I got tagged … actually I been tagged twice now. Once by PerigrineMan and once by JJ. So today I’ll answer Perigrine’s questions and tomorrow I’ll hit JJ’s. Today is movie day … I need to tell you my top ten favorite movies and why … here are the rules of the meme …

The rules of the “game” are simple:

1. list your top ten favorite films (in no particular order).
2. if you’re tagged, you’ve got to post and tag 3-5 other people.
3. give a tag back (some link love) to the one who tagged you in your post
4. give a hat tip (HT) to Dan

Here, in no particular order, are my ten favorite movies of all time …

Braveheart – yes, PeregrineMan, you were correct. It is on my list. I can watch this movie over and over again and still find good nuggets in it … even if it is historically incorrect.

Monty Python’s Holy Grail – one of the funniest movies ever made. ever. It never ceases to crack me up. The parts I think are funny have changed over the years, but I still love it. Brilliant comedy at it’s finest.

The Long Riders – the Keach brothers, the Carradine brothers and the Quaid brothers made a movie about the James/Younger gang. There is a chase scene on horseback at the end that is not to be missed.

Lord of the Rings Trilogy – what a beautiful set of movies. They grabbed me and held me captive. I watch them time and again.

Uncle Buck – John Candy … what more can I say?

Planes, Trains & Automobiles – John Candy AND Steve Martin … even better.

Overboard – the penultimate chick flick and date movie.

Philadelphia – Tom Hanks’ finest role.  Absolutely stunning film.

Ghandi – Ben Kingsley is absolutely fabulous in this role.  I read Ghandi’s autobiography as a result of watching this movie.

Pretty Woman – completely unrealistic, but I love the redemptive story line.

So … I’ll tag … hmmm …

VikingFru … so she can think about fun dates with her hubs and fam 😉

Jeremy … because now that his first year of seminary is finished, he can think about movies again

Shawn … because I’m watching the Pens (win) right now and in honor of his new AppleTV

Mak … cause anyone who smokes cloves must like iiinterehstin’ movies

Happy May Day … this is my birth month and so I am always happy when May Day rolls around. It gives me an extra bounce. I love May. My lily-of-the-valley is blooming which seems appropriate. The lilac my dad gave me six years ago finally bloomed this year. It came to me in a half-pint milk carton and I had to put a little fence around it so that LightHusband wouldn’t mow it; that’s how little it was. Now it’s a full blown bush with lots of blooms.

Here’s the riddle that led to a discussion: What’s red and invisible? (answer at the bottom)

So the discussion is … there’s no word for the action that happens when you have a mouthful of something, and you are presented with something very hilarious. It takes you by surprise and, bam, the stuff in your mouth comes shooting out your nose. Here’s what my friend AleFifer had to say about it:

Ya know there’s no term for that… for having a beverage or food come out of your nose. Well maybe there is a word for it but I’m unaware of it. There definitely should be something in the mainstream vocabulary for it though as people do this often.

Hmmm…. what to call it. Nostriling? Susie nostriled her coke all over her shirt when Steve told that joke. Nyah, gotta be something better than ‘nostril’. Inhale Exhale In Out. hmmm you sip a drink sip backwards is ‘pis’ Susie pissed her coke all over her shirt… nyah. drink backwards is knird can’t use that ’cause ‘knird’ sounds too much like ‘nerd’ and we don’t want folks to be labeled as a nerd when they squirt stuff out their nose while laughing. Okay squirt, I said squirt. some word like squirt, spew, spray, pour, irrigate, drip, dribble but with a nasal flair to it. Hmmm maybe a nasal ‘flare’ …i don’t know which flair/flare to use with nostrils do you? Ya know, when you try to make your face look like an aroused bunny? What?? You don’t do that. Nevermindthen… where was I? Oh yeah putting a nostrilly tone on a squirty word. Maybe don’t need to. Maybe thinking of other words that mean nose. Well let’s see there’s … nose, honker, …um … nose …yeah I said nose already but I’m just stuck. Ah…. a term just came to me. Something related to vomiting. “Nosechuck”. Susie nosechucked her coke all over her shirt when Steve… Yeah, that’s better but not perfect.

I’ll have my subconscious mind work on it today and if it comes up with anything decent I’ll keep you informed so you can assist me in adding this needed new term to our vocabulary.

Me? I kinda like the idea of nosehurling, which he turned into “nurling.” So … what about you? What do you think? What’s a good word for it? With the onset of computer jokes and reading funny things on the screen (where we all know we should not be drinking and/or eating, but we do anyway) spewing stuff out our noses has become the symbol for something really funny, but we need a word for that.

Speaking of funny here’s a YouTube video about the Miley Cyrus who-haw that is not to be missed (ht bob carlton). Apparently she (of Hannah Montana fame) posed for some suggestive photographs for Vanity Fair and now a lot of people have their knickers in a wad. Here’s a choice that people forget they have. If a magazine is publishing photographs you don’t like, um … don’t buy it. It’s simple. And easy.

Some of you will remember this, others will just look on in wonder … but here are the 1970’s in full glorious color. I remember. Do you?

Here’s an incredible font resource that I have spent entirely too much time at lately (thanks to Jonathan Brink), but it’s all free!!

Here’s a really cool dinosaur museum and I want to go. PeregrineMan … we’re comin’ your way.

Courtesy of Scriber Thom Stark is Revolution in JesusLand, a blog by a former leftist organizer turned Christian progressive. I wish I’d known about this when I found faith, it might have saved me a lot of pain and anger now. Ce va. These two posts in particular are not to be missed, they are the first two in a series on how to save the world … the right way this time. I like this guy. The Next Step For Christian Big Thinkers – Part 1 and intro/translation for non-Christians before I get to part 2.

This last (and I’ve saved the very best for last) is rapidly becoming part of my life canon … and more on that in another post … is a powerful set of readings? poems? devotionals? I don’t know what to call these. But they are powerful and it’s quite possible that you will find them embracing you as you read them and my everlasting thanks to Bobbie at Emerging Sideways for pointing them out. Abre la puerta! (Open the door!) by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Riddle answer? No tomatoes …

And I do mean that literally. Quite literally. Eight bobbins and two large spools of thread equals miles of thread.

We are finished. Well, we’re finished with our part. Now we take it to a long-arm quilter to have the three layers that make it a quilt put together and stitched. But our part is finished and we are happy with it. So happy that we have both agreed that we will likely spend far too much in raffle tickets in our attempts to win the quilt back … because now we LOVE it. How can we give it away to a stranger?

We will if we must … but only after we take plenty of photographs.

Here are some links, conversations and tid-bits for your weekend perusal or something like that.  Or because I’m bored and should be doing laundry.

A really fabulous definition of what knowledge is … or is not.   An argument … but go see for yourself.

Have you read The Shack?  If you haven’t, then get thee hence, go to … go to (yes, it really will change you and your life).  If you have, go over to Waving or Drowning and put in your picks for the cast of the fantasy movie that we’re making.   I picked Mandy Patinkin for Jesus … but that’s all I’m telling you.  You’ll have to go see what started the whole thing for yourself.

Jake is looking for input on theology lectures … if you have a favorite and know where it is on an .mp3, leave it in the comments for him.  He’s putting together a mixtape of them.  Whodathunk?

Will Samson started a conversation about Dr. Wright and his soundbites but someone left a comment about abortion versus mountaintop removal.  I’m not certain I get it, maybe you will … in any case, go watch the YouTube clip and leave a more appropriate comment there to offset the silliness.

Over at Perigrinatio, Doug meditates on the one obligation we are called to.  It’s powerful.

Last, on a pretty somber note, I’ll join the growing wave of people who recommend the series over at FuturistGuy on Spiritual Abuse.  It is both sobering and redemptive.  I have found some of it extremely emotional, part of it made me want to throw my computer across the room, and then part of it made me nod in agreement.  But after processing it all I am glad for it.  It is helpful, healing and good.  I anticipate the next piece with some apprehension and some excitement.

LightHusband loves gadgets. He especially loves electronic gadgets.

I may have mentioned that I lost the battle over the large screen television. Did I mention that? He got a lovely bonus this year. I lost the battle. When we got the television, we got a new gadget to go with it. It’s called Apple TV.

Apple TV is a network device designed to play digital content originating from the iTunes Store or another computer onto an enhanced-definition or high-definition widescreen television. Apple TV can store content on an internal hard drive or stream it across a network from another computer running iTunes on either Mac OS X or Windows.

LightHusband thinks this is the coolest thing since sliced bread. I am much more understated.

However, last night we were able to go to iTunes on our television screen. Did you see that?? On our television screen … which is as hugelynormous as a small wall. So, we’re at iTunes. We look for movies. We find movies. We search them for a few minutes and find one that looks interesting. We rent it. For $3.99. It downloads. In less than TWO minutes we are watching the movie. No driving. No boxes to lose. No movie to return (or not … ). No fines to pay … and trust me – we ALWAYS pay fines, because we are 12 and not that organized. We/I can watch that movie as many times as we/I want in 24 hours. For three dollars and ninety-nine cents. Amazing.

So, we rented Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Eva Green, and Jeremy Irons. It came out in 2005. It was an excellent movie … but beware. It is not for the faint of heart or queazy of stomach. It is a movie which does not hide the violence or filth of the times from the viewer. I wondered if Orlando Bloom washed his hands at any point during the making of this movie as I watched.

It was thoroughly enjoyable. However, without some knowledge of history and/or the religions involved I’d imagine a viewer would be thoroughly bored. But I loved the fact that for the first in history there was a movie made about the Crusades in which the thoroughly evil people were not the Saracens but the Knights Templar. Those radical fundamentalists who could not live except when they were killing innocents of another race. Hate and fear had twisted their faces.

If you love history, the history of Christianity and/or Islam this is well worth a watch. It is historical fiction and the writers have played with some of the history. However the main characters are all real people who were in and around Jerusalem. Who played a part in the fragile peace of Jerusalem in between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades. Who’s to say they didn’t believe they were bringing about a kingdom of heaven?

Me (upon finding a strangely shaped blue plastic piece on the kitchen counter) “What’s this?”

LightHusband, “I found it in the bottom of the dishwasher.  If I were a ‘real’ husband I’d know what it is.”

Me, “Oh dear … I have a faux husband.”

LightBoy (upon realizing that I have just snipped a small 1/8″ amount of his boisterous hair), “OH! Now look!  You’ve gotten bits of hair all over my logic book.”

Me, “That’s what’s known as hairy logic.”

At which LightGirl fell out of her chair …

Well … so I’m re-thinking and deconstructing myself and my previous post. Because my friends have given me much to think about in the comments. It is good to have friends who are wise and brave enough to do this and also who will give of themselves to be transparent before the world. I am humbled by this.

In the memetime, Shawn tagged me with the 123 meme which keeps circling and circling, but will not end. It brings to mind a song … maybe I will sing for you. LOL … that would not be pretty. In any case, for the one and a half of you who have not yet read the rules, here they are:

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating! 2. Find page 123. 3. Find the first 5 sentences. 4. Post the next 3 sentences. 5. Tag 5 people.

I’ve done this one once before, but I was kind of wanting to do it again … just because I love books. Since then I’ve taken to reading a book outloud to the LightChildren. So it’s nearly always at hand here in our family room. So here’s my contribution:

From Hundred In the Hand, by Joseph M. Marshall III:

“When it [a rattlesnake] crawls into your lodge a second time, what do you do?”

The younger man rubbed the wooden stock of his new rifle. “Kill it,” he replied.

So, now … hmmm … who to tag? Most everyone I know has been tagged at least once. So, if I tap you again, my apologies, but this is fun and I know you all have many, many good books you could put your hands to.

Patrick – for recommending this good book to me

Doug – cause he’s blogging again

Jamie – cause he’s got a whole bookstore to pull from

Peggy – cause she tells it like is

Lyn – for needing time to read adult books

Sally – I’m guessing she has really interesting books

If you downloaded that funny little Lent journal I started and are wondering if I’m going to continue it, the answer is: Yes. I have finished days six through twenty and they can be downloaded here. Remember that the graphic is not mine, it came from the talented Si Smith at MayBe (a faith community in the UK). The general idea came from Peggy the Virtual Abbess, I just mixed it up a little bit. And of course, the Jesus Creed itself from Scot McKnight.

Jemila just hit me in the latest game of tag. This one is particularly fun. Here are the “rules.”

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

I can do this. However, most of my books are in the “other” room as I do most of my blogging/computing in the family room on my trusty laptop. My books are either on my bedside table, or on the bookshelf in the bedroom. But there was one peeking out at me here in the family room … so you were not treated to odd sentences from Drawing for Older Children & Teens (at the top of my current reading pile -in the school room- as I am prepping to teach LightGirl and a friend). And the book which peeked out at me?

Saints & Sinners In the Early Church: Differing and Conflicting Traditions in the First Six Centuries, by WHC Frend. I haven’t forgotten it, but it was in my bag to read on our ill-fated anniversary get away. I’m on a quest to learn more about Pelagius (or here or here or here) and this book was recommended by a trustworthy friend. Without further ado, here are the three sentences:

“He would be rewarded or condemned accordingly.

On the practical side, the Pelagian was a social reformer — in this he would contrast with the follower of the Western ascetics Jerome and Paulinus of Nola and with Augustine himself. Three quotations of a Pelagian Briton(?) living in Sicily: “

Here are my tags …

Peggy – the Virtual Abbess

Janet – Secret Women’s Business

Cathy – Sharing Information

Patrick – Dance of the Spirit

Maurice – the Sinister Minister

Jeremy – the New Light

Because I needed a good giggle … here’s a look at how I grew up. At least two of my readers will get these, the rest of you will wonder how I’m still sane, or perhaps begin to understand my lack thereof. For the record, I have direct, personal experience with all of the below … yes, all of them.

Subject: a Vermont check…

Forget Rednecks ….

Here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about Vermonters……

–If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through May, you live in Vermont.

–If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don’t work there, you live in Vermont.

–If you’ve worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you live in Vermont.

–If you’ve had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you live in Vermont.

–If you measure distance in hours, you live in Vermont.

–If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you live in Vermont.

–If you have switched from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again, you live in Vermont. (note – this would mean “in the car” because no one has a/c in the house)

–If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in Vermont.

–If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both unlocked, you live in Vermont.

–If you carry jumpers in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you live in Vermont.

–If you design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, you live in Vermont.

–If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph — you’re going 80 and everybody is passing you, you live in Vermont .

–If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow, you live in Vermont. (my personal favorite)

–If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, mud season and road construction season, you live in Vermont.

–If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car, you live in Vermont.

–If you find 10 degrees “a little chilly”, you live in Vermont.

–If you actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all your Vermont friends & others, you live in Vermont …

My parents are here for the holiday. We’re all having a grand time enjoying each other’s company. We all sort of hang out together and laugh and talk. We’ve already enjoyed many memory gaffes. But that’s not my best Christmas gift.

We did Christmas morning in our traditional way. Sort of. When I was growing up, the kids got up first. We’d rattle around just enough to wake up my parents. Then we’d get our stockings from the kitchen table. Yes, the table. First of all … we heated with wood and had wood stoves, so Santa would have burned his nether regions if he’d come down our chimneys. So we very thoughtfully left our stockings on the table. I don’t know how he came into our house. As we got older and learned the truth (that Santa is Satan, I mean that Santa isn’t real) we just kept leaving stockings on the table. So, us kids would get our stockings, plus Mom and Dad’s and take them up to my parents’ room. We’d all sit on their bed and open the stockings. When I was growing up stocking gifts were wrapped in newspaper. My parents have a gift with stockings … they do their best work with stocking gifts. They are inventive and silly; thoughtful and whimsical. I think that is my Dad’s contribution to Christmas, but I’m not entirely certain.

After stockings, we have breakfast. Then we’d feed and water all the animals … chickens, geese, cows, horses, dogs, cats, sheep. Some of the favored animals would often get a special treat or special ration of grain or something. Load the wood bins for the day. The woodstoves did not get any special wood. Clean up the kitchen and be dressed in decent clothes.

After all of that, the unwrapping of the gifts would commence. We went one gift at a time … youngest to oldest. Everyone had to wait turns and watch each person unwrap so we all knew what everyone got. This eternally confounded my maternal grandfather. He managed to call every year when we were about 1/3 of the way finished to talk to us. Every year he was surprised that we weren’t finished. Every year … Surprise! What?? He was of the rip and tear all at once theory. We did not ascribe to that theory. It was funny. And we all always laughed.

So … I am still the first person awake every Christmas morning. Still. At 46. What is wrong with me? I first woke up at 4:15 and decided that was silly. So I went back to sleep. I woke again at 5:30 and that was the end of that. So I got up and made a carafe full of coffee (3 french press pots), emptied the dishwasher for LightGirl and sat in front of the lit Christmas tree in awe. But that wasn’t my best gift

LightGirl was the next person up at 6:30 so she joined me with some hot chocolate, then LightBoy for some hot chocolate. We had a few minutes together with our drinks looking at the tree. But that wasn’t my best gift.

LightMom and LightDad came downstairs and we opened stockings that had been left (as we do) on the kitchen table. But we do this in the family room. It was so much fun to have them participating the stockings again … as I wrote above … it is their gift. But that wasn’t it either.

We did breakfast, cleaned up. And began opening. We were most of the way through when I got a gift with a tag that read: “This made Mom cry, but it will make you laugh. To Sonja Love from Mom & Dad” LightHusband jumped to get his camera. LightMom looked funny and I was not certain I wanted to open this package. If it made my mom cry, I was fairly certain I might cry too … and just what was contained herein that made my mom cry on Christmas?? It was all too mysterious … and squishy as well.

Then it was revealed and we all dissolved into howls of laughter.

The story goes like this: When I was a baby my mom knit me a stocking. It was the stocking I had all through my childhood. Until a small closet fire when I was about 10 years old. The fire was started by my little brother who was playing with matches. My stocking and my other brother’s stocking and other family things burned up. My mother burned her hand pretty badly, too. I think a lot of my dad’s things from his term of service in Alaska were destroyed. So the stockings were gone. Except for the brother’s who had started the fire. There is no justice. Oh wait. My mother was too busy by the time he came along to ever knit him a stocking. So now none of us had stockings. Maybe there was justice. But I mourned my stocking. I held no grudge, I just missed my stocking.

When I got married, I discovered that LightHusband had had the same stocking all his childhood that his mother had knit for him as a baby!! What are the chances? So my new mother-in-law knit me a matching stocking. I had a new treasure and I loved it because of it’s ties and significance.

When the babies started to come along in all of our siblings families I discovered that my mother had been hiding her light under a bushel all these years. My mother loved to knit! She became a knitting machine churning out tiny sweaters and hats and mittens for the grandchildren. Each one also got a personalized Christmas stocking. I don’t mean name either. She would change and modify the directions to make the stocking for each child personally. They are all beautiful. So are all the sweaters and hats and mittens. We have all treasured them.

Sometime less than 4 years ago, my mother surprised me with a replacement stocking for the one in my childhood. We can’t remember the exact year, but we know it was since the youngest of my nieces was born and she turned 5 this past June. But she forgot. We don’t know what happened … she just forgot that she’d done that. I didn’t. But then you never tell the recipient of a gift what you’re thinking. In my family of origin that principle gets carried out perhaps a little too far. You tell no one. We operate like the Dept. of Defense when it comes to Christmas. So my mother did not even mention this to LightHusband, because he would have known and reminded her.

So she planned and found the special wool (white angora) to make Santa’s beard. She knit away on their trip to Florida and back to visit my uncle this fall. She grinned happily when she read my philosophy on gifting on my blog. She was thrilled at her choice in gifts this year. She knew she had outdone herself. And … she had. Oh yes … she had.

She had outdone herself TWICE!! I am doubly blessed! So that is the story of my best Christmas gift … of 2007.

UPDATE – (written by visiting author LightMom) –

Once in a lifetime….I hope!

In the 50’s I started knitting Christmas Stockings for my nephews – nieces would arrive much later!
As our children were born (1961, 1963, 1nd 1965) I knit them what had become a favorite stocking with name, a Santa with angora beard, and crossed candy canes.

In the summer of 1969 with Sonja at camp and LightUncle1 visiting a friend, LightUncle2 (not quite 4) practiced lighting matches in the front closet of our home at Kent’s Corner. And, of course, the result was….fire! Fortunately for us the closet was lined with tongue and groove cedar boards and GrandPea and I were able to squelch the fire and throw much of the burning material out the door onto the lawn. Among the belongings that were too burned to save were Sonja and LightUncle2’s stockings. I suppose in the back of my mind I intended to replace them but ….it must have been w-a-a-y-y back!

LightUncle1 continued to use his stocking, and when his daughter was born in 2002 asked if I might knit one for her. I searched the internet and various knitting stores for the pattern, but it was not to be found. So, I did my best using LightUncle1’s as the model. He was satisfied, I was not. Since we are trying to get rid of the flotsam and jetsam that has accumulated over 45+ years, we are continually sorting through it all. And wa-la I found the original – now 50 year old – pattern.

So, I set about re-knitting LightNiece3’s stocking (I hadn’t liked the non-wool yarn I had used, either) and now (2004) one for her brother, LightNephew.

So, this Christmas I decided to start replacing the burned stockings and since we were due to spend Christmas with Sonja and family, hers would be for this year! So I set about the task, and a friend found me some faux angora. And it was actually completed before we boarded the train to D.C.

Sonja had written that she and her family were trying to move toward a less commercialized Christmas and she most wanted to give gifts that she made or were really relevent to the giver/givee. Ahh… I had the perfect gift!

So now…imagine my dismay when I walked in their home to find……………..all their stockings ‘hung with care..’ and one of them being a replacement stocking I had apparently knit around 2004 or 2005! I was crushed. This was to be my major gift to my daughter and it was now a mere ditto!

I decided I needed to ‘punt’. Instead of hanging the stocking after she went to bed Christmas Eve – my original plan – I wrapped it as a gift under the tree. The tag read, “love to Sonja from Mom and Dad. This will make your mother cry and you laugh.” I forewarned photographer son-in-law, LightHusband, to be ready with his camera.

And boy, did we laugh – the laughter went on for some time – we held our sides and wiped the tears and just let it roll. Even a ditto can be the best Christmas present ever!