3/29/2005

role play....

let's say you're in a persistent vegetative state or in a coma...

"If you, the patient, could wake up for 15 minutes and understand your condition fully, and then had to return to it, what would you tell your family to do?"

Go and discuss this question with your loved ones -- and put your answer in writing.

3/22/2005

movers and shakers...

so, i just got word that there was a small earthquake off the coast about an hour ago. of course i didnt feel the 3.4 magnitude jiggler, mostly because i live kinda on a hill, but also because at that precise moment that it hit i was in the kitchen with little tending to our tasty creations that we made with her easybake oven. two little cakes with marbled frosting.

i should be suffering from cabin fever right now, but i'm not.

i was gonna hit the home depot to get planter boxes and soil and plants for our balcony today, but alas the storm that blew in made it less desirable. mostly because i don't wanna schlep wet and muddy plants in my car, but mostly because i don't wanna be out and about in cold rain that's coming down hard and diagonally unless i have to be. i swear i could just sit here all day and watch the rain out the window. if it clears up, maybe friday will be the planting day... and maybe somehow between now and friday i will lose my black thumb.

card sharks...

since we got out of bed 4-5 hours ago, the little and i have watched one movie, watched a bunch of teevee, and played the 'old maid' card game (as opposed to the game where the little and i stare in the mirror and count my grey hairs), we played 'go fish' a couple of times (which i had not played in so long that i actually had to read the instructions on the cards to make sure i knew what i was doing!). we first played with some kiddy cards (with pics of sea creatures on them), then we opted to play with a regular deck of cards... or so we thought. now i don't know who or what 'pinnochle' is, but somehow i have purchased a defective deck of cards because stuffed inside the box was 2 half decks of cards and the name "pinnochle" written in tiny letters somewhere on the packaging. sure, it made playing 'go fish' go a lil faster so that's not bad. but now how am i supposed to teach the little how to play blackjack? she's also kicked my butt at candyland, and i think later we'll raze the eiffel tower we made from tinkertoys this weekend and re-build something as constructionaliciously tall as 'latooreffel with lasers' as she likes to call it. oops, she just called out and exclaim "memory gaaaame!!" and now there are a bunch of tiles on my living room floor.... i'm off.

icing on the cake...

the little is on spring break from school this week, and so i arranged to take a couple days off work to hang out with her. unfortunately, she's got a wet cough at the moment which has me hesitating to drag her around town for activities and instead has us hanging out at home watching movies, playing board and card games, and later i'll watch her awe as she plays shooter games on xbox, and then even later we'll do some cooking and possibly break out the easybake oven for some kidmade homemade sweets.

i know growing up as a kid i thought for sure there were definitely characteristics of my parents that i didn't want to absorb, mostly that they're very overprotective and conservative (and not just fiscally conservative like i am). they grew up in the middle east and life was very different for them as compared to this california native. but i distinctly remember as a small kid (under 8 years old) when i was home sick from school that my mom always made me softboiled eggs for breakfast, and she would even feed me because i was sick, despite the fact that i was clearly old enough to eat on my own. it was the one time i didn't fight mom taking care of me in this way, because it just made me feel so much better to have that overabundance of nurturing and love in a time when my defenses were down.

now without really thinking about it, as if it was not a learned gesture but rather an innate and inherent characteristic passed on genetically to me from my mom, i realized that for the past two days i have done this exact same thing for the little - made her softboiled eggs and even fed them to her for breakfast while she's been feeling poopy. and so i realize just how much like my mom and dad i am in so many ways, especially those wonderful nurturing ways... and i'm thankful for not being so strong and stubborn to successfully turn my back on absorbing those great characteristics i learned (or inherited) from my folks.

3/18/2005

not last....

i have noticed that on buzznet there are a few people who take great delight in being the first commenter on a photo (most often on the photo of a blogger who gets lots and lots of comments - but not mine), and to show their delight they exclaim "FIRST!" with what i imagine to be an 'in your face' tone. (you know who you are)
this morning while in the restroom, i went into a stall to do my business, and noticed that the toilet seat was up. i know this means that no one has used that toilet since it was cleaned by the janitors the night before. as i put the seat down, realizing what it meant, in my head i involuntarily exclaimed "FIRST!".... then i felt great shame, but only for a moment, and then went about my business.

*burp*

would you believe me if i told you i just ate something called a "s'mores" candy bar just to get the coupons on the inside of the wrapper?? yeah, i didn't think you would.

problem is, it looked like a snickers on the wrapper and that's what made me get it, so really it should have tasted more like a snickers, right? RIGHT?

sorry... there's a lil disappointment at the moment.

unfortunately the two coupons (one for subway and the other for more candy) inside the candy wrapper just don't make it better or taste like snickers.

3/17/2005

heeeeyyyy laaaaaddyyyyyy!!!!

today as i drove by my old elementary/middle school i saw a group of kids standing near the chainlink fence screaming and waving their arms at passing cars. naturally i stopped to see what the hooplah was, and was greeted with grateful cheers and smiling faces screaming one word...

"BALLS!!!"

once they calmed from the excitement of someone actually stopping for them, they alerted me to the fact that a football and a basketball had been tossed over the fence into the street, so naturally i helped them out and tossed them back. i'm like that, ya know?

3/12/2005

eye candy for my ears

so, i went to the santa monica courthouse the other day to pick up a transcript. about half way back on my drive to century city i realized that i didn't turn on the radio in my car. i usually drive with the cd player blasting so as to drown out my surroundings, but for some reason i must have been distracted when i started the drive back, because when i got to pico & sepulveda i realized that what i was listening to instead of my own music was the music emanating from other cars on the road around me. in the next lane over, i could hear what sounded like something very instrumental and bauhaus-esque (naturally this is fueled by my being in love with anything peter murphy) and so i thought maybe it might not be so bad mooching sounds off other cars for my drive and i continued eastward. for about 1/4 mile after that it seems i made all the green lights, which normally would be cool but in this instance all i got to listen to was sounds of the road -- brakes squeeking, horns honking, truck engines revving, etc. -- and it left me actually wishing for a red light. ah, reprieve. i hit the red light approaching motor ave in front of the golf course. slowly, someone rolled up next to me and i could hear that the song playing in their car had just begun. the driver looked something reminiscent of david faustino, with cropped hair and wearing oakleys, white shirt and tie. maybe someone who works in a local bank, or office, coming back from their break. the music started out slow and instrumental, like it was building up to the vocals. somehow the song was familiar to me but not enough for me to place it. the cars in front of me moved up a bit and now i was no longer directly next to this car, but i could still kinda hear the music... then POW the song kicked into a higher gear with vocals and allofasudden i realized the driver was belting it out along with the singer, sounding kinda like Freddy Mercury. i craned my head back as far as i could to be able to get a glimpse of him through my side windows and it was awesome - he was so into the song and so uninhibited by his surroundings. the light turned green and i continued eastward, and i never got along side that car again... but i kinda wish i had been able to just to give a thank you smile and nod of approval.

3/11/2005

cat scratch fever

i have always had pets, mostly dogs. when i was a kid, for a very short time after much begging and pleading for cats despite already having 2 dogs that lived in the yard, we had 2 cats. the cats were nice, but we got rid of them because my doberman wanted to eat them and once went through the closed screen door to eat them. when given the choice as to which pets to keep, even at 7 it was easy for me to say bye to those cats but not to the dogs. i have a dog now, and she's totally spoiled. she was the tester child before we had the little... we figured if the dog did not need to see a psychologist regularly after a year of being with us that maybe it would be ok to have spawn of our own. but that's another story entirely.

my mom has a cat - a feral cat. it was wild and living on the streets when she started feeding it. (ok ok, living in the alleys of beverly hills, but the cat still would not let anyone get close to it) when mom and dad downsized by selling their house, the new owners were not cat lovers and did not appreciate this black feline in their yard. so mom and dad went back almost daily to feed this damn cat in the alley behind the old house. they even got another neighbor involved to help out if they couldn't make it. after six months of this arrangement with the cat, somehow the cat is injured, and my folks take it to the vet where it is sedated and they're told the cat has a hairline fracture in its leg and needs to rest to have it heal. without thinking twice, they take the cat home with them to live indoors in their very downsized living space which also is inhabited by their older than old shitzu pup. eventually the cat learns to cohabitate with humans in this small space, and the pup and the cat make nice from a distance, then from a closer range, then the pup passes on of old age and now the cat has the run of the home. in the past six months, the cat has grown a lil cozy with me by allowing me to get close enough to pet it (head and back only, not tummy). lately, as soon as i walk in the door it's meowing all loud and giving me looks like "don't even think of leaving this home without manhandling me a bit first"... so, i obliged. all was fine, she was meowing and rolling around on the floor and then WHAM that fucking kitty biatch swatted at me with her paws/claws!! but instead of a scratch, she kinda poked my hand in the fleshy part between my pinky and wrist... and i can feel a raised bump that is kinda itchy, and now i wanna punt the cat.

3/01/2005

random fact #9372

i am whitening my teeth while i am at work.