My screenwriting/directorial debut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPcShEX4Nbw

too cute for words

well, except that he has lots of themhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVu4Me_n91Y

Be warned - not for the faint of heart

I love husking corn. I always have. I think it goes back to my days of playing 'Little House on the Prairie'; the days when I asked for a washboard and a butter churn for my birthday. Being a city girl of today, husking corn is as close as I've ever been to being old-fashioned and farmish.
So when, last Sunday, I had the opportunity to husk corn, I was thrilled. I went and sat on the back patio, my mother joining me in short order (which always disappoints me - I want to do it all). When we were finished, she took the bag of husks to the garbage, and left me to take the corn into the house.
And that's when it happened.
I gathered the corn in my arms, and turned around. And panic hit. Terror hit. There, all over the roof were birds. Dozens of birds. I looked at the neighbor's fence - covered in birds. I looked at the small piece of lawn near our side door. Birds. Birds! BIRDS! Somehow, I had to get from the yard to and through that door, past all of those birds. With my arms full of corn. I was terrified. I've seen what birds can do.
http://video.tvguide.com/The+Birds/Trapped+In+Phonebooth/1047521?autoplay=true&partnerid=OVG
Somehow I worked up the nerve to plow through. I ducked and covered and shreiked, horrified that I was unable to protect my head by frantically waving my arms.
Somehow I didn't die. Shockingly enough, through all of that, I did not die. Inconceivable.

you're so not sneaky, scott pelley

my parents were watching '60 minutes' the other day. it was about the oil spill (cuz what isn't), but i was there so i watched 10 minutesish of it, and heard scott pelley interviewing a survivor from the rig.
me: 'interviewer guy's trying to cover up a southern accent.'
my mom: 'what?'
me: 'he is. he's southern. but he's trying to be all polished and news castery, but he's a hick.'
my mom: 'how do you know?'
me: 'listen to him. he's not sneaky. i can hear it when he's doing the voiceovers, but it's most obvious when he's with the guy. hearing the guy's accent is throwing him off and making it harder for him to hide it.'
my mom: 'o...k.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N58oCgl9j2c&feature=related
me: 'i'm gonna go look up where he's from.'
my mom: 'ok.'
a couple minutes later.
me: 'ha! he's from san antonio. don't try to pull one over on henry higgins.'

i haven't had one of these posts in a long time

however, right now i don't remember what i was going to post, so i guess one of these posts it is

Psalm 119:52

"When I think of THY ordinances from of old, I take comfort, O LORD."

We won!

The Rolling Twins will be getting a field! Thanks to those who voted! :)

Happy Belated 4th Blogiversary to Me!

My blogiversary (August 18th) always makes me feel like I should get back to my roots. But I never quite know how to do that. Maybe I should be like Chelleybutton and make up a weekly thing that's actually related to my blog title (even if it's not weekly, it perhaps gives a little more motivation to randomly have something LOTR-y on here every once in awhile). I don't know.

For now, though, I just have this:

Melilot Dolly Brandybuck of Buckland. It makes sense that I'm a Brandybuck. "Meriadoc [Brandybuck]...wrote a short treatise on Old Names and Words in the Shire, showing a special interest in discovering the kinship with the language of the Rohirrim of such 'shire-words' as mathom and old elements in place names."

- FOTR

See? The hobbit name generator knew what it was doing.

Happy my blogiversary!

heavens i've gotten behind here

monday was elvis' "deathiversary," so, all delayed-like, i'll just quickly say

elvis lives!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIEf-lkBr9w

Isaiah 40:27-28

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD,
and my right is disregarded by my GOD"?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting GOD,
the CREATOR of the ends of the earth.
HE does not faint or grow weary,
HIS understanding is unsearchable.

alrighty, girls

if i can ask you to vote for my boys for all-stars, i can also ask you to vote for their idea for the pepsi refresh project. all the major-league teams came up with an idea to make their communities better, and pepsi will donate $200,000 to whichever idea gets the most votes.
the minnesota twins' idea is to create a ballpark for the rolling twins, a youth wheelchair softball team. so please vote to make these kids' dreams come true!
http://mlb.mlb.com/sponsors/pepsi/refresh/y2010/?team=min

My Alphabetical Biography List: Bin Ladin, Carmen - former sister-in-law of Osama Bin Laden (they spell it differently with the English alphabet)

"Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia"
Fascinating story, and a quick read.
Bin Ladin was born and raised in Switzerland, the daughter of a Swiss father and Persian mother. She grew up going to (a then safe) Iran during school holidays, so when she met a Middle Eastern man when she was older, she felt little apprehension about what life would be like for her in his country. He warned her that as a woman she would have no freedom, and that there would be expectations that she wouldn't be used to, but she couldn't have imagined what life would become for her. All of our stereotypes were confirmed. She was property, she had to be completely covered at all times, she couldn't speak to a man, all of that.
Bin Ladin struggled with not only the restrictions, but also the fact that the women seemed resigned to them. She felt that if the women would only step up and demand a few small freedoms, society could move forward. However, from what she saw, the women didn't want change. And while she may have been able to tolerate that for herself, once she had daughters, everything changed.
She herself had been able to choose her husband. Her husband had lived both in Switzerland and in America, so he had seen some of the Western culture, and was more laid back. Her husband also appreciated having a wife who could think. Her daughters might not be that lucky.
The longer they lived in Saudi Arabia, the more 'Saudi' she felt her husband became. Part of that was due to the political situation in the Middle East, part due to his family, and part due to the culture. Bin Ladin was, I felt, very fair in acknowledging that her husband tried in the beginning. He loved her, he gave her freedoms, he took her to Switzerland whenever he could, but as things changed in Saudi Arabia, he changed. Eventually she realized that this couldn't go on. She had to get out; if not for her own sake, then for that of her daughters.
Bin Ladin skimmed over the details of her leaving the country and her husband. She said that was a messy part of her life and she didn't feel that it would benefit anyone for her to go into it. I appreciate that. And I like how gracious she was concerning her ex-husband. "Despite everything we have gone through and no matter what the future holds for us, I want my daughters to know that I will never regret saying yes to their father. As a young girl, I accepted him and loved him madly. Unfortunately, I found that as a mother and a woman, I could not accept the beliefs and values that were such an important part of him." I think that's a very nice way of putting it.
At the end of the book, Bin Ladin also issues a warning to those of us in the West. She acknowledges that the percentage of Muslims who are fanatics is slim, but states that she can see their culture creeping in and that it is something about which we should be concerned. "We should not allow them to use our tolerance to impose their intolerance on us." A profound statement that covers a multitude of facets.

the story behind chelleybutton's car not getting stolen

when we got to kauffman monday night we parked and went in all excited-like for the game. the boys kicked bottom, and then it was time to leave. except we couldn't. cuz chelley's car wasn't anywhere. we knew we had parked toward the right when coming in, so the car should be toward the left, and we were a few rows back. and it was nowhere to be found.
we wandered and wandered, eventually figuring we should just give up. sooner or later everyone would be gone and ours would be the lone car in the lot. the only problem with this theory was that no one else could find their cars either. instead of being hollered at like i was last year ('number five! number five! i know you know what number you got on your back. number five!), the constant cry was 'where's my car? have you seen it? if you find yours will you come back and help us find ours? ah!'
chelleybutton was convinced her car was stolen. i was convinced that someone had a master key and moved everyone's car just for fun (would that not be the best prank ever?). i offered a quarter to whoever found the car first. finally we decided to go back to the front row and walk down each and every one systematically until we found it. this worked. and chelley got a quarter.

hot. hot hot hot. i hate hot. thank heaven for baseball. that's the only thing that makes summer worth it.

i have another blog

a baseball one, actually. believe it or not, this is not my baseball blog. i try to spare you non-baseball girls as much as possible. however, some things just need to be shared. like this for example:when did carl pavano's moustache suddenly become kind of

woo-woo?

oh! how could i forget?!

contrary to popular belief, chelleybutton's car did not get stolen that monday night.

alright - kc

after spending sunday night at chez chelle, my nieces, chelleybutton, and i took off for kansas city. we stopped at our hotel just long enough for chelley to take a nap (i had unintentionally kept her up the night before), then headed for kauffman. we looked around a little bit, and i must say again how much i love that stadium. with a merry-go-round, mini-golf, mini-baseball diamond, and batting cage, plus also fountains and parking, and $5 tickets on monday nights, it's the perfect place to take a family - or friends and teenagers. if only...

but i digress. once the sun was no longer blinding us, it was a nice, albeit a tad too warm, night, complete with a 19-1 win. 19-1. that's just insane. (and the royals only got that one because i started cheering for them in the 9th inning.) i also had the pleasure of teaching a twins fan the art of cheering for my boyfriend.

as i'm sitting there in my cuddyer shirt, the guy behind us hollered at him after he struck out, 'see, cuddy! that's why i decided to hate on you this year! i decided to hate on you, and you're living up to it! you suck!' this was simply too much. i spun around and said, 'well then it's all your fault! if you would show him some love, maybe he'd feel a little encouraged and start playing better!' and went back to watching the game. when my darling boy got up to bat again, and once again struck out, the guy hollered, 'see, cuddy! you s...i mean, it's ok! you're still a good player!' if only more people would listen to me like that.

after the (long) game, we went back to the hotel to sleep. the next day we had to decide what to do. the zoo? a movie? shopping? we took one step out the door and ruled the zoo out. it was 872 degrees and muggy. so we went out for lunch, then to a movie. after the movie, we decided to go shopping on the plaza. we got to one store, stepped back outside to move on to another, and almost died of heat, so we spent the rest of the afternoon at the barnes and noble coffee shop. we then headed to the game, and didn't die 5 times. what's with drivers in kc anyway?

this game seemed very long. it was so yucky out. we could hardly breathe. how those boys actually ran and stuff, i don't know. it was nice to win 11-2, but i would've been happy with 3-2 if it had meant the game would be over sooner. it was hot.

we then drove back to chelley's. and she dripped ice cream on my foot. which made me cry. (that happens when i'm extremely tired. not me getting ice cream on my foot, me laughing/crying. my charming nieces relish it, and try to make me cry harder. it's a wonderful experience.)

then the following morning, erma and scout and i drove back to mpls. and that was our trip. :)

way to give me a complex, bev

one of our residents is prone to saying what she thinks. it's always pleasant, though sometimes she pops off something that might sound a bit odd to someone who doesn't know her. (she once asked a 75ish-year-old woman who came to visit someone if she was wearing a thong.)
today, as i took the coffee pot off her table after lunch, in her pleasant manner of conversation she asked, 'do you have any grandchildren?'

hey chelleybutton,

'member when we didn't die five times in kansas city?

dear mr. good-looking guy in scrubs with the nice smile at the grocery store,

i'll never see you again, so that's all i guess. :(
disappointedly,
melilot brandybuck

i know, i know, i promised a kc post. i will get there! for right now, though, i just thought i'd quickly remind you all to go get blizzards today. proceeds go to the chilcren's miracle network. eating ice cream is the least you can do!