In space no one can hear you scream...but in the Wild West, they probably can.

Today marks the opening of Cowboys & Aliens.

Now, I'm not usually an alien-movie type of person. As a teenager, I chose to sit in another room and do schoolwork (Latin, I think) instead of joining my family for the original Alien movie (1979). I'm pretty sure I had nightmares just from hearing the screams, and the poster still gives me shivers.

My dislike (perhaps dread would be a better word?) of alien movies is deep-seated and historically-proven. When Dad and the Bro were stoked about Predator v. Alien, Mom and I gladly stayed home to watch Phantom of the Opera. The boys have long since learned not even to ask: the gals in our family just don't do alien movies. I actually don't even enjoy ET, though obviously for reasons other than the scare factor.


Yet somehow, Cowboys & Aliens is different. Perhaps it's the prevalent sunshine (which, being a Western, you can't really do without). Perhaps it's the cowboys. Perhaps it's that I was reunited with the Bro (which happens rarely and generally puts me in a really good mood about anything) when I saw the preview.

In fact, I didn't even realize what movie was being showcased until about halfway through the preview. You could have stolen my Pina Colada Orbit gum right out of my wide-open mouth, I was so shocked at the first mention of aliens.

My thoughts were something along the lines of this:

A western? Huh. Daniel Craig in a Western?? Hot! Harrison Ford in a Western WITH Daniel Craig??? [insert pause while jaw drops to the floor]

Holy Toledo, I have to see this movie!

(seriously, don't they just look so normal and Western and heroic? though perhaps a bit scared...)

And then the thought shot through my mind, much like lasers were shooting from Daniel Craig's arm: Aliens?

[attempts to reconcile Harrison Ford with aliens outside of Star Wars...fails]

Aliens? As in...Cowboys and Aliens??

The Bro nodded vigorously and grinned broadly. "We have to see that!!" he croaked into my ear in the dark theater. "It's gonna be awesome!!"

Suddenly, I was a convert. I moved from the girls's side to the guys' side in my family, from the alien-avoiders to the alien-must-seers, all because of Harrison Ford.

Some movie execs really do know what they're doing.

Brilliant

I found this new phenomenon on Runner's World today: Home Run London.

It combines some of my favorite words (Run. London.), so I had to take a closer look.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?? A service that picks up your bags and leads you on a 3-5 mile run after work? This could be the newest fad since pictures in red telephone booths!

And the video! Matching shirts, even a "Home Run London" backpack! It almost makes me desirous of wearing orange. Plus, that music is super inspiring.

I'm so moving to London someday. And when I do, I'm "leaving the Tube behind..."

A Poem in a Modern Style

Whenever I write the word "tubing"

I think it should be pronounced "tub-bing."

And Tubbing makes me think of The Borrowers.

Yes, the Borrowers, those little folk

Who float down a river

Because it storms.

(Am I remembering this rightly?

B/c my memory doesn't hold things tightly...)

So when a close friend borrowed my weekend,

We thought tubing (not tubbing!) would

Be a Fun Activity. And we proceeded to invite

Folks from all stages of life:

College, Work, Siblings.

They came.

We tubed.

We were not the Borrowers.

Because it was not flooding.

In fact, it was almost the opposite

Of flooding.

But we were afloat.

And enjoyment was had by all.

Africa on my mind

It seems that God doesn't want me to forget my time in Uganda last November anytime soon. So many little "coincidences" in the past month have kept it front and center in my mind (and I quote coincidences because in a world where God ordains the minute the sun rises, I highly doubt these happenings are random!).

It started with the CHEC conference last month, where I picked up this sweet little brown bracelet...handmade and straight from Uganda! (I bought the black and white one while there in November and have nearly worn that thing to pieces, I love it so much)

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Then a couple weeks ago, I ran out of facewash. Being on a 'money-saving spree,' I decided to pick up something a little cheaper than what I usually order, and I walked out of Target with the same facewash I had taken to Uganda with me. Now, if anyone tries to tell you that smell and memory are not connected, they have a broken sniffer. Even now, weeks later, I still can picture vivid memories of Uganda and London when I open that facewash with its very distinctive (and to me, Ugandan) smell.

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The third instance came last weekend, while at a conference in California. A gentleman from another booth wandered by and while we chatted, I discovered his daughter had been in Africa. I was only slightly shocked to find she'd been in Kansana with New Hope Uganda...but I was speechless to discover that she had actually spent a year over there with Syd Sparks, the very missionary that Jennifer and I had specifically gone to visit (well, and his wife and kid too!).

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Finally, just two days ago, on one of the blogs I follow, Sseko Sandals were featured. Lo and behold, these sandals are made in Uganda! Sseko Designs hires women entering the 9-month hiatus between secondary school and university, thereby allowing these women to earn the money necessary to continue with university education.

So it seems that Africa (and specifically Uganda!) is part of my present as well as my past. The question is, will it be part of my future? Only God knows...but I'm a little suspicious that He's plotting something.

naptime

My summer Bible study has been quite informative. Last night, in fact, I learned this very valuable piece of information that I intend to present to my co-workers and perhaps even my boss as proof that we should endorse a company-wide naptime:

"Well, you know, the human is the only mammal that tries to accomplish all its sleep in one session."

How 'bout Now?

In case you needed this reminder today also:

Often, with a little patience, the things we want DO come to us.

Operative-words-that-are-definitely-NOT-my-forte: "a little patience."

Enjoying some fruits of yet still practicing that dreaded P-word,

Chrissy S.

Stars

I'm returning from another trip to California.

This go-round, I saw several stars.

We couldn't find Robert Redford, but Paul Newman rocks too!

Personally, my favorite star of the weekend was this babe:

And of course, the weekend couldn't have been so star-studded if it weren't for the alignment of this trio (I'm still surprised there wasn't an earthquake when we finally got together):

So farewell once more California...

Hopefully I'll be back again someday!

Crazy Planes

This picture is from a true incident that happened the other night. Dude.

If those kind of things can happen on the runway, I'm kinda scared to go up in the sky...

Ok guys

do NOT, I repeat, do NOT go see that last Harry Potter movie unless you've read all the books!

I just spent the past 7 hours reading HP 7 (yay for cross-country plane trips and being a speed reader) Just take my word for it.

No matter how awesome this trio is on screen, they're way better in black and white.

And that is my random update for today since sadly I forgot to finish my intended post.

Maybe tomorrow??

Citizenship

The other evening, prompted by our women's Bible study at church, I had quite the brainstorm. We read Philippians 3:20-4:1, but I got stuck in the first verse: "But our citizenship is in heaven [...]."

What, exactly, does citizenship in heaven MEAN? I wondered. Well, what does being an American citizen mean? But wait, I'm not IN heaven, so it's more like, what does being an American citizen overseas feel like?

And I present you with my two conclusions:

1) When I'm in another country, I try to fit the culture (basic rule of traveling!). But at the points where I just can't seem to figure out what's going on or even how to act in a very foreign situation, I realize that my confusion (and sometimes dislike!) come from the fact that I am a citizen of another country...and I'm conditioned to act in ways appropriate to my (in this case American) culture.

Likewise and more importantly, I'm a citizen of heaven, of God's country (as C.S. Lewis might say). Hence, while I'm here on earth, whether in America or another country, there are areas where I will "fit in"(ie, be comfortable), but ultimately, I will be and should be revolted by some of the situations on earth because my 'culture' (where my TRUE citizenship is) is God's country...and things like mass murder, lies, and nasty drivers don't exist there.

2) Again, when I'm in a different country, I can't always buys things that I would normally find in America. For example, when I'm in Europe, peanut butter is missing from my life. And when I'm in America, I can't find fresh mango juice like I can in Uganda. Certain items can only be found in certain countries--that's why those are special items.

Likewise, while I'm here on earth, anything that I could normally receive in God's country, I might not be able to find here. So, for instance, in heaven there are streets of gold...and here on earth there are not. In heaven, there are no more tears...but here on earth, there are. In heaven, there is a lack of hardship...but here on earth, I will have hardships. In heaven, there is no loneliness...but on earth, I will be lonely at times.

Perfect peace, perfect companionship, a perfect life--these things can only be found in my real home, where I'm a citizen. And until I get there, I just have to keep plugging along, making do in my current location but never forgetting that "[my] citizenship is in heaven, and from it [I] await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform [my] lowly body to be like his glorious body."

I nearly died for this picture

I stopped to admire this strange sidewalk doodle just before a crosswalk and when I returned to walking, I stepped right in front of a car in my eagerness to catch up with my peeps.

Thankfully, the car had good brakes.

A Wild Car Story (part 2)

We returned to the convention center, vying for sidewalk space with an increasing number of Riverfest attendees. We found the bathroom (where the sink handle proceeded to break off in my hand), and we sank into a couple chairs outside the vendor hall just in time for the call.

The conversation started poorly. “The tow company can’t get you until midnight,” claimed Roadside Service. “There’s some festival in downtown Wichita that has brought in 10,000 extra people and is closing all the roads there.”

I jumped up to grab a map from the conference hosts. “Tell them I can get them here! These roads aren’t closed!” I gestured frantically at the map while Brit-Brit attempted to listen both to me and the Roadside Service agent. She calmly relayed my insistence to the agent.

“I’m very sorry, but we simply cannot retrieve the car until midnight. And we cannot release a new car to you until the current one has been towed. Let me check if we can deliver a car to you by 7am.”

Brit-Brit and I resumed our seats, she calmly explaining the dilemma, I fuming at inefficiency and poor service. Our opposing approaches to the situation resulted in quite the brilliant (and logical) brainstorm: if the rental car company couldn’t get a car to our hotel by 7am, we would simply have to cancel our contract and find another rental company.

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"Did you push the start button?"

"Yes, we've tried everything and the car won't start."

"Does the key have a square end or a rounded end?"

Silence.

"Ma’am?"

"Um, it has a kind of rounded square end?"

Brit-Brit and our new Roadside Service agent, Charlie, repeated this conversation for about 10 minutes, finally determining that indeed it was not operator error and the car was truly broken. Meanwhile, I evaded overambitious homeschool security guards and finally found my convention contact to ask if we could catch a lift to our hotel.

When we reunited at the car, Charlie had managed to cut through a great deal of red tape on our behalf, to the point where he practically promised the delivery of a new car to our hotel within the hour. We manually locked the car, leaving the key under the backseat, and hiked all our stuff back to the convention center, where kindly board members of the convention delivered us to our hotel.

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The saga closed without much more drama: we finally ate dinner (huzzah for Pizza Hut delivery!) and the car arrived about 10:15pm. The whole episode only took three hours, though it felt much longer. And that leaves one more life lesson learned the hard way: always listen to your rental car’s feelings.

A Wild Car Story (part 1)

So here's a life lesson for you: cars are smarter than you think they are and getting smarter by the year. When your rental car tells you that the keyless entry system needs to be serviced, you better call the rental company ASAP...otherwise, you might end up stranded in a parking lot talking to Emergency Roadside Service for a few hours.

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The day started so inauspiciously: Brit-Brit spilled milk on her skirt. "This will be a strange day," she warned me. "I never spill things in the morning."

The omen seemed unfulfilled as the day passed. The rental car notified us that the keyless system needed servicing, but the notification disappeared within minutes. The convention went well, despite standing on the concrete floors for 11 hours, and we felt that all-in-all, it had been quite the successful day. Now, to find dinner and rest our weary legs at the hotel that evening.

We marveled at the throngs of people arriving for the Riverfest—this was a population vastly different than the families we had interacted with all day. On the brief walk to the car, we noted how the weather was quite nice: a bit warm, yet not nearly as humid as Virginia. We discussed where to find dinner: downtown Wichita? Or takeout?

Our thoughts of an easy evening were interrupted when the car wouldn’t unlock via the keyless remote. A bit perturbed, we finagled the physical key out of the remote and opened the car.

It refused to power on. In fact, the car was so locked down that the radio wouldn't even play as we sat there, attempting to find a keyhole where we could manually start the car. For goodness' sake, who would invent a keyless car with a 'push to start' button without a manual backup? "That person isn't making my 'smart list' right now," Brit-Brit quipped.

We called the rental company: "Yes, hello, our car won't start."

"Ok, we'll send a tow truck. It will take 30-60 minutes."

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The car was rather warm, and we were fairly hungry, so we manually locked it and wandered toward downtown Wichita, waiting for the 'rescue call.' Finding Wichita a rather deserted city, growing hungrier by the minute, and wishing we'd stopped at the ladies' room before leaving the convention center, we finally spotted a Quizno's on the next corner. Subs? Sure, it's better than nothing.

Except, Quizno's refused us entrance. "We can't let any more people in," they claimed. "Not even to use the bathroom?" we queried. "No, we're sorry."

Puzzled, since there were several empty tables, we wandered back to the convention center, laughing at the irony of our quandary: what else could happen tonight??