NEW COMPUTER HOOKED UP TOMORROW!My son J.D. and DIL Kris will

NEW COMPUTER HOOKED UP TOMORROW!

My son J.D. and DIL Kris will be out tomorrow, when J.D. will hook up the new computer. I am very much looking forward to having that done. I hope it will all go well.

I plan to go shopping in the morning. I am a bit nervous due to my toes and feeling somewhat vulnerable about them but I will be very careful.

I did write the podiatrist who worked on my toe this week an e-mail with several concerns, as my regular podiatrist is out until after 7/21. I hope to hear back from him tomorrow.

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I have been thinking that, in the interest of fairness, I should write about something positive regarding a Mormon neighbor (for those of you who don't know, I am an ex-Mormon, and Mormons often don't like ex-Mormons very well) who had made me feel uncomfortable when I saw him walking out on the road a few months ago. I had written about it here -- I thought it was quite strange. A couple of weeks ago, however, I saw him coming out of a local store as I was going in and I just missed catching his eye. I think he wanted to be friendly -- he seemed disappointed. Mormonism still isn't for me, but I very much appreciate this bit of kindness on his part.

That still doesn't make up for the Mormon neighbor who refused to get back to me with a quote on yard work. Another neighbor hired him to put up a fence, however, and he charged 3 times what he quoted, so maybe it's just as well, eh? ;-)

One reason I am sensitive about the attitude some Mormons have towards me is due to a comment my late mother made to me once, after I left the Mormon Church, saying, "I have lost a beautiful daughter." That was very hurtful!

I do still have good friends among the Mormon folks, and I love my Mormon family members.

I leave it to God to judge people of any religion.

ATONEMENTI watched the

ATONEMENT

I watched the movie "Atonement" yesterday afternoon. I don't know what I had expected but this movie had twists and turns that I would never have guessed. The plot centered around a 13-year-old girl whose actions relating to her older sister and the housekeeper's son affected their lives drastically in years to come. Part of this involved a note containing a word that I didn't hear or know about until after I was married. (Be advised, it is rated R.)

The young girl is played by one actress and then by another when she grew older, both of whom were unknown to me. Keira Knightley played her older sister and James McAvoy played the housekeeper's son. Vanessa Redgrave was the elderly younger sister at the very end.

I was pretty well riveted to my chair as I watched it. Unfortunately, there was no closed captioning and the British accents were sometimes difficult to decipher but I turned the sound way up and thus got the general idea of what was going on. (It's good that I live in a house in the country!) ;-)

I do think that "Atonement" is very worth seeing by adults. It contains a lot of food for thought.

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Last night, I read through the new Time Magazine that I received yesterday and under the category of "Arts" I found an article entitled "The Next J.K. Rowling?" It is about a Mormon housewife in her 30's, Stephenie Meyer, who has written several books involving a vampire and a young woman, with the first being the result of a vivid dream she had one night. She apparently has managed to maintain sensual drama while still keeping the plot clean, in accordance with her beliefs.

This fascinates me, as I wouldn't have expected Mormonism and vampires to have anything in common. And I wouldn't have thought that inspiration from God, if that's what Mormons might claim this is, would have anything to do with a fearful mythical creature. Oh wait -- Mormons believe in the Book of Mormon, just as one example of believing in mythical beings. ;-)

I wonder how Sister (as Mormon women are called) Meyer's church authorities regard her writings. Most likely, since she is successful -- and if she pays her full 10% tithe -- the powers that be will be most happy to give her their blessing.

Pardon my cynicism here, but my mind is slightly boggled by this situation. Still, as a formerly-frustrated author, I have to admire Stephenie Meyer and she has my blessing. Her first book, "Twilight," is being made into a movie and, although I've never been one for vampire movies, I may have to rent it when it comes out on DVD.

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It's about nap time here, providing the noise level at my neighbor's house across the road stays reasonable. They keep their dogs out in their fenced pasture much of the day now that it's nice -- it's beautiful and balmy today -- and that doesn't bother me except when they are let out at 6:30 in the morning and they bark for a while then, or during my nap. When I go across the road to the mailbox and they're out, they rush the fence like they would like to have me for lunch. My neighbor, Bobi, their owner along with her husband Toma, says they are harmless but make great bark alarms. That they do.

I believe I was scared by a large dog when I was quite small, so I do have some discomfort around big, barking dogs. I'm grateful for the fence in between us.

NO RESERVATIONSI was really looking forward

NO RESERVATIONS

I was really looking forward to watching "No Reservations", as I like Catherine Zeta-Jones a lot, so I was happy to settle down with a bag of smart-pop popcorn Saturday evening and start watching it. I had seen previews but they didn't prepare me for the sadness at the beginning of the movie. It hit a bit close to home and so I had to take a break from watching it after a while before I could get back to it.

I was glad I continued viewing the film after my time away from it as the character of Nick, played by Aaron Eckhart, was a very enjoyable one and played very nicely off of Zeta-Jones' well-acted character, Kate. And Abigail Breslin was great as Kate's young niece, Zoe.

Kate was a chef who became confronted with a close family tragedy as well as her own feelings and actions in the restaurant where she worked, especially after her boss hired Nick to work there as well.

It ultimately was a rewarding movie and I enjoyed it very much. I recommend it highly.

*****

There has been a lot of fuss about Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and some very controversial comments he has made in sermons in the past 6 or so years. I have been debating whether to write about my own opinions regarding what Rev. Wright said and Obama's response. For some reason, I feel too tired today to get into it. Maybe tomorrow, or next week, or -- if it remains an issue -- next month. I still support Obama, and that is, I suppose, the bottom line at this point.

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Many years ago, when I was a Mormon, I attended temple ceremonies where I took death oaths, agreeing by my affirmation and acting out, various ways in which I would suffer my life to be taken if I ever revealed what I had experienced there. (In my own defense, I had no clue before I got into that situation what was going to take place.) I left the Mormon church in 1984 with my late husband, who had also gone through these ceremonies with me, and my children, who didn't go through the ceremonies -- thankfully, the endowment ceremonies were only for adults.

I had basically forgotten about the ceremonies, especially as my mother wrote me in 1990 and I also learned from an ex-Mormon newsgroup I was on that the death oaths had been removed. This was a great relief to me, mainly as far as what my Mormon relatives were now experiencing in the temple endowment ceremonies, as by then I had no desire to go back to the Mormon church, even though that change had been made.

At the time we left the church, there was a family in Salem, Oregon, who also left, and they were interviewed and a large story about them was published in the Salem newspaper. In it, the husband said that he was afraid for his life, due to having taken the death oaths in the temple. He was worried that a fanatical Mormon might want to make him pay for breaking that oath. I thought he was probably being quite paranoid, although I could see why he might have those thoughts and feelings. (He worked as a prison guard, BTW, so he was not generally a fearful guy.)

Fast forward to the other day, when I took my mail out to the mailbox and a man with a tightly-tied hood was walking up the road not far from me. I looked at him briefly and smiled slightly, but his responding look was one that made me feel that he held nothing but ill will towards me. I looked away and got my newspaper and hurried back into the house. It had been hard to tell who he was, but I thought he looked like a Mormon neighbor from down the way. I felt quite scared and actually totally creeped out. Paranoid? Maybe. But I felt my aloneness here at home more keenly.

I have started locking my doors during the day, rather than only at night. That probably is just good sense, anyway. Most likely, if it was that neighbor, he was harmless. However, there are some nuts out there and I have wondered if a fanatical Mormon who was a bit off his rocker and who had taken those death oaths and knew that I had, as this man would have known about me, might not take it upon himself to make me live up to the oaths that I had taken in the temple those many years ago.

I know this probably sounds like a story fit for a Dan Brown novel, but if this guy was trying to scare me, he succeeded. I will likely not be writing so much about Mormonism, at least by name, although I might still allude to experiences I have had without naming the church.

(It's kind of interesting -- I was feeling sleepy, but in writing about this, I must have gotten my adrenalin going, as I am not feeling tired now at all.)

I was wondering, too, if the new LDS church president inherited a Nixon-like enemies' list from the one who just passed away. I am just kidding about that, though. Likely no one in the Mormon hierarchy knows or cares about my little blog. Still, I am going to act prudently and try not to give a reason for anyone to hate me because of what I am saying about a religion.

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Socks is up on the monitor right now. She has been a lot better since that one episode of scratching and biting the other day. I am going to be getting off here and taking her downstairs with me in a little while, so she doesn't have a chance to start getting aggressive like she does sometimes due to causes unknown. (Perhaps she can't resist my flying fingers as I type on the keyboard?)