Cheryl Beckham

Years ago I must have expressed out loud in front of someone, somewhere, something about the cuteness of a frog lawn ornament, that had caught my eye, for some reason. I didn’t even buy the frog, but some how that was to be the start of the many, many frogs that have now seemingly taken over my house and lawn. Word got out and frogs are a constant, but welcomed gesture from folks, as a gift, a token, a present, a tip (after all, I am a bar tender, and we receive quite a variety of tips now and then) from virtually everywhere from all types of people that I have/had a relationship with over the years. I must have a frog made out of any and every type of material that is known to man, in all kinds of sizes, and stances.

For Christmas I was given a frog aquarium kit, which requires a check to be sent in with the order for the frogs to come in the mail, or I could go down to one of the many pet stores that have popped up all over the place in the past few years. I’m sure at least one will have baby frogs for sale, it seems like the more humane way to receive new members of the family. But going to the pet stores, any of them like PetCo, Puppy Palace, and Petsmart always leaves me with me wallet emptied out and my heart broken from not being able to take home more of the critters that are all there, just waiting for a home, and knowing that their chances of being purchased and treated adequately highly reduces most of their survival rates.

One of the places that I try not to go in to are the A.S.P.C.A. and Animal Shelters, I have never left one yet with out crying like a baby and feeling like a piece of scum, and dirty. Not something that I enjoy or look forward to doing, ever.

The days of waiting for the mail man to come and bring good tidings to my door are long gone. What with email being the way for most folks to keep in touch any more, getting some sort of note, card or letter from anyone can only be expected these days around your birthday and the Christmas season.

My daily mail delivery usually consists of mainly of assorted junk mail and bills. So imagine my surprise and delight to find only one single piece of mail, all by it’s lonesome, sitting in my box this afternoon and this one piece just so happened to be my tax rebate check from our stimulus planning, soon to be our ex, President George W. Bush.

Now that I know the amount of the check, I will need to do some serious thought on what is the best way to use this precious bounty that has been bestowed upon me.

A couple of friends and I stepped out last night for a bite to eat and afterwards we went to see the recently released movie WALL-E  at the mall. Since we went to the last showing of the evening, we all were pretty much still full from our late dinner, so no one went crazy with the popcorn and candies, or their $5 sodas, which helped keep the cost to a minimum. These days none of us can afford to splurge much on extras like that anyway.

The film turned out to be animated and mainly geared towards children. This film possessed a not so subtle theoretical prophecy of the future in hysterically exaggerated terms, with an underlying sub-plot of a sort of the “lone survivor”, “wrong side of the tracks working stiff”, falls for the “top-of-the-line” classy, highly advanced, come to save mankind and got no time for silliness, fembot! A kind of love affair between robots. That in itself is a hoot! None the less it was quite unlike any animated film I had ever seen before. You just have to chill out and laugh. So, in my book, ’twas well worth the time and money to be seen on the big screen. Pay attention to minor details all through the movie, and you’ll not only laugh your ass off, but may find yourself giving some thought to things you’d previously paid little attention to.

Seems that Motorola has applied for a patent for a solar powered cellphone and although it will probably not be enough to fully recharge the phone it will help for those days when you just can not plug in to the wall.

I’m very interested to see just how good it works and how much it charges for I certainly would consider buying one when it I can hear a bit more about it and see if it really is worth getting into. Anything I can do in order to keep thing as GREEN as I can in my little world.