Thursday, July 19, 2007

It is 4 am and I can't sleep

I have too many things on my mind. UGH! I am excited and nervous about my upcoming trip to Hawaii. That probably doesn't make sense to anyone else but me! I feel like I have so much stuff to do before I leave and not enough time. My step dad surprised me and my sister today. My sister works in the office with my mom and step dad, while I am out in the field. My step dad gets packages in the mail all the time...mostly bullets, but that is another story! LOL. He also is a bit of a photographer, so he is always getting camera stuff. Today he got a package and opened it at my sister's desk. He pulled out a camera and said to my sister"dang, they sent me the wrong one. Oh well, do you want it?" He then pulled out another camera from the box and said "dang, they sent me two. Do you think Nikki will want one??". He was just joking...he ordered them for us. We each got a digital Nikon SLR d40x. I already have a digital Nikon SLR D100 that he let me borrow. Now I have a brand new Nikon. He also got us 2 gig cards. How many pictures will that hold?? I hope enough for Hawaii! Of course I almost hate to take it to Hawaii, what if something happens to it?? This is a $1000 camera. That would be just my luck. See why I am up so late?? It is stuff like this that I am contemplating! Why can't I just enjoy the moment! LOL!
I also have a movie I saw recently on my mind. Stacy has been bugging me to watch "Up Syndrome" for a while. I haven't wanted to watch it, because I know I will cry. She finally talked me into it...we watched it the other night. Stacy's cousin Justin is an actor and a film maker. His film production partner is Duane. This movie is about a life long friend of Duane's named Rene. Rene has down syndrome. Duane starts the movie out by saying something like...."Rene lived down the street from me when I was growing up. My mom said he had something called Down Syndrome. I never understood what he had to be down about. He looked like he was always having fun.". It was such a great movie and such a good look at Rene's life. Duane has always been interested in film making. He followed Rene around with a camera for years. The film really centers around his life at age 23....I think he is about 30 now. It was awesome to see Rene take such delight in things we take for granted on a daily basis. The point in the movie that I started crying....Duane let Rene drive his car. It was awesome! Rene got such joy out of it and felt like a "normal" person. Rene also made comments about being called baby, or honey, or cutie...he hated those terms. He isn't a baby and didn't want to be belittled. That really struck me....how people did treat him like a little kid, and he knew it. The movie just gave me pause and made me think. We take so many things for granted and treat people so horribly when they are different from us. There were many life lessons in that one movie. I am glad Stacy made me watch it, even though I did cry. That was okay....I learned something and I laughed a lot too!

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