Six Fours (And More) ... Part One

Recently I received a cyber-tap on the shoulder from a blogger I like a great deal, namely, Diane at Much of a Muchness.  It's one of those "meme" things which involves revealing information about myself that I cannot imagine anyone would find even marginally interesting, but to ignore Diane's cyber-nudge would be cyber-rude and I'm not into that at all, y'all. I have been referred to as intractable but actually I'm very nice, and not only in cyberspace. Really. Stop smirking.

Be that as it may, if you opted to click out at this point in order to squirt scrubbing bubbles on your shower grout or rearrange the plethora of health and beauty aids clogging the shelves of your medicine cabinet, I would not blame you in the least. In fact I would applaud your excellent time management skills. But if you're like me, you enjoy reading blogs much more than performing mundane and meaningless tasks, however pressing. Furthermore, if you've read this far you're likely to stay with me; right?

It pulls every heartstring there is to pull but it hurts soooo good.

One can only hope.

If that is in fact the case and you plan to read on, as my son would say: Preeshate it! Word to your mother!

(First let me point out, this meme looked real good to me from the start on account of, four is my favorite number. Forty-four is absotively posolutely the number that sends me into orbit. I am not superstitious but I am weird -- stop smirking, I said -- and I am telling you right now, the sight of the number 44 makes me happy. Some of the more astutely observant of my half-dozen devoted readers might have noticed that I nearly always post at :44 of any given hour. Sometimes I have to fudge that by changing the time in my text editor, but mostly it's within five minutes of something forty-four. Yeah. Weird. I'd apologize but I'm not into that either.)

So here's the dealie-o. According to darling Diane I have to tell you four jobs I've held, four movies I'd watch over and over again, four TV shows I like (she said "love" but I don't love any TV shows so I'm going to go with like), four places I have vacationed, four of my favorite dishes, and four blogs I visit every day.

And you know that only if swine are airborne in your neck of the woods at the very moment you read these words and said porcine critters are crooning I Heard It Through The Grapevine in four-part harmony while strumming pink polka-dotted ukeleles, I am going to merely list the items in these categories without elaboration. In other words, I'm going to tell you all about it, y'all. We dooz it large here at IHATH.

Ready? Let's git 'r done, 'k? You have stuff to do.

FOUR JOBS I'VE HELD. First let me establish: I am lazy and do not like to work. That being said, I have worked pretty much steadily and gainfully since the age of 15 when I landed my first (paying) job: working the counter at ...

[1] ... Burger King on Candler Road in Atlanta. The restaurant was down the street from my school, so I'd change into my uniform in the ladies' room and walk to work. I worked as a waitress one other time too, while in college. I loved that job. Let's see ... later I was ...

[2] ... owner of Expert Resume Service, wherein I was self-employed as a professional resume and cover-letter writer, for eight years. I met lots of people and learned lots of stuff that I still use. I was very lucky to be able to have that job, which by the way I invented. I don't mean I invented resume writing; heavens no. I invented Expert Resume Service. Then I became a ...

[3] ... legal assistant and did that off and on for the next eleven years. And although I still work all the time with lawyers and have several friends who are lawyers and actually have a few readers who are lawyers, I don't mind telling you that I would go back to being a waitress before I would do that job again. Nothing against lawyers individually or collectively; I just don't like getting up early every morning and going to an office and being told by other people what to do. (Lazy; remember?) Moving on, I've also been a ...

[4] ... court reporter for the last four (4!) years and that's a pretty good gig (most of the time), but I'm more than ready to retire and begin my career as a bestselling author, which I truly hope is my last job.

FOUR MOVIES I'LL WATCH OVER AND OVER. Let me say right here, there are hundreds of movies I will watch over and over. For example, if I have time I will sit down and watch just about anything made between 1939 and 1949. There were so many magnificent movies made during those ten years, I could go on forever about them but suffice it to say, I love those films.

I do adore a good movie ... and by "good" I mean a great story with great acting and minus the gratuitous profanity, violence, and adult themes that plague movies today. I don't like guns, I don't like off-color language, and as far as romance goes, unless it's my own, I prefer to use my vivid imagination (although I do love to see people kiss). With that caveat, of the two-point-five percent of Hollywood movies that remain which are not geared to the under-12 set, here are the movies I will watch over and over again:

[1] Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) ... starring Johnny Depp ... need I expound on this one except to say, I have lost count of how many times I've seen POTC:CotBP? I think not. But I will anyway. Johnny's performance as Captain Jack Sparrow is so funny, so poignant, so smart, so flamboyant, so daring and so brilliant, that I believe this to be his definitive role ... the one for which, out of all his impressive and still-in-progress body of work, he will be most remembered. POTC:CotBP may not be the greatest movie of all time, but in my humble opinion it is securely in the top fifty.

[2] The Trip To Bountiful (1985) ... starring Geraldine Page (in an Oscar-winning performance), John Heard, Carlin Glynn (who incidentally is the mother of Mary Stuart Masterson, who starred with Johnny in Benny and Joon, which is a good movie but not on my list of only four), and Rebecca DeMornay. This movie is so perfect, it practically defies description. It pulls every heartstring there is to pull but it hurts soooo good.

[3] Hoosiers (1986) ... starring Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, and Dennis Hopper ... I was born (although not raised) in Indiana and married a basketball player and coach, but that's not why I love this movie. From a sensory, visual, and auditory standpoint, Hoosiers is one of the most atmospheric movies I've ever seen. Watching this film you can feel in your bones the raw cold of an Indiana winter. You can smell pungent woodsmoke, decaying leaves, falling snow, and the popcorn and sweat of the gym. When you hear the squeak of Chuck Taylors on polished pine, the wheet! of the ref's whistle, the strident finality of the buzzer, the sounds come alive as if you were there. The soundtrack is one of the best ever, too ... and there's romance. I feel like watching this movie right now.

[4] Penny Serenade (1941) ... starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. This movie is such a tear-jerker that if you don't need three hankies at the end -- one for each eye and one for your nose -- you'd better check your pulse because I think your heart is missing (incidentally, this is the movie that Spencer and Jillian like to watch in Johnny's quasi-yawn of a film The Astronaut's Wife).

Looks like this will have to be a two- (or five- or seven-) part post. Go figure.

To be continued ...

This Just In ...

44 Hours In North Carolina

You have my solemn promise that I'm Having A Thought Here isn't going to become a grandma blog (all evidence to the contrary), but on Sunday I went to see my grandkids, y'all.  Melanie had those tube thingies put into her li'l ears on Monday. Erica went with me so that she could accompany Stephanie and Melanie to Winston-Salem for the procedure.  I willingly babysat Allissa.  True to form, I took lots of pictures. 

I'm home now and I will do my best to put up a proper post tomorrow. Check back, 'k?

(We got back home Tuesday night but it's been a whirlwind of activity since then.  Tonight we drove 90 miles to Darlington, South Carolina, to hear our nephew preach at the church where he has recently become an assistant pastor.  It was good to see him and his sweet family but can you believe ... I forgot to take my camera with me.  I wish you could have seen the basket of uniquely southern foods Erica and I put together for my nephew and his wife and children.  They have been living in Ohio and don't know how to eat.  We included RC Cola, boiled peanuts, molasses, grits, chow-chow relish, and lots of other goodies.)

I didn't have Internet access while I was gone to North Carolina except to approve kind comments on my previous post. For that I used my son-in-law's laptop in his office after church on Sunday night (he is a pastor) and since I don't own a laptop and am not used to the keyboard (which seems very tiny to me), that simple task took four times longer than it would have otherwise. It was actually comical (sort of) the way my left pinky finger kept hitting "Escape" when what I wanted was an exclamation point!  Patience is not my strong suit but I persevered.

I'm home now and I will do my best to put up a proper post tomorrow. Check back, 'k?

Meantime, just in case you'd like to see the new photos of my baby girls, just watch the slide show ...

God Bless America ... and Josh

I know I'm like a broken record when it comes to Josh Groban, but I can't help it.  And since I won't have time to put up a new blog post until the middle of next week (I must wait until the opportune moment), I offer you the following ...

Grobie sang God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch of the All Star Game at Yankee Stadium on July 15th.  I didn't watch the game with TG (who lasted 13 of the 15 innings before giving up and coming to bed) and truth be known I wasn't even aware that Josh was scheduled to be there, but isn't that why there's YouTube?

[UPDATE AS OF 7/23 ... Josh's glorious patriotic baseball moment appears to have been yanked from YouTube ... must have been copyright issues ... oh well ... instead I leave you with a video of strange unrecognizable creatures humming Ode To Joy ...]

[UPDATE AS OF 7/24 ... Erica put me onto a great YouTube of Josh singing the National Anthem at a football game awhile back, so here it is! I promise to stop tweaking this post now! You may still watch the crooning creatures if you want.]

Is he not spectacular?  Don't you love the way he simply uses his magnificent God-given voice to sing the song, allowing its wonderful message to shine through, instead of making a spectacle of himself and rendering the song all but unrecognizable?  Thank you, Josh.  You are a national treasure.

"There Will Be ...

... wonderful surprises." ~ What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges

At the confluence of unique vision and dogged determination there is usually impressive achievement. Add to that uncommon creativity, indefatigable optimism, a stellar work ethic, a desire to help mankind, and the most successful capitalistic society that has ever been devised, and the result can be a signal mix of great wealth and its many manifestations.

Translation: What a country! God bless America.

Happily, another corollary when these varied traits and factors meld is often exceptional hospitality, kindness, and generosity.

Allow me to elaborate.  Although I like to think I am not without a soupçon of personal mystique, mystery itself has never been my strong suit.  (And if you want to know what soup cans have to do with it, you shall have to continue reading anyway.)

I often say, if he and I were mood lighting he'd choose to be an overhead fluorescent tube and I would want to be a dainty 40-watt bent-tip decorative bulb.

Many years ago TG and I and the kids lived in another state. No, not the state of confusion! That's where we live now. I will thank you not to snicker.

One day in the early '90s when we lived in that (other) state, I was a passenger in the automobile of an acquaintance. We were traveling on a road about ten miles from my home. At one point I was advised to look over at something, and I did, and what met my eyes was a sight I will never forget. It was a house that was in the process of being built, and even in that nascent stage its mammoth size was clearly destined to be rivaled only by its stately beauty. I stared for a second or two before my companion said: "Oh, you're looking at the guest house. There's the main house." I was directed to look some distance away from the spot where my eyes had been trained, and there was -- also under construction -- another house.

To quote the insanely cute pirate ... A better one!

A mansion in the making, as it were. A sublime and magnificent residence that would someday effortlessly hold its own beside the loveliest and most palatial estates in America.

Its maker and owner is a man who for the past thirty-five years has been a pioneer of innovation, industry, and education.

Last weekend, owing to a set of circumstances that are interesting (to me at least) if not particularly unusual, TG and I were invited by this man and his darling wife to stay at the guest house I gawked at from the road so many years ago. To say it was a treat to occupy that grand space for a span of forty-eight hours would be an understatement, and if you've been paying attention you know it is unlike me to indulge in understatement, so I won't say that.

But it was a marvelous experience and one that, like my first glimpse of the guest house fifteen years ago, I will never forget.

It has been said that the devil is in the details, but I maintain it is God Who dwells there.  And everywhere one looked in this fabulous place, there were incredibly satisfying details.  Craftsmanship, art, design, technology, nature, time-honored traditions ... all were on display in staggering measure.  I didn't have time to tire of feasting my eyes upon it all. 

I learned a few things this weekend and was reminded of some I already knew, to wit:

There is something about the way buttery light falls on furnishings, finishes, fabrics, and objets d'art that you did not choose and for which you are not personally responsible, that makes the privilege of examining them at your leisure, doubly pleasing.

There is something about the warm sunbeams and the cool breezes caressing expanses of land and water that have been painstakingly developed and lovingly manicured and are so freely shared with you, that is as enchanting as it is rejuvenating.

There is something about floodlit grand classic architecture and splashing fountains and majestic gates and the thoughtfully-planned paths winding gracefully around them all, that elevates the senses by being both refreshing and thought-provoking.

There is something about the unselfish provision of verdant sanctuary for both wildlife and treasured domesticated animals that is a joy to behold and, however briefly, to be a part of.

There is something about the appearance of the eternal sky with its many moods and whims viewed through hundreds of spotless panes of glass facing west, that is at once breathtaking and calming.

Twice it rained and, as I love rain, the drops were like a benison on our short time there.  (TG thinks I'm crazy for loving rain like I do ... it cannot get glaringly sunny enough for him ... I often say, if he and I were mood lighting he'd choose to be an overhead fluorescent tube and I would want to be a dainty 40-watt bent-tip decorative bulb wearing a frilly shade ... and no, I don't mean he's bright and I'm dim ... good grief ... but he's not writing this so who cares?)

At any rate the weather patterns were part and parcel of the delight I felt throughout the weekend.

I realize it was a touristy thing to do and perhaps a bit gauche, but you know me: I took lots of pictures. At least I wasn't wearing a confederate flag teeshirt and a fanny pack, y'all!  But since we were after all staying in the guest house of a private residence, out of respect for the family I cropped many of the photos to include specific details rather than the buildings and rooms they are actually a part of.

To augment their beauty, I set the images to music.  I apologize for the way the song cuts out at the end; I tried several times but couldn't get it to do right.  That's the incomparable Yo-Yo Ma playing the music of Ennio Morricone.

I hope you enjoy.