What's next, we're all going to wear color?

2003-12-30 - 5:30 p.m.

Today while I was out for a walk with my parents, we passed by a man who was playing with his kids in the front yard. The kids were jumping out of the back of his pick-up truck and he was catching them. They kept wanting him to back farther and farther away. Watching this reminded my dad of my brother when he was little. He says my brother liked to jump out of trees and have my dad catch him. Only he didn't always tell my dad he was going to jump and often caught my dad off guard. When my dad tried to tell him to give him a little warning before jumping, my brother said, "But I knew you'd catch me, Daddy!" We all laughed about this and then my dad said, "Euc, on the other hand, thought it was a miracle every time she was caught." I thought this was an interesting summation of my attitude towards life.

Today I went to see "The Last Samurai." It was really good. Even though everyone knows how it's going to end, you still can't help but hope they'll win. And I'm not usually a Tom Cruise fan, but he was good in this movie. Speaking of things that are good, I finished reading The Da Vinci Code last night. That was a really good book! Very interesting.

When Tigger and Flik were here two days ago, we watched "It's a Wonderful Life" because Flik has never seen it. After it was over Flik said to me, "I wish I could see how the world would be if I'd never been born. I bet it'd be a lot better." Of course that's horribly untrue and I told her so. But then I was imagining what the world would be like without me. And the truth is, it wouldn't be a lot better without me. It wouldn't be a lot worse either. It probably wouldn't be different at all. I bet I make it through life without hardly making any ripples. I don't know, what's more depressing, to think the world would be better without you or to think the world couldn't care less if you existed?

My mom has decided to cook a turkey tonight. I think she felt bad that we had leftover pizza for Christmas Eve dinner.