Life Is Like A Box of Chocolates

It's been a while since I have posted anything, and don't get me wrong, I always have plenty to say, just nothing nobody wants to hear. I have been writing in my personal journal lately. But this morning I felt inspired to write about a phrase that has been running around in my head. "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get", these famous words uttered by Tom Hanks as he played the loveable Forrest Gump. Although the phrase is repeated by many people today, it's not quite a true statement. Life is only like a box of chocolates if you get the cheap, yucky chocolate. You know, the box that has chocolates in it with little bites out of each of them, because you really didn't know what you was getting. But, if you buy the little more expensive chocolates, you know exactly what you are getting because they print on the lid exactly which chocolate is which. That takes all the fun out of a box of chocolates. But it also serves the purpose of not picking the chocolate with the caramel inside, the one that sticks to your teeth and is hard to chew and stays with you for hours. Life to me should be a different adventure everyday, not knowing what you are going to get. So life should be cheap. Those who spend the extra money to know exactly what they are getting, would have to be the most boring people to be around. They would know exactly what they want and have goals to get it. Having goals is good, everyone should have goals. But the unattainable ones are the most fun. Society today basically has a strict structure. People need material objects, and money is needed for these, in order to get money you need to work, and work can be a boring place for most people. The only time it isn't boring is when you are doing something that really makes you happy. I work, although sometimes it's just not what I want to be doing. My job isn't really that bad, I can complain and gripe and make jokes at work, and since this is a small town, we have a good time and everyone knows each other. But in my line of work, I couldn't do this at a bigger office. Now would probably be a good time to say that I work in a post office. I think daily about "going postal", because the mail never stops. You get all of the days mail into your trays, show up the next day and you have that much mail or more sometimes sitting there waiting for you. Have people not heard of email?? It takes no stamps and the person can get the letter in a matter of minutes, not days. My life isn't an expensive box of chocolates, because if it was I wouldn't have chosen a rural carrier as a career. I reached into the box of life and just managed to pick this job. My heart has always wanted to be a lawyer. I could argue that the sky is not blue, and with my dimples and charm could sway 6 out of 12 people. I know I always heard growing up, you can be anything you want, or from my dad, "Make sure you marry rich, that way you won't have to work." But I never met anyone named Rich who impressed me much, so I will just have to settle marrying for love. So people, when you go out this valentines day and buy that chocolate for your loved one, are you going to go cheap or expensive? It would depend on what you want to see laying around, a box of chocolates that get savored, or the one sitting around with little bites out of each of them.

Dark Shadows

"My name is Victoria Winters. A sinister man returns to familiar grounds this night--the grounds of the great house of Collinwood. He bears with him a decades-old secret which can destroy the family, unless Elizabeth Stoddard takes steps to see that this dangerous secret stays buried."


I don't remember the soap opera Dark Shadows when I was growing up. But, recently, Allan was fortunate enough to run across the first series. He was excited because he would always try to watch it after school, and sometimes his mother would catch him and make him turn it off. So every once in a while we have a Dark Shadow night and watch a couple episodes. I didn't think I would like it, but to my surprise it was quite good, and addicting. Everyone always has favorite characters in shows they watch, and for me I always seem to pick the one character that gets dumped on the most. Willie Loomis is my favorite. The poor guy was just trying to make a living robbing the graveyard and he stumbles upon a vampire and wakes him up. Now he is basically a slave for the vampire, like Igor. We are on the last disc in the series, and I won't be able to rest until we acquire the 2nd season. Looking up Dark Shadows on the internet, I was surprised to find an entire website on the show. People attend a Dark Shadows festival, where the remaining stars of the show attend. People dress up like Barnabas, the vampire and star. It sounded intriguing enough that maybe, someday, we will attend the festival. Yeah, the acting wasn't all that great, there are many times when you see mistakes. But what impresses me the most is Barnabas, I have yet to see him make a mistake with any of his lines. He is very believable as a vampire, and yet I don't like the way he is always pushing poor Willie around. Barnabas is a character you love to hate. His high-handed manners, thinking he is better then everyone else leaves you disliking him, and yet, his acting is very good. While Willie doesn't get as much recognition or lines, when he is on the screen delivering his lines, he always does it with a passion. Since I am fond of a good B-rated show or movie, I would suggest anyone who enjoys the same checks this show out.

Starbucks is Evil

I am a morning person, 3 am seems to be the magical number for me lately. I even tried going to bed after 12 the other night, and by 3:30 I was up and fixing my coffee. I love making my coffee in the mornings now. One of my Christmas presents was a Bunn coffee maker. The best coffee maker in the world, if you have never tried one, you don't know what you are missing. The reserve in the coffee maker stays about 200 degrees and once it's locked and loaded, it takes about 3 minutes to brew a fresh pot of coffee, and stays hot. A wonderful invention. Now on to more rantings. I have a 16 year old daughter, who is absolutely fabulous. While I was visiting her last year, we took a trip up to Medford, Oregon. We walked through the mall there, and I had my first encounter with StarBucks. I didn't know anything about it, so my daughter ordered for me, something she liked that had whipped cream on it and was cold. Cold coffee, I can't stand it when my own coffee goes cold and here I was paying for cold coffee. Well I tried to be polite as we were walking around, trying to sip on it and not make a face, she seemed to love hers. While mine was not only cold, it was bitter, and the whipped cream didn't take the awful chalky taste away. I managed to throw it away, almost full. Well, I didn't learn my lesson the first time, and like a nincompoop, I ended up gracing Starbucks' door once more, this time with my better half. He loves the place, I still can's see the attraction for it. Well, the place seems to have a menu with many items on it, so I ordered something hot this time, can't even remember what it was. What I do remember is, that was the worst cup of coffee that had ever passed my lips. The coffee was bitter, once again, I guess it doesn't have to be cold to be bitter. There went another cup of coffee, and $5 down the drain. Since that time, I had tried the over-priced, over-rated store a couple more times, with my beloved, and at that point I simply told him, "I could order something different everytime trying to find the one item on their menu that I could tolerate giving them my money, or I can just simply say, I hate everything on their menu and keep my money." So for months, I managed to stay away from the evil place, keeping my money in my pockets for something better, like a Johnny Depp movie. Then came the morning when we were traveling to Palo Alto for a church service. We had left the house a little early, so we stopped for coffee, and you guessed it, we stopped at Starbucks. Well by now you would have thought I would have learned my lesson, but OH NO, not me. This time I figured I would order something totally new. We both ordered the same thing, a chai tea with soy milk. You couldn't possibly mess up tea. Plus we ordered food, I got a blueberry muffin, he got a low-fat blueberry muffin. We sit down and I take the first sip, it was bad. I take a small piece off the muffin and it managed to assault my taste buds, I washed it down quickly with a taste of the awful tea and there I sat in misery. My beloved is reading his paper and eating his muffin and drinking his tea and seemed at peace. I watched him a couple times then reached over and grabbed his tea to taste it, HIS tea was good which totally blew me away, because we ordered the same thing! His muffin tasted like a blueberry muffin! That's when I figured out Starbucks hated me as much as I hated them. Allan took a sip of my tea, made a face and stated, "That's terrible!" Well I could have told him that, he couldn't even eat my muffin, it was that bad. My morning started off crappy, thank goodness the rest of the day got so much better. After my many adventures to Starbucks I had decided I hate the place, they charge way too much for coffee, cold or hot, their food stinks, and the atmosphere inside sucks. Makes you wonder just why they charge that price for their bitter coffee, have you heard about that expensive coffee lately found in poop? Maybe that is where they get their beans. Well anyways, I had one more adventure into the coffeeshop of hell. Never let your better half drive, you never know when he is going to get a hankering for coffee. I had decided I was going to stay in the car while he filled his body with the poisionious liquid, but I just couldn't do it. I ended up ordering a hot chocolate, just how do you mess up chocolate??? We get our drinks and sit down, the place has several couples filling the tables and everyone seems to be having a good time. Now my cup has a label around it, "Warning liquid is HOT", I take off the top, stick my finger into the whipped cream to stir it around, and as I have my finger sitting in my "Hot" chocolate I look over at Allan. He says, "What?" Well what do you think? Would my finger be sitting in the chocolate if it was, "HOT"! It was luke-warm at best, then I did the unthinkable and took a drink. Chalky, bitter, the worst chocolate I had ever had. I stated quite loudly, "This is it, this place sucks!" I didn't care who heard me, obviously if people are in there they have no taste anyways. And just to get a confirmation, Allan did taste my hot chocolate, and made a face and put it down. I threw away the worse cup of chocolate I had ever had, and did what I should have done in the first place, sat in the car. Not one person who can say Starbucks is good has ever had a decent cup of coffee. They charge you up the butt for bitter, disgusting, cold, awful, the absolute worse coffee in the world. Starbucks will get no more of my money. What they need to do is take the money I have already given them and take lessons on how to brew a decent cup of coffee. Now it's time for me to pour myself a good cup of coffee, with the right amount of sugar and cream, from my new Bunn and start enjoying my day.

An Evening at the Movies

I have always been fond of movies. They can transport you to another time, entertain, amuse, bring out all of your emotions. My dad was a big fan of westerns, so I watched my share of Shane, Little Big Man, and everything inbetween. I am partial to a good scare. My favorite actor growing up was Gregory Peck. The man was larger than life and was and always will be a joy to watch. Hollywood has so many movies to choose from, depending on where your taste in movies lie. It is a shame that one thing Hollywood lacks is talent. It would maybe take one hand to name the list of talented actors. Actors that can make you cry, scream, laugh, ponder. The name at the top of my list needs no introduction, he is Johnny Depp. I first saw him in A Nightmare on Elm Street, something about him intrigued me, which was probably his good looks. Then he starts making movies that challenged him. Not everyone has pulled off a musical, but he managed it in Cry-Baby. A musical about a rebel hoodlum who wants to be a singer and drives the girls crazy by being able to make a single tear run down his cheek. He plays a robot made by a scientist in Edward Scissorhands. In From Hell, he is an inspector, chasing down Jack the Ripper. He is Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow, one of my favorites. Johnny even manages a couple of black and white movies, Dead Man and Ed Wood. Dead Man I had to watch and enjoy a second time, like I did with Secret Window. Watching them again, I noticed things I had missed the first time and wondered why I didn't pay attention to details the first time. But, Johnny Depp movies are something I never tire of seeing. His movie Ed Wood fascinated me to the point that I wanted to see an actual Ed Wood movie. Ed was a producer, but not any producer. Hollywood has given him the title as the very best, worst director and producer of all time. For Christmas, my beloved managed to find an Ed Wood boxset. It contains all 5 movies ever produced by Ed Wood. I have watched a couple of them, and I would have to say he is a bad producer, which made watching the movies even more enjoyable. His movie Glen or Glenda actually had insight. There it was in the '30's, and here was a man who enjoyed wearing women's clothing. So what else could the man do, he produced a movie about a man who loved wearing angora sweaters and women's underclothes. Of course, the movie was about him, he was letting the world know his secret, which wasn't heard of back then. I admire the man and I will enjoy his movies, as corny as they are. OK, back to the man of the hour, Johnny. He takes on roles and emerses himself in them. I still need a couple Depp movies to complete my collection on him. When Night Falls is a movie I very much want, he plays a transvestite. I have a goal to acquire all of his movies. So far of all the ones I own I can't say that I dislike any of them.
Off on a tangent now, I am also a big fan of B rated movies. You know, the cheesy ones. Frogs, Evil Dead, which by the way let me tell you brought tears to my eyes the first time I saw it. And that was because it scared me. Then after I had watched it a couple times, I started to see the humor and bad acting in it. I really detest war movies and sport movies, but Full Metal Jacket is one of my favorites as well as Any Given Sunday. Well I don't detest them, I just don't go out of my way to watch them. I don't like watching the movies the critics choose, and I don't like watching movies everybody else raves about. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes. I don't like watching Adam Sandler or Pauly Shore movies because it seems they act the same in all their movies, so once you've seen one of 'em you've seen 'em all. That's what I love best about Johnny Depp. He has never acted the same way in any movie he has ever made. You should watch a couple and see if that isn't true. His mannerisms, voice, looks are always different and fascinating. He is truly the one man who can call himself an actor. Women world wide are in lust with Mr. Depp, I would call it love, but really now, all they see is the man on the screen, they don't know him as a person, they are in no way "in love" with him even if they think they are. I, on the other hand, am in awe of his talent. But I still have no illusions, if the man walked up to me on the street, my tongue would become a giant cottonball and I would try to form a sentence and I would end up sounding like an idiot. He would walk away, shaking his head.

Get Inside My Head....If You Dare

I haven't posted anything in a couple days, and now that I have a little time, I can get some thoughts down. I've decided to let you see just a little more of my complicated life. Some basic facts, I am female, 40 years old, I detest shopping, even for groceries. I'm afraid of heights, but would love to try sky-diving. I don't like being told what to do, I am my own person after all, but I would not like to be put in a managerial position. I don't have a favorite food, but love Chinese and Moroccan. I like to eat things now that I detested as a child, I figure my taste buds have matured enough to enjoy alot more foods. Plus I have discovered that my mom was not a very good cook, things she would cook I really hated, but now as I cook them they are enjoyable. I don't believe in planning, organization, or being neat, but I do have an extensive DVD collection and they must all be in alphabetical order. Of course my Johnny Depp movies are by themselves, in alphabetical order, all my box sets are together in alpha......you get the picture. I am mainly a slob, I hate cleaning, except when my hands are cold, then I can do dishes to get them warm and it doesn't bother me. I live with the love of my life, who just happens to be a neat freak and so darned organized one could pull their hair out. He has a cabinet file with everything neatly alphabatized and in order. He always knows where to find what he is looking for, me, I search until I remember where I last had it. And it is really amazing we have lived together for almost a year and it is total bliss. I throw my socks on the kitchen floor, he picks them up, he works diligently all day, so I cook and do laundry to make his life easier. I was raised Catholic, and really detested it, going to church day after day, doing the same things and people believe they are being saved. It wasn't the route for me, so I kinda gave up on the religious aspect of my life. Allan, my love, is spiritual, and I picked up a book he had in his library. It felt like coming home, it's hard to explain. Today I was searching the web and came across this link: http://www.gnosticteachings.org/ . Like I had said, I don't like to be told what to do, and the gnostic teachings resound in me. I had thought this way for years and never knew there was a name for it, I never searched it out, it was always so clear inside of me. So now I am on a quest, like in Monte Python's Quest of the Holy Grail, I shall don my coconut shells and journey afar in search of the light inside myself. We are all walking around with eyes open, but not seeing, knowing but not understanding. May we all find our own light to walk in, and Happy New Year to all.