Alice, Nicky & Mom

Iowa Sunrise

 The old saying, it's darkest right before dawn could be changed to this:  The best light is right before dawn.

  The rays of the sun being bounced to our view, the reds vibrant and sure making the green of the grass an emerald color waiting to be selected in an old woman's jeweled ring.  The blue tint of the sky, sharper in focus than any fool photographer could ever be.   The description of my morning sunrise.

    What started out as a sudden attempt by a higher calling to get on an exercise morning, turned out to be one of the most gorgeous skies of the summer.  As I woke, I decided I would listen to that voice in my mind who said, WALK NOW.  I did.  Accompanied by Biscuit leash-free we started walking down the gravel road.  The sun was not yet up, but its light was bouncing on the eastern horizon.  Fire red at the horizon.  It fuel my walk up to the mile corner.  Living out in the country they old timers tell me every corner (generally speaking) is approximately a mile.  So I take their word, and Biscuit and I walked for a mile then turned around to walk home.  The walk back we were looking directly at the sunrise.  It was now getting brighter, the dark-vibrant red was replace with a yellow glowing ball, Father Sun.  I looked at my cellphone to check for the time.  Always curious and for some odd reason like it really matters about the time, but it was 5:52 (am for you who may not be following along closely or for you others that are seriously-educated public-criticiser's.   The bottom line is this, Iowa has great sunrises.  Every morning.  Tuesday Father Sun "winked" at me.  No kidding.  He was starting to rise over the big hill that I call mountain just to the east about a mile or two from the Looney farm.  It was a loving gesture to say "Good Mornin' Mrs. Looney!"

Today, the horizon was blood red and clouds above.  Clouds everywhere, except along the horizon.  Just enough for me to say "Hey Father Sun, how ya' doin' this morning?"   And what would you think he said back?  He caught me between walking by the tall corn, and being ever so polite because that is his nature, he says to me, "Glad to see you are getting those dogs back on the exercise plan."  

   Sometimes, it is so hard to get out of bed, the body just wants an extra minute of rest.  The body is lazy.  It doesn't want to work it wants to lie awhile and  "dream," dream about things that don't really matter and  flying.  Flying around the earth to see the sunrise.  Then the mind has to wake itself up.  C'mon, get up silly.  Time to get to work.  The mind is willing but the flesh is exhausted.  So walking the dogs at sunrise is a great way for me to get some exercise, have the dogs get some exercise, and see Father Sun.  How about that!  I can do it every morning, view an Iowa Sunrise.  Right in here.  

Eight Heads in a Perfect (Gale) Storm

Just heard Gale Storm died, so that's now 5 celebrity deaths - one to go? Ed McMahnon, Farrah, King 'O Pop, Billy Mays, Gail.

Our movie viewing got a little better, as we watched a movie off of Frankie's fav list: 1997's "8 Heads in a Duffle Bag". Joe Pesci, David Spade, Kristy Swanson, great roles by George Hamilton and Dyan Cannon. Madcap comedy. Falls in to the "Plot A" category: Miserable loser overcomes odds to win in the end. (We'll be exploring the basic plot themes as time goes on.) Great writing, funny situations, good time.

Later, we watched 2000's "The Perfect Storm". Good cast, with George Clooney, John C. Reilly and Marky-Mark Wahlberg (better actor than singer!). Had this NOT been "based on a true story", then it probably would have been Plot A, and they would have come home succesful.
However, too much Hollywood drama added to "spice up" the story, I'm sure all of the marital and personal subplots were added. This was probably better on a theatre, with the huge waves crashing. Too predictable, such as the subplot of John and his nemisis fighting but then of course making up. Yuck! The stupid and unexplained scenes with a wasted casting of Karen Allen were presumably added becasue it really happened, but made no sense and were just a waste of time.
I like George, but to quote Angie, "Where's Mark Greene?"

The lame won this round. Let's hope we get another chance at the movies!

Movie Review-The Governess

Absolutely one of the worst movies made in this decade.  Actually, think it was produced in the 1990's but will look it up for sure.

Tom Wilkinson and Minnie Driver star is this slightly erotica but based upon one guy's dream of teen Jewish sister's talking about semen in their bed at night.  Let's make our heroine the Governess one of the first female bootie photographers.  Every scene, either Tim or I were knocking out each line spoken, what the action was to be.  The only thing I predicted that didn't happen was a pregnancy, which should have because it would have put an natural twist on an extremely stupid movie plot.  Fact is, Tim was awaken in the middle of the night with yet another problem in the movie.  The Governess, who is Jewish, pretends to be a Christian to accept a job as a Governess with a Scottish family.  This could have been slightly funny, or it could have been dramatic but the dialogue, the motion of the characters were not thought out.  

Sorry folks, it looks like we wasted our time watching this movie-I want my money back.  Alas, it gave me a chance to at writing a writhing review.  

Now, what to watch next?

FUNKY Friday Night Music Night?

What I really wanted was some great 80's rock music but what turned out was a lot of funky tunes from that decade.

I wish we had a turntable, and I know the Loon does too.  But with his nose recovering from surgery there was no way it was going to get hooked up.  So this is what happened.

I put on Talking Heads, "NAKED" cd.  Why did I buy this 20 years ago?  Beats me.  I looked for the "hit" and couldn't find it.  Damn.  I know I used to crank this mother as loud as possible, but with my memory so to is it....gone.

Living Color-again, another problem with too much funk and not enough rock.  Gone, with my memory.  So at this point I am not impressing Loon.

He puts on Nels Lofgren....Primus and Rush.  Ok.  Pretty good actually.

And we played a couple of cuts off the Outfield, 1985.  Now, we are talking about great 80s rock.

So we put in an Eric Johnson DVD-killer.  That guy is one of the greatest guitar players I have ever watched.  Watched Alejandro and Alice in Chains.  So, we went from some why did we ever listen to this music to finish it off with great stuff.  To sum it up, sometimes the funk leads us to ...fill in the blank readers!

Friday Night Music

Fans, followers, readers, and yes, family.  Well, probably only "family" actually read this but I wanted to let everyone know that I have received a list of "plays" for our Friday Night Music Night.  Let me say, it is a pretty good rundown of stuff we should take a listen to.  

Here are a couple of examples:  Alice Cooper.  The Beatles.  And we have had both of these groups on the show.  Love it to Death and Abbey Road.  Two great albums with a plethora of classic rock songs that helped shape my musical life.

What's on tonight?  Darned if I know.  I wish we had some way of getting our LP's into rotation but right now with "Mr. Nose out of Joint" music man not a lot of reorganizing and repositioning is getting done.  I'm sure all would understand.  Being on codeine and BV and trying to move the plasma around is not a good mix.  You may remember what happened last year when we rearranged our living room/TV viewing room.  That required a new TV-thus the Plasma.  So, we'll not get the turn table hooked up for tonight's show.  We'll just wait and see what happens....maybe our dear Brother-guy we've looked up to our whole life (or since we've known him) and his lovely wife Jules will come out to the Looney Farm and surprise us!  

Keep reading and we'll let you know what happens......

'til Saturday

Ang

Under the Knife

Friday I go for surgery to correct my deviated septum and to trim back my turbinates. Necessary before I can be fitted with the C-PAP breathing device. And that will entail another trip to the sci-fi sleep center! The fun never ends!

Hopefully there won't be a big story in this.

Mushing Loon Iowa Sunrise Run

Sleepless in CR

It was straight out of a '70s sci-fi flick: sterile hallway, a young man in beige scrubs with his hair tied back, my "sleep tech" Kayne. Over twenty "Sleep Suites" yet it seemed we were the only ones in the building. Suite 17, my room, full of wires, gear and a remote-controlled video camera. Just relax and watch TV for a couple of hours, with electrodes glued to my legs, chest and head, as the drugs kick in. Am I going to wake up as a programmed zombie?
It was difficult to sleep with the wires everywhere. I woke up cold and had to pee. "Hey" I say. "Be right there" Kayne replies over the intercom. He comes in and helps me up, disconnects the wires and I go to the bathroom. He brings another blanket. I fall asleep and dream that he pushes my bed outside because he double-booked the room. Then he comes in and tells me I'm done. It's 4:10am. He had not attached a C-PAP, but that doesn't mean I won't need one. He of course can't tell me the results. That's up to the doctor in a month.
Time to shower and then get some breakfast and go to work early, as opposed to driving home and turning around and driving to work. They told me ahead of time that it would be a "normal" night's rest, but that was way wrong. As Kayne said, it was a medical test, they needed to get good data, it was not supposed to be a comfortable night's sleep! So I fought through the fog in my brain from a bad, weird-night's sleep all day. And I'll have to go back if they decide I need a C-PAP so it can be set properly.
I can't wait - but then, I might just be programmed to say that!