Coulrophobia

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I didn’t realize that fear of clowns was so common until I went to a haunted house with two of my friends, and both were afraid of the evil funhouse.  After that, I started paying closer attention, and apparently, clown phobia aka coulrophobia, is a thing.  Who knew?

One enterprising man is capitalizing on that fact, and for a fee, will terrorize your child.  Yep, gone are the days of happy clowns blowing up balloons at birthday parties.  This clown is terrifying, and will send your child texts and generally stalk them.  In the end, your child gets a cake in the face… And we wonder why children are different now than they were 50 years ago??

I know kids like to be scared, but isn’t this taking things a little far?  Being stalked for fun?  Am I overreacting, or is this really disturbing?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Blue

When I first came to Arizona, I fell in love with the sky.  I love taking pictures of the sky, being able to look around and see sky stretch far off into the distance.  This photo challenge gave me the opportunity to post one such picture.

I took this while hiking in the Superstition Mountains.  It was a beautiful January day, and I loved the way the clouds looked that day.

First Love Blogfest

Welcome to the First Loves Blogfest.  I get to talk about my first loves in the following categories: music, movie, book, and person.  Some of these are easier than others for me, but they all bring back good memories.

Person

My first great love was Richard.  We must have looked ridiculous together, as he was about 6’4″ and I was 5’0″ (then and now).  He was much more popular than I was, but it seemed to work as we were together for two years, and in high school, that’s like a century.  Different interests, different approaches to life eventually made us drift apart, but I’ve never forgotten him, and I hope that wherever life took him, he’s doing well.  I recently found our old love letters, and though there’s nothing to make me blush in them,  they were still nice to find.

Music

My first great music love was the Beatles.  Before that, I casually liked different music and songs, but nothing grabbed me.  It all started with “Hey Jude.”  I’m sure I heard it on the radio many times before the first time I really heard it.  After that, I started buying tapes and CDs.  I fell in love with Revolver, Rubber Soul, and Sergeant Pepper.  It would be several more years before I’d appreciate Abby Road and the White Album.  To this day, there’s nothing better than a Beatles song for me.

Book

This may be the hardest of the bunch for me, because I’m not sure I could pick just one!    If I were forced to choose, at gunpoint maybe, I’d probably choose Watchers, by Dean Koontz.  It’s my all time favorite book overall, and I think I read it for the first time when I was around 12.  Around the same time, I also read Watership Down, by Richard Adams, so that may have been my first beloved book.  Or, it could have been Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott.  Ha!  I talked about more than one book after all.

Movie

The first movie I remember really loving was The Wizard of Oz.  I loved all the songs and wished that I had a friend like The Scarecrow.  I can’t tell you how many times I asked my mom, “So was it a dream or was it real?”  Later, after I read the book by L. Frank Baum, I remember pointing out how different the movie was and being irritated that in the movie, they imply that it could have been a dream by incorporating people into Oz from her real life.  I still liked the movie after watching the book, but it wasn’t the same.

So, that’s all, folks.  These are my four first loves.  If you haven’t participated in the blogfest, I’d still love to hear about your “firsts” in comments.

Happily Divorced

Happily Divorced centers around Los Angeles florist Fran (Drescher) as she deals with dating after finding out her realtor husband of 18 years (John Michael Higgins) is gay. Fran juggles her new relationships, while still living under the same roof with her ex-husband. This is based on Fran Drescher’s real life experience with her own ex-husband. It is always interesting when people take a difficult situation and make a new start. The show is ok, not great, but it has been getting better as the characters are developing. Check it out on TV Land, check your local listings.

Friday writing prompt: Warm & Tasty Memories

I don’t care who you are; food has played an important role at some time in your life. We all have memories about food… What was served at holidays… Birthdays… Funerals. School lunches and forbidden snacks.

In my case, I didn’t realize how some of the normal things I grew up eating aren’t “normal” for everyone. In my pre-vegetarian days, I loved cream chipped beef on toast. It’s this delicious gloppy mess of chipped beef in a milk gravy. When I moved to Arizona, it wasn’t available on the menu. Anytime I go back toPA, I have to have it at least once.

Diners played a huge part in my childhood. My grandfather always managed various diners, and my parents helped out on weekends. I grew up sitting at the counter. Even now, I love the smell of diner grease, and the delicious food reminds me of home.

Birthdays were great. I always wanted fried chicken, homemade by mom. She didn’t make this treat often as making it from scratch is time consuming and messy, but I got to pick what I wanted once a year. My birthday is in August, so I usually got an ice cream cake, which we frequently ended up throwing at one another outside.

My best friend’s mother liked to serve Lima beans and brussels sprouts in the same meal. I love Lima beans but hate brussels sprouts; my best friend is the exact opposite. We always traded veggies when her mom wasn’t looking.

I could go on and on about food memories… The point is that I have a lot of good family memories. So, on to today’s writing prompt! If you’re journaling, write about one (or several) food memories you have. They could be positive or negative, but if you’re going to write a negative one, please try to do a positive one for balance.

If you’re writing fiction, make up a food memory for your character. Food memories can be a good way of showing family, attitudes, and culture.

Happy writing!

Giant George is Hugely Awesome!

Giant George is a Great Dane, and the Guinness Book World record holder for biggest dog ever.  He lives right here in AZ, down in Tucson.

Giant George: Life with the world’s biggest dog, by Dave Nasser with Lynne Barrett-Lee, is the story of how George was adopted by his people and grew from the runt of the litter to the world’s largest dog.

Complete with pictures, this book is a super fast read, but it’s interesting and funny.  George is seven feet long, almost five foot tall, and sleeps on a queen sized mattress.  If you’re a dog lover, this is a great book to pick up for a lazy afternoon.  Unlike some other books about dogs, George is still alive, so the only tears you might shed at the end of the book are happy ones!

Restaurants of the Future

One of the best ever movie scenes depicting the future comes from Demolition Man.  In the scene, Sandra Bullock’s character explains to Sylvester Stallone’s character that Taco Bell won the “franchise wars” and that all restaurants are now Taco Bell.  While I don’t want Taco Bell to be the only restaurant in my future, it does lead to the interesting question of what the future will be like.

The first of the fast food restaurants, McDonald’s, opened its doors in 1937.  Less than 100 years later, fast food is a staple of the American diet.  Will food get faster or slower over the next 100 years?  Will it get healthier or saltier & fattier?  It’s interesting for me to speculate, even though I know I’ll probably get it wrong.  Still, movies like Demolition Man and Back to the Future are great because they’re set far enough into the future that things could be very different, but not so far that we don’t get to see the reality.

I came up with this post after seeing an article on “Best New Restaurant Designs.”  These restaurants take their inspiration from both the past and from the future.  I’d like to eat in some of them just to look around at all the cool stuff!  Who cares what the food is like?  Enjoy.

The Big Bang Theory

I know this isn’t Sunday, and I’m not the TV Guy, but I can blog about TV too!

I happened to catch a rerun of the Big Bang Theory recently, and I have to say that it may be one of my favorite TV shows ever.  It’s completely hilarious.  The jokes are both intelligent and funny (and sometimes go over my head).  The characters are believable, flawed, and likable.  (I actually think I know a few of the guys the characters are based on.)

I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much at a TV show.  I just finished Season 1, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

The show’s theme song, The Big Bang Theory by the Barenaked Ladies, is stuck on repeat in my head.  If you’re looking for a new sitcom addiction, I highly recommend that you join me in watching this one.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused

Real photographers may have groaned when they saw this photo challenge, but not me!
I have a ton of photos sitting in my iPhoto library that are unfocused, for one reason or another.  I just can’t throw them away… so I’m a digital picture hoarder…

This one was taken in San Francisco, looking up at Lombard Street.  One evening, late in the evening, we were at Ghirardelli Square having a wonderful sundae.  After we ate, we decided to walk to Lombard Street, as it was *only* a mile away.  This was my idea.  What I forgot about San Francisco was that a mile was straight up most of the way.  By the time we got to Lombard Street, I was panting like a dog in summer.  I took out my iPhone and attempted to take a picture of Lombard street, looking up, but because of the low light, picture after picture didn’t work.  I eventually got a few good ones, but I still really like this one.  I think it being unfocused sort of lends a fantasy air to it.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

 

Batman Begins

The sci-fi genre has never been one of my primary go to viewing choices. This week I sat down and watched Batman Begins. This 2005 take on the comic that became a TV show that evolved into a series of blockbuster movies was quite good. I always have looked at this genre as too simple or trite in its story telling. Well, I was wrong and can accept that I may have missed out on plenty of good movies for no good reason.

The story was solid and kept me interested for the entire time. The story is of the creation of Batman and what Bruce Wayne went through to create the crime fighting character. After the murder of his parents Wayne drops out of society and moves to Asia to learn to fight evil.  After he was declared dead he returns to revenge his family and clean up the corruption of Gotham.

I am currently looking for other sci-fi /superhero movies to indulge in and looking forward to it.