The Fringe of Fringe

Most of my blogs of late have been, well, let's face it, downers. So for something slightly more upbeat, I think I will muse about last night's (Jan. 28th) episode of Fringe. This Fox network show is great. I have watched it from the beginning. I like all of the main characters. Dr. Walter Bishop is one of my favorite tv characters of all time. If you aren't watching the show give it a try. Dr. Bishop is a genius who even with part of his brain gone (long story for another day) be is still way beyond any other scientist poking about on the tube. He'd even beat Mr. Spock in an IQ test (that is also another story for another day, Leonard Nimoy fans, I'm talking to you). But in last night's episode Dr. Bishop got to give us a glimpse (and it was just a glimpse) of his past. It seems our Dr. Bishop's father was also a genius. He worked for the Nazi's and was called Bishoff. But Walter says his father was really sending his findings to the Americans via German novels which he used to hide his notes. Walter thinks he still owns the novels but finds that while he was in the mental hosptial (yes, you got it ... another day) his son, Peter, sold the grandfather's books. Peter says he needed the money but FBI Agent Olivia Dunham suspects and gets Peter to admit he really sold the books because he was mad at his father. Now Walter is a nice dotty genius now days but the few glimpses we have had into his past show that that has not always been the case. Walter could be driven and obsessed with his work. We do know something which Peter does not, that his father once risked the world to save his (Peter's life) and he really did not succeed. Well, not entirely. :) Looks like another story for another day. Any way on last nights episode some one has figured out how to kill certain people in a room full of people with a poison gas. Walter remembers that his father was working on something like this but did not have enough knowledge of DNA at that time (1930 and 40s) to be able to fully use the knowledge. Now someone is using his father's findings and is killing people. The first death's are at a wedding. One family is targeted. The fact that the family is Jewish makes it seem more cold blooded. Walter, Peter and Olivia do find the killer but secrets are left untold. Like how did a hundred something year old Nazi end up in US in 2010 looking like a thirty-some year old. Oh those Nazi's and their secrets. Can't wait for next week.

Welcome 2010

2009 is gone but not forgotten. It ended on a dark note for my family. My dear brother-in-law died on December 22. He had been ill for only a few weeks. We knew he had serious health problems but no one thought the end would come so soon. I saw him the day he died. In fact we talked quite a lot that morning. He seemed to be remembering things from his past and the memories were not always pleasant. He told me about a lady he had known who had been ill for a very long time. He said people said she was so brave for fighting so hard. He said he had just felt sorry for her. I think Louis was telling me that we wasn't going to fight his cancer.
When Louis found out about the cancer his first thought was for his wife (my sister) Shirley. He and Shirley met when he was home on leave from the Navy. He was nineteen and she was eighteen. The fell deeply in love and decided to marry. I remember my mother crying and begging Shirley to reconsider. My mother thought Shirley was too young. I was five and did not really understand what was going on, but I knew that my mother just did not cry, so this had to be bad. But Shirley and Louis had made up their minds and they married. They were married 48 years when he died.
Shirley and Louis had two children. Sheila Joy, whom they called Joy and fourteen years later a son, Michael. Joy is married and has three children, Heath, Savannah and Lucas. Joy is in charge of the Anniston, Alabama court system. Michael was a college professor, with just a few pages left on his dissertation for his PhD. when he was killed in an automobile accident just before his twenty-ninth birthday.
Louis spend his last days planning for Shirley's future. He sold all his "toys", tractors, guns, etc. He got house plans for a new house and had signed the paperwork with a builder to build her a new house close to most of her family. Then and only then did he let himself be put in the hospital. Three weeks later he died.
Louis was a strong, loving man who never really recovered from his son's death. I think he would have been more willing to fit for life if Michael had still been with him. Louis loved his family, his work, and his animals. He always had cats.
My beloved cat, Big Kitty, died in early December. Big Kitty was 19 years old. I thought he would be with me forever. I miss him everyday. I still haven't been able to get rid of his litter box. I still call out to him as I come home like I always did.
I like to imagine that Louis, Michael and Big Kitty are all together, along with my mother and father and my friend Mary, my aunt Eunice, ... will you get the idea. I don't know what exists beyond this realm but I hope I will see them all again. That is how I can welcome a new year.

Maggie Norman

Maggie is a rescue dog. My friend Pat saw her on the Montgomery,Alabama Humane Society website in 2000 and fell in love at first sight. Maggie was a stray who had been found on the streets of Montgomery. She was hesitate at first when Pat brought her home to Jacksonville but very soon she was queen of the house. Maggie is very outgoing. She loves other animals and all people, especially children. She is more than nine years old now but still often acts like a puppy. She is wonderful. Maggie makes you happy just by being around her. She is just so beautiful. Dogs like Maggie just need someone like Pat. Someone who will love and protect them and feed them and walk them (I think we all secretly want that). Maggie is lucky. She found Pat, but think how many animals are not so fortunate. If you are looking for a pet please consider looking at your local animal shelter. So many animals are being abandoned these days. If you don't feel able to give an animal the love and attention they need, please consider giving a donation to the animal shelter or Humane Society in your area. Maggie and I thank you very much.


www.hsus.org/

Michael Louis Bell

Michael would have been 30 on August 31sth 2009. But Michael was killed in a car accident on the 17th of August 2008. Michael was my only nephew. He was my sister's only son. Michael came along as a change of life baby. My sister had a daughter Joy was was fourteen when Michael was born. As a child Michael was precocious. He always acted like a grown up. He spent most of his early years around adults so he talked like he was thirty when he was four. It was very funny.
Michael had a musical gift. He loved music and could play almost any instrument he tried. He was a music major in college and started out as a band director in a middle school. He did this for a few years but he never liked the fact that music just was never considered important in schools while sports was king. So he started on a master's degree and got a job at Troy State University as an online course developer. He was almost through with his Ph.D when he died. He had left Troy State and was working for an online University at the time of his death.
Michael was bright. He was caring. He was savvy to the ways of the world. He was fun to talk to. And I really think he was a good man. Death is no respecter of persons, we are told. Death came in the shape of a rain drenched highway on a Sunday afternoon. Death was announced by an Alabama State Trouper who came to my sister's house that Sunday night to tell them the news. I got the phone call from my brother a few minutes later. I still remember the numbness that hit me. I could not understand what he was saying. The words were just words. How could mere words explain something like this. I have suffered through other deaths. But somehow this death is the one I have had the most trouble with. It still doesn't seem real. I still miss Michael. I think of things I'd like to say to him. He loved this time of year. He loved JSU football. He would have been making his plans to follow the team on their road trips.
Michael would have loved Twitter. He was a techno wiz. He knew everything (well, it seemed that way) about computers and all their accessories. He loved technology and he loved life. Now he is twenty-eight forever. Happy birthday Michael.

Mary Dothard Cooper

I knew Mary from Oct. 1990 until her death on Dec. 8, 2003. She was first my co-worker, then my friend, and finally my boss. She was an extraordinary human being. She was one of the most intelligent people I have ever known. She had a veracious appetite for knowledge. She read all the time. She read for fun. She read for self-improvement. She read like most people breathe -- reading was life to her. She always had books she was trying to get me to read. She was always passing on books she had read to others. Mary was a librarian and the Director of the Meadows Library but reading was separate. She would have read had she been an accountant or a lawyer.
Mary was a wife and a mother. She was a professional educator who loved what she did. She was open to change and encouraged thinking outside the box.
Mary was a good person. She was almost Zen in her outlook on things. She could take a breath and think a situation through before she spoke. She could and would see the other person's point of view. She was wonderful in tense situations. She would bring a rational viewpoint to even the most heated discussion. She could lead by just showing the way. She did not micromanage. She trusted the people who worked for her and made them want to do their best.
I miss Mary. We could use someone with all her gifts today. I will always miss her. I hope she knows how much we all loved her and how large a hole she left in our lives.

Barbara's birthday

My former sister-in-law and friend Barbara has a birthday today. I will not say how old she is because you would never believe me. She looks wonderful. She was a kind lady who has not always had an easy life. But she does not let life beat her down. She rises from the ashes like the Phoenix.

Now Barbara has a wonderful husband, Ken Morgan. He has been there for her and helped her survive some very trying times.

I hope that Barbara and I will always be friends. I feel like she is my sister. I'm lucky enough to have made three trips to Europe with her. Barbara, Shirley (one of my sisters) and I made our first trip to Europe together back in the nineties. Then the three of us made another trip in which we stayed a week after the tour group and wandered around on our own. We had a marvelous time. We traveled by train from Glasgow to York and then spend a few days getting more acquainted with that great town.

Then we took the train on down to London. That was fun a well. We saw shows and did a lot of shopping.

A couple of years later Barbara and I decided to go to London on our own. We even went to Paris for a day by the Chunnel Tunnel. We also took a train to Sheffield and saw Kenneth Branagh in Richard III. Very great performance.

I have been back to London one more time without Barbara and I missed her. She is great to travel with. She is very accommodating. I hope some time in the future we will be able to travel together again.

Happy Birthday Barbara!

Torchwood Children of Earth Perspective (Spoilers)

I have now seen all of Torchwood Children of Earth and I have written synopses of each episode. Because I was reading spoilers before I watched each episode I put my self though much more angst that was necessary. Not that Children of Earth was not wrenching. The first three episodes of this series are among my favorites of all seasons. Four and Five are among the best written episodes since JMS finished season 4 of Bablyon-5. But Day Four and Day Five are almost very difficult to watch.

I have watched the growth of the Captain Jack Harkness character since he appeared in the first season of the new Doctor Who. And the character of Jack has matured more than most tv characters, possibly because he has lived many more lives than most. In the last two episodes of this mini-series Jack loses his world, but if I can be forgiven the religious overtones, he gains his soul. I realize that at the end of Day Five he does not see it that way but I do. I did not immediately upon watching realize this. This came to be later. Jack had much in his life to regret and much to atone for but his sacrifices in this season, and to a certain extend in the last, have gone far to evening the scales. Since Jack can't die he ends up suffering through everyone else's deaths. He has watched men and women he loved die. He has probably watched his children die. In this series he watches a grandson die. Jack will continue to suffer for these deaths and all the ones who have come before and all the ones who will come after for a very long time.

Russell T. Davies has been castigated on websites, in blogs and in online chat groups for this season of Torchwood. It would seem that even though we have been told repeatedly that Torchwood is dangerous and very few Torchwood workers ever grow old we still have a hard time understanding that characters on Torchwood that we like are going to die. Ianto's death was a shock to me. I admit that I should have seen it coming. There were pointers. In the third radio play The Dead Line Ianto talks to a comatose Jack about the fact that he, Ianto, will die and Jack will go on without him. There were many signs but I like almost all the fandom did not see or maybe did not wish to see what was coming.

Ianto Jones was a great character and Garth David-Lloyd did a great job portraying him. The character had known heartbreak. He had a rough childhood. But he refused to quite. He did not give up on love even after what happened to Lisa. He forgave Jack for his involvement in Lisa's death. And what had began as a flirtation had become a love affair for them both. Ianto Jones you will be missed.