This weekend

This weekend was not as eventful as I had hoped. I started off Saturday morning going to sneak preview of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events to which I had received a free pass through The Onion. This is Jim Carrey's new movie which is based on a series of children's books and I have to give it to very big thumbs up. It's dark but very funny, akin to something Roald Dahl might write. There was a lot of action in the story but it held together very well and the world was timeless. Jude Law was great as the narrator. He used reverse psychology in his narration to draw you in (i.e. this is not a happy movie and if you want to see laughing and singing, you should leave now and proceed to theatre 2). Jim Carrey, plays the evil Count Olaf, the distant cousin of the three recently orphaned Baudelaire children, who is hell bent on getting their fortune.

After the movie, I thought that I was going to wrap gifts at the Border's in Schaumburg in order to benefit Rainbow Hospice, a non-profit that provides services for terminally ill patients and their families. I thought that I was going to do this but I never heard from anyone as to when I was needed. I did go there to investigate, but it appeared as if it wasn't happening.

Today, I spent the day with my sister and her family. Once they let me in, I had a good time. The kids were sleeping and she and her husband were in the basement looking at the work that was being done to finish the basement so they didn't here me for about 15 minutes. I spent some time talking with Paul, my brother-in-law, until he had to leave on a business trip to New York and then helped my sister with dinner and played with my nephews until it was time for them to go to bed.

Four more people were lost in Iraq this weekend to bring the total to 29 in December and 1286 for the war with 1006 of those being combat fatalities. While a few of our military are killed every year during peacetime due to accidents and disease, under normal circumstances, it would be less than the 280 that have been killed in the 21 months of the present war. I also haven't been mentioning the approximately 10,000 men and women that have been physically wounded. That number also fails to take into account the thousands that will be mentally scarred while having to deal with battle. This also doesn't consider the families of the military that have been sent to Iraq. While almost 1300 people have been killed, the casualty list is far higher.