LOST character of the week

Obey my beard

Tom, aka the WeirdBeard, was one of my favorite LOST characters. He was just so likable. Like Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. Every island needs a Boo Radley. If Tom had kidnapped me, I would have surely succumbed to Stokholm Syndrome and become and Other because he was just that awesome. And he looks like my PawPaw only younger and with a longer beard.

Tom's first appearance on the show was in the Season One finale. In a scene that was cut from Deliverance, probably because of the lack of banjo music, a dirty, bearded Tom approached the raft and told Michael "we're gonna haf to take yer boy." Tom's boat ninjas then shot up Michael, Sawyer, and Jin and exploded the raft. Tom and crew then rode off into the dark with Walt in tow. I remember declaring the scene "freaking sweet" after it was over.

Tom was also present when Ethan kidnapped Claire and took her to the medical station. He told Tom Cruise's cousin that he had no business kidnapping Claire as she was not on Jacob's list yet. He's always there, hovering just in the background in scenes involving the Others. He welcomed Juliet when she first came to the island.

In Season Two, Michael goes out in search for Walt and Tom captures him. Then he builds a huge circle of torches and toys with the survivors searching for Michael, telling them not to cross the line getting any closer to the Others. He's still wearing his funk nasty Jerry Garcia beard while this is going on. Tom takes Michael to Mrs. Klugh who reveals that Tom's name is Tom. Up until this point I had just referred to him as WeirdBeard. Then Michael is released and promised Walt if he can bring Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley to the Others. He does and they take Sawyer, Kate, and Jack and tell Hurley to go back and warn the others to stay away, proving that the producers of this show have a thing for torturing the pretty people.

The Others take the pretty trio to their second island, because they're nothing if not prepared. Tom tells Kate to take a shower because she is stank nasty. Kate immediately thinks this mean that Tom's in love with her, but he's not like all of the Other moronic men on the island and pretty much laughs in her face while telling her she's not his type. Turns out that Sawyer is more Tom's type. Moving on. After Kate gets dressed he sends her to the beach to have a loverly breakfast with Ben. Ben wants Kate to bat her eyelashes at Jack and seduce him into doing surgery on his back. Tom locks her in the cage across from Sawyer who is exhausted after his whole fish biscuit escapade. Tom then makes her go shovel gigantic rocks into a wheelbarrow in the heat, because, let's face it, Kate needs some character building, am I right?

Tom then goes to oversee Ben's surgery. He kicks Juliet out of the operating room because she told Jack to kill Ben. Jack cuts something he's not supposed to cut and yells at Tom to bring him the walkie talkie or he won't fix the cut and Ben will bleed to death. Here we see Tom have a major level freak out when Pickett won't give his walkie to Kate. Jack finishes the surgery. Awhile later Tom goes to get Jack out of his room and Jack thinks they're going to kill him. Tom's feelings are hurt and he asks Jack why he thinks they're going to kill him. They will never kill off the beautiful man candies or the hateful shrews on the island. They just kill off the likable people. He takes Jack back to live in Otherland and he and Jack play football because they're bros now, yo.

Later we find out that the others captured Kate and Sayid while they were trying to rescue Jack and they've been locked in Tom's house. Dream come true, am I right? I bet he has lots of board games. He and some other Others go to the beach to kidnap all the preggos from the tents, but the tents have been rigged with explosives! OH NOES! They are captured. Tom tells Sawyer that he gives up and Sawyer shoots him, saying he was doing it for Walt. Tom dies. *sobbing*

Tom appears in a flashback in Episode 4. He finds Michael in Manhattan and tells him that his attempts to kill himself won't work as the island won't let it happen until he finishes his work. Michael goes looking for Tom and finds him entertaining a man friend in a lavish hotel suite. Cause that's how Tom rolls, y'all. Tom tells him that Charles Widmore is dangerously close to finding the island and Ben wants Michael to go undercover on the freighter and blow the whole thing up. And that's the last we see of Tom. Farewell, good friend.

Connections: Contacted Michael off of the island after Michael was released.

Sawyer nicknames: Bluebeard, Zeke

I know I promised a sombrero picture but I can't find where I saved it. Because I'm stupid. Sorry. Here's a picture of M.C. Gainey with a dog, though. It's a peace offering.


Sources: Wikipedia, lost.about.com, my brain

And we're back!

Home from a lovely trip home to see the fam. It's good to take a trip once in awhile, am I right? I decided to write today about why I lurve me some road trips. Don't get me wrong, I love flying, but there's something about driving until you think you're going to die from driving overdose and then driving some more. We drove home to see the family last Monday night. Actually Hubs drove and I had dreams of rainbows and unicorns. Doesn't everyone always dream about rainbows and unicorns? I also dreamed of vampires because I've been reading Dracula. If you like vampire books, read it. It's the first and best. And Count Dracula makes Jane look like a tiger striped rescue kitten. Not even kidding.

Anyway, we drove back during the day this time and I LOVED it! We haven't done it since M was born because it was easier to drive at night when she was smaller so she would sleep. We decided to see how a day trip would go this time and neither M or I slept a wink the whole way home. Lucky Hubs! 700 miles of the two of us acting like fools. Here's what I've learned from being on the road:

* Few things thrill me more than driving by an airport when a plane is landing or taking off. I swear, I regress to 3 year old Disney-eyed wonder when it happens. I mean full on arm flapping and "Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!"

* Few things thrill M more than seeing a dog riding in a car. We saw a great big Great Dane sticking his head out of a Jetta window at the beginning of our trip. Cue 300 miles of "Puppy car? Puppy car?"

* Nothing beats a cold Coke and a bag of Munchos on a road trip. We destroyed that bag of chips.

* Truckers are more likely to sing along with "Jailhouse Rock" than with "Oh Darling" when you sing over the CB radio.

* Deer are stupid animals who run toward danger. Nice meadow with fluffy grass? Nah, I'm going to run out onto the interstate with 9 billion cars.

* It takes a 247 song playlist to get us from the fam home to our home.

* Burger King chicken fries will fit perfectly into the seat belt slots on a carseat.

* Never stop at a gas station called "Artie's" and expect the bathroom to be clean.

* Hubs and I can harmonize pretty well to Beatles songs.

* I love the mountains. Even though I grew up in an area of plains and waving wheat, something good happens to my heart when I see my mountains rising up in front of me.

All in all, although the drive was fun, I am happy to be back in my house, back in my chair, and back to my blog.

LOST update

Hey everyone,

Because of the funeral and family time and lots and lots of chocolate cakeI haven't been able to work on my LOST post for this week. So I'm going to post next week. I'm working on info on Tom/Mr. Friendly/The world's greatest WeirdBeard. I also found a fantastic photo of him in a sombrero. If you have any info you'd like to add, please leave it in the comments and thanks for your patience. :)

Loving the one you're with

Hub's grandfather died today. I never got to know the real man. By the time I met and married Hubs, Alzheimer's had already taken away the person that he was. I know him through memories of his family, though. It's a sad day.

Last fall, Hub's grandmother passed away. At one point during receiving of friends, I sat down next to the grandfather. He didn't know who I was. He could never remember me. But I liked to talk to him. He had great stories of his youth. He nodded at the casket:

GF: She looks pretty.

Me: Yes, she does.

GF: There are a lot of people here. She was well loved.

Me: Yes, she was.

Until this point, I didn't realize that he was remembering.

GF: She wore a yellow sundress. She was beautiful. She knew how to iron my collars just right.

Me:....

GF: You're married to my grandson, right?

Me: Yes, sir.

GF: He's a good boy.

Me: I know.

GF: Do you love him?

Me: Very much.

GF: Good. He should be loved. You need to tell him every day. Because I didn't do that. And I think that's why I forgot. So make sure you tell him that you love him. You have to tell me that you promise.

Me: I promise. I will tell him every day.

GF: Lots of times a day. He needs to hear it a lot. Say it all the time so you don't forget.

I didn't try to explain to him that the reason he forgot was because a disease had made him forget. I was stuck on the fact that his regret, even when he couldn't remember a lot of things, was that he didn't say 'I love you' enough. I'm happy today that he's free from his pain and that he is in a place where the loss of memory will never plague him again. It is a sad day on our end, though. I'll miss you, sir.

If you have someone who means something to you, tell them that you love them today. Life's too short to not share that.

I am dead

Dead, y'all. Dead. See, we have this super fabulous Florida trip planned in September. Because of all the hospital stuff going on in the past few months I've gotten a little doughy around the middle. Now I can get up on my fitness soapbox. If you eat right and don't exercise, you're still going to be doughy around the middle! Anyway, I want to be able to wear my supercute bathing suit on the beach without someone mistaking me for a beached whale and trying to push me back into the ocean. Because I'm terrified of the ocean. No lie. I'm not a fan of swimming in something that houses jellyfish, sharks, and pirates. But I do like to sit in the sand and look at the ocean. And I'd like to do that in my supercute swimsuit.

Anyway, the reason I'm dead is that my cardiologist gave me the okay to hit the gym again this week. So I hit the gym and hit it hard. I've been every day, running, swimming, and lifting; trying to get back into shape. Tuesday I rode the bike for so long that I almost puked right there in the gym. Yesterday was the worst, though. I ran three miles and then decided to do lower body work. I hate lower body work. I will do chest presses, crunches, triceps extensions all day, but DON'T tell me to do lunges. Well, I did lunges yesterday. 50 lunges on each leg with an 8 pound weight in each hand. Then I did squats and fencer's lunges, 30 of each with a 10 pound weight. This morning my alarm went off at 5:00 am and I got up to get ready and fell flat on my face on the floor. I am SO SORE today that I can hardly move. I'm such a moron.

LOST character of the week

Ana-Lucia Cortez (BARF)


Buh-bye to the stinkface
Pre-Island

Ana Lucia was a pregnant street cop. She was not very pregnant because she still had a flat stomach, but she was pregnant nonetheless. Some evil criminal shot her (when her male partner was standing right there. Who shoots the girl cop first? A jerk. That’s who.) and she lost her baby. This is probably why she had a stinkface for the whole time she was on the show. I would have had a stinkface, too. When it came time to identify the guy who did it, she refused to. Then she hunted the guy down, vigilante style, and offed him. I don’t blame her. She left the force and became an airport security guard. She was in the airport bar one day drowning her sorrows when she met “Tom,” none other than Christian Shepherd, aka the keeper of Jacob’s cabin aka the white rabbit, aka Jack’s daddy, aka Claire snatcher, aka the smoke monster, aka the mean man in black on the beach in the season finale. Tom decided that he needed some protection from something, so he hired Ana Lucia to be his bodyguard because let’s face it, the girl is FEEEEYYAAAAARCE. She drives him around for awhile before deciding to go home and confess to killing a piece of scum. She buys a ticket to sit in the tail section of Oceanic Flight 815. She goes to the airport bar and flirts with Jack, who’s having nothing of it. And they board the plane.

Island:

Ana Lucia obviously survives her crash landing on the island. They don’t have it as good as our favorite castaways have it because it seems that Sawyer is a luggage magnet and all of the luggage landed not only with the fuselage, but directly in Sawyer's tent. Ana Lucia does her best to help everybody in her plane section and elects herself their leader like all good dictators do. On the first night a bunch of jungle freaks kidnap some survivors. We later learn that these jungle freaks are Ben’s minions, here on out to be referred to as Benions. A few nights later the Benions show up again and take nine more people. They don’t get Eko, though, because he opens up a can of you know what on one of them with a stick. Ana Lucia finds a list on the guy with names of the people to be taken. She suspects another survivor in the camp named Nathan of being a traitor. So she takes matters into her own hands, like all good dictators do, and digs a pit in the forest and throws him in. She goes to check on him and OH NOES! He disappeared. Epic Fail. Turns out that poor Nathan was not the traitor. He was just poopin in the woods. She suspects Goodwin now and this time she’s right! Instead of throwing him in the pit, she takes him to the top of a hill and impales him on a stick ala Vlad the Impaler (shout out 11th grade history! Dracula - Holla!). About this time Jin washes up on the shore and even though he looks like he’s been floating in the ocean for days and he speaks no English, she thinks he’s a bad guy. She has a bad guy complex. Jin escapes and leads them to Michael and Sawyer. She throws them in her pit because it’s there, there might as well be some people in it. And if you’re going to throw a guy in a pit, it might as well be shirtless Sawyer. Am I right? Ana Lucia has herself thrown in the pit so she can pretend to be a victim and find out what they know. They convince her that they are from flight 815 and she finally believes them. Side note: This scene is classic Sawyer and well worth watching. She releases them and they all travel to the beach camp because living with the tailies is like caveman time and living with the fuselagers is like living in Tudor England. So, it’s a couple of steps up. Besides, all the fine looking guys went down with the fuselage. When they near the camp Ana Lucia operates under the “shoot now ask questions later” rule and blows Shannon to Kingdom come. And there was great rejoicing in LostLand. Adding insult to injury, she ties Sayid up and refuses to let anyone leave. Because she is CRAZY. Libby uses some girlfriend talk to soften her up and she finally lets everyone go. She goes to the beach and somehow gets an invitation to the exclusive Hatch. She interrogates Henry Gale, who is really Ben in disguise. Sorry, Ben, you’re still creepy, even if you change your name to Henry. He gives her a map to his balloon crash and she, Charlie (?), and Sayid go on a road trip to find the balloon. But, uh oh! They also find the body of the real Henry Gale. She goes back to talk to Benry and he nearly kills her. She seduces Sawyer because he forgot to take his anti stupid skank pills that morning, and steals his gun. She goes to kill Ben, but can’t bring herself to pull the trigger. She tells Michael about it and he’s all, “I’ll do it, I’m all about killing people. If you believe me you are a stupid twit.” She believes him and he kills her instead.

She makes two other appearances in the series. She appears in one of Eko’s dreams and as a hallucination to Hurley. She was kind of cool in the Hurley hallucination.

Connections:
Christian Shepherd’s bodyguard (*cough*driver*cough*) in Australia.
Killer of Shannon Rutherford and Goodwin
Killed by Michael Dawson
Used her womanly wiles on Sawyer
Was kinda flirty with Jack (starting to think maybe Jack's the village bicycle, not Juliet).

Sawyer nicknames:
Cupcake, Rambina, Hot Lips, Ponce de Leon, Ana Lulu, Little Red Riding Hood, Lucy, Muchacha

Sources: wikipedia.org, muckety.com, lost.about.com, lostpedia.wikia.com, my brain, LOST season 2 dvds

Did I miss anything? Suggestions for next week??

My heart is a lemon

But it's a working lemon, so I'm not going to complain too much. I went back to the cardiologist for a check up yesterday. He said, "Sara, you are so awesome. I want to be just like you." Okay, he didn't say that. He did say that my heart looked much better than it did a month ago and he's pleased with the turnaround I've had. Yay for beta blockers and their ability to control rhythm! Then he said that there was one problem. Last month my resting heart rate was 68. This month it's 99. That's a big deal. If I weighed 300 pounds and rode one of those little carts around instead of walking it would make sense. But I don't weigh 300 pounds and I'm very active. I run three days a week, swim, do weights, and take some fitness classes. They are just going to monitor it for now to see if it will go back down.

I told Hubs all of this and he flipped out! If you haven't been able to tell, I'm a really laid back person and Hubs isn't. Personally, I'm just happy my heart is beating at all. He went out and bought me one of those really expensive heart rate monitors with a chest band and a watch. I hate it, but I wear it because he's worried about my heart rate getting too high when I work out (it doesn't). I want him to be happy and I want him to be calm. Mostly I want him to not nag me about working out. So I wear the stupid thing. I have to put it around my chest at the top of my ribcage and tighten it until it won't fall down. Then I push a button on the watch and it monitors my heart rhythm. I was working out today and wearing it. Our gym has a "ladies only" workout room and that's where I choose to hide. I don't like being around the sweaty men. So I did my cardio, did my weights, ran around the track a few times and went to the locker room. I realized I didn't know how to shut the monitor off and it's supposed to have an alarm. If your heart stops, the alarm will go off. So I was worried that some loud alarm was going to sound and naked women would come running to my aid, but I couldn't figure out how to shut it off. So I finally just ripped the chest band off. The watch beeped once and nothing else happened. It's so comforting to know that if my heart stops and I collapse at the gym that my watch is going to beep one time to alert the no one standing around me that I'm dead. Hooray for technology.