Did that guy just flash me?

Sometimes I feel a great camaraderie with the human race. Often times this camaraderie is sorely tested when I am braving my daily commute. I spend A LOT of time in the car. My commute used to be approximately 30 minutes long until “the man” changed a big stretch of the drive from 65 MPH to a whopping 45 MPH and added an extra 15 minutes to the expedition. Now this is an each way ordeal so I spend a lot of time alone with my fellow commuters/human beings. Mostly they irritate me to no end and I sometimes try to return the favor. Admittedly I am a “granny” driver (this is in no way a derogatory term and I would proudly proclaim it in bumper sticker form if I actually believed in posting my every opinion and thought to the back of my car). I proudly abide the speed limit…within reason (okay, I usually keep it a couple of miles above…but only because I figure that no two speedometers and/or radar detectors can be calibrated to the exact correct measure…I know that I’m no scientist, but I do know the word calibrated…so that has to account for something). This apparently is going to kill most of the drivers with whom I am destined to share the road. I am often the target of a tailgate conspiracy (and yes, I am that jerk who will sometimes tap my brakes…and who often sees “the bird” fly past my window). I don’t love going the speed of molasses! I don’t love watching the bicyclist pass me in far shoulder! I don’t love being passed by snails or turtles or any other shelled animal! And yes, I usually am late too. But, I cannot fathom any person being able to frivolously flush away money on a speeding ticket. I know I sure can’t. So, while I have not yet honed my psychic spidey sense to the point of foreseeing any lurking law enforcement I will continue to be the 28 year old granny driver.
However, once in awhile my faith in humanity is restored! Along my commute there is a particular spot where every branch of law loves to lay in wait in what most people affectionately refer to as a “speed trap.” It is right at the bottom of a really big hill with a speed limit of 40 MPH. This is almost an impossibility, even for a granny driver like myself. Unless I want to spend thousands of dollars in brake replacements periodically, I too feel it my duty to go with the flow of traffic…aka the speed of light. So, I cannot tell you how grateful I am when fellow motorist will flash their lights to warn oncoming traffic of the trap ahead. For a few seconds I feel that we are joined together as a great secret army… comrades in arms (not in the scary communist way, but the good brotherhood sort of way)…against “the man.” So to all you flashers out there, I tip my figurative hat to you and tell you to keep up the flashing, I will do the same.

When in doubt...put some green tea on it

It’s been kind of a crazy week. Let me give you the abridged version. A lot of school, a lot of work…a lot of things I don’t like doing (stupid being a grown-up, you ruin everything). In mutual last week we had a combined activity where the youth played a live-action clue game. It turned out pretty well and we had a fair number of people. Saturday I went to a jewelry party and did a lot of school stuff. I also had the opportunity to see the movies ‘Ghost Town’ and ‘The Women’ over the weekend. I highly recommend ‘Ghost Town’ to anyone with a sense of humor.
This weekend I was also thinking about commercials. I have often expressed my dislike for watching or listening to commercials (yet I will generally watch the specials on funniest commercials…go figure). Thanks to the magic of DVR I no longer have to endure most of the torture that is commercials…except when I am on live TV (I still push the fast forward button continuously…you know, just in case). Well I came across some interesting commercials this weekend. The first one that got my attention was for a dentist….in JUAREZ!! No joke! I know I live in NEW Mexico, but I’m at least a good eight hours from the border…and still in American territory. That wasn’t even the craziest part of the commercial, if I had called “NOW”, they would have arranged free transportation to the best dentist in JUAREZ! I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t build my confidence a whole lot. Of course, my imagination was going wild about inadvertently becoming a drug mule while being sedated for some dental work (bet they don’t advertise that in the commercial!). The second commercial that really stood out was for the WWE. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a commercial snob…I don’t hold one brand or product to a higher standard than the next…my standard isn’t even very high for any commercial. Although I respect many a WWE fan, I cannot in good conscience let this one pass. When the phrase “ladder match” comes up, it makes me question the validity of this “sport.” Apparently a “ladder match” is a wrestling match performed ON ladders…to get the title belt, which of course is dangling from the ceiling (I know that is where I would keep my belt if ever I got one). I don’t think my response was what they were going for when they were marketing this event.
Finally, I wonder if I am the only person who thinks that they are putting green tea in EVERYTHING!?!?!?!?!....from lip gloss, to shampoo, to joint pain cream…you name it, I bet green tea can make it better! Apparently green tea is the miracle cure we’ve all been anxiously awaiting. Who knew!?!
So tell me what commerical you love/hate the most.

Gorillas are cute...but I don't want to marry a gorilla!

Okay, so we all have our celebrity crushes…some a little more strange and disturbing than others. I think this is because they give us an outlet from our humdrum lives of normalcy to the exciting world of fake dreams and unrealistic expectations. The return of the ‘New Kids on the Block’ has sparked a debate between me and my good friend Cecilia. Most gals from my generation know what this debate is, it usually goes something along the lines of …I love Donnie…I love Joey…etc. This was a common theme of conversations throughout my elementary recess time. With the return of this boy band (why do they call it a band when none of them even pretend to play an instrument?...I suppose that’s one for the philosophers) many of these old conversations are reemerging. I will take a moment now (even though I know I may lose a few readers due to this admission) to note the fact that I do not love any of the New Kids (Or should say Old kids) and have been vehemently opposed to their regime since the playground days. Cecelia, on the other hand, (who knows my of my indifference to NKOTB and yet we remain friends) is mad about Danny…don’t worry, I’m sure her husband is aware of this obsession. Now, to me Danny in his younger days looked like a gorilla but now looks like a Ken doll who has had his face melted ever so slightly. Of course I can’t tell on her without telling on myself. I love Dwayne Johnson and LL Cool J and actually carry on an unhealthy obsession of my own. (My dad actually called me on DJ's b-day...we celebrated by going out to dinner...we were going to take a cut-out of him with us but figured other people would be perturbed by our craziness...not something I usually put on display...but sometimes I just can't hide it). We both have a thing for quirky British actors (which is some kind of inexplicable thing…I think there must be something hypnotic about a foreign accent) and also for Anderson Cooper (maybe it the silver hair and fact that his teleprompter makes him sound incredibly smart).
Although I enjoy the secret obsessions (totally could be the name of a fragrance) of celebrity crushes, there is one thing that I can not tolerate….celebrities who think their opinion is more important than mine. I consider myself relatively well educated and informed. Just because you are rich and have chosen to give up your privacy for the sake of wealth…you don’t get to choose what I think about things!! Okay…that was a bit too serious…but that is my rant today.
So…tell me who your celebrity crush is…Or you can leave me silly NKOTB lyric...'Ahh it's so crazy, you're like baby, I'm like Swayze" (from the song Dirty Dancing...no joke)...

Proud to be an American...and an Espanolian...is that a word?

Today being September 11th and all, I feel I should express my sentiments on being American. I was going to write an essay on what it means to be an American to me…but then I remembered that I’m not a 1950’s 3rd grader. So instead I will tell you a little about my American experience. I was pondering this as I was driving home from work last night as I passed the people selling newspapers on the street. In the city where I live, there is one main newspaper that is published weekly…and sold by newsies in the street (like the movie Newsies with significantly less singing and dancing…and I have yet to see one that looks like Christian Bale). They slow down traffic every Wednesday evening as people stop in the middle of the road to buy their paper…and I am sorely tempted to run them over (I haven’t yet committed vehicular manslaughter…but it is sometimes tempting). There is also a woman who wears a huge pioneer type bonnet as she sells papers out of the trunk of her car. I recently found out that we also have two prostitutes in our town! Who knew!! We call one of them the dog-faced prostitute and the other one we just call the other one….I’ll be honest I’ve never actually seen either of them but I hear they hang out around the abandoned Taco Bell building and since I don’t really have occasion to kick it in abandoned buildings, our paths haven’t crossed. We are also the low rider capitol of the world. I have a good friend who lives in Arizona who had to call me up to let me know she learned this about good ol’ Espanola in her Chicano studies class. We even have low rider bicycles…complete with velvet banana seats, chain handle bars and plenty of murals of the Virgin Mary…I even saw one of them yesterday. Even though we have our eccentricities, I’d say in a lot of ways we are pretty similar to most American towns. We shop at Walmart, we eat at Chile’s, we love our stadium seating movie theatre (shout out to Dream Catcher Theatres…way to go on your expansion, mad props on the 10 screens and more bathroom stalls), and we cruise the Sonic’s (we have ‘em on each end of town to make a good loop…even though now they extend them to the gas station in front of the Walmart with their tricked out cars…and block the parking lot, but that’s a rant for another day).
I think that there are so many interesting and wonderful things about being American! What I think is so great is that everyone’s experience is a little different and so much the same. Let me know some of your unique American experiences!

Check one, check one, syphilis, syphilis

It’s that time of year again, the New Mexico air smells of roasting green chile and the weather is starting change ever so slightly. IT’S STATE FAIR TIME!!!! So me and my homie (okay it was just my sis) headed to Albuquerque for the 70th-ish state fair (they announced what number it was while we were there but I was too mesmerized by a mermaid and some diving people to really pay attention). It was a blast! We mostly went to see the state fair concerts (Blake Shelton and Gary Allen for you country fans…who actually may be interested) but spent a good four hours looking at a bunch of strange things that don’t normally occupy my day (see above mentioned mermaid). There was a petting zoo…complete with miniature pigmy goats, a kid’s jump rope team (who even knew these existed outside of the Disney channel?!?!), “rainforest animals” doing tricks (it was actually just a single monkey…and yes they played the Tarzan sound track), some freaky china dolls (they actually had “Donny and Marie” dolls), and a whole lot of “New Mexico” junk that they were trying to peddle (honestly, how many dream catchers does one person need?). The best part of this and I would submit any fair has to be the food!!! Where else can you pay $20 for a thimble full of fresh squeezed lemonade…with actual pulp and seeds? Plus, who doesn’t love seeing a fellow fairgoer eating an entire turkey leg and ear of corn…not since medieval times has food been so handy. I must admit that I did succumb to the siren call of the cotton candy…it does have a mystic hold over me.
The concerts were GRRRRRRRRREAT (in my head Tony the tiger just read that last sentence). I must say that I did enjoy the Blake Shelton one better. He was very entertaining and personable…and his sound guy was awesome (I could actually understand what he was saying when talking). The show was fast paced and entertaining and he played familiar songs. Gary Allen’s was good as well but the sound quality was poorer and I didn’t know a lot of his songs…plus he had one too many guitar rifts for my taste. On his plus side he did do like 4 encores and did rise up out of the floor. Overall it was a great day! We got home about 2 am and I had to get up in the morning to take the YW hiking! It was awesome (note the sarcasm)!!
Okay, it wasn’t actually that bad. We only hiked about 3 miles and saw a lot of ruins. It was pretty cool. I had fun with the girls that went. They had me laughing the entire time. At one point the park had planted two small corn stalks in the middle of the trail…I think as a way to point out what the original inhabitants would have eaten (like we don’t know what corn is). One of the YW responded by saying, “Cool! We should jack it!” (Why would we want to jack corn stalks is beyond me…they were only two feet tall with no corn) Obviously we have to have a lesson on “jacking” other people’s stuff. Needless to say we didn’t end up jacking anything…that I’m aware of. The other leader and I had a great time explaining the zombies and other things along the way (we didn’t want to buy the guide book that explained what things actually were, so we kinda made some stuff up). It was a great weekend. Hopefully yours was great too!

Happy Birthday Silver Bullet!

Last night I was home alone for several hours…which is usually the beginning of trouble. So, I got to thinking (a dangerous pastime, I know) about what to have for dinner. I took some chicken out of the freezer and stuck it in the oven and that’s when the wheels started turning in my head. Hmmm…what could I possibly make to go along with chicken….RICE!!! Okay, for background purposes I must inform you at this point that my experience with rice is limited to microwaved minute rice…of which I’m probably the greatest chef EVER. Well, I decided that I could probably make some kind of interesting rice and I would try making real rice (as opposed to the fake minute rice). After several attempts to make it look like regular rice I have come to the following conclusion: It turns out that I can’t make regular rice. My sister (aka my favorite guinea pig) was kind enough to try it when she got home. Her response was….hum, its kinda mushy and crunchy at the same time (which was a very adept observation even to my biased opinion). Just so everyone doesn’t think that I’m a terrible cook, I want you to know that it tasted pretty good…it just had a pretty funky texture. The chicken turned out D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!! It was so good I had to spell it. It was the result of a different kitchen experiment several months ago which turned out to be a stroke of genius…which we repeat on a fairly consistent basis (I call it Cesar parmesan chicken…or tasty for short).
On a completely unrelated note, today is my car’s second birthday! I can’t believe how fast time goes; it seems just like yesterday that we were still in that new car smell stage. We’ve been through so much…many thousands of miles of fond road trips, a couple of moves, two flat tires, a new side view mirror, and a lobotomy (that’s right a lobotomy…we went though a freak change out of engine computer chip this last summer). It really has been a great ride so far…get it, a great ride…and I look forward to many more great miles and years. So, go out and have a cupcake…to celebrate the Silver Bullet, I know I will!

A Three Year Old Ruined My Dark Knight!

Happy Labor Day!! Okay, so it’s a day late…and a dollar short. I hope you’re not expecting to get paid by reading this. It will only enrich your life marginally, if at all, and definitely not financially. So I was thinking about why we celebrate Labor Day. So being the inquisitive person I am…I googled it. (I’ll be honest, if it weren’t for the internet and the joy of google, I would be a lot less educated on the trivial facts that I tend to fill my brain with...like Lou Diamod Phillips was born Lou Diamond Upchurch...nothing useful mind you, but I do know a plethora of random facts on stupid things which will be of no use to anyone in this life or the next. I also wouldn’t have bothered looking up any information on this or most other subjects that I wonder about). So in case you were wondering…. “Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.” So to honor the hard working achievements of my fellow Americans…I did absolutely nothing yesterday. I watched other people work in a several hour marathon of Dirty Jobs on the Discovery channel. I didn’t even get out of my pajamas (apparently the neurons in my brain associate “labor-day” with “lazy-day”, it’s practically the same thing…right?) I did do a couple of productive things…I experimented with a new dinner. Experiment being the key word. Let’s just say that it is not something that I will be trying again in the future. Just FYI, orange was not the color I was going for…and it tasted about as good as it sounded. I finally gave up trying to eat it half way through…we resorted to having cookie dough for dinner (the one major upside to being a grown-up). At least dinner ended on a high note!
The rest of the weekend was good too. Friday I babysat for a friend whose husband is into downloading movies. I watched Wall-E (unless you’re REALLY into robot love, I wouldn’t waste my time). I was going to watch Batman after the kiddies were in bed…but due to some unforeseeable events involving a three year old and the remote, that plan didn’t quite work out. So, the moral of this tale….I still haven’t seen Dark Knight. While going to watch House Bunny I saw a preview for a tv show with Christian Slater…with split personalities!!! I know, I had to pinch myself too!! I will leave you with my favorite quote of the weekend from the preview of this show… “Roses are red, violets are blue, I’ve got a split personality…and so do I.” Can’t wait for this gem!