really publix?

anyway

I was poking around the internet over the weekend and ran across this passage by accident.  This is an adapted version by Mother Teresa from an original by Kent Keith written in 1968.

Seemed to come at a good time when you feel like no one listens or that you are just spinning your wheels.  Do it anyway.

Attributed to Mother Teresa:

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

electric blue

As I sit here waiting for the memorial for Michael Jackson, I am filled with a slurry of emotions.  I want to watch the coverage, but I am finding myself dreading the actual event.  I am a crier.  Plain and simple.  I don’t want to, but I do.  So, my afternoon at work will be explaining why I look like I have not slept in a week.  So now back to my thoughts about Michael Jackson.

Let me be perfectly clear…I LOVE Michael Jackson!  His music has defined certain periods in my life.  Name a song, I can tell you what I was doing at that time in my life.  The very first and only music videos that I bought for my iPhone were Thriller followed by Rock with You.  I was absolutely stunned when my dad called me and told me that Michael had died.  I realize that I do not know Michael and he is not apart of my personal family, but something happens when someone in pop culture dies.  Especially the unexpected death of the most popular entertainer we have ever known.

I have been fortunate enough to have followed him throughout his entire career from the early beginnings, the saturday morning cartoon, then to his solo career.  I have my favorite albums, and time periods in his life, but everything that he touched was genius, he was a genius.  I understand Michael Jackson to a certain degree.  Not only did he not have a normal childhood, he did not have a childhood! There’s not many of us that have any idea what his life was like as a kid.   Take a listen to his song “Have You Seen My Childhood”.  Really listen to the lyrics, it explains his feelings about his life.   The video is below.

I can remember going to the skating rink dressed in my electric blue velour shirt and Zena jeans, and requesting Rock With You.  It was my favorite song to skate to.  I could do my best skate dancing to it!  I dare you listen to Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough and not do a little chair dancing, or at least tap a toe.  I remember spending countless hours trying to learn the dance moves to this commercial with my brother as well as the real Thriller video.

And speaking of the Thriller video…I can remember staying up until midnight to be able to watch the premere of the video on MTV.  Music has always been a very big part of my life thanks in part to my parents, especially my dad.  But I don’t think that I can completely convey the life changing experience of the Thriller video and the Motown 25th Anniversary when he did the moon walk.  Music moves us, inspires us and calls us to action.  No one epitimizes this more than Michael Jackson.  He made the Guiness Book of World Records for supporting more charities than any other artist.  This is someone that cared, truly cared about people and especially children.  I have been watching Michael videos all week and I can count at least 3 if not 4 that I have seen today that have a phone number at the end of the video to give to the specific charity that the video supports.  This is a generous man, a caring man, a very misunderstood man.  I don’t think that you can find a performer today, especially a dancer, that was not influenced by Michael.

Even though Michael was a superstar he was also a real person.  This is a perfect example of that.

The memorial was amazing.  It was heartbreaking, funny and uplifting all in one.  Reverend Al Sharpton made this statement to the children of Michael..”There was nothing strange about your daddy, what was strange was all of the things that he had to deal with”.  No truer words were ever said.

I also really liked the poem Mya Angelou wrote for the memorial…read by Queen Latifah.

Michael you don’t know me, but my heart is broken….I will miss you terribly!

and we’re off

Here we are sleepy with no coffee on the plane in Jacksonville. We were up at 3:30 and had practically no sleep last night!! Should make for an interesting day in Chicago! More to come!

who does this

Ok, I was having a perfectly fine day at work when all of a sudden I hear a handle jiggling down the hall.  I look in front of me, patients are entering, patients are leaving and patients are interacting with the front desk.  (Que time slow down) I think to myself, everyone is where they should be….who would be back there?  Maybe the painters came by to see what they have to do tomorrow……(back to real time)  door opens…….. Patient walks out!

(Let me set this up for you.  In efforts to make the whole place look semi normal for patients, the employee only area is stacked with boxes, dirty, and just finished construction on a bathroom door.)

So instead of being cool and finishing walking a patient out of the lobby and then finding out why the patient was in the back area……I blurt out really loud…..Why is (patient name) coming  out from the back area?  (I have no idea what happened to my filter at that moment) Immediately patients start getting uncomfortable and saying “I didn’t tell her to go back there!”

Here’s the conversation that followed….  “How did you end up behind the scenes?”  “Well I needed to go to the bathroom and a patient said that it was down the hall!  I turned the light on in the hall and found the bathroom.  I realized it was your bathroom but I had to go, so I went.  You didn’t have any soap or towels in there so I went into your kitchen to wash my hands.”

Ok….now that my head is about to explode….can I vent for a moment?  As soon as I opened a door to a dark hall, filled with boxes, I would immediately think “oops, wrong door”  nope, she kept going.  Then you try every closed door until you get to a bathroom still torn apart from just completed construction and you decide “this is the place for me!”  Now you have the balls to complain that there is no soap or towels in the bathroom you clearly are not supposed to be in, so you go into another doorway full of boxes, step over the tool box and mop bucket and wash your hands in my kitchen sink!  I think I just blew a blood vessel!!  My ears are ringing!!!!  Ok…so her defense was…”you didn’t have a sign that said not to go back there!”  Well  she is sort of correct, it wasn’t on the door yet, it was one of the things she stepped over to get to MY BATHROOM AND KITCHEN SINK!!!!

(shakes head)

eeeeeee!

(squirm, wiggle, tap, tap)  Sitting here waiting for the Grey Gardens movie to start.  Oh, I hope they do a good job!

one last little edie clip…..funkdified!

absolutely terrific, honestly

Ok, I have shared a few racoon videos with you in a build-up to my unveiling an obsession that I have had for about a year or so now.  I am talking about it now because this Saturday on HBO the new movie “Grey Gardens”.  This movie is an additional look at the lives of Big and Little Edie Beale, the aunt and cousin to Jackie Kennedy Onasis.

The first look at the Beales was in 1976 in a documentary entitled “Grey Gardens” by David and Albert Maysles, brothers that shot incredible footage of the Beales over a 6 week period of time.

In 2006 they released another dvd with all of the footage that didn’t make it in the original called “The Beales of Grey Gardens”.

In 2006, Christine Ebersol and Mary Louise Wilson portrayed the Beales on Broadway and won Tonys for their incredible performances.

So lets do a little comparison….we will go from the real Beales, then to the Broadway show, and then to the HBO movie.

The real Little Edie

Now Christine Ebersol performing on the Tony’s

There are a few clips from the HBO special that highlight both Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore.  I can’t get the darn things to show up on my page, so you will have to go to HBO yourself!  Aaargh!  I get mad at the internets sometimes!

I absolutely love Little Edie Beale!  Watching the documentary is a must!!  Here are some additional clips from the original and from the broadway show!!  Enjoy!!

oh! tom kha pak!

This is quite possibly the best soup in all the land! (sigh)

yikes

This video is the first in my series (ok, maybe not series as much as a group, a small cluster, ok a couple, well fine, I may never talk about it again) leading up to a new movie that is coming this month on HBO.  All will be revealed about my obsession soon, but in the meantime enjoy the lead-ins!

what the world needs

This clip combines several things that I love….Julie Andrews, the Sound of Music,  large train/subway depots, and the willingness of a group to spread joy and happiness!  And honestly, who doesn’t need a little more spontaneous eruption of song and dance in their lives?  Oh, to have been there!!!