I See What You Meme

As the media reeled this week with stories of disaster in Oklahoma, I was especially touched by a story I heard on NPR last Thursday .  The Phillips family knows what it is like to experience loss.  In 1999, they lost their home to another tornado that hit the Moore area.  They rebuilt two miles away only to see their home destroyed by this latest natural disaster.  An aerial view of some of the Moore, Oklahoma destruction. (Source) The entire family is safe and sound. Nobody was hurt. Nobody died. But they have essentially lost everything.  A hall closet filled with linens seems to be the only structure that escaped the scene relatively unscathed.  As I listened to this family speak with cracking voices, you could hear that combination of resilience and sadness that inhabits those who grieve.  Rena Phillips told the NPR reporter, " I ran last time, I'm not running again," she says. "It's like why run? You know I still had a little fear, but God deals with

Last week, Roger and I had a rare date opportunity so we actually got to see a movie. In the theater.   What a treat! We seized the chance to see the latest Iron Man flick.  It is rare that we miss a superhero movie. Admittedly, some sequels are better than others ( Batman and Robin , anyone?) but it's tough to screw up a good superhero story and the latest crop has had a good track record. Iron Man 3 was no exception. It had just the right balance of action, violence, romance, callbacks to previous films, and hints of what is probably to come in the forthcoming Avengers sequel.  Here is what I didn't expect: apparently Tony Stark and I have a few things in common. No, it's not the endless supply of revenue.  It isn't the supersonic brain that slips into hyperdrive and invents objects that in the "real world" would be worthy of a Nobel Prize. It isn't even his ability to charm the pants (literally) off of most members of the opposite sex.  Our commo