My friend Carole sent this, and I just had to share:


Recently, in large French city, a poster featuring a young, thin and tan woman appeared in the window of a gym. It said:

THIS SUMMER DO YOU WANT TO BE A MERMAID OR A WHALE?

A middle aged woman, whose physical characteristics did not match those of the woman on the poster, responded publicly to the question posed by the gym.

To Whom It May Concern:

Whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins,sea lions,curious humans).. They have an active sex life, they get pregnant and have adorable baby whales. They have a wonderful time with dolphins stuffing themselves with shrimp. They play and swim in the seas, seeing wonderful places like Patagonia, the Barren Sea and the coral reefs of Polynesia. Whales are wonderful singers and have even recorded CDs. They are incredible creatures and virtually have no predators other than humans. They are loved, protected and admired by almost everyone in the world.

Mermaids don’t exist!! If they did exist, they would be lining up outside the offices of Argentinean psychoanalysts due to identity crisis. Fish or human? They don’t have a sex life because they kill men who get close to them not to mention how could they have sex? Therefore they don’t have kids either. Not to mention who wants to get close to a girl who smells like a fish store?

The choice is perfectly clear to me; I want to be a whale.

P.S. We are in an age when media puts into our heads the idea that only skinny people are beautiful, but I prefer to enjoy an ice cream with my kids, a good dinner with a man who makes me shiver and a coffee with my friends. With time we gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room it distributes out to the rest of our bodies. So we aren’t heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy. Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, ¨Good gosh, look how smart I am…¨

Half Blood Prince

Okay, I found a YouTube video done by HBO on Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which comes out a week from tomorrow (have my tickets already).

Click here

All I can say is "SQUEEEEE!" It looks so good!

*takes a deep breath*

Okay, I'm trying not to get too excited about this for fear of being disappointed.


How am I doing?

Pics from the Dave & Doris King Family--Early Years

Here's my Mom, Dad,and David Jr. as a baby:


Don't you love Davey's little suit?


Here's little cowboy Davey:


This is Davey with his new little baby sister (me). My mom said he was unimpressed. I was an an RH baby, but it was some time before the doctors figured it out. Mom said I was the color of a yield sign when I came home from the hospital. Eventually I had to be completely transfused, and the doctors worried that I would be disabled mentally and physically--some would argue that I am ;)


Here's me in what I think must be my blessing dress:


Davey and me when I'm a little older--I wonder what the other guy looked like as that's quite the scrape on Davey's face:


Here's a little montage of David from school pictures. The one on the right looks like it was probably from when we were in the Philippines:


Me, a little older yet:


And a little older yet:


I don't have a lot of pictures of my younger sister, Darcy when she was very little. She's 8 years younger than I am. My folks decided not to have anymore children after they nearly lost me, but decided to give it a try. A little baby girl was delivered in September 1961, but she was stillborn because he umbilical cord strangled her. She is buried in South Korea.

My folks tried again right away, and Darcy was born on the 22nd of September in Sacramento. The doctors were all set and ready to do a transfusion, but it turns out that Darcy was RH negative like Mom!


Here's a picture of when she was getting ready for Kindergarten, when we lived in the Philippines:

More Old Pics

I found another old photo album that my mom must have put together early in my folk's marriage. I remember when she died (ripe old age of 41) my father spend hours upon hours going through 20 years of photos that they had accumulated. He told me how hard it was to remember people from that far back all by himself. I always promised myself that I wouldn't let that happen to me. Some of my albums aren't in the best order, but at least they are in albums.

Well, except for the duplicates. I hate to confess that I have a box full of pictures--most of which I think are duplicates. Ugh.

Anyway, here's a picture of my grandmother holding her twins (fraternal), Jim and Dave. They were her first children and they were 8 pounds apiece. There's eight years between the boys and Barbara.


Here are those same twins, years later when they joined the Navy--at the ripe old age of 17:


And here's Herb and Ella (their parents):


Here's another picture of Jim and Dave and I believe cousin Betty:

Matt Lewis - aka Neville Longbottom

Okay, I was recently made aware of a current picture of Matt Lewis, the actor who plays Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter films. Wow, what a change over the years!


Here's Matt from the first HP movie, The Sorcerer's Stone.


And here's a more recent picture of him. Like I said--wow.

I think that probably of all the child actors in these films, Matt has changed the most. Of course, they make him look different by wearing some dreadful teeth.

It's funny because they should probably have been making Emma Watson (Hermione) wear some big teeth until Goblet of Fire, when in the book she was involved in a magical shoot out between Harry and Draco and ended up having to have her teeth magicked smaller.

Old Pictures 4

Here are some more old pictures I scanned and cleaned up:


This is my brother David and me in front of my Grama Hazel's outhouse on the Southern California desert. She and her hubby homesteaded out there.



Here's my only memory of having visited the Grand Canyon. My mom must have been taking the picture. Once again it's my dad, me, and my brother Dave.



This is a picture of my dad's mother and father (on the right), and my dad's sister, Barbara. I have no idea who the older lady is to the left.



Here's another picture of my Grampa Mahaffey when he was in the Cavalry during WWI. He died when I was very small, and I don't remember him at all. He was quite a bit older than Grama Hazel.

Hazel's the one on the right:


The beauty on the left is my Aunt Helen--oldest daughter to the two above:



Here's another military picture--a more modern one. This is my brother David in his Naval Academy uniform circa 1969-1970.

Holy Cow Update

Spencer will need to fly to Hawaii to interview, so obviously it's not a done deal that they are moving, but it looks really good. Erin says she is looking forward to living somewhere with a slower pace.

Okay, that makes me smile, because it's all relative. Yes, we are much faster paced here than in some places, but compared to very large metropolitan areas, we are seriously Podunk. My city has a population of about 92,000 people, but Erin's city is substantially smaller.

Well, the island of Kauai will be a great place for them, then, because in the 2000 census there were fewer than 60,000 people on the entire island. Of the islands we visited on our cruise last January, Kauai was my favorite.



Boy, it would just break my heart to have to go visit them. ROFL

Evidently if they make the move, Paul wants to go there, too. That will be interesting though because Paul refuses to fly--anywhere!