I know I am coming late to this, but here are my five quotes:

When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.
Anzia Yezierska


Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
Mae West (1892 - 1980), Klondike Annie (1936 film)

Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness.
Author Unknown

Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.
Hannah More, 1775

It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that which kills.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1950)

Of course Simone is there.

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Its time for another Blessing post. She is starting to golf. I know, I know. It isn't my idea. Trust me. But the grandparents got her a set of clubs. Then she went out on the driving range (something about being able to hit 90 yards...I have no idea if that means anything) and the next thing you know, she and the H are going across the road to the 9-hole municipal course after it closes. Sometimes Jasper the cat goes too and chases the golf balls. Anyway, then she was getting blisters so now she has a little golfing glove which was worn to bed last night.

It gets worse. I think we will be starting riding lessons in the next few weeks and well, the H is wondering if we are reading to get an actual piano to help out with those lessons. I don't know how she managed to get so middle-class. Soon she will need a double-barrelled name.

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And Americans doubt global warming.

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I don't think my schedule is going to mean I have time to make it to the tournement this year. Which is sad as now it is ranking event. Might have to look at my weekend plans. Despite this, I still find time to post to other blogs about snooker! And the Villa new?!? Like hearing UCLA are going to the rosebowl.

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I am about to make a confession I am sure to regret. And yes, it will show me in a horrible selfish light. But the recent arrests in Britain and the grounding of all those UK domestic flights? Its practically my ideal scenario.

See I am going to the 'rents for the holiday this year. The H and the blessing are going to get tickets (if I can ever get Continental Airlines to sell me a ticket. Don't even ask me how much their website sucks, how bad their customer service or why I hate them) but as I will also head westward for some time in So Cal, I am going to fly stand-by on a buddy pass. I've done this before. It always goes horribly wrong (I've been taken off planes, been told its too hot and that the plane can't take the stand-bys and their luggage and then there was the time that the caters refused to deliver any food to any delta flights in atlanta) and well in order for me to get on a plane, there needs to be empty seats. So, I thought, a nice terrorism attack, involving planes, and the US and no one gets hurt! Well, then people get nervous about flying, more seats on planes and the next thing you know I am wandering around Sephora buying nail polish I will never use.

So I wonder, what it have been better to happen in November (people have short memories, they could be flying all over the place by December) or now so that they sort out the new security arrangements. I mean, how am I to travel without a couple of novels? And well, if you go stand-by you need a change of clothes and hair brush,. Cos gues what? you may not get on that flight and you are spending the night near the airport (yes, I have that story too). Let alone, how do you keep the Blessing entertained for 17 hours of travelling. This may be the last trip to the states for a long, long time.

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I know the sanctuary. I've been on tours there (after watching a friend race at Willowsprings) but I never knew who started it.

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Ah summer time, when I fondly recall my times at camp. And though I did attend Girl Scout Summer Camp in Virginia, I did not attend this one. I am however, quite frightened of squirrels. They can carry rabies and plague!!! Cute? I don't think so. Which also reminds me of the dead body in Yosemite story.

We (the boy I almost married and I) were travelling around California with some Brit-friends. We had done the Southern California beaches, Death Valley (the alternator on my car was going) and then up the mountains to Yosemite. We planned a picnic and had settled ourselves down with some Paul Mason wine (in the keep forever carafe) next to Yosemite falls. This was September and it had been a dry year so the falls were really a trickle. And the squirrels were aggressive! Harrying us for picnic food! We were picking up sticks and throwing them at them when the ex-boy picked up one and said, 'Look its a human jawbone. And it has teeth.' And you know it did. Three of them. One with a filling. So we, scoured the ground, found another piece of bone and then decided we should find the authorites.

Drove down to the visitor centre. Asked a uniformed park person on the way in and they suggested we go and visit the museum and the archeologists. We weren't sure this was the right place so we went up to the information desk. Waited patiently. As the park employees bitched about something or another. Finally, we were allowed to approach and we put our bones out on the counter.Their eyes got wide. Phone calls were maid and a ranger with a gun showed up and asked us to take him to where we had found the bones. We did. We didn't find anything else. We theorised who it might be and he said it would be a winter project to try and identify the body. They might have a chance a they had some teeth. Don't know what ever happened.

Might explain my CSI jones.

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