Out of Whack!

        It's been a week since my last post and I have been "itching" to write but my schedule has been so way out of whack lately...The whole week had been busy but it was so much fun too that I can't complain.


        My stepdaughter's staying with us for about three weeks or so this summer and that means, we have the rest of the nieces and nephews with us too! It's as if hubby and I are running a huge and chaotic teen/pre-teen daycare adventure with 6-8 kids in tow, depending on who gets dropped off or picked up. We want them to bond and make great memories together so they don't grow apart.  Well, with them, we don't really have to make much effort.  I believe that family members should be friends you grow up with and that really makes all the mayhem so worth while.   Hopefully, by being a part of each other's happy memories, they can be there for each other when they get older.


        And they are getting older!  Yesterday, I was shopping with my stepdaughter in downtown SF (my happy place) when she said "Remember when we used to look for Size 1 pants for me? I can't believe I'm now a 5." Wow.  I've only been here a few years and these kids have shot up like crazy.  One of the cousins is already going to college.  And boy, how they can all eat now too! Each day that they are with us, it's like I'm cooking for a big banquet. Little portions just don't work anymore. But though it's a total rip-off, we still find it cute at the end of the day.


        The house is utter bedlam too.  We're talking of a gazillion colorful Nikes and Vans by the front door;  overstuffed backpacks strewn around, blankets and sleeping bags piled up in the family room like it's one small refugee camp, our bedroom (with the flat screen, laptops and other gadgets they all flock to) turning into their clubhouse, an array of ringing tones from different colored cellphones, kids talking to you while texting (is that a word, by the way!?!) with skill and speed that only teenagers can master, 101 personal issues, concerns and questions about life that mean the world to eight different voices but seem so little to us.  Paper plates, playing cards, hair straighteners and late nights.


        Every night after my chores, hubby and I would sit down (when we're too tired to mess around with them),  drink wine and watch them.  It makes us remember our own youth.  There is a certain fondness in our hearts that we cannot explain.  Time flies so fast.  We're almost two decades away from that kind of carefree fun, that juvenile experience when we were still uncertain and discovering so many things through hits and misses. Our treasured memories are still fresh and we still light up remembering them. That's why we tend to give back to the cycle what we have once gotten and probably have not even given up just yet. After all, we won't lose anything in the process, there's only a lot to gain. Pretty soon, these kids will be in our shoes, reminiscing their own youth and wishing it just ain't over yet.       


        Maybe that's why hubby and I enjoy giving them wonderful summers.  He and I are not done with ours.

A Different Perspective

I read this from a bumper sticker as I was pulling off the parking lot after church last Sunday:

We are all spiritual beings having a physical experience.

Cool, huh?

Identity Crisis

Eureka! But I’m not running out to the streets of Syracuse naked.  I found it at last!

        I thought I had lost my California ID card (not the driver’s license) when I had my right ear cartilage pierced (the same spot that closed up) late last year.  I went through the whole painful process of reporting it to the concerned agencies fearing that someone else might use it, and fearing the worst: harm my credit; or get my identity entangled in some gruesome murder case. Eventually, I got used to the idea that somewhere out there, someone (hopefully a hot-looking minor) might use my ID only to buy some liquor (quite responsibly if it was possible!) and that’s it. 

        Can you keep a secret? I mourned for that ID because I ADORED my photo there.  I was maybe 25 flipping pounds lighter then, my long hair was brushed more than once that day, and I was wearing a good amount of war paint on my face…a definite “hot girlfriend” version of me.  The Driver’s ID that was left with me spoke of hideousness and nothing else.  It was taken when I didn’t know the photo was going to be taken.  I had a house-shirt on, I didn’t brush my hair twice that day (LOL), and I don’t think I took a shower that day *joke*. And oh yes, I was 25 flipping pounds heavier, and I squeezed the shot in between washing dishes and doing laundry…a definite “horrendous-looking wife” version of me! I remember praying for some nice soul to mail that beautiful version of me back to my address but nothing ever came. Then I remember blaming people for keeping it in light of their malevolent motives.  And of course, I also accused the finder for keeping it just because I looked really “hot” there *dream on*.

        Hubby and I went clubbing last weekend (Plug: Bruno’s in SF) and I took one of my tiny black “clubbing” purses.  I was putting my Driver’s license in the inner pocket when I felt another ID card in there.  It’s my long lost ID!!! I still don’t have any recollection of how it ended up there. Maybe I took it to Blue Light (another favorite) one time.  But I do remember showing that ID to the Piercing Pagoda several months after that.  I’m positive! And I remember coming home without it. How on earth it happened remains a mystery to me.

        But I’m so happy and relieved that I have my “hot girlfriend” version in my wallet once more.  Now, if I can only go back to looking the part.

I can't hear trouble (but I smell it!)

Our office is supposed to be a scent-free environment though I’d sneak in a spritz or two of the faintest smelling body spray whenever I wake up too late to wash my hair in the morning (me filthy thing!) I hope I don’t get written up for it one day. And I think someone’s doing the same thing!  Once in a while, I would catch strong whiffs of pomade in my cubicle. Old man’s pomade—the scent that you’ll get if you mix coconut oil with old dried up garden soil. I’ve been secretly accusing someone for it. He’s very nice, funny and very smart by the way, but just the quintessence of the pomade-slathering league. But lo and behold, this place is reeking of that odor today and he’s not even here! Hence, I’m moving on to Victim…er…Suspect #2: the co-worker in the cubicle next to mine. There is nothing conclusive yet but if I’m right this time, then I therefore conclude that not all women who come to work clutching an original Gucci purse have good taste in the fragrance department. (If my co-workers can read my posts, I will soooo get in trouble).

I digress. 

Suspect #2 got in trouble with The Manager lately. If my eavesdropping data is accurate (which most often isn’t especially when relying on audible data---in other words, I’m biologically deaf aside from having Attention Deficit), she has been lagging on some important tasks involving BIG accounts.  Aside from that, I heard from Suspect #3 (she doesn’t stink, I just don’t know how to refer to her---but since she works on the cubicle across mine, she’s not fully acquitted just yet) that Suspect #2 got into an argument with The Manager while she was being reprimanded for not doing her job.  It allegedly graduated into a yelling match with Suspect #2 coming out of it claiming that she felt “harassed”. Suspect #3 and Suspect #4 (I don’t think this one should even be a suspect at all) asked if I heard it myself because they only learned about it from the grapevine; #3 was off sick that day, and #4 was on vacation. I could swear I didn’t hear any yelling at all so they figured it must have happened on my lunch break. But I never leave on lunch breaks! I eat my lunch in my cube while I write blogs like this one! I must have been in a different “realm” that time…

But it could be true. I hate taking sides but I believe that the manager had a point. I hear her yakking on the phone with friends for long periods of paid time. So seriously? It only proves that how we behave dictates how others will treat us. Our attitudes and behaviors in the different aspects of our lives court how we will be treated back. Give out sh*t, and you’ll get some sh*t back. Love and you will be loved back. Maybe not in all instances, but it improves your chances. But this shouldn’t even be the main goal. Be nice, just to make the world a better place. Love, just because.

And don’t wear stinky pomade.

Sunblocked in Reno

          I’m drinking pepsi today.

(The rest of this post will have nothing to do with drinking Pepsi).

          Hubby and I went to Reno last weekend for his softball  tournament.  A really welcome respite from it all.  But it was so darn hot out on the field last Saturday, I practically melted over my flipflops while I screamed and cheered and nurtured a deep-seated anger for sticky sunblock. I wasn’t being little miss quirky, in fact, I had loathed anything that was smelly, waterproof, sticky or greasy  (especially that altogether in one formula) on my skin eversince I was a kid. The scent of Coppertone would always send me running for my life and nothing has changed thus far. But I guess, you can’t hate what protects you.

        Enough about sunblock.

        The rest of the weekend went really great. Had two buffets in a row (Silver Legacy on Saturday night, Atlantis for Sunday’s lunch---crab feast!!!)… in between was a series of relentless unproductive “alcohol-infused” affairs with the slot machines at The Nugget where we  stayed for two nights and at Harrah’s downtown. Man, these things guzzle up bucks like crazy! I’m not really the gambling kind. I would rather see my money vanish on good margarita…or food…

       Yeah right, food… I just impulse-bought a small princesscut diamond pendant in one of the pawnshops in downtown Reno.  I wasn’t intending to buy it but we made an offer for a hundred bucks and the guy agreed. I figured, since I could have been seeing that same amount chip away in a thousand little pieces while betting on the merciless Wheel of Fortune machine, I might as well turn my remaining gambling allowance into a girl’s bestfriend, and for 1/4 the price of the real value!

        So in principle, “we” sort of recovered what we lost and it’s on my neck right now (not to mention the rainbow-colored stuffed  butterfly, the anemic monkey and the powder blue teddy bear from Circus Circus).  I’m not really materialistic. I liked the diamond because it was cute (and cheap), not because it’s a status symbol.

        Plus, I think it’s a reasonable reward for putting up with sunblock. Yes, I hate it that bad.

Frozen Banana

Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.

Frozen Banana coated with chocolate and crushed almonds. Tucker's Ice Cream, Alameda CA

My Third Fourth

America was lighting her fireworks when I arrived the first time and I always choose to look at it as a glorious personal welcome. Since then, Fourth of July always had a different meaning for me; every firework sent up in the air is a celebration of my new life. I’m not a different person, just an evolving one. And I’m only in a different place but my heart is always where it’s supposed to be. It rests in the people whose hearts I also carry in me.

I won!

I have a "brave" little secret...I maintain another blogsite with pretty much the same posts at Bravenet. And guess what! I won the Journal of the Week Award (click it while I'm still on the Main page!!!) Here's my site: Coffee, Anyone? and I'm happy it's finally getting a lot of hits. I was so surprised that I won when I didn't even enter the contest.

I want to celebrate but I can't party just yet. I'm waiting to "win" in a more important area of my life right now. Dear God, please don't let my Daddy get ill.  At least let me win this one too.

Reflections from a Turkey

         I saw it the instant I came out the front door of my workplace. There is a small parking lot in front of our building adjacent to a 25 miles/hr road. It was moving about lazily in the middle of the road in slow turkey waddle. What was it doing there, I mused. A wild one, perhaps. Since I work close to the ocean, I get my regular dose of ducks tapping on our glass doors, seagulls crying in the distance…hawks (hawks?) hovering up above. It was a turkey alright, even if my close encounters with a whole turkey are limited so far to #1) the zoo when I was 5 years old #2) Thanksgiving dinners – the turkey sandwiches and ground turkey I use a lot in lieu of beef don’t count. Maybe it’s just my imagination, this one almost had a personality. "He/She/It" almost had a name. ALMOST HAD.

        I went straight to my car, fumbled for my phone in my purse (shucks, I thought I left it again) and then pulled right off the lot and unto the road. To my shock, when I was almost at that part where the turkey was, I saw instead some bloody turkey pieces...mashed and unidentifiable turkey parts. I’ll spare you the other gory details. It bothered me like hell, like a heavy dark cloud was cast upon me and followed me. At home, hubby gave a loud “What? Who did what!?! What the f! What an irresponsible son of a b! What was he thinking?” – it could make tree-huggers and animal rights activitists grimly jealous.

         Poor turkey. One moment he was lounging about oblivious to his impending demise, 5 minutes elapse and he's a random roadkill. It seemed more like a gruesome murder to me, if there is a difference at all. Did he have parents? Did he have a spouse? Did he have kids? Uhm...Grandkids? Hahahaha. Is there turkey heaven? or turkey hell?  LOL. Is someone gonna miss him? What was he doing there? What was he thinking? Did he have dreams? Did he have goals? Did he have a list of things to achieve before he dies? A turkey's brain is about the size of a walnut and it is said that is has fewer brain cells than a cockroach. So the tragedy he met probably didn’t mean much. They are somehow predestined to be on someone's dinner plate anyway (sorry, vegans). But the scarier part of it was…the incident jolting me to the eventuality and randomness of mortality. It could have been our pet dog. It could have been my neighbor. It could have been someone close. It could have been me. 

         I didn't mean to ride the hype of the now cliche "Bucket List" when I started to write this. Oh the ever-proverbial list of things one wants to do before he kicks the bucket!    Maybe it matters. Maybe it doesn't. It's your choice. It depends on how you see the world and life itself. I'm just creeped out by the turkey's misfortune.I do have a bucket list but I prefer to call it dreamlist...I wrote one before the movie came out (click to see my old list). Yes, it keeps growing. And yes, Tiger Woods is still part of it and I'm moving closer and closer to that one. Woohoo!

        But I believe that everyone's list should include: 1) Forgive ALL those who wronged you, especially those who didn't really mean to; 2) Say sorry to those you've hurt; 3) Thank the people who did a lot for you (even the smallest things) throughout your life; and THIS ONE SHOULD TOP THE LIST: 4) Tell the people who mean very much to you that you love them. Now. Really.