I was just perusing the DVD shelves, looking for something to watch later tonight and got to thinking about the types of movies in our collection. It isn't surprising that SF and Fantasy are in the lead for most in a genre. Still, some of my favorite movies are romantic comedies. Maybe because they never fail to make me smile. Here are my top 15 Romantic Comedies:

1. The Quiet Man (my all time favorite John Wayne movie)
2. American Dreamer
3. How to Steal a Million
4. French Kiss
5. Don't Tell Her It's Me (aka "The Boyfriend School")
6. The Cutting Edge
7. The Princess Bride
8. Sweet Home Alabama
9. It Happened One Night
10. Serendipity
11. While You Were Sleeping
12. Shakespeare in Love
13. Emma
14. The Truth About Cats & Dogs
15. Two Weeks Notice

How about you? What are your favorites?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Seems like most Americans only remember that first sentence--especially the part about Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Something which many sadly interpret as it's all about me, but hey, I'm not denying that I can be as narcissistic and selfish as the next person at times.) The part we need to remind ourselves of is that our government is as it is today through the consent of the governed. We've gotten ourselves here and only we can fix it.

Whew! That was a lot heavier than I'd originally intended. Really -- I only started all this to say, "Happy 4th of July!"

We spent the weekend in Lake Tahoe (a family wedding). It was a quick trip, but even so, I'm glad to be home. Sometimes I think those "quick" trips are the hardest. Usually we have a specific reason for traveling, rather than just going on vacation, and everything we do seems focused and more intense somehow.

The Lake was lovely, though the air quality wasn't as crystal clear as it normally is -- all those forest fires in California. It was much better than Sacramento, though. When  our plane landed on Friday morning, the smoke was so bad you couldn't see the ground until the plane was almost ready to touch down. We didn't get above it until we were almost at Donner. Still, the wedding was beautiful and the reception was fun.

The cats were glad to see us. Even though we've found a great place to board them that's the equivalent of a feline spa, they were as happy to be home as we were.

Two trips done, two more to go (for me) for the summer. I'll be glad when it's all over.

This is something that I've been pondering on and off for awhile now. It isn't so much that I'm looking for an answer outside myself as something that I'm trying to define just for me.

I'm always a little amazed when someone claims to be an expert at something. What do they mean by that? Do they mean that they've gone to school (college, university, whatever) and studied and now they know everything there is to know about the subject (and have a piece of paper that says so!)? Is it that they've worked in a particular field for years and feel that they have enough experience and background to speak authoritatively on the subject? Have they researched everything they could find and read as many books as have been published about the topic at hand?

Or, have they done something once and feel that that gives them enough qualifications to set themselves up as a self-proclaimed expert? And who am I to say nay? If you've done something, even once, that I haven't then you've certainly got more experience at it than I do.

I guess the reason I get amazed is that it would never occur to me to proclaim myself an expert in anything. Sure, I've got a degree and I've worked in a certain field for years and I've read and researched (in that field and several others) and I've tried to learn as much as possible about various things and yet...I always know that there's something more out there waiting to be learned.

Maybe, though, this is a mindset that I need to change. I think I'll have to ponder this a bit more...

Silk Road

4,881 / 100,000 (4.9%)

It's not just for bears. Some days, especially grey and dreary days like today, I wish I could just curl up under a blanket and sleep for about a month. Maybe longer.

I get the urge to become a hermit. I find it difficult to hold conversations, even (especially?) with family and friends.

I live a rich and varied life in my head and days like this make me want to stay there indefinitely.

I'm not depressed. Just distracted more by the internal than intrigued by the external.

I think I'm one of those weird people who wouldn't go mad if shipwrecked on a deserted island. So long as I could find fresh water and enough to eat, I'd probably be just fine.