy in the kitty corner cubicle...

...or, the guy dating your daughter. In the movie Fear, a young Mark Wahlberg (not yet too far removed from the Marky Mark we all knew and loved) is that guy, Reese Witherspoon your daughter!

Yes, he's attentive and gentle and caring... and let's face it, he looks pretty darned good playing pool in a tight shirt and blue jeans. But, don't be fooled! Next thing you know, he's pummeling your platonic high school buddy and worse!

Then there's Colonel Landa from Inglorius Basterds. Wasn't he SO wonderfully EE-VIL?! Truly, in my book, Christoph Waltz deserved every one of the awards he won for that role.

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there were a couple of awful, evil guys-next-door. I will mention just one so as to not present any spoilers for those who have yet to see the movie. The so-called "Guardian" PIG! Evil, evil man.

In the movie "Fracture", Anthony Hopkins plays a successful and highly intelligent businessman. Ooooh, beware the successful, highly intelligent businessman!

And lastly, I'll throw in the movie "Severance", because it's just stupid, somewhat spooky fun.

I would love to hear any other evil recommendations. Do tell! What creeps you out?

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because 2nd place is first place last

I ran in a road race this morning. An actual organized, pay-a-fee, get-a-t-shirt road race. Omigod, it was so much fun!

A DECA (a high school marketing association to which no one seems to know what the initials stand for) group at the local high school sponsored this 5K to raise money, not for them, but for the Disabled American Veterans. I don't typically sign up for 5K's because I prefer longer races - it takes me about a whole 5K to warm up.

This race sounded like a good time though, and certainly for a good cause. Originally, Wolfgang thought he might do it to - which was part of my own motivation. He ended up NOT - slept in instead. But also, the race happened to start and finish about 5K from my house. SHOOT, I just ran over there, ran the race, ran back home.

And... AND, I won! Not tops overall, but I won first for the "ladies". Looky at my loot in the above pic:

* One memorable certificate with my name mispelled
* One $15 Road ID coupon
* One $5 Pizza Time gift card
* One $25 Biaggi's (ristorante Italiano) gift card
* Four shiny safety pins!
* (not pictured - one t-shirt)

Guess who's not cooking this weekend ....

....not that I typically do anyway.
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spent

Happy Illustration Friday where this week's prompt is "spent".

Remember the good old days where we just woke up when we woke up, then just played until we fell asleep in our tracks?

Neither do I.

This morning, both Chaco and Wolfgang overslept. I could tell because of the "sound" of their oversleeping - that would be silence in the place of the usual banging and clashing that accompanies their morning ablutions.

I purposely did not go and wake them, but lucky for them, Magnum's banging and clashing that accompanies his morning ablutions did serve to startle them into consciousness, and they both made it to school on time.

There's a time to sleep, and a time to wake. Too bad we don't always agree when those times should be.

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Who?

Yes, I have a facebook.

I know of facebook users who have a gazillion friends or so, and that's certainly fine. My own style of facebooking is to (a) set it up, (b) hardly ever go there, (c) ignore friend requests from people I hardly know, (d) accept friend requests from people I truly like.

So yes, I've ignored a friend request or two or twenty. The fact that I occupied the same town/school/place of employment at some point with another person isn't enough to get me to hit that "accept" button. (So there, for those of you who are on my friend list, see just how discerning I am!)

But yesterday, I got a strange request. It was from a colleague of my DAD!

I mean, I vaguely remember what the guy even looks like. I remember him being at our house for the occassional dinner party where I was banished to the kitchen to do clean up duty. I remember his wife's name only because he mentioned it in the friend request: "...Glenna say's hello". In fact, I can't even bring myself to refer to him by his first name, he was always "Mr." Colleague of My Dad.

Pros of accepting his friend request:

* I won't feel bad about not accepting it.
* I do have a few fond memories of him and the family.
* He went through the trouble of finding me and sending the request, so I should reciprocate.

Cons of accepting his friend request:

* I'll worry about him reading my rare but possibly raunchy status updates?
* It's difficult for me to refer to him by his first name.
* I'll worry about him reading my rare but possibly raunchy status updates?

Oh, what the hell, I hardly never even do status updates (yes, I know I'm breaking a grammar rule there).

It's still sitting there. A day and a half has gone by since he sent it. I want to know if others have ever gotten an atypical friend request and couldn't decide. What to do?
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Silver Liningness Sunday

...on an actual Sunday! It's only right.

First of all, this week was a nice mellow one work-wise. Really, I'm not a work-a-holic at all, I was just posing as one for a while there. I only had two class sessions this week.

One of my tutor students cancelled because of sickness, and another class that was supposed to begin this week was cancelled because only 4 students had enrolled. Normally, these aren't necessarily good things, but I really needed the break. So, while not happy for the sick student or the 4 others that are now scrounging for another class, I'm grateful!

On that note, I'm thankful for the flexibility of my job and also thankful for Magnum and his job, all of which allow me to take a load off as needed.

Wolfgang had his final cross-country meet on Friday as mentioned. It was a nice way to finish out the season. Conditions were perfect - favorable temperatures, slightly overcast skies, the pink shoes.... - he was very pleased, unlike the previous meet where it was an unseasonably hot 80 degrees with the sun boring down and Chipotle for dinner the night before... um, yeah.

As for my activity, I surpassed the 1300 mile mark for my own running on the year this week. Fall is my favorite season for running. Next stop, 1400 miles.

AND, we mustn't forget quality time with las bicicletas! I don't keep track of those miles, but they're all good.

(segue into the learning-to-speak-Spanish thing). Yep, I'm making it a priority to keep up with my spanish lessons each day. Today, for instance, I learned desayuno, almuerzo, y cerna among other things.

In movie news, we watched The Red Baron. I mainly got it because I figured the kids would like the dogfight scenes, which were very well done by the way. But I actually liked it for myself. Gotta love a love story.

Smooches!
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racing II

Okay, I couldn't let an Illustration Friday go by with just a photo! As mentioned in the last post, this week's prompt is "racing", so here's a coupla kids doing just that.

I recall that a local school banned the kids from playing tag at recess because it was deemed "too competetive". And while they were allowed to run, they weren't allowed to race. Same reason. Phooey! They're gonna do it anyway! The little criminals!

Go for it, I won't tell.
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racing

Happy Illustration Friday once again. I drew nothing.

Ironically, the prompt this week is "racing" and I drew nothing because I was at Wolfgang's cross country meet. So, in lieu of an illustration, I took the above pic of him owning the field. He came in FIRST out of his JV team while setting a new PR! (He's the kid in the dark top and yellow trunks and pink shoes which he swears are more red than pink).

Actually, I did start to draw something, but didn't finish. Unlike Wolfgang.
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