Sometimes so much happens in such a short amount of time that it seems a blur and there isn’t time to sit back and have quite reflection over it all. But it is Birthday Month. And on Sunday I will be running a 10K. So… good things are a happening.
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This is my favorite picture of Martin Luther King Jr. I like that it shows him having fun. I think it is helpful to remind myself that my heroes were also mere men and women, just like you and me. They may have been a little smarter or a little braver but ultimately, they are just like you and me. I use it as a reminder that a hero is the person who is willing to stand up for something and take action against what he or she finds intolerable. The hero is a person who is willing forgo some immediate gratification for the greater long range goals. I am reminded that if I want to change something, then I have to get off my butt and do something. Something about the humanity of watching a guy having fun and playing pool begs the question, “why not me?” or “why not you?” when it comes to public service and activism for a cause. Why not you?
WHY NOT YOU?
“It is true that behavior cannot be legislated, and legislation cannot make you love me, but legislation can restrain you from lynching me, and I think that is kind of important.”–MLK, at Oberlin College, 1964.
As you know, I am living in Arkansas. Arkansas is a very interesting and disappointing place in terms of race relations. Some of the most accepting nonjudgmental inclusive people you will ever meet in your entire life live in Arkansas. Some of the most hostile bigots you will ever meet also live in Arkansas. My twitter friend Greg has already wrote an amazing post on the disappointing facebook posts of our fellow Arkansans. There is also another completely embarrassing thread of comments regarding Robert E. Lee’s birthday on the Facebook page of another television network. It just reminded me why I am a card carrying NAACP member.
The first time I went to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis I was shown a thirty minute documentary called “The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306” It documents Martin Luther King Jr.’s last days in Memphis from the view of Reverend Samuel “Billy” Kyles, one of the ministers responsible for organizing the sanitation workers’ strike and was standing right beside Dr. King when he was shot. I highly recommend you take 30 minutes to watch it.
The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306 from Marc Altshuler – Human Music on Vimeo.
Last Saturday, I went to the super special preview of Kelli Marks‘s new bakery Sweet Love. It’s official grand opening is on THIS FRIDAY THE 13th but don’t let that scare you. This will not be scary, unless you want some scary good treats. (ouch! shoot me now before I finish this!)
Sweet Love is located at 8210 Cantrell Road in Little Rock across from Pavillion in the Park. It is in the same shopping center as Tzakiki’s. That’s right! You could get a gyro and a cupcake. How about that?! oh and on the other side of Tzakiki’s is a liquor store so it’s a full on party on this little slice of Cantrell. Don’t say I didn’t tell you about it.
Ahem.
So what will you find at Sweet Love?
You will see this cute little yellow table set up to get beverages. Yes the table will be there. I can’t promise that there will be coffee and pink lemonade but it should be tasty.
See Kelli in the Pink Baker’s coat. Yes that’s the maker of the treats. Be nice to her. The woman holding the baby is Kat and that baby, Nora Kate, is the most laid back chilled baby in the history of the world. She didn’t cry at all and there was a helluva a lot of noise in that place. I have never been that chilled out about anything in my life. EVER! The lady on the left is Sarabeth. She makes tasty salsa and took pictures with the fancy pants camera. My pictures are taken with a camera that probably retails for $19.95 now.
LOGO! Pretty!
These are chocolate chip cookie dough truffles. Yeah exactly. It tasted exactly like you think it would: Chocolate chip cookie dough covered in chocolate. She used mini chocolate chips so you had multiple chocolate chips in each cookie-dough-tastic bite.
These are mint chocolate brownies. These were make obnoxious orgasm sounding “ooohs” while eating them good. Unlike most things that are mint chocolate, the mint doesn’t overpower the chocolate. Instead, it’s a marriage of equals. There is both a strong mint and a strong chocolate taste in this brownie. It’s also on the gooey side but that just makes it better.
The pink flower covered cupcakes are chocolate cupcakes with vanilla butter cream. (the pink flower). The others are vanilla cupcakes covered in chocolate ganache.
I have a confession. These had coconut on top and as a result, I didn’t even try them. I was told these things were good.
So there you go. Go to Sweet Love and try some tasty treats for yourself.
Every so often one of these secrets will take your heart string,wrap it around your neck, and try to choke you with it.
The local gym has Kettlebell classes for 2 dollars a classes provided you bring your own kettlebell. Wobbly arms, you are gone.
The last year seemed to be about finding out the person I wanted to be and finding out who my friends were. I wasn’t popular in high school. On some level, I took that to mean that I wasn’t likeable and I reacted to this by people a people pleaser. I learned to get over that and to take care of myself. That seemed to include a lot of “cleaning.”
So let’s see what else I want to do.
- Be more true to myself
- Set boundaries and keep them
- Start some sort of strength training and do it twice a week. Hopefully blog about it so i can keep doing it
- Run two half marathons this year (The Little Rock half marathon sold out so I will have to pick another one. I figure one in the spring and then one in the fall or Winter
- I think I want to try to do the St. Jude marathon if it looks like my pace has crept up. Since I missed the LR half registration, I am going to keep my current running schedule as a ‘base’ and work in some speed work. I am considering the Oklahoma City half now.
- Work on my eating. I am subscribed to Weight Watchers online and I think I am going to focus on getting my servings of fruits and vegetables and serving sizes. Once I get that part right, I will focus on something else. It’s more one thing at a time. Hopefully this will result in me losing weight. (yeah these are much more vague than my concrete tasks of yesteryear)
I have been told that overeating is as much psychological as it is physical so I am going to assume that I will need some room to work on this. hence, the short list of resolutions this year. There you go. (yeah this will get to be more of a “weight loss” type blog. I can feel it)
Why yes I do post New Year’s resolutions each year and I posted a brief list last year.
You don’t have to click the link, I will reprint them here.
1. I will not let the bad things that happen to me destroy the wonderful that is within me (aka I will not let life turn me into a bitter old hag)
2. I will attempt the 100 pushup challenge (I WILL!!)
3. I will attempt the 200 situp challenge
4. I will attempt the 200 squats challenge
5. I will train for the Little ROck half marathon that I have already entered and do another half marathon later in the year
6. In attempt to keep myself on track, I will whine write about my workouts on this blog
7. I will be kinder and more assertive
8. I will attend my high school reunion this year
9. I will also be keeping track of my 101 in 1001 list
Okay let’s review.
1. YES! I think I did this. it wasn’t perfect and I did have some dips. I also managed to get in touch with some people from my past and that brought up some issues but I do think that overall, I made some progress. WIN!
2. err.. NO! I put this every year. Honestly the only way I am going to do this is if I post the results on this blog. Oh well, workout blogging here we come.
3. See above.
4. See above. I do need to do it and add some strength training. Just running is lopsided fitness
5. I kept up my training and did better than last year on the half but it wasn’t a personal best. Also, I didn’t sign up for one in the winter/fall. I had originally planned to do St. Jude’s marathon until I realized that the marathon had a time limit that would put me at a pace much faster than I go now. I should read fine print.
6. I didn’t do this. in fact, I slacked on this blog big time. yeah…
7. Well I was more assertive and got myself out of situations that made me crabby and mean. I think that was ultimately kindness to myself. Maybe even kindness to other because staying around fighting with people whom don’t respect you. Not good.
8. Not only did I attend, I helped plan that sucker and it was so fun that we’re having mini-reunions every year (or every other year) for the rest of our freaking lives… (okay maybe .. maybe not.. but a party next summer is happening)
9. er… I think so… maybe.. maybe not.
Well let’s see.
Over the course of the year, I, and you, see a lot of videos. Some of them are “okay” and some of them are just freaking awesome. This is for those.
It doesn’t snow that much in Arkansas and as a result, the state pretty much shuts down when it does. It snowed at the University of Arkansas. Some bored dudes made lip dub of Katy Perry’s Firework. Apparently, the need for shirtless barely legal males dancing around in the snow is high and this thing caught on like wildfire. It even got the attention of Katy Perry herself. It got the attention of national magazines and Katy Perry, herself. It currently has over 1,433,914 views. I think that says it all.
Jessie Miskelley, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin, otherwise known as the “West Memphis 3,” were released from prison after accepting a deal involving an Alford plea. As a native Arkansan who watched this unfold while I was in college, I never thought they would see freedom. I am still stunned by it, frankly. It’s not a perfect ending but it is an ending just the same.
Okay most of the time, I want to stab my eyes out when people post videos of children doing silly things. This one, instigated by Jimmy Kimmel, is epic. Jimmy Kimmel asked parents to tell their children that they ate all of their Halloween Candy. Hilarity, and tons of crying, ensues. Also, the phrase “YOU SNEAKY MOM” is a permanent part of my vocabulary.
If MTV went back to its roots and showed tons of videos instead of reality programming involving teen moms, KeSha would be a multigazillionaire. This is the music video for “Blow” Yeah the song is a fun little dance number but OH man. This video is over the top fun snarky deliciousness: Unicorns that bleed rainbows, James van der Beek, Meunster “the lactose liquid gold,” James Van der Beek’s head mounted like a deer (come on Dawson’s Creek fans who endured his Joey whining for six years, you know you want to see this). yeah you want it. “We’re pretty and sick. We’re young and we’re bored.” Let the crazy out kiddos. Let it out.
This one is old but I just saw it this year. Cat video bombs for the win.
Sometimes a video isn’t necessarily awesome for its content but it’s awesome to remind the rest of us that there is injustice in the world. The UC Davis pepper spray incident.
I am not going to lie. Ever since I saw the trailer for this particular movie, I have been waiting to see this movie.
Yes this trailer.
I devoured the first two books about a month before the final book came out and read the final one pretty much around the time it went on sale. I haven’t read them since. Yes, I have sweet the entire Swedish trilogy released about two years ago. As a result, I didn’t go into this movie completely blind or without some expectations.
I was afraid that Hollywood was going to fetishize the violence towards women in this movie and turn it into torture porn. Considering that Fincher is also responsible for the movie Se7en, this concern isn’t hysterical. The original title of the book in Sweden (it is a Swedish book that was translated to English) is, when translated to English, “Men who Hate Women” and it is very clear that the violence towards female characters in the book is not something to be glorified. This is a hard line to do when the basis of your movie is entertainment. It’s not as stark as it was in the Swedish movies and there are fancy tricks with camera angles but Fincher managed to not over do it.
Okay, this is Rooney Mara’s movie. She managed to get the slightness of Lisbeth Salander as well as the “weirdness.” Lisbeth Salander may or may not have Asperger’s. She managed to capture the “offness” while still conveying emotion at the appropriate times. She managed to be weird when needed and fierce when also needed. The viewer needs to believe that she can be crazy violent when pushed too far and Mara managed it.
The opening credits are a slick music video utilizing animation and Trent Reznor and Karen O’s cover of the Immigrant Song. It’s an over the top visual extravaganza that only a Hollywood film can pull off.
The movie manages to follow the book fairly closely although there is a big change in plot point at the very, very end. Both the Swedish version as well as this version manage to gloss over the fact that women keep throwing themselves at Blomkvist, streamlining the plot point with Blomkvist only being involved with Salander and the editor of the magazine.
I liked it. Go see it.
