If you're talking about time travelling bunnies, then yes.

WARNING: IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE SEASON FINALE OF LOST DO NOT READ THIS BLOG UNTIL YOU HAVE.

Before we start I just need to say, is it wrong for me to have a crush on Michael Emerson?

I decided to look over my blog for last season's finale just to see how far off I was on things. I think you can tell that I am not nearly as obsessive as many fans are, but I had some decent impressions on a few things. Wonder if I'll do any better this year.

Jeremy Bentham. That's the coffin guy. He's gone to see Kate and Jack. Jack believes him, but Kate thinks he's nuts. The writers/creators knew at the end of last season how this season was going to finish up. The scene we start with picks up where the flash forward that ended last year's ep left off. I wonder if either of the actors knew then who Jeremy would end up being. That'd be a hell of a secret to keep. Probably not.

Jeremy also went to see Walt, who goes to visit Hurley. He asks Hurley why they are lying and Hurley says it's to protect everyone else on the island. You'd hope Walt would understand that since he's been essentially hiding himself since his return.

Mr. I See Dead People Miles tells Charlotte he's surprised she wants to leave the island after all she's done to get back there. HELLO? When Faraday can't convince her to leave she tells him that she was still looking for where she was born. Ermmm...born on the island then? Mom was either preggers when she got there or this was the one island pregnancy that was successful.

Here John, watch a video while I grab every piece of metal and cram it into "the vault" like some kind of crazy microwave experiment. The video describing the Orchid mentions time and space experiments and some sort of "exotic material." Is it alien? Is it just something that hasn't been identified, but is organic to Earth? And what's with the automatic rewind?

"You just killed everyone on that boat!"--John

"So."- Ben

Hero Sawyer! Whispers to Kate. And yes, I did jack up the volume and rewind the tape. I thought I could make out a "find him" towards the end of the whisper, but I can't say for sure. Big smoochie and then time for a swim.

Flash forward: Sayid the assassin goes to see Hurley to let him know Bentham is dead. Hurley wants to call him by his real name, but Sayid says no. Hurley agrees to go with Sayid "somewhere safe" although Sayid is lying to him about not going back to the island. Oh, and Hurley is playing chess with a dead Mr. Echo.

Hey look, there's the boat! Stop to refuel, red light bad, Jin sends Des up to go tell people to get off the soon to be gone boat. ARRRGHHH!!! Jin is still on the damn boat. Jack's Dad appears to Michael and tells him he can go now. He's gonna go alright...go boom!! Jin had got topside and we know that there were life jackets and lifeboats. Wonder if he got one or both in time? The gang in the helicopter couldn't see that well to determine if anyone survived. Wonder if this means Hurley will end up seeing Michael since he sees dead people...and plays chess with them.

Flash forward to Sun in London contacting Charles W. "We're not the only ones who left the island." Will she help him bring down Ben? Will she do something to screw them both up?

Ben zaps the vault and goes to change. Sawyer finds Juliet on the beach. He turns and sees the smoke from the now exploded boat meaning Kate is presumably dead. Juliet must think Jack is dead too. Oh Lord, does this mean they will get together now? (On a side note, I'm sure Jackie enjoyed a shirtless Sawyer appearing from out of the surf.)

Ben's in a parka. I'm supposing that it is THAT parka which we saw in a earlier episode. More fun with space and time kids. He tells Locke that Locke will be the new leader of The Others, begging the question, will they interact with the Oceanic survivors? Also, a side question, why doesn't Locke recognize Richard? We know they met when Locke was a kid and Richard looks exactly the same. Granted, Locke's had some head trauma now and again, but still.

Ben also tells Locke that the person who moves the island can't come back. Does he mean he can't return the next moment or he can't come back ever? Ben spins the wheel, the weird sounds start, there's a bright light and poof! Island gone. Let's see you explain that one Jack.

Flash forward to Kate getting a weird whispery phone call (whispering sounds usually signal something bad is going to happen). EDITOR'S NOTE: I checked a Lost site that I like and the phone call was deciphered and the voice says "The Island needs you. You have to go back before it's too late." Goes to check on the kid and badda boom, badda bing, there's frickin' Claire! Claire tells Kate to not bring Aaron back to the island. Sorta contradicts the phone call eh?

YEAH!!! PENNY AND DES!!! One of the brief happy bits of the episode. And so begins the Big Fib. Frank stays on the boat as does Des. Hopefully we'll still get to see Des, possibly when Ben is going after Penny like he promised he would do.

Jack breaks into the funeral home and hey, wouldn't you know it, Ben is there too. Ben knows that Jeremy came to see Jack and Kate. Jack says Jeremy told him a month ago that bad things happened on the island after they left and that he needs to go back. Can't wait to see what those bad things are next season.

Great, go back Jack. But...there's a catch. You can't go alone. EVERYONE must go back. How you wonder? Well, Ben has some ideas. Oh, and by the way, when the island says EVERYONE, it means EVERYONE. Let's grab the dead guy who is...LOCKE!

So, what are we left with here? Locke is Jeremy Bentham. Considering that Locke's name is important, I looked up Jeremy Bentham, his alias. Bentham was an English philosopher and social reformer who lived 1748-1832. He formulated the principle of utility which approves of an action in so far as that action tends to promote the greatest amount of happiness. For Bentham, the idea of duty didn't really fit in with utility. The action, if it generated the most happiness, was just the right thing to do. Fitting for Locke I would say.

Locke somehow found a way off the island in order to find Jack and the others and get them to come back. How? And, how did he die? Was it punishment for leaving the island? Did Charles W. kill him? Did Sun have anything to do with it? I almost thought Faraday would have helped Locke get off the island, but last we saw him, he was on a raft heading for the freighter. Would the raft been close enough to the island to go away with it?

If Claire and Jack's dad are in cahoots with Jacob, then why is she telling Kate to not bring Aaron back? According to Ben, the only way to make things right is to bring back everyone. Presumably Jacob would want the island to be set to right, so why leave Aaron at home?

Also interesting was the "commercial" for Octagon Global Recruiting advertising for non-paying jobs. Wonder if this is a website that's going to work like The Office's Dunder Mifflin Infinity site or if it is going to be a site that provides pieces of the puzzle that is this show?

I don't know. All I do know is it's going to be a long time before we get to have this much fun.

Finally, on a completely unrelated note, I watched an incredible movie this morning. The Orphanage would have made my top 10 list had I actually seen it last year. The story revolves around a woman who goes back to the orphanage she lived in as a child. She and her husband, a doctor, move there with their son and decide to take in special needs kids who require care that their parents may not be able to provide them. As they are getting things ready, their son talks of meeting new, invisible friends who want him to play with them. One day, their son disappears and it's up to Mom to find him. The movie is really well shot and impressive for a directorial debut. There are plenty of creepy moments, but no real gore. The suspense is completely story and character driven with a couple of well placed shock moments here and there. I was impressed with the way the script flowed. Things made sense and tied up logically, although not so neatly as to be overly predictable. It also featured great acting and some really moving scenes. It's in Spanish, but don't let that stop you from watching it.

I Hate Being An Adult

The worst part of being a grown up is having to take responsibility for your mistakes. Gone are the days when you could possibly pass something off on a sibling or inexperience.

I called the travel agent today in regards to my trip to Scotland. Here's the situation. I was a dumb ass and didn't get the trip insurance. I'd misplaced the form and didn't find it until after the 14 days after initial deposit deadline. It didn't bother me much at the time because all I'm thinking is "well, I've never had problems before, I'm sure it'll be fine."

Of course, we all know what happened. So, the longer I wait to make my decision, the more money I potentially lose. The question is do I wait to see if, by some weird miracle, I'm ready to travel in 2 weeks and risk losing all my money. I've already lost half of what I've paid which completely sucks. But considering I have yet to spend more than 30 min. at a time in a car and if I sit up straight for too long I start to swell around my incision which isn't the best feeling in the world, I'm not optimistic. Right now I can't imagine being on a plane for 6 1/2 hours, not to mention riding in buses and walking around. I think my doctor was using the possibilty of my trip as something to keep me positive before my surgery.

I can't begin to describe how disappointed I am. I spent most of last night awake trying to figure out what I was going to do once I found out the answer to my money questions. Apparently nothing good is supposed to happen to me this year. The worst part is I have no one to blame but myself. I told the travel agent I would call her tomorrow with a definite answer, but I think I've known what the answer would be for the last week or so.

Anyone want to go see Radiohead in Indy? It's not quite Scotland, but it would be something.

Ford = Fab

I remember when I fell in love with Harrison Ford. I was 12. It was summer and my Dad took me to see The Empire Strikes Back. I should take a moment to state that while I did see Star Wars (also with Dad ) at that young age of 9 I could not handle the man that was Han Solo. Instead I crushed on Luke 'cuz he was more boyish. Not so much 3 years later. Things only got worse, or better depending on how you look at it, the next year when Raiders Of The Lost Ark came out.

I even took the time to write Newsweek and disagree with their reviewer over what he said about Empire. It didn't get published, but I did get a rejection letter that I have around here somewhere. I also wrote to Harrison Ford and got a signed photo (though I think the signature was a stamped one), which I also still have. It was a still from Raiders and featured a shirtless Harrison. I'm lucky my young heart didn't explode right then.

My first big post-op trip was virtually decided for me. It was to go see Indy 4 and so I did.

If you haven't seen it and don't want to know anything about it, just skip today's entry till after you've viewed the movie. Otherwise...

I really enjoyed the movie. After one viewing, I would put it after Raiders and very close behind Last Crusade. Perhaps that makes it sound like it was a bad movie, which is not what I'm saying. Harrison is great. He continues to toss out the dry wit in a style that feels natural and not forced like so many other action heroes. He does many of his own stunts which also helps keep you in the movie. And, even at his age, he's still pretty damn fine to look at.

If you've read anything about the movie on-line, you already know the plot was going to have something to do with Area 51 and that Shia LaB's character was going to be Indy's son from his earlier relationship with Marion. The Area 51 stuff features mostly at the beginning of the movie and is the reference point for the rest of the story. The story covers the action/adventure motif that you expect from an Indy flick, but it adds some sci-fi because of the connection to alien intervention, as it were. Don't be scared off though. The bulk of the film takes place in Peru where Indy has gone to find a friend and Shia's mom who are there because of the crystal skull from the title.

Most of the action sequences are great. The opening bit in an Area 51 warehouse is entertaining and the sequence with Shia's character, Mutt, and Indy trying to escape the bad guys while going through the campus Indy teaches at has plenty of funny moments. All the stuff in Peru is great except for one bit I will get to later.

Mutt is a fairly decent character. He's not overly annoying, even though Shia seems to be attempting to channel Brando from The Wild Ones. He plays off of Indy pretty well and I'm sure the kids will relate to him better than they will the rest of the older cast.

I can't tell you how excited I was to see Karen Allen again. Marion was my favorite female character from the series and I always believe she and Ford had the best chemistry of all the combos we were given. My one complaint here would be it seemed to take forever before we saw her! When Mutt goes to visit Indy and everyone but Indy seems to know that the Marion Mutt is referring to is THAT Marion, you just want to see the two of them together as quickly as possible. There are several funny moments between them as they "discuss" their lives over the years, etc. I think watching them together was the highlight for me.

Cate Blanchett (sp) holds her own as the baddie, although they don't really go anywhere with her allegedly being a psychic. Still, she is one of my favorite actresses and she looked like she was having tons of fun getting to run around and shoot stuff.

Here's what I wasn't so excited about:

The groundhogs. There's a cute jokey bit with one groundhog right at the start of the film. Fine, it was cute, I chuckled, done. Nope, we get at least 2 or 3 more groundhog gags, which was a bit much.

Monkeys. The monkey from Raiders was fine (and the inspiration for the one from Pirates as far as I'm concerned). They were annoying and a bit dumb in this. While in Peru, during an otherwise great chase between the baddies and our heroes, Mutt ends up getting tangled up in some vines and yanked out of the vehicle the rest of the good guys are in. He just hangs there for a bit until...one monkey, then another, then another all sort of gather around him and start swinging from vine to vine towards the moving vehicles. The light bulb goes on over Mutt's head and he starts to do the same. Seriously? I almost groaned at this particular moment. Too cheesy. Sorry.

My last complaint is really picky and I've mentioned it before. Pictures. Why oh why can't we get real pictures taken rather than use stills from prior movies? Is it so hard to grab a camera? To explain why Henry Sr. and Abner aren't in this movie we have a moment where Indy is sitting at his desk and he tells the head of the college (the guy who replaced Abner) that it's been a rough couple of years. One year his dad dies and another year it's Abner. On his desk is a picture of each man and they were stills!!!!!! And Sean C's still had him looking up and off into the distance. Who the hell does that in a photo? Perhaps someone trying to get arty at Glamour Shots might try that, but really? You have millions of dollars to spend and you can't get someone to Scotland to snap a pic of Sean? Or hell, have Harrison fly over there himself and snap a pic...he's a pilot and I'm sure Sean would have loved to see him. It's a tiny thing I know, but it bugs the hell out of me and for a moment takes me out of the story.

Some of you may have issues with Indy surviving a nuclear test blast, but it's done with humor as it's end result and that was the big thing in the late 50's when the film takes place. Even though it's a bit over the top, it's over the top in an Indy sort of way which is okay.

I'm still a little unsure about the ending. Not the very, very end, but the end of the action stuff. I thought the effects here were well done, but something just seemed to be missing. The very, very end made me happy and when you leave the theater happy that is a wonderful thing.

So, go see the movie and leave the theater happy!

OH--and also enjoy the new WALL*E trailer!!! It gives one a better idea of the story and I can almost tell you know with 100% confidence that I will love the movie and will probably be crying at some point during it.

Early Attempts At Normalcy

Today I tried two things. First was putting on a pair of jeans. That went so-so. My incision runs from my belly button down so the zipper of my jeans runs pretty much the same course. I'm still tender there so when I zipped up I was very aware of my boo-boo. It wasn't horrible, but I didn't leave my jeans on. I went straight back to the pj bottoms. Ahhhh....

Second was driving. I've ridden in a car twice since coming home from the hospital. While driving, I could feel the seat belt rubbing on my sore spots as I shifted my foot from the gas to the brake. I also realized that backing up is a bit weird because I am trying to be careful while twisting in the seat to see where the cars are. I don't know if I'm moving too much or not moving enough. I really wish I could have gotten more guidance in regards to my recovery. I've found a couple of websites that have been helpful, but I wish my doctor would have had more time to talk to me. I don't want to mess up since, as one site pointed out, you have only one chance to recover from an operation. Do-overs don't really happen in this situation.

Here's what I've been watching and reading:

DVD's:
Michael Clayton- B+
Cloverfield- A-
Lust, Caution- A-

plus, I've re-watched Juno, Spaceballs, MST3K: The Movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I got caught up on the ep's of Dr. Who and Battlestar Galactica that were on while I was in the hospital

BOOKS:
re-read Pride & Prejudice
about 1/2 through Then We Came To The End
about 4 chapters into a Jane Austen Bio by Carol Shields

This was sort of funny. I got a flower arrangement from work yesterday. The card said the usual Get Well sort of stuff, but it was "signed" The Staff from Store 2778....as though another store would be sending me flowers. Funny and a bit odd, at least to me.

The Bitch is Back!

Stone cold sober, as a matter of fact. Hey kids! Did ya miss me? Most of you know the basics of what has been going on the last couple of weeks, but for those of you who don't...I've got a little story to tell.

Warning: moderately graphic discussion to follow

So, I had an "emergency" hysterectomy on the 9th.

Got your attention yet? The picture to the left is what my arm looked like after FOUR flippin' attempts to get a vein that wouldn't blow in order to pump me with iodine to get a CAT scan.

Here's the short version: I've been having "chick problems" since mid-Jan. so I set up a doctor's appointment. After the lower half of my body saw more action than it's had in years, the doctor tells me I've got fibroids and cysts. Goodie! She runs several tests and sets up an appointment in a couple of weeks to discuss options, etc., but she does tell me that a hysterectomy is a possibility.

So, I go back to my car, have a quick freak out cry then go to work. Yes, that's right, even in the middle of angst I go to my job. I'm a dedicated idiot. Anyway, the next day at work, I get a phone call from the doctor. She wants me in ASAP to get a CAT scan. Seems my blood work came back and I had a hemoglobin number of 6. This is very bad. Normal is between 11-14. Essentially, I'd lost half of my blood. I go get the scan and endure the pain of multiple attempts to poke me (during one particularly painful jab I called out "flippin' puppies" because I didn't want to cuss...aren't I polite around strangers?). I believe the scan was to make sure I wasn't bleeding internally. The scan got checked and I was sent home.

Later that evening, the doctor calls and says she has been worrying about me and she wants me to go to the hospital and get a blood transfusion. Excuse me? Ermmm, you sent me home, could you not have thought about this then? After a frantic and freaked out call to my Mom, she and my sis drove me to the hospital and around 2am I started getting filled up. I got 3 units in about 6 hours. Yee haw! Thanks blood donors!! The next morning the doctor comes in and tells me that the cysts I have a freakin' huge (11cm and 8cm respectively) and after some more discussion it's decided that a hysterectomy is the best course of action. She had set aside time the night before so I was going into surgery that afternoon. So, in just over 48 hours I went from a doctor's appointment to surgery. Whoosh.

Thankfully, I had family and friends come by which helped keep me sane as I waited to go to pre-op. I was trying to keep my spirits up, mostly for my Mom's sake. We got down to pre-op almost an hour after I was scheduled to be there. Nothing like waiting to make a person anxious. We'd gotten through all the nursing, etc. meet and greet, I'd said my "I love you's" to everybody there and was ready to hit it when another nurse snags us just as we are leaving the room and says "we have to get a pregnancy test."

Seriously? In all the tests you have done, the blood work, the sonogram, the CAT scan, you couldn't have determined this already? So as I'm being rolled out I start laughing and say "If you only knew just how unlikely it is that I'm pregnant..." Actually, I said something funnier, but I don't remember what it was. Now, I gotta go pee in a cup while keeping my IV and travelling bag o' saline, etc. from getting in the way. Thank God they'd hooked that up in my left arm. They put a rush on the test because the next stop is the operating room.

Everything hits me as I'm no longer surrounded by people I love and I don't have to be quite so brave and I start crying. Thankfully, hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd playing in the operating room makes me laugh and I calm down. Of course, the drugs I got a minute or so later which knocked me out in about 3 seconds probably helped too.

The next thing I know I'm struggling to keep my eyes open and focus while waking up in recovery. Then the pain hits me. The best way I can explain it is to say it felt like someone in stiletto heels was standing INSIDE me while someone else was pushing on my lower back from behind. The nurse asks me to rate my pain from 1-10. I have a problem with this because I need something to quantify 1 and 10. In my head, 10 is being on fire while alive so I opt for an 8 for my pain. She gives me something. She gives me more. She hits me a 3rd time and I'm only down to a 7.5. I was in recovery for 2 hours and it took forever for me to get down to a 5. She gave me everything she could. When I get back to the room, Jinn asks me how I'm doing and I said, "Sorry Mom, but I'm going to cuss...I am in the worst F**KING pain of my life." Which wasn't 100 % true at that exact moment, but it was close.

Come the next day, I get to eat regular food, which was a challenge because my throat hurt from the breathing tube. I also got various things removed from my person and am told I need to start getting up and walking around. Blood clots bad! I started out just moving about the room, but by the afternoon I was roaming the halls of my floor. The doctor came in to see me and told me they'd found a little surprise during the surgery. In addition to all the other crap, I also had endomitriosis! Groovy. The doctor still can't figure out how I hadn't shown any outward symptoms until just a few months ago. My body is just a crazy maze of weirdness.

I got to go home Mother's Day, which was good for my back (hospital beds aren't designed to actually sleep in). It also worked out since I'd watched the same 3 episodes of Top Chef about 3 times in the last couple of days. I also watched a lot of Sports Center, especially the first night during my blood transfusions.

I got my staples removed a week later and was told that I didn't have to come back for another appointment until closer to the 6 week mark. Since I can't lift anything over 10 lbs. I'm off work for the 6 weeks. YEAH!! An actual benefit to this whole situation. Sadly, I had to miss Radiohead in St. Louis, which really sucked. I'm hoping I can get someone to go with me to Indy to see them in Aug. I'm hopeful I will get to go to Scotland though. The trip comes up at the 4 week mark and my doctor said she thought it would be okay, I just can't carry my own luggage. I'm thinking since I'm on a group trip I should be able to work around this issue fairly easily.

I spent the last week and a half at my Mom's recovering. My Mom is flippin' amazing and I love her to death. We aren't always the most emotionally expressive group of people, but my family was right there for me which made going through everything much easier. I also have to thank everyone who came to see me or called or sent cards, etc. You always sort of know in the back of your head just what sort of friends you have, but to see it in action just makes you feel that much stronger and happy to have that sort of connection with people.

The last few days have been pretty quiet. Mostly I've been walking around the house with the odd trip to the backyard when my nephew gets home from school and he wants to go out to swing. I can also sing almost all of the theme song to Little Einsteins and have become a fan of Lou & Lou Safety Patrol (on the Disney channel around 7:25 am).

I'm back in my apartment now so I'll be able to blog, but I'm not sure how exciting they will be since I'm not around my usual angst at work. I'll see what I can do.

Later.

Bits and Bobs

A couple of new trailers came out this weekend that are definitely worth watching.

The latest for Indiana Jones 4 can be found a www.indianajones.com. The supercool trailer for The Dark Knight is at www.whysoserious.com/happytrails/trailer.htm. I'm thinking Iron Man will be tomorrow night's movie of choice so hopefully I'll get a review posted fairly quickly.

Nine Inch Nails have released another new album! Woo! It's called The Slip and you can get it for free from the lovely Mr. Reznor at www.nin.com. I'm listening to it right now and so far I'm enjoying it immensely.

I went to a meeting for my Scotland travel group yesterday and we got our info packet detailing our flights, hotel, etc. My favorite handout was the one from the Transportation Security Administration. It is okay for me to take "Toy Transformer Robots" in both my carry on and my checked bag. Sadly, I will have to leave my meat cleaver and cattle prod in my checked luggage. The blasting caps will have to stay at home.

Just over a week till Radiohead!!!! I'm hoping I will be invited to tag along with the band as a roadie or something so I can quit my current job. Speaking of which, today we had an almost 4 flippin' hour long manager meeting. Brain hurt. Make pain stop. Why oh why?