Juno

Most “bucket lists” are filled with unique items, such as reading the literary classic "Moby Dick" or  “skydiving” (which is on my list) or “seeing the pyramids of ancient Egypt”…so…it is important for me to remind you this is a “Not Quite” a Bucket List. Which means, a number of items are simply things I just haven’t gotten around to doing. I’m quite confident I would die a happy woman with…or without…seeing Juno. Juno made the list because ever since the movie came out I’ve either heard people refer to it in conversation or people have told me I’d appreciate the humor…and generally speaking…enjoy the movie.

I think I mentioned it in another entry, but one of the things I like about this list is I don’t have any real plans for “how” or “when” I’ll go about accomplishing something. Over time, I decided if someone randomly organizes an outing/event incorporating one of my list items, then I “have” to do it.

What does that have to do with Juno? A few times a year, my church has a movie night after the evening service. Since Sunday night is “family dinner night” I generally don’t attend. However, when I heard the next movie was Juno…I knew I’d have to break the disappointing news to my family that they’d have to eat dinner sans-Holley.

Honestly, I don’t have too much to say about the movie itself. I enjoyed it. I appreciated the quick wit of Juno and some of the other characters. The movie itself is kind of slow so the trade off was good character development. The movie is about a 16 yr old girl (Juno) who gets pregnant and decides to put the baby up for adoption. Throughout the movie, Juno bounces back and forth between her own chaotic/messy family and the prim and proper soon to be adoptive parents. SPOILER ALERT….In the end Juno’s chaotic/messy family exemplifies unconditional love and the prim and proper adoptive parents turn out to be the “messy” ones.

The post-movie discussion focused on the fact that the gospel message is all around us. More specifically it’s not found only in Christian music, art, books, etc. All of us are “Junos” in the sense that we make mistakes, are a little awkward at times, and may have some "messes" in our life, BUT just like Juno’s family loved her unconditionally, we too are loved by our Father in Heaven.

In short, I’m glad I saw Juno, but it wasn’t life changing or anything.

Oh, for those of you wondering...so far I've completed 7 of my "non-bucket list" items.…almost 25% completed.  A few other things (i.e. marathon training) are in the works, but have yet to be completed...

I Prefer People Tweeting on Twitter to the Tweets of a Bona Fide Bird…

I loathe birds. More broadly stated…“I don’t like living things that fly.” Even the idea of going to a butterfly garden is totally unappealing to me. Flying creatures are just too unpredictable. Plus, they often sting or bite. As for birds, I particularly dislike them for two reasons:

1. I don’t think of myself as one who has a particularly large head, but believe it or not, more than one bird has flown into my head. I think that is gross. I don’t like their filthy little feathers fluttering in my hair right next to my face. Eh…

2. I have seen many “lethargic” birds. Sounds weird, I know, but it’s true. I realized my disgust for lethargic birds during my college years. At my school, there was a bat problem (yes, another flying creature) and the maintenance people put bat poison in the attic. In the spring and fall, I would often notice birds just kind of slowly rolling around on the sidewalk, and it freaked me out. Turns out, the birds would sometimes eat the bat poison. (Between the bat problem and lethargic birds, my college is sounding really awesome right now isn’t it?!?) Anyway, to this day, whenever I see a sickly bird rolling around on the sidewalk…I get really annoyed. I know it’s not the bird’s fault…but it’s just so gross!

3. Oh, I just remembered a third thing…I’ve had birds fly into my house. I am not a fan of being in a confined space with an unpredictable, germ infested, flying creature…especially when it’s in MY space.

4. Point 3 makes me think of my sophomore year of college when a bat was trapped in the lounge area of our dorm floor…still gives me the willies…

5. Oh, and I also hate when birds repeatedly fly into a window. That gross repetitive light thump on a single pane of glass is simply nauseating.

6. Over the past 30 years, a number of birds have taken the liberty of pooping on me. This first happened to me as a young child one summer afternoon as I innocently picked cherries in my backyard. I’ve been told getting pooped on by a bird is “good luck”. Sufficed to say, I’m still waiting to win the lottery.

…hmmm…two reasons turned into six. See…this is a very authentic dislike for birds. If I sat here long enough…I could probably come up with 10 good reasons I think birds are disgusting.

Please don’t fault me for my strong opinion on birds. If anything, I hope you have a better appreciation for my beliefs.

In my last blog entry about the book “Tipping Point” I mentioned I often get into conversations with people about “human nature and the economy”. Well, for some reason, I also frequently find myself in the middle of an “I think birds are gross” conversation. At least 50% of the time, those conversations end with, “Have you ever seen the movie ‘The Birds’”? I always reply with, “No, but I need to”. So…that is why “Watch The Birds” made my list.

On my 11-hour flight (on British Air) from London to Cape Town I had an opportunity to choose from a large (and diverse) selection of movies. One of those movies was Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. I thought…”Hmmmm, this is prefect. I can essentially ‘kill two birds with one stone’ (pun kind-of intended…) by watching the movie while I fly to South Africa”….it was a fantastically productive plan!! However, I refrained because only a few days before I left for South Africa, my friend Rebecca mentioned she wanted to watch “The Birds” with me…So, after a few minutes of internal debate, I decided to watch “The Hangover” instead…I don’t regret it, it was funny.

To make a long story short…I watched the movie on Halloween night (only seemed appropriate). Rebekah was out of the country but “the show must go on” and though she was missed, I had fun with my gal-pals Ryanne and Stacy. None of us felt like doing the big Halloween “thang” this year, so it was nice to just be low key.

What’d I think about “The Birds”?? I expected it to be scarier, and quite frankly, I think we ended up laughing more than getting creeped out. I won’t tell you how it ends…but I will tell you the ending was kind of dumb and unpredictable…just like birds. And now we’ve come full circle.…if you’ll remember…the primary reason I don’t like birds (or living things the fly) is because they’re too unpredictable. Interesting…

After I saw the “The Birds” my loathing them was only validated. In the spirit of having a “take away” (which is something I’ve incorporated in to most of these blog entries…) I decided I don’t need to feel too bad for not liking this part of nature. I can appreciate the fact they’re part God’s creation…but it’s okay if I think they’re gross.

PS...The picture above is from my London/South Africa trip about a month ago.  Ryanne and I were at St. James park in London and it was FILLED with birds, mainly pigeons.  The large bird I'm pretend petting is both huge and real.