Not with an ox, but maybe with a fox

Since I didn´t really do a New Year's post, I decided to save it for the Chinese New Year. The year of the ox begins today and it's supposed to be a good one... all I can say is that I will not eat green eggs and ham, not in a box, not with an ox....maybe with a fox...depending on just who that fox might be. Okay, I'll only eat them with a fox if the fox is my husband (although if the fox were Viggo Mortensen, it would be pretty hard to resist).

Anyway, foxes, oxen, and boxes aside, here's wishing you all a prosperous and happy year.

Shouting in the New Year...and shouting out a great humor blogger.

Not even a Christmas post. Am I a pathetic blogger, or what? Lately it seems my blog posts mostly go on about how little blogging I actually do, which seems pretty pitiful. I mean really, who wants to read about how I'm just too busy, lazy, uninspired, or (fill in the blank with whatever adjective you like)? Don't think it hasn't occurred to me to put the poor thing out of it's misery once and for all, but I just can't bring myself to do it. It's like trying feed a baby mouse to a lizard...which I've done lately, and I can tell you it ain't pretty. So, the blog must go on, but I'm not making any promises, New Year's resolutions, or whatever about how I'm going to write more often. I know it's not going to happen, I'm terrible about keeping New Year's resolutions, so why bother. This whole thing will just keep straggling along until...well, I really don't know. But I'll try to find something interesting to say.


And now a word from someone who is not our sponsor: Don't get caught lying down on the blog....Visit Mattress Police today!


Okay, we will now return to our irregularly scheduled blog post. Um, let's see, an interesting thing for today...I know, I can send you somewhere infinitely more interesting than here. I started my blog without any real aim or purpose, but was inspired by this guy to try turning it into a humor blog. Whether or not I was successful or not is debatable (alright, I know I'm just fooling myself, just humor me), but that is in no way the fault of Diesel, master of all things funny, and head of the Mattress Police. The man is brilliant, dazzling, blinding, and (fill in light-related adjective here) in his humor...okay, I'll cut the crap, he's just downright funny. So, visit him, judge for yourself and then go vote for him for Best Humor Blog over at the 2008 Weblog Awards.

Didn't you see that coming? Man, am I subtle or what? But seriously, if anybody deserves this award it's Diesel...and I'm not saying that because he's paying me or anything...because he's not (damn, I knew I forgot to do something).

Hey Diesel, if you win, you think we can work something out...say a small percent of your book profits? No? Well, it was worth a try.

Ania, this one's for you...

This post is for a very good friend who needs some cheering up. Ania, here's the evolution of dance for you; I hope it will at least make you smile a little:



¿Te imaginas a este tío en la clase de aerobic?

Fall

Since my blogging creativity is at an all time low, and I'm too lazy busy to really make an effort at coming up with something new and entertaining, I'm going to post one of the very short stories I did for the now defunct Great Quill Driving Competition. At least that way it won't be lost forever, and I have something to post. Two birds with one stone, not bad. Even the title is appropriate, since it's Fall, although that really has nothing to do with the story...but hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Some of you may have read this before, so you can pass Go, and collect $100 (but leave a comment first, or you'll only get $25). For those of you who are thinking "What the h$** is a Quill Driving competition?", I'm sorry to say the site no longer exists so I can't give you a link, but it was a damn fine writing competition with a great hostess (Cindra, will you come back if I say that enough times?). Anyway, the whole thing consisted in using a list of words to come up with a short piece of writing, and this is mine (I'll let you guess the words...not that I really remember what they were, but hey, guess away).

FAll

Her husband pushed her with the wickedest grin she had ever seen, and suddenly she was falling. With her arms flailing wildly, she plunged into the abyss. Her mouth opened to scream, but no sound came out, and what must have been only seconds seemed like forever, as her life flashed before her eyes. “Oh, so that really does happen,” she mused. She’d always thought that was just something writers had come up with to make a death scene more interesting.

There was that little ignoramus, Billy, from kindergarten. He always used to take away her lunch and stomp on her sandwich. Suffice to say, she’d given him what he deserved, that time she finally got up the courage to kick him in his dangly bits. Billy morphed into Mr. Brown, her boring math teacher, who used to take great pleasure in giving her detention for her tardiness. What a jerk! She looked up from her desk in the detention room and there was Lisa, her best friend from high school. Wait. They were fighting over something. What was it? She couldn’t remember what that fight was about, but they hadn’t spoken to each other since. She wished she had apologized for whatever it was, even if it wasn’t her fault.

Man, that wind rushing past her face was LOUD. She pushed away the disruptive thoughts about the wind, and ignored her pounding heart. She didn’t want to miss out on her life just ‘cos of some noisy air.

There was Pete, her ex, texting his friends while she was trying to have a meaningful conversation with him. God, he sometimes even stopped to send messages while they were in the middle of making out. That doofus had no sensitivity whatsoever. She hoped he’d appreciated her break-up message. So far, her flashback sucked. Where were all the good things? What about her first kiss? And her first time? Why wasn’t she reliving that? Okay, maybe it would be better to relive the second time, because the first sure wasn’t much to rave about. Pete’s cell phone looked suspiciously like that Lindt bonbon she’d had yesterday, the dark chocolate kind, her all-time fave! She could almost taste it again. Hmm, this was getting better. Hey, wait a minute! What was Denzel Washington doing in her life? As far as she could remember, he’d never been in it, although she didn’t mind him showing up. Wow, and he was naked too. What a cute ass! She turned to get a better look, and she found herself in bed with Hubby, nuzzled up against his shoulder. “That’s better,” she thought. “Now we’re getting to the good stuff! No, wait. I’m pissed at him for pushing me.” Hubby took on the form of a Pomeranian and was tap dancing to Tea for Two. Suddenly, Mrs. Gulch swooped down at them shouting, “I’ll get you, and your little dog too!” Whoa! This was all just too flippin’ weird for words.

She felt a tug on her harness, as she reached the end of her rope, and then came the rebound. When she finally came to a stop, hanging helplessly on the bungee cord, she shouted to the onlookers, “Hey, Y’all, that was fantastic! Now get me down from here so I can do it again.” Silently, she vowed to look up Lisa and make up with her before it really was too late.

Life's Little Presents

You know how sometimes when you least expect it, life hands you a present. Okay, I know life can be a bitch, and there's always lots of boring routine things to do. But sometimes something special happens, and that makes up for all the other stuff. Good lord, I'm think I'm starting to get philosophical here...bad...bad girl...no philosophizing allowed on this blog. Anyway, I've received an unexpected surprise (no Mem, it's not another kid or anything remotely like that, so you can stop getting excited), just a little fun, and that's all I'll say for now. I don't want to jinx it by blogging about it just yet, and, after all, I am a big blog tease and love to keep people guessing.

I got another little surprise from my new-found Swedish blogging buddy, Fancy. She's seen fit to honor me with this award...


So, I guess I'm supposed to mix a drink for 10 other bloggers (probably to get them drunk enough to actually participate in this meme). Okay, Fancy's given me lemonade laced with tequila, which should do wonders to loosen me up for my step class (hope I don't break my neck), and I in turn will make sangria for my nominees...okay, I know that doesn't really have lemonade in it, but it does have wedges of lemon in it. So here's an Ole vuestros huevos blogs ! (sorry slip of the tongue there) to:

Dorky Dad (for giving us our daily dorkiness)

Seraphine (for showing us the comic side of life)

Lime (because a slice of lime goes nicely with sangria)

Good old Grundir (because who could resist?)

Jocelyn (for making us laugh, cry and telling some highly entertaining yarns)

VE (I said VE, not VD...and his ever fantastic nonsense?)

Guy watching from the clouds (No, not God, Jeff...thanks for sharing the hair)

Zoned out girl (to see if we can get her blogging again)

Correr Es Mi Destino (for sharing Canada with us)

The only blogger I have actually met in person (because he's going to be a dad...Erik I promise to send you something better than this award when the baby is born).

So, what's this award for? Well, I think it was ssssssomething about, um, what wsa ti agnn....ooh, teh tqilla is goooood. Sanksss guyssss...for uh, teh drinks, um no, I mean da bloogs, blugs, hey, yeh, thasss it, bugs. Free tequila here and here.

In a Blogging Funk

I'm in kind of a blogging funk these days, and even though it rains all the time here, it's definitely not raining ideas. Truth is that I have less time to blog than last year because I'm spending most of my afternoons cajoling, threatening to cut off Messenger access, and bribing with DS time to get my kids to do their homework. And the little time that's left I spend at my fitness class. That's what keeps me from going entirely insane after sitting with Princess V as she whines her way through endless long division problems.

This year the promise of buns of steel is a real possibility because our marvelous Russian girl has returned. No more elephant boy, no more cheerleader girl. Just fabulous Ania, who gives the best aerobics and step classes I've ever had (and I've had a lot). And even better, with practice (and a lot of patience on Ania's part) we're looking a lot less like dizzy ducks...but we are far away from ever looking as good as she does. But hey, everybody has to have a dream, so I keep on going and hope that someday I'll have half as much style as Ania (pretty much a hopeless cause because she has rhythm coming out of every pore, and all I have is sweat). Sweat's good though, so I come home dead tired, but happy, and my blogger butt is starting to melt away. Now if only I could find a way to look a little less silly when we do funk aerobics...maybe if I just hang out at the back...nah, I can still see myself in the mirror...and so can everybody else. Well, at least they look equally embarrassed so at least we're all in this together. And it could be worse, at least we don't look like this:


Thank God the 80s are gone...hopefully forever. And if you want to see who's really too sexy for his shirt, then shake your booty on over here. Well, maybe sexy isn't the right word, but funny...there's plenty of that.

One Small Step for Man...

Today is a day well worth coming out of blogger hibernation for. A historic day. Okay, I know that just about every blogger out there will have something to say about Obama's victory, and I'm certainly not going to tell you anything new, but I just had to add my grain of sand to the pile. I usually don't like writing about politics, unless it's to poke fun at silly political parties. But today I'll write something serious, because today is an important day.

Today for the first time in a very, very long time I feel proud to be American. Ooh, feels strange...kind of like wearing new clothes. I'm still not quite sure to do with it.

I've never been especially patriotic, and lately I've often felt ashamed to admit I am American, but I'm hoping that now that might change. For some reason while I was watching the news this morning and I heard Obama had won the election, the words of Neil Armstrong came to my mind. "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind." In a way, I think Barack Obama's election is, at the very least, a giant leap for America, and it may well be for the rest of the world too. Nearly everyone remembers where they were when man first set foot on the moon (except of course all of us young-uns who were just babies at the time). I'm sure that twenty or thirty years from now people will say, "Do you remember where you were when Obama was elected?" And we will remember...not just because he was America's first black president, but because he did great things to make the world a better place. At least that's what I hope.

A year ago I wasn't at all sure he would win. I thought America just wasn't ready for an African American to be president, but I was wrong. I hadn't realized just how much America has changed since the last time I was there. I left over 15 years ago, just after the Rodney King riots in L.A., and I remember thinking back then that the race issue would never be solved. And while I'm sure things are far from perfect now, I think that Obama's victory is a major step in the right direction. We're halfway there and we can't stop now. But it's not only about overcoming racism. I think people are asking for change on a much larger scale, and they are looking to Obama to bing it.

Will he live up to people's expectations?

Well, only time will tell; but he is charismatic, he seems to be sincere, and he has some pretty clear ideas about where he wants to go in this presidency. Call me a bleeding-heart liberal if you want, but I think he's right about the social change that America needs. I'm sure there are people out there who are thowing their hands in the air in horror and exclaming, "He'll raise taxes! He'll take the troops out of Iraq! He'll turn America into a socialist country!" But I think a good part of the population believes in him, even if they don't agree with all of his ideas, and I think he has a pretty good chance of doing some good things for America. And since what affects America, affects the rest of the world, I'm betting those changes will have a positive effect on the rest of us too.

I also have to say that McCain added to my newly found pride too. His gracious speech after learning that Obama had won surprised me. By asking his supporters to stand behind the new President he has also taken a great step for democracy, one that I hope will serve as a lesson for politicians in other countries (and, yes, I am pointing my finger at Zapatero and Rajoy, among others...come on guys, get your acts together already).

So, Obama, now it all depends on you. We have a dream...will you help us make it come true?