Maukie - the virtual cat

Weblog

Wednesday, 08 July 2009

Sunday, 28 June 2009

Sunday, 14 June 2009

  • Great Day!

    I feel like I really accomplished something. Actually I've been fairly busy since Thursday. Yesterday (Saturday) I helped my son and his housemates paint their living and dining room. The rooms were a beautiful red color, but didn't get enough light for that to work. I'm not sure exactly what the new color is (a creamy sage, maybe), but the room, even after just one coat, is both lighter and larger looking.

    I thought I was going to go help today, but I got the call too late. I would have had to drive home alone and, until I learn the route, I don't want to do that. (OK, so I'm a timid driver!)

    I also thought I'd get up earlier today, but that didn't happen. I was well rested, though, so I went out and spent three hours in the garden. I got a few pots planted.  The petunias and roses are deadheaded. The pots that are close to the house got watered. (They don't get the rain because of the eaves.) The lawn edges got trimmed. (Iqbal always leaves them for me to do.)

    Mom wanted a sub for  dinner today and we thought that was fine.

    After dinner, I fixed my pot shelf, which fell down the other day. The plastic anchor I used to hold the screw didn't hold. I replaced it with a butterfly.

    Then I came in here and recorded my food and exercise (gardening!). I wrote three short  (very short!) book reviews. I considered working on my writing, but I think I will do better if I do at least the preliminary writing on paper. Otherwise, I think I'll simply be sitting here and staring at the screen, which will lead to going to my Google homepage, where I keep all the games. Then, before I know it, it will be dawn. So, instead, I'll go read and/or write in my notebook.
    Currently
    A Man Without a Country (Book Club Edition)
    By KURT VONNEGUT
    see related

Saturday, 30 May 2009

  • What's Going On here?!?

    I just tried to catch up with some of my subscriptions. Apparently Xanga doesn't want me to do this or is punishing me for being here less. I tried two blogs and when I clicked on "next 5" it took me back to 2005 and 2004, rather than the previous posts. Those were buyit and maggie70. I commented on the XangaTeam site (whatever it is... there is no other place to get help if it's not in the existing files). My site works OK for me, but has 12 posts on a page when I didn't do anything to make that happen. (Doesn't bother me, but I can see that it could be problematic for anyone on dial-up.) I'll probably drag all my e-mails to my BookWise and catch up with y'all there. Maybe sometime this weekend.

    Anyway, I'm tired of hassling and I have to do my exercises. I have to get used to that. Doc said I'll have to do them all my life to keep my back strong. Since I plan on making it 'til I'm at least 100, I had better get used to it.

    Garden pics linked below. (Keep the link. I'll be adding more.)

    I have too many things to do!

    I see a world where all people accept each other as friends and neighbors, and celebrate each person's uniqueness as a vital part of everyone's life, like threads in a tapestry.    
         

    =^. .^=
    TongFengDeMao 
    PS: Well, now it has only 5 posts on a page. Weird!

    When I was writing this, I was listening to:
    張學友 - I Got It Made
    張國榮 (LESLIE CHEUNG) - 有心人
    張學友 - 女人香
    劉德華 (Andy Lau) - 因為愛
    陳曉東 (Daniel Chan) - 冰箱
    張學友 - 走不掉



    Currently
    In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose
    By Alice Walker
    see related

Friday, 29 May 2009

  • My Garden 2009, So Far...

    Here are the Garden photos I have so far for 2009. There are about 190 of them (I'm not editing them), so they aren't all going to get posted immediately. LOL As it is, I keep being told to "slow down, cowboy!" They cover from mid to late March until today.

    I've been working in the garden, today. So much to be done. Plants can be funny things. I was so careful to put the plants in according to height and then they decide to be different heights than the pot cards said. My "12 inch" perennial geranium is sprawling at about 18 to 24 inches. My Bee Balm is not close to 30 inches. The naked lilies were already here, but I replanted them in new places based on the size they were. This year they decided to double both height and width. That's just the leaves. The flowers show up (after the leaves have been dead for a while) in late August, I think. Are they going to be bigger, too? I don't know.

    I lost a couple of plants, probably because of the ice storm in late December. It was a good thing I used the leaves as mulch for the winter. I'm sure I would have lost more without it. Most (all but 2) of the dahlias in the pots died. (They were supposed to come into the house, but we had no room for them.) Remarkably, the big dahlias planted in the border in back have all returned. They're only 1 or 2 inches so far, but I think they will be happy. I thought I had lost my Jasmine, but it only died above ground. It has plenty of new shoots. The same with a white flower vine next to the deck trellis.

    I managed to get out in April and trim back all my roses and they look really good now. (as long as I don't forget to water them!)

    One of the things I got done this week was putting the drip hose along the back border...

    Uh, oh! I better go turn it off!

    OK. Most of the back border is well watered. It didn't seem to drip as well at the very end where the border turns along the driveway. I'll see how it looks tomorrow. It's too dark, now.

    I will be putting in drip hoses in the deck bed, the corner bed, under the cherry trees in front (both up and down) and along the hydrangea in front of the house. I'll still water the rose garden (all pots) by hand.

    I'm going to add some more of the photos and then I need to do my therapy exercises and them I plan to read.

    When I was writing this, I was listening to:
    張學友 - 暗中的感覺
    張家輝 (Andy Lau) - 忠於自己
    梅艷芳 (Anita Mui) - 心仍是冷 ( 寒冬版 )

    Currently
    In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose
    By Alice Walker
    see related

  • The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By by Carol S. Pearson

    This is a book I purchased with the idea of gaining an understanding of character types for writing stories. It provides those insights and much more.

    Pearson descripes the six archetype and also shows how all the archetypes are part each person. We don't go through them in any set order, though a couple of paths are most common, based on our society. Even more, though, she makes it clear that we may seem to be in one particular archetype mode, and as we grow and learn, move into another and another until we've covered all six, (or get stuck in one) we actually are processing all six all the time. She clarifies what each archetype is and contrasts it to stagnant societal understanding or stereotype.

    Although my copy of the book was written in 1989, it does not seem at all dated. In fact, I see more of the changes she believes our society is going through. You can see what archetype was and is dominant in our society. I think it can help make change less scary to those who identify more with the outgoing archetype and more hopeful for those who don't identify. She addresses this particularly with the stereotypes for male and female roles.

    This isn't a book you can use to make people change (probably not even yourself), but it offers understanding of where others, and you, are. It helps answer the question "Why do people do what they do?" This understanding can be what you need to help you make a change, if you are ready, but no one will change until it is time for them to change.

    The book is a lot of psychology, but Pearson treats religion with respect. I appreciate this. I didn't find it at odds with my own beliefs as I have sometimes found with some psychology books.

    As someone who occasionally writes stories, I find it gives background and understanding that will help me flesh out my characters when I need to figure out things like motivation. Mostly, though it's been a book that helps me see who I am and maybe where I'm going.

    The Hero Within

    ____________________
    cross posted from Airy Nothing Book Reviews or Chatter

    Clearly, I've interrupted reading the book listed as the last "What I'm reading." When a book is slow going, sometimes it's just best to start another and get back to it when I'm ready. I'm still not ready, so I'm trying the one below, next.

    Currently
    In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens Womanist Prose
    By Alice Walker
    see related

Saturday, 23 May 2009

  • Terminator III

    Yeah, this is the weakest of the three. More about blowing shit up than about humanity. It also has an inconsistent time line. How could John have been 13 in 1997? Probably the most interesting character was the Terminator, himself. He and Kate are the only characters who changed.

    Given the very short span of time, her change is unrealistic to me. She got over her fiancé's death way too easily. They needed her to become the kind of woman she became (will become?), but I seriously doubt that would override emotions that easily that fast. Sarah was much more emotional in the first movie. Kate showed more emotion for her father and her acceptance of his death made more sense given she could see much more clearly that Blondie wasn't a rogue robot, that everyone was getting killed and then the final scene in the bomb shelter with the defense people calling, knowing that the bomb was really going to happen. She'd definitely breakdown about her dad later. Maybe for the fiancé, but I just didn't sense that she felt that much for him. (Or is that what the early conversation with her dad was about?)

    Even though the Terminator is a different one in each movie, it's interesting how his programming each time built on the last. To see his self awareness become fully actualized is what made him the most interesting character, to me. Maybe if someone had bothered to think about Asimov's 3 laws for robots, this whole fiasco could have been prevented But whether John thought about Asimov's laws or not, he seemed to learn that they were needed.

    John didn't seem to change, to me. He just was able to finally do what he had been prepared all his life to do. Between T II and T III he was just waiting off the radar, as he explained in the narration. His wasn't a character change, but a situation change.

    The delays are over. I'm looking forward to the new movie.
    Currently
    The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits
    By Gregg Braden
    see related

Friday, 22 May 2009

  • Terminator II

    Well, Sarah was no longer that wimpy (not quite!) funny looking chick from the 80s, that's for sure. You can see why John talked about her to his young dad. (It definitely is hard to wrap one's head around that.) For a 10-12 year old, John was no slouch, either.

    This time, though, I was focused on what, to me, are inconsistencies. It just seems to me that as soon as they wiped out the prototype for SkyNet, the two terminators and John should have disappeared. I don't know where that would have left Sarah, but very likely not blowing up shit, someplace.

    Son says, there are two more movies, so obviously it didn't stop the WAR. And that makes total sense. As John said, while watching the two children "shooting" at each other, "We aren't going to make it, are we?" We don't seem to need intelligent or sentient computers to blow us up. We can manage that all by ourselves, thank you very much.

    And I think that maybe that explains what seemed to be inconsistencies. It is possible that the guy John sent back wasn't originally his father. You have to trust that certain things are meant to be, no matter what, for this to work. John didn't have to be the exact make up of Kyle and Sarah. It was Sarah alone who formed who he became. She seemed to have hard luck with guys and maybe life led her to the kind of men she hung out with between movies.

    Also there would be no SkyNet before the Terminator came back to be crushed in the factory. At least is wasn't the same thing it was for the liquid guy and the good Terminator. And I remember Kyle saying that they blew up the time travel machine after only two went through it.

    So, they didn't avert the coming disaster, but they did change the future. John's father went from unknown to known, SkyNet became more elaborate, they didn't blow up the time travel machine right away and the machine technology in 2029 was a lot more advanced.

    I don't have a clue about the next movie, but I'm hoping it reflects this or explains it another way. I'm pretty sure humanity didn't get 90% exterminated in 1997. I'm very curious to see what horrors the next movie brings from the future.

    This movie was made after the end of the "Cold War," but it makes a pretty good case that nothing has really changed. I'm pretty sure we all have that fear of self destruction somewhere in our heads. I don't think Sarah had it completely right when she said that men couldn't understand creativity the way a woman can (woman creates life, men create destruction). I mean, she has a solid point there, but if that is the whole of it, then humanity dies out in destruction or for a lack of men (getting rid of the problem). That won't work.

    Hmmm... Maybe Arnold had it right when he did the movie in which he had the baby. :^D

    Well, we'll see what's next.

    _________________________
    I really felt sorry for Dyson. He didn't know what he was doing.  Also, I was expecting him to be the vacuum cleaner inventor, lol.
    Currently
    The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits
    By Gregg Braden
    see related

Thursday, 21 May 2009

  • "I'll be back."

    Saw The Terminator for the first time tonight. I was commenting on how unimpressive the situation was in which that famous statement was made, and then he came back. Ah! After 25 years, I finally get it. Don't stone me, please. I'm about ten years older than Sarah Connor and the ads made it look like a "guy movie" that was all about fighting and blowing things up.

    But now I get why so many women like the movie(s). Sarah looks kind of like someone I knew back in the 60s [Odd case where the movie star isn't quite a cute as the "ordinary" person.] I can really see the appeal to women. And it's not naked men or romantic interludes. She's just like us. Sarah starts out so ordinary. Actually, through the whole movie she remains fairly normal, everyday type in a not every day situation. What makes her remarkable is not so much that she rose to the demands of the situation, but that she didn't fall apart afterward, as attested to by the fact that she was in such a dire situation (and Kyle's statements).

    It really makes me think. My nephew is almost exactly John's age and my son is only a few months older. Could I have raised him to be a John Connor? I honestly don't know. (If my sister knew what Sarah Connor knew, she could have!) I think I could rise to a drastic situation 95% of the time, but to live in preparation for what was to come, to know what was to come and prepare my child for it... I really doubt it. I'd have been a basket case after that thing was finally "dead." I have no doubts that I can make it in the world as it is, should I need to, but I have like having someone to lean on. The daydreamer in me says "Of course I could do it," and I'd like to believe it, but the realist is not sure at all.

    Is this the sort of thing other women think about after this movie?

    Shoot! I don't even know any women my age who have seen it. Most of the women I know here on LJ who have seen it were born in the 70's and 80's. Was Sarah a great role model? She sure beats Lucy, Jeannie, Samantha, Laura Petrie or even Lt Uhura (though she's much closer than the rest). [And isn't it sad that those are the only names I can even think of -- oh, yeah, Della Street and, briefly Lois Lane (who I suspect you wouldn't even recognize from the movies or later TV show). Of course, when I was a kid my dad ruled the TV. Maybe there was someone stronger, but I doubt it.]

    The creepy thing about the movie was it was the defense computers that went wacko -- and this was before 9/11. I wonder if the young people who grew up on these movies had a fear that it was/is really going to happen when 9/11 happened, that 9/11 was a precursor.* Anyway, we know that people have gone a bit haywire over national security. I'm not sure that computers can become in any way sentient (Sorry, Data), but they can be programmed by nut cases who think they know what they are doing and it's not impossible that a program could be mutated (intentionally or otherwise) to ensure total destruction. I don't think it would come to the same course of events (machines taking over), but I don't doubt that it could create a serious world wide nuclear war. People could quite possibly create events similar to the Terminator aftermath.

    It came to me as I was writing that last paragraph, that this is a Cold War** era movie. As I grew up, I pushed deeper a lot of my Cold War fears, already acknowledged only in my dreams. Mr Bush woke them up. Even now, when I hear a military jet go overhead, a part of me tenses in fear. I can't imagine living with that kind of fear minute to minute.

    I've been rambling. I haven't really thought a lot about this. Tomorrow I will see the second movie and on Saturday or Sunday night, I'll see the third. I'll possibly have more to say after each and I already want to see the new movie (although I assume Sara isn't in it -- but I've been wrong before, too).

    Ten years ago, I wouldn't even have watched this movie. Back in the late '90s I remember my son liking it and saying it was good. I respect his taste in movies, and did then, but it still wasn't enough to induce me to watch it. (But he got me to aee all 4 Alien movies!?!?) A good part of the credit for my change of mind/heart has been reading about Sarah Connor on LJ. You gals rock!***
    _____________________________________
    *The scary thing is that sometimes things do follow fiction. I recently read a story written in 1998 that pretty accurately described 9/11, except that in the story it was one plane going for the Capitol building and succeeded. Don't forget there was a plane headed for the White House that the passengers foiled. Had someone on that plane read the story?

    **Interesting article about the end of the Cold War that I found while verifying that the movie was made before it ended.

    *** Try not to laugh at my attempt to sound "with it" or whatever the current terminology is. The sentiment is real, even if the specific phrasing is a bit unfamiliar to my lips.

    Currently
    The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits
    By Gregg Braden
    see related

Sunday, 17 May 2009

  • Long Day

    Paul's wake/Celebration was today. I was delighted to hear the testimonials. Paul was a normal human with the flaws that go with that, but it's pretty clear he was a remarkable doctor. Both doctors and patients got up to talk about him. I knew he was good, but I didn't realize how much so. I think the story that made the most impression on me was from a local ob/gyn. He learned early that Paul would drop everything (even at 4 a.m.) to go help a patient. And when he assisted, he let the ob/gym do the main part of the surgery (while guiding and helping) and never took more credit than as an assistant. With Paul's help they saved the life of one woman, but the whole situation was (naturally) very traumatic to the woman and she fell into a deep depression and would not leave her couch. Without ever telling anyone, he went to this woman's home to encourage her. She wasn't even Paul's patient. How many doctors would do that? The ob/gyn only found out when Paul made a comment about how she was doing and he asked how he know. I get the feeling that Paul didn't think it particularly remarkable. He was just living up to the expectations he had of others. There were other stories like that from patients and a patient's husband.

    The event started at 2 p.m. and we got there at about then. The first hour was mingling. Since, other than my family, I knew only about six people, that was an uncomfortable time for me. I do OK when introduced, but my shyness kicks in when I have to introduce myself -- especially when I don't have a clue who's a doctor, a nurse, a patient or just a friend. Debie introduced me when she could, but people wanted to talk to her, so everything was OK.

    More Here...

    Currently
    The Spontaneous Healing of Belief: Shattering the Paradigm of False Limits
    By Gregg Braden
    see related

tongfengdemao

  • Visit tongfengdemao's Xanga Site
    • Name: Faith
    • Gender: Female
    • Member Since: 11/1/2004

My Library

Pulse

  • I'll never be caught up with reading. Let me know if I missed something important!! Please. [But I am getting things done at home.]

About Me

  • Writer (fiction & poetry), film lover, Asian pop music lover

Recent Weblogs

Weblog Archives

Don't worry - your calendar is here… to see it in action just click "Save" above and refresh the page.