Monday, July 31, 2006

Today is a New Today

Well, off I go on another tangent. I'm supposed to be looking for a real job, and here I am, hooked into what I fear is another sucking black hole that robs me of valuable time. Sometimes, I wonder just how much time I have left. But more about that later.

With the title, Kitchen Sink, it's clear I haven't even focused on where I want this blog to go. Pretty much it will be about what's happening in my life, and what strikes me as important, funny or touching.

The most recent event in my life was my 54th birthday yesterday. It was a good one. My husband took me out for dinner on Saturday night at Bonefish, my older son and daughter-in-law sent a gift certificate to Coldwater Creek and called, and my younger son, Scott got me a DVD set of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

I opened the set as Scott anxiously watched me to see if I really liked it. Inside there was an envelop with cards of ads for the movie than ran internationally, especially interesting for a graphic designer like myself. And then a printed message from Harper Lee caught my attention. She wrote of how pleased she had been that such a fine actor as Gregory Peck played Atticus Finch, how she grew close to him and his family, and how at times he risked his career to support causes in which he believed. Of him she said, "His trademark was integrity. . . . When he played Atticus Finch, he had played himself, and time has told all of us something more: when he played himself, he touched the world."

And I thought how sadly lacking we are in today's world where men and women of integrity are hard to come by. Atticus Finch was a hero. Wish our leaders would show that character and heart.

When Scott saw my tears just thinking about the story and movie, he knew he had picked a winner for his mom.