When Life Becomes Fiction, or Vice Versa

So I'm listening to one of my favs in the car, "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee and read by Sissy Spacek. Really a fabulous rendering of the book on CD.

Anyway. Apparently it has seeped into my consciousness because last night I dreamt I was in the middle of a race riot. Ackkk. No wonder I'm tired this morning.

But the most startling thing is the revelation I had the other day while listening to the book. OMG, I think I'm "Miss Maudie". Except for the flowers! (Give me another decade, though.) LOL. Not that that's anything terrible. It's just really funny.

If you haven't read the book, you should. It's timeless.

I wanted to name Leia "Scout" after the little girl, but it sounds like "out" and that would be too confusing to the dog. Jean Louise was too formal, and "jean" or "louise" wouldn't work because I know a) a person or b) another pet with those names. Ah well. Leia works. Although I end up calling her Lei Lei a lot. ;)

I'm still chuckling over the Miss Maudie thing, though.

The Big Read Under the Big Sky

Sitrep: 1x Arms (2wts), 1x Cardio, 1x Abs, 1x Walk (10min), 15 min Stretching/Qigong, 30 min Yard work (mowing, weeding)

Saturday was a great day. One of those crisp fall days full of sunshine when you just want to be outside. Perfect for the annual Festival of the Book done by our local library. This year they are taking part in "The Big Read", an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest. The book picked for our county just happens to be one of my absolute favorites, To Kill A Mockingbird.

The opening events were in one of the parks next to the library. I took my little sister Shanni and her older sister KT. I can't believe how excited they were! They must have called me several times Friday night, even after we'd made all the arrangements. Shanni was so concerned we wouldn't get there in time to get our free copies of the book. [g] (I had them listening to it in the car with me this summer when we did our 2 trips to Bozeman.) The library had 2000 copies to give out. There were actually quite a few people getting them, too.

It was a great event. All sorts of booths were set up, there was music and dancing. One of the local dance troupes did some Irish Dancing. There was Native American drumming and chanting. They even had chairs and drumming sticks (I have no idea if that's what they're called; know nothing about drumming!) set out for anyone who wanted to to join in. Shanni loves drumming, so she jumped right in. After a few seconds I sat down too. It was captivating, the rhythm of the chanting and the drum beats. I can see how easy it would be to slip into a trance-like state. Very good meditation! Except my arm got very tired after a few minutes. Guess I should have done all my Arms workouts last week!

We also got to sit in the driver's seat of a police car and have one of the officer's show us all the gadgets. Even KT, who's not as much of a geek as Shanni & I, was interested. Until Shanni flashed us in the eyes with the spotlight trying to rotate it to the front of the car. Yikes. But it was very cool to see how all that stuff works. I had no idea how much of a drain all those on-board computers are for the car batteries. The officer was telling us they had to install those remote jump starters (or whatever they're called) to actually start the engine sometimes. If he were to shut the car off but have the computer and cameras up and running, it would drain the battery almost completely in ten minutes! Yikes. Maybe it's because the technology is newer for our small town. He said they're still looking into battery options, etc. I was amazed at the quality of the camera system. There's an on board hard drive that it goes to. If they need to keep it, they pull the hard drive, take it to the station and burn it onto disc. Wow. No more grainy b&W VHS! Anyway, he was very nice and patient with all of Shanni's questions. Which is not something I can always say about myself!

Then, of course, we spent several hours in the library itself, just browsing. We ran into Shanni's English teacher, and Shanni was so proud to introduce me. Ah, I remember those days! Shanni also got her own library card. She checked her books out before the rest of us were even done browsing! Since it was so nice out, and was lunch time, we decided to stroll the walking mall and ended up at The Parrot Confectionery (a landmark around here since 1919) for lunch. Not a bad place to go. A bowl of Campbell's soup, and a small sundae for $4.50 is a pretty decent lunch. It's a fun place to hang out; old-fashioned booths and jukebox, collection of elephant statues and other miscellaneous stuff decorating the walls. And, of course, there's the inevitable noses-pressed-to-the-glass at the candy/chocolate counter. ;)

We spent the rest of the afternoon strolling up & down the rest of the Walking Mall, & Last Chance Gulch, which is one of those typical small town "down town" streets. Went into the Antique Mall, which is always fun to browse. The girls had so much fun trying on the old hats...And no trip downtown is complete without a stop in Aunt Bonnie's bookstore, one of our two used book stores. Alas, the lady working that day was burning way too much incense, and I could only stay around ten minutes. Ended up with a low-grade headache. Sigh. Usually it's not so bad in the store. I've been able in the past to stay a half hour and more.

And that was our Saturday. It was just a fun day all around. :)

Yesterday was a lazy day. Did laundry, some housework. No REVing. Sigh. But I did weed along the side of the house (that stuff was 12" high already!), and mowed the yard. Hopefully for the last time until Spring. :) We've had a lot of rain lately, and unseasonably warm temps, so who knows. I might be mowing until Christmas at this rate!

In the evening, I was channel-surfing and ended up finding "Legally Blonde, The Musical" on MTV. It was great! I like Broadway musicals anyway, but this was just fun all around. I wish I'd caught it at the beginning, but missed about a half hour or so. I had a silly grin on my face through most of it. I hope they sell it on DVD. They don't do that enough, in my opinion. (Like when PBS showed "The Light in the Piazza" on Live from Lincoln Center. They still haven't issued that on DVD.) I'm definitely going to add "Legally Blonde, The Musical" to my CD collection. What a find! Who'd've thought a Broadway Musical would be shown on MTV? I must see if they're going to re-run it.

Alden is Scary, and Thank You VW Bozeman.

Yup. Alden is scary per my little sister Shanni. And this is only the Abs Essentials DVD. [g] She and her older sister KT went with me to Bozeman Monday when I took my car in for repairs. We had to return Tuesday because the part wasn't in stock.

So Monday night the girls stayed at my house. "Slumber Party" they squealed. Yeah, right. I crawled into bed at 9:30 pm. Driving takes it out of me. As well as 5 hours at the mall with 2 teenage girls.

Tuesday morning I got up and was determined to keep going with REVing. It was an Abs day, so it wasn't too hard to make myself do it. But I moved on to Abs Essentials workout #2, because that's where I was and I'm not letting myself go backwards! Shanni spotted me, and was very disappointed that when I pulsed up toward her hands it didn't make the same clicking noise as on the DVD (Alden spotting for Sarah). I had to point out it was his wedding ring hitting the Rev. So she used her finger nail to make the noise. LOL. But she goes "he's scary". I'm like, "What? No he's not!" Her 16 year old sister (still curled up on the couch under a blanket) rolled her eyes and said "No he's not. It's motivational."

Then I said, "He's a Navy SEAL you know." Shani then shot back at me "That makes him scarier." [g]

But when I was done, she wanted to try. So I let her do the original essentials workout with no weights. She did it. Some of it was a bit of a struggle, but she did the whole 15 minutes. Said she could feel her abs. She swears today she doesn't feel a thing. I'm not sure if she's telling the truth or not...

Anyway. Our second day in Bozeman was just as fun as the first. VW went ahead and covered the repair to the catalytic converter under warranty since it expired 2 days before I called in. And probably because I was there in May for the 50k mile checkup which was a pretty extensive one.

While they worked on the car, we spent the day at the mall - again. Their service dept didn't even ask the second day. Just picked up the phone and called their "shuttle" driver and said "We've got some ladies that want to go to the mall." [g]

I "made" the girls spend the first several hours at Barnes & Noble. Monday was their first ever trip to a bookstore like Barnes & Noble. They loved it! It was funny. They kept running up to me to get my cell phone so they could type in book names into the "notepad" feature using the full keyboard. Right now there are 3 book lists going. Me, KT and Shanni. ;)

We also did the "girl" thing. Both days. sigh. Spent more time than I care to admit in Claire's. The cosmetic jewelry store. Eventually I ended up outside on one of the benches, staring longingly down the concourse to B&N. [g]

The girls were great. Only one time did I have to get on them for squabbling. I got a few amused looks from other women in the mall when I said (apparently louder than I was planning to) "Hey! You've both spent the last 2 days in the Mall! NEITHER ONE OF YOU gets to cop an attitude!!!!"

Did you know the 80's were coming back in style? Seriously. KT is so into this; fingerless gloves, fishnet, etc. One of the stores was, like, a total flashback. When we finally left the store, Shanni goes "I didn't like that music." KT responds, "oh, I love retro." To which I yelped "Hey! No calling music I grew up on as RETRO!" Which made both of them start laughing.

The drive was actually fun. On a whim, I put in the unabridged audio book of To Kill a Mockingbird. I figured it was safer than finding music all of us would like, and age appropriate for both girls. Except I forgot the mouth Scout has in this book. But both girls absolutely loved it. The were both really getting into it and laughing. Even Shanni, who was the one I really wasn't sure would enjoy it since she's 11, almost 12. They ended up borrowing my paperback copy to finish the story, since we only got halfway through the book on CD (and that's with total car time of 4 hours).

Anyway. We had a good time, the car is fixed, I'm back on track with BodyRev, and my little sister is now impressed even more with my workout. Even if Alden is "scary." ;)