A fish dies

So the day I was dreading came yesterday. One of my fish died (or more accurately, my sister's fish). It was the fish I liked the most, Molly, the balloon-bellied molly. I had deemed her the extrovert of the group, since she (he?) was always first to appear at the surface of the water when I dropped in the fish food. She seemed like a friendly fish, if you can say such a thing about a fish.

Anyway, I saw the fish body floating in one place for too long a time. My fear was confirmed when I looked in at the tank. I told Mom and she watched as I scooped her up in the green net. I wrapped the body in a few layers of toilet paper and flushed.

I think this is the worst part of having fish, not cleaning the tank or buying new filters. I haven't gotten a hold of my sister, I don't want to tell her the bad news. Not like I cried but it is sad.

My favorite observation from today's visit: "She said Obama smelled of subtle cologne when he hugged her."

Lazy Saturday/book review

I had the best intentions today of dusting and vacuuming the whole house. That didn't happen. I did manage to do my laundry, pay some bills online and return my two-weeks overdue library books. One of the books had a section falling out of it that was not falling out when I checked out the book. I felt horribly guilty about this and confessed to it at the checkout counter rather than just dropping the book in the bookdrop.

The now falling-apart book I read was called Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris. From the Publisher's Weekly review:

When poet Norris (The Cloister Walk) found her way back into church in the early 1980s, she was unsettled by what she calls the "vaguely threatening and dauntingly abstract" vocabulary of the church. Many of the words, like "Christ," seemed to her code words churchgoers used out of convenience when they could not find other words to use. Other words?like "salvation," "conversion," and "dogma"?seemed to Norris to be too abstract to reflect meaningfully her own experience. In this "vocabulary of faith," Norris draws upon her considerable poetic skills to refashion the vocabulary of the church into her own religious vocabulary. In each of these meditations, Norris uses anecdotes and humor to invest these words with fresh meanings.

It's a fantastic idea for a book, though I think Norris is uneven in her execution of it. She sometimes follows through to perfection, and other times seems to miss the mark with chapters that seem way too short, offering anecdotes that seem too lightweight given the immense baggage attached to some of these words.

Still, I enjoyed the tone of this book versus one written by a clergy member or professor, in the way it combines academic knowledge with personal reflection. She often delves into Greek word origins and into the spirituality of Benedictine monks, with whom she has apparently spent a lot of time. Hmm, interesting. Norris also acknowledges doubt and her agnostic past, which I think is brave.

Yeah, it's really too bad that this book is so battered up for the next person.

One day I will write a real blog post again.

Video: Two dogs

Something new for me: I recorded my own video. I'm taking care of my dad's two dogs, Maggie and Auggie, for the week. Maggie is the large wolf-like one, Auggie is the small poodle-like one. I didn't know Maggie's crunching would come through so loud.

Recipe for grilled salmon. Mmm...

Eat Pray Love the movie

There were plenty of people at the 10:30 a.m. showing of "Eat Pray Love," many of them women who traveled to the theater alone, just like me. I kind of wished we could form an impromptu discussion group after the movie was over.

I was divided over the book, enjoying it as a travelogue enough to overcome my philosophical differences with the author, namely that I can't really applaud a story that involves walking away from a marriage, going on a solo journey to find yourself, then at the end, well, falling in love with another guy. It does seem like a very Hollywood story in that way, that the end of every journey must involve falling in love. But who says you have to be in perfect sync with the author's worldview to enjoy a book?

Anyway, getting back to the movie...I did think Julia Roberts looked the part of the smart, likeable author and played miserable and exuberant equally well. And as much as I hate to admit it, the movie was much more effective than the book at transporting me to plates of delicious Italian food, the floors of an ashram in India, and finally to the beaches of Bali.

I do wish Hollywood could do as much justice to the "pray" part as it does to the "eat" and "love" parts. It mostly just shows her being frustrated with it and making some friends at the ashram, skipping the electric sort of meditation experience she has in the book. I wonder why. Are moviegoeers that uncomfortable with spirituality?

No, a movie can't possibly match the intimacy of a book. And no, they didn't rewrite the story to my liking. Still, I'll take a beautiful-looking movie about self-discovery over an action flick any time.

The Dry Land at the Plaza

Yesterday I got to see a screening of "The Dry Land" at the Plaza Theatre. I originally bought the tickets because, well, America Ferrera was going to be there! I've admired her work ever since "Real Women Have Curves." Second I like to see projects that talented current or former El Pasoans are doing. The director, Ryan Piers Williams, graduated from Hanks High School, and I remembered that last year parts of the movie were filmed here. Yay for El Paso.

But as for the movie itself, I didn't know what to expect. I knew it was about post-traumatic stress disorder, but I didn't expect it to be quite so jarring. There are scenes so brutal I know they would never make it into a mainstream movie. A woman in the row in front of me wiped tears from her eyes a few times. The man sitting next to me covered his ears whenever a shotgun blast seemed imminent (which was a few times).

I thought about the thousands of soldiers stationed at Fort Bliss, and some of the scary situations that have made headlines lately. Sometimes I forget the power of film to educate and raise awareness, not merely entertain. I've browsed through many articles like this over the past few years, but I think this film finally made the issue of PTSD personal and three-dimensional.

I was impressed that the director really seemed to have his heart in the right place with this film. During the Q&A he said five years of research went into the film, and I think it shows in the details of the settings, the characters, and the portrayal of the symptoms of PTSD and how the characters react to it.

"The Dry Land," go see it if you can.

So what day is it again? As I was leaving work I was happy thinking I had just completed my Wednesday.

This is pretty cool:

There is a world beyond the computer...

Yum

I made combination brownie-chocolate chip cookie bars last night. So delicious, my gosh:

Interview with Univisión anchor Jorge Ramos: "The U.S. is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, with the exception of Mexico. It means — and I am completely convinced of this — that the first Hispanic President has already been born."

- I'm trying to decide if I should shell out the money for Microsoft Office since my trial version is about to expire. I downloaded OpenOffice and it seems to work pretty well. I think I could live without Microsoft Word, but I do want to have PowerPoint around just in case I ever have to do a presentation. But how often does that happen?

- I'm unusually happy for a Monday night since I don't have to work tomorrow. Two days off, one day working, two more days off. Now there's a schedule. Maybe I can write another post tomorrow instead of being a blog slacker?

Time once again to feel overwhelmed. Sometimes I think I might as well be on Twitter since I don't have much to write, beyond a few sentences here or there.

I did my usual Friday night routine, which is to go out to dinner then fall into bed by 10 p.m. Unusual for me I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking of everything. I wandered into the loft area, sat in a big chair, thought, I have to make some changes. I have to decide what's important, forget about the rest...but not now, since I am soooo tired. I tried to read but I found my mind couldn't engage. As soon as I'd close my eyes for a second I'd start to fall asleep.

Can I just not require so damn much of myself? I have a finite amount of energy. I can't be perfect. I can't do it all. That is a fact.

Interesting look at both sides of the Arizona immigration law controversy.

Ooh, Mad Men returns tomorrow. What's up with Peggy Olson's hair? I'm resisting the urge to read the advance reviews.

Yet another adventure driving in the rain

The rainstorm came so suddenly this afternoon that one of my co-workers gasped and said, "Look outside" and ran to the window. A solid wall of water was rushing down the side of the building. The air was so white it looked like we were on the inside of a cloud. We were entertained for a few minutes before we all sat down and got back to work.

5:40 and I finally escaped work. Upstairs from my desk I had seen a couple of people walking through the parking lot under an umbrella. An umbrella would have been nice. Downstairs a crowd had gathered at the front door, waiting out the rain, I suppose. I didn't want to wait that long. I put a plastic bag on top of my head and walked fast. The rain wasn't so bad, it was the puddles that caused the problems. My black flats, nylons and the bottoms of my pants got soaked. These days I am afraid to ruin my clothes, and I was horrified at first but relaxed after I realized the water wouldn't really ruin them.

I drove through several fast-moving streams of water getting to the interstate. Looking back my rule *should* be, you can never be too cautious in a potentially dangerous driving situation. But honestly I was just tired and eager to get through this wet mess as quickly as possible. I was fording these streams without much thought.

I was waiting at a traffic light and saw a truck stopped in my lane ahead. A man was getting out of the truck. What's this guy doing? I thought. He got down into the water and propped up a construction sign that must have fallen in the rain, which otherwise all the traffic would have had to go around. Woo-hoo, this guy is my hero.

More rain-related fun on the way home: I narrowly missed getting hit by a pickup truck after traffic stopped suddenly in front of me and I made a quick lane change. Incidents like these make me debate in my mind whether I'm a bad driver or not. I'm a "bad" driver in the sense that I don't have good instincts for the physical act of driving. I'm a "good" driver in the sense that I usually follow traffic laws to the letter. That is, except when I am very eager to get home and start getting careless. Rain and rush hour, double reason to slow down.

The finale of my latest driving in the rain adventure: a rainbow.

Wouldn't it be cool if there were a pot of gold at the end of it, at the top of the mountain? But no pots of gold, instead another go at rush hour tomorrow.

My friend Stu has a nice review of "Inception" (WARNING: Don't read unless you've seen the movie!): "There are essentially two parallel stories; the heist and Cobb’s 'emotional journey'. Nolan’s trick is that one group of viewers may consider the heist to be the main story, the dark romance the sub-plot. For the rest of us, it’s the other way around."