Overheard

At the doctor's office: "They don't tell you once you quit smoking, you'll get pneumonia."

Because it's the quitting that causes the problems.

May Day

It's May 1, and in Colorado, that means diddly squat. In some parts of the country, May signifies blooming flowers, sun dresses, sandals. Here in Colorado, it means those things one day and the next it's dumping snow like there's no tomorrow.

Yesterday, the sun was shining brightly, and temperatures reached nearly 80 degrees. Today it's 37 and snowing. Hard. This picture was taken this morning at 9:50. Just 10 minutes later, I can't see the grass at all.

It's very pretty, but I worry about the budding trees and the flowers that are trying to poke through and bloom. And I'm just really tired of snow this year. I'm ready for full-time spring, summer even. I know in a couple of months, I'll be complaining about how hot it is and how I can't keep the house cool. So, I'll try to enjoy today -- hoping it'll be the last of the snow for awhile -- and hole up in the house with a good book.

Something to be happy about

Having recently become, let's say, self-employed, I have a lot more time at home these days. And I'm working really hard at not getting sucked in to daytime television. If you have digital cable, there's actually some cool stuff on during the day -- the Discovery Channel and Food Network are a wealth of information.

But no, my time at home is to be spent writing, exercising, reading and playing housewife. That's my 8-5 gig. After 5 p.m., all bets are off. Which is why I was so excited one evening to find Quantum Leap playing on ION Television. From what I can tell, this station plays reruns from (mostly) the '80s, plus lots and lots of "paid programming." It certainly wasn't on my television-viewing radar.

For anyone not familiar with Quantum Leap -- well, first of all, shame on you -- "Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top secret project, known as QUANTUM LEAP. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett, prematurely stepped into the Project Accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was made through brainwave transmissions, with Al, the Project Observer, who appeared in the form of a hologram that only Dr. Beckett could see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time, that his next leap will be the leap home."

These reruns, along with reruns of Star Trek: Enterprise (airing on SciFi), have rekindled my 20-year-long crush on Scott Bakula -- much to the dismay of my significant other. In my defense, I've been crushing on Scott Bakula for 20 years; I've only known my s.o. for four.

I know Quantum Leap was cheesy. As a friend pointed out, Sam Beckett did appear in drag a view times. But I loved it so much and I'm finding that despite the passage of time and the improvements that have been made in special effects, I still love it so much. It always had some kind of message -- be yourself, do your best, be kind to others -- but it didn't preach. It had humor and a really good buddy story (despite Al's cigar smoking and womanizing, he was always there for Sam). And it always made me feel good. I think that was the best part.

I know I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to sci fi television. My favorites are Firefly, Farscape, Stargate (both incarnations), Doctor Who and Battlestar Gallactica. The other TV shows I must see are Reaper, Lost, Eli Stone and Pushing Daisies. They all have some kind of science fiction flavor or fantastical twist to them and definitely are not rooted in reality. Which is exactly what makes them so good and so much fun to watch.

It's no museum piece

When my mom died, we went through a lot of her stuff. While going through that stuff we were surprised to find artwork and other things from our childhood. Among the macaroni pictures and papier-mache ashtrays (neither of my parents smoked), I found a poster of Jim McMahon from the glory days of the Chicago Bears back in the mid '80s. I received it as a Christmas present the year they won the Super Bowl. It is now framed and hanging on the back of my office door.

I also found a painting I did in art class in junior high. I brought it home with me, and it spent a few weeks tucked in a corner of a room. I wasn't sure what to do with it. I was 13 when I painted it. It's not a masterpiece, but Mom had saved it all these years. I finally took it to the hobby store and bought a frame for it. No, it's not a masterpiece, but it makes me smile in the morning when the sun hits it.