Heights and coasters

Ok, so I am a wimp, ok! Yes, I am afraid of heights, darn it! I admit it!

Dean and I love to find new places to go for a walk and this other day we followed the train tracks to a bridge. 

He asked me to walk over the ridge with him. I said yes, of course! But, as soon as I looked down, I began hyperventilating. He was already halfway through to the other side, and here I was, looking down, petrified, hyperventilating.

He laughed at me.

Wait ... HE LAUGHED AT ME??? NO ONE LAUGHS AT VIKA!!! ... Well, except for her husband.

Now, wait a minute, you ask, how does a roller coaster fan is afraid of heights? Simple, very simple, my friend – Fear excites me as long as I know I can't get hurt. People don't plunge to their deaths while riding roller coasters. Except, of course, in the case of that girl at the Hopi Hari park, who was ejected from a defective seat of one of those shoot-up tower rides. But, think with me, if there is a chance of a ride seat being defective and killing,, how much greater are the chances that, while walking on abandoned train trail bridges, a quarter mile above a river, you will step on with missing parts and rotting wood and fall to your death!

You know when they say in the movies, “don't look down!” and someone does look down? And then they fall and die, don't they! Well, I will bet you a million dollars that would be me:

“Vika, don't look down!”

And, on my gravestone, one will read, “Her last word was 'What?'”

life soundtrack

Do you imagine your life with a sound track? Do you have a theme song? I can't imagine my life without music in the background. And for everything I do, there is a song playing in my mind in the back ground.

Does that sound weird? How could it be any different? If you grew up in the same time I did, and in the same situation I was, you'll understand it.

I have grown up in a time where lives of people, real ones and imagined ones, were told on TV every day, all the time, as series, shows, novelas, movies, music videos, commercials and anything else one could fit in that little blue light screen.

I have also grown up in a time where we could carry our music with us everywhere we go. In the car, in the purse, attached to our bodies.

Then every where I go there is music playing. The mall, the store, the restaurant, the school. Music is everywhere in the background.

How could I possibly view life in any other way but with a sound track?

Things I love about about people on TV

You know those times when you're sitting down watching your TV show or movie and then the people in the screen do something that you go like - that only freaking happens on TV!!! 

Yeah, TV people are funny. They do things that no one in real life does! I am not talking about time traveling or flying with a cape on, or jumping off a cliff on a motorcycle and make your way into a flying airplane. No, because, when you watch a fiction story, you sort of expect those things to happen. I am talking about daily things that they do that makes no sense whatsoever. Only on TV. I'm talking about things that look normal, but, well, aren't. 

Usually they have to do with sex, but not always. I'd say don't read this if you are underage, but hey, you've seen this on TV, so go ahead and read for fun... just don't try it at home ...

Here is a few examples:

Example #1 – A couple went to bed last night and they made love. Then they fell asleep. It's morning and they get up from bed - they have clothes on! Whoa! Did they master the art of having sex with underwear on or the art of changing back into exactly what they had on the night before under the covers without anyone noticing the commotion?

Example #2 – A couple wakes up in the morning and starts kissing passionately … without brushing their teeth!!! What is wrong with this picture? Well, unless I am the only weirdo who suffers from morning breath and does not wish to share with my husband, they either secretly sucked on breath savers right before they opened their eyes or they have a strange addition to nasty tasting kisses.

Example #3 – NOT A SEX ONE! When a person is being chased inside their house they run upstairs. Because the safest place to be when fleeing a maniac is cornered at the top of a tower.

Example #4 – Another one on waking up in the morning. Everyone wakes up perfectly made up, shaved and with their hair done. I want the number of their hair salon.

Example #5 - Nothing ever possibly goes wrong before wild sex. Nothing! The clothes come out like butter. Hair is always lose but it doesn't accidentally end up on partner's mouth. No one goes like... I haven't showered today yet.

If you think of more of this stuff, (again, it doesn't have to be about sex scenes...), send it over the comments. I would love to hear your TV insights.

See you next week!

Afraid

In these past days I've been following my little plants growing. My tomato and pepper flowered. And I thought, gee I'm not a total incompetent. Is it going to bear fruit soon?But at the same time, when I stop to think more deeply on the subject of planting and harvesting, I'm afraid.This week I went with my husband to Plymouth, the city started by the Pilgrims who fled religious persecution in England.They have a village called Plimoth Plantation, which recreates life in 1627. Each family has its home, each house with its garden. They planted and ate the fruit of their labor. There was no electric light, no telephone, no mall. But everyone had enough to eat, what to wear, and how to protect themselves from cold. They landed there in 1620, a desert land (because the local Indians had been decimated by disease), and in less than seven years had a self-sufficient life.And we? We depend on the fragile technology that surrounds us. What would we do if, suddenly, we had no electricity? We lost all ability to survive - the one our ancestors had mastered so well.Is our life more fragile today than it was back in 1620? We have cures for many diseases, better control of nature, but not by our own abilities - it's thanks to technology - technology based on electricity. If we lose our beloved electricity, what have we left? we are accustomed to a life of comfort, and forget that it could collapse any time. And if it crumbles, what have we left?And why go that far? Why go back to 1620?My grandmother certainly led a life far more self-sufficient than me. My grandmother certainly had more knowledge of how to survive than me. That was 70 years ago! How is it that in three generations all that knowledge that was passed on from parents to children has been lost? Knowledge of thousands of years ... lost - because the current technology made it unnecessary. But the current technology lives literally hanging by a thread. What if the thread breaks? How unprepared we are to survive! We do not know how to treat animals for own consumption, plant gardens for subsistence - in school I learned that whoever did that was the poor peasant. We, people of big city, practice the following subsistence culture - the supermarket. We don't even know how to make our own clothes! 
 I'm afraid - afraid that much valuable knowledge is lost forever. And one day we might need it.As I wish I could bring back the tradition of passing knowledge and traditions from parent to child.