Dirt!, the Movie

(Just to let ya'll know I have been trying to watch some movies to help with my motion sickness & seizure problem before I have to move to my new house... I don't know if it's working.)

So this movie arrived in my mailbox called DIRT! and even though after watching Into The Wild the other night and swearing off all drama, documentaries, tear jerkers etc --- I was tempted to go ahead and watch what I thought would not make me cry. I was wrong.

Let me just say this movie goes through 3 cycle plot points, and here is my summary of what they are:

#1. Ya' find out what dirt really is and all the cool awesome things it does (like filtering all water on earth, feeding us, being pieces of fallen stars...) - by the end of this first cycle you are so crushed on dirt you want to marry it. (One guy in the movie feels the same way, cause he licks it.)

#2. Ya' find out modern man has no respect for dirt, or understanding that without dirt we die. Period. And hence the violent, tragic visuals explode across the screen. (This is where the movie took my breathe away, turned my stomach, I stifled crying, and got abdominal cramps from the stress of reality.) ---(FYI: some of my reaction might be related to PMS though.)

#3. Redemption on a small scale. In fact, as awesome as the last cycle of the movie is of showing ways to make positive changes, ways that work, stories to inspire (cool programs in jails where inmates garden)... my abdominal cramps didn't go away though because the destruction was bigger, more massive, faster and more jarring THEN what we are doing to fix things. Still, this part of DIRT! is uplifting and ends on a good note.

WHAT THIS MOVIE MADE ME THINK:::
That I need to get solar panels right away and stop using electricity. I wish so bad I had enough money. So what really needs to happen is solar & other alternative energies need to be affordable, and all mass scale farming needs to be changed over to a method that won't eventually lead to starvation. ~~~~

This will sound dorky but is entirely true - when I was growing up in suburban New Orleans (Harahan HAwks Baby!) I was a bit obsessed with dirt. More then a normal child because my mom has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which mostly manifested itself in cleaning. Not just regular cleaning, I am talking you could eat off the floors, do surgery on the kitchen counter, lick the bottom of the tub, and drink the water in the toilet sort of "clean". Think museum meets open heart surgery. Back then she thought dirt was the cause of everything that could ail a human being and we were scarcely allowed to touch it, play in it, or mention it(wonda' why i have auto immune?) - it was the evil thing that kept my mom dust mopping and vacuuming 10 times a day.

But I loved dirt. I could not help myself and everyday I would sneak over to the side of our house where dirt still existed in the shade of a neighbor's pecan tree, and i would dig holes. Diggin' holes was my favorite thing to do because I wanted to see when I would hit water or China, and which one I would hit first. One time I even stopped my school principle in the hallway with a dire important question I had been waiting to ask her (the smartest lady eva' of course cause she was even bossing teachers around), I got a hold of her arm and asked with urgancy "how far do i have to dig before i hit water?" and she said "6 feet"... and I believed her.

This is when bad things began happening to my parents cable and electric lines, because I began digging those wires up to get them out of the way of my digging till I hit water project. When i failed to ever hit 6 feet with my hand shovel, I just said F' it, I am filling these holes up with hose water.
Hence my dad banging the cable box and screaming at the TV.

BTW- I even ate dirt once when i was a kid cause i thought, Why Not??? I got worms and had to take some sick pink medicine from the doctor.

OK- did I digress?

PS_ I am going to donate this movie to the madison county (NC) library... hopefully it doesn't give other peeps stress cramps too.

xoxo

My First Ride On The Electric Bike!

Oh yeah baby.

I finally got the tires pumped, there was no snow, no rain, and the temperature being all the way up to 40 degrees I figured it was time to learn how to operate my new electric bike named "peewee". If I had to describe my first experience with peewee in one word it would be "hilarity" , if I had to do it in two words it would be "holy shit!" and three words "somebody help me...!!!"

So after my neighbor kindly filled the tires with some air blowing machine he happens to have in the back of his truck for his tools, we all took turns riding up and down the muddy road. I let everyone else go first since I am a big scared-y cat like that, and I rather watch everyone else make mistakes first. :)
Getting on the bike and starting the throttle was a bit like your stereotypical teenager learning to drive... stop... start... brake...start....slide...stop.... start. All jerky and wack.
When I took it to the end of the gravel road and onto the paved main road the freaking chain on the bike started falling off- after someone else (i won't name names) had kept switching the gears too fast. Bort *ehem* helped me put the chain back on about 10 times when my mailman pulled up to the mailbox! I happen to love my mailman and we are good friends, so he rolled down the window to see what kind of trouble I was brewing.
Then he said this "You know, I think yer' tire is on backwards! Look at yer' front tire, it's turned around the wrong way..."
Well.... shit. it is. ha. To which my only reply was "this is why I don't belong on the road!"...as I proceeded to turn the darn tire around for the millionth time. (This was the second time I had been told this, and thought I had fixed it the first time. See the pink arrow pointing to my turned around wheel as I unknowingly cruise around in the pic above.) Duh.

A few more times of the chain falling off (and a minor fit of cursing the bike wishing for a donkey), and I finally got the hang of the bike's uphill movement. Although slightly jerky and shocking - when you pedal the bike it forces the electric motor to kick in - which surprised the hell out of me and suddenly I was cruising like a born to ride harley davidson biker... but smaller, less hardcore, and less graceful. And not in enough leather to look "cool". (Remember when Pee Wee Herman went to the biker bar looking for his lost bike, and knocked over their rows of motorcycles? That's more my style.)
Once I was going good on the bike, I could not stop myself - and just kept moving along up the mountain even though I could feel the air upward dropping to colder temps, my hands already freezing under my gloves and in the back of my mind thinking downhill might be a bit f-ed up since I noticed the brakes were... um... sensitive to touch. But hey- the chain stopped falling off and I WAS FREEEEEEEE!!!! Freedom!!!!!!
Till I got to a squished up mailbox, pulled over and realized the battery gage is like really fishy when going uphill. In fact it acted JUST like a tank of car gas - when going uphill it said it was almost empty, when going flat or downhill it said it was full! Since there's no gas in peewee, I don't have a clue how to understand what he's communicating... I mean, is electricity sloshing around to the back of the battery? lol
I decided to turn around and cruise back home.
I wanted to poke my own eyes out on the way. The brakes were SooooosooOOOOoooOOOOOooooooooo sensitive that even the indication of touching them brought the bike to a slamming halt which resembled an insane 10 year old driving a car, jerking to go and stop so much I figured I would vomit by the time I got to the bottom of the valley again. It was single handedly one of the most horrid annoying terrible no good very bad rides back ever - and I still had so much fun!!! The icy wind was blowing straight through all 5 layers of wool and cotton clothing, my fingers were numb, I was going down hill at either death defying speeds causing me to scream and grit teeth or the speed of a slug holding the breaks down almost falling off the bike from lack of inertia.
So... in conclusion. I think peewee is something I have to get the hang of, AFTER somebody helps me fix those control freak brake pads. And maybe it's way less spazzy to ride on a warmer day.
(It's not me, it's the bike... i swear.)
ding ding!
XoXo