Four Things From December

Here are some goings on:

I just finished reading The Year of Living Biblically. The agnostic author, A.J. Jacobs, decides to follow the Bible as literally as possible for one year. He chronicles his year and the changes he notices in himself. It's honest, hilarious, and slightly touching. Read it on your Christmas break. It's got me thinking.

Grandmother turned 88! We went to, of course, Perini Ranch and watched her spit on the cake. She didn't blow out a single candle this year. She did manage to get icing on her face, though.

My new co-worker, Todd, has encouraged me to embrace movie soundtracks - the genre I abandoned once I hit seventh grade, too embarrassed to admit that I loved Dancing With Wolves and Field of Dreams scores. I'm a little ashamed to say, I like them more than ever. Particularly the composer Thomas Newman, the man responsible for making me cry in Wall-E -against my better judgement - with his wrenching tunes.

Also, Todd is the only person I know who has the reoccurring dream that his teeth fall out. We looked it up. It means we're insecure. Apropos to Todd, we looked it up on http://www.bellaonline.com/ and got this quote, which will no doubt live on in infamy in our insecure little hearts:

"Sometimes teeth fall out, sometimes they are simply missing, sometimes they
crumble away. Whichever way they make their exit, the dreamer is left with
not only a gap in her smile, but a hole in her heart when she awakens."