Of course, there are others, I'm sure, but this is my blog and I get to pick 'em today. Add yours in comments if you like.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Tall Actors
They are surprisingly difficult to find. You see a lot of attractive actors but not a lot of them very tall. Well, tall for me means well over 6 feet because I'm tall myself at 5'9" - although I used to be taller until serious back problems robbed me of over 2 inches. So is this because taller means less attractive? I think not! Here's a sampling to nix that idea:
Gorgeous Hugh Jackman at 6' 2".
Matthew Fox also at 6' 2" AND also looks good wet.....
Lee Pace at 6' 3" - nice on the eyes if not slightly thick in the brow.
Tom Selleck as he looks now and in his younger, Magnum P.I. days, at 6' 3 1/2". I had a teenage crush on him (yes, teenage) and he's aging well if you ask me.
Liam Neeson at 6' 4" but maybe just attractive to those of us over....a certain age. Love his accent!
And John Corbett (remember Northern Exposure) at 6' 5" - if only he wasn't frighteningly out of touch with reality.
Of course, there are others, I'm sure, but this is my blog and I get to pick 'em today. Add yours in comments if you like.
Of course, there are others, I'm sure, but this is my blog and I get to pick 'em today. Add yours in comments if you like.
Had to Laugh
A little girl, around 6, that goes to our church was at the office yesterday with her mother. We have a couple of paintings up behind my desk of flowers. One is of flowers in a clear vase, so you can see the water level and the illusion of stems in water. She said, "Did they use clear paint so it looks like water?" It was an interesting idea and I thought it was so cute. I love the way children's minds work. But I told her they took Saran Wrap and smoothed it over the vase area, then modge-podged it on. It made her laugh because she totally wasn't going for that. Smart kid.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Curbing
What do I mean by curbing? Perhaps, what are you curbing? Appetite? Your current way of life?
Nope, none of those. Curbing is what I call my first experience as the mother of a teen learning to drive. Oh yeah, it was that bad.
Her dad started her out, driving about an hour and a half a few days after Christmas but then left to go back on the road (trucker driver). I thought, "Shoot, I'll let the people I paid all that money to teach her." If only......
She needs more practice, I was told after her first session. She freaked out and actually had to pull over with the instructor because she was so scared. I totally sympathize with my nervous, cautious child because, well, she gets it honestly. I can't remember what kind of new driver I was. We lived in the sticks so I was driving by the time I was about 14 and a half or so. My very first driving occurred in an old red VW bug with a big rust spot in the floorboard on the driver's side. If you took a corner and it had any water near it, your leg got splashed. This sentence makes it sound like I took my corners all wrong. Well, maybe. But mostly it's because smooth, paved streets were pretty rare in our parts back then. Sometimes we had to get out and push it to get it to start again from a stop sign. But put a buck in the tank and you could drive around town all night. Of course, part of that was because gas was WAY cheap in the "olden days". So I don't really remember the part before I was able to drive. I'm a lot more nervous now than I was as a kid, though.
On to the story of the "curbing" experience. The instructor told me she was in no way ready for rush hour or downtown driving - the two next experiences with them. So we cancelled those upcoming appointments so I could practice with her. I thought a half hour or so every night (if it wasn't snowing or very icy out) would be the best way to go. I took her that very next night, pulled over to a curb in a residential area and we soon turned a corner. Now the story from her side is I freaked her out by having her turn a corner right away. Okay. Maybe. But it's not like it was her first. Thankfully the pedestrian - a middle aged woman walking home from what I suspect was a long day at work from the bus stop - had gotten about 10 to 15 feet in front of us. Rachel took the corner and....forgot to straighten out the wheel. I relatively calmly said, "Brake." No response. "Brake," I said more urgently as we went up on to the sidewalk and the tires kissed the grass. "STOP!!!!!" I yelled as we went fully on to the grass, our headlights shining on the woman's form not more than 10 feet ahead and one of those green power boxes less than 5 feet in front of us. Thankfully, from years of training, she knows when I yell, I mean business!!
I knew I must not get angry, so I quickly calmed myself and said, "Ok. Don't move until the lady gets further ahead and we have planned how to safely get out of the grass. You can do this." I'm not certain if that last sentence was for her or for me. And I'm thinking I never expected to utter the first one.
But she did safely get us out of the grass and off the curb without hitting anything!!!
Oh, happy, happy day!!
We continue to drive on, with specific instructions as we slowly took each corner, went a little too fast down slight inclines with a little leftover snow and ice on them and repeatedly stopped in the crosswalk at stop signs all over the area. There was the center of the road thing, too, but so little traffic made that less a life-threatening experience than the pedestrian issue.
Not the worst experience I've ever had. I think we have a long road ahead of us and sometimes I really wish I had someone else to do this......
Oh, and a big shout out to the jerk in the little sports car who laid on his horn when he whipped onto the street behind us from a left turn. Okay, she was going a little slow but you think maybe the repeated horn blowing slowed her even more as she freaked out, not even realizing it was a car behind us, looking from the steering wheel to me to try to understand what she'd done to make the horn blow? Yeah, nice one, Buddy. If only I were the sort to use hand signals.
Nope, none of those. Curbing is what I call my first experience as the mother of a teen learning to drive. Oh yeah, it was that bad.
Her dad started her out, driving about an hour and a half a few days after Christmas but then left to go back on the road (trucker driver). I thought, "Shoot, I'll let the people I paid all that money to teach her." If only......
She needs more practice, I was told after her first session. She freaked out and actually had to pull over with the instructor because she was so scared. I totally sympathize with my nervous, cautious child because, well, she gets it honestly. I can't remember what kind of new driver I was. We lived in the sticks so I was driving by the time I was about 14 and a half or so. My very first driving occurred in an old red VW bug with a big rust spot in the floorboard on the driver's side. If you took a corner and it had any water near it, your leg got splashed. This sentence makes it sound like I took my corners all wrong. Well, maybe. But mostly it's because smooth, paved streets were pretty rare in our parts back then. Sometimes we had to get out and push it to get it to start again from a stop sign. But put a buck in the tank and you could drive around town all night. Of course, part of that was because gas was WAY cheap in the "olden days". So I don't really remember the part before I was able to drive. I'm a lot more nervous now than I was as a kid, though.
On to the story of the "curbing" experience. The instructor told me she was in no way ready for rush hour or downtown driving - the two next experiences with them. So we cancelled those upcoming appointments so I could practice with her. I thought a half hour or so every night (if it wasn't snowing or very icy out) would be the best way to go. I took her that very next night, pulled over to a curb in a residential area and we soon turned a corner. Now the story from her side is I freaked her out by having her turn a corner right away. Okay. Maybe. But it's not like it was her first. Thankfully the pedestrian - a middle aged woman walking home from what I suspect was a long day at work from the bus stop - had gotten about 10 to 15 feet in front of us. Rachel took the corner and....forgot to straighten out the wheel. I relatively calmly said, "Brake." No response. "Brake," I said more urgently as we went up on to the sidewalk and the tires kissed the grass. "STOP!!!!!" I yelled as we went fully on to the grass, our headlights shining on the woman's form not more than 10 feet ahead and one of those green power boxes less than 5 feet in front of us. Thankfully, from years of training, she knows when I yell, I mean business!!
I knew I must not get angry, so I quickly calmed myself and said, "Ok. Don't move until the lady gets further ahead and we have planned how to safely get out of the grass. You can do this." I'm not certain if that last sentence was for her or for me. And I'm thinking I never expected to utter the first one.
But she did safely get us out of the grass and off the curb without hitting anything!!!
Oh, happy, happy day!!
We continue to drive on, with specific instructions as we slowly took each corner, went a little too fast down slight inclines with a little leftover snow and ice on them and repeatedly stopped in the crosswalk at stop signs all over the area. There was the center of the road thing, too, but so little traffic made that less a life-threatening experience than the pedestrian issue.
Not the worst experience I've ever had. I think we have a long road ahead of us and sometimes I really wish I had someone else to do this......
Oh, and a big shout out to the jerk in the little sports car who laid on his horn when he whipped onto the street behind us from a left turn. Okay, she was going a little slow but you think maybe the repeated horn blowing slowed her even more as she freaked out, not even realizing it was a car behind us, looking from the steering wheel to me to try to understand what she'd done to make the horn blow? Yeah, nice one, Buddy. If only I were the sort to use hand signals.
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