SquidRoad

Echa pa' lante: How not to join a conga line

How does that toddler underwear TV spot go--I'm a big kid now" or something like that? Yeah, that's me.

I'm embarrassed to admit I finally attended (strictly as a guest anyway) my first fund raiser recently, for a local Hispanic nonprofit agency. I won't lie though: I was in it 150% for the extracurricular activities. When I first promised a friend I'd go and do my part for a good cause, let's face it--that cause was the live band--a conjunto in Latin terms.

And let me tell you, this gig was most definitely on Latin terms. Hallelujah! Let the fiesta begin.

The week before the event, I asked my friend who the band was.
---Ahh, sabes qué, Nydia, we couldn't get the band after all. We could only get a DJ.

Whaaat? What did she mean they could only get a DJ? Didn't they realize I was rounding up troops for a friendly shimmy-shimmy showdown? What was I going to tell my invited guests?

It's a good thing most of them didn't show. They'd only have gotten my rebellious side.

It's like this. I've never been a stellar conformist. Probably because I've always been the 'different' one:
- The one with dark hair (in the more or less pre-Hispanic Midwest)
- The minister's kid ('priest's kid' when we moved to South Texas...I'll never get that one)
- The one who was a little too 'white' for some friends, and a bit too Hispanic for others (Oreo syndrome, whatever--it's No Man's Land)

That night at the fund raiser, my nonconformist took over.

It was a great event--packed agenda, for sure. Cultural dances, exquisite Latin cuisine, fashion show, more dance exhibitions, auctions silent and not so silent.

And then finally, 10pm struck. The fashion show runway got rolled up. Podiums stashed away. Brooms came out to get the grit off the quasi-parquet surface that was about to let me be me. The parranda got going just moments before my friend and I were about to exit the scene for a more vigorous Plan B.

As often is the case, an oldie but goodie known to salsa dancers everywhere built up slowly over the speakers. (Good sound! Sweet.) It was Grupo Niche's Una Aventura. (Think: "More cowbell.")

It wasn't long before we were rumba-ing to loads of classics, one right after the other. Great stuff from a DJ who knew his crowd of music-hungry Latins.

That's when I got swept up in a conga line.

I don't DO conga lines.

--Vamos! Come on--jump in! they kept yelling to me and my friend. And they would. Not. Give. Up.

My brain told me to run, but I couldn't do that--it would be rude. So I did the next rudest thing. Reluctantly, I joined the line (God help me), took it a few wild directions...and then bailed in a personal detour. But not before I took half the bunch with me, leaving the tail-end of the rumberos feeling a bit decapitated.

I caught a few sneers at first. (That'll show 'em not to recruit a rebel next time.) Lucky for me, I made some friends anyway that night, and we're already making plans for our next fiesta Latina.

Do as I say, not as I do: If you ever have to join a conga line, make sure you really mean it.

It's a good day

...when you can't remember what day it is. Which means today has been a good day. Tomorrow we return home from our ever-so-brief vacation at Outer Banks in North Carolina. It's been a series of come-and-gos since the weekend, but we've had the best time with family and friends. Not to mention we ate our weight in great dinners. Even the weather cooperated, for a little while anyway. Tomorrow night, we get home late, in time for a very full end of week. If you've ever taken time off and returned midweek to work, you know this is a bad idea. Everyone else is "warmed up" while your brain is still in a pleasant (read: ignorance is bliss) state of mush. I hope we at least slept more away than at home, but that's up for debate. In any case, I can't wait to return to the coast. If you haven't recently been near a large body of water, I highly recommend it.

When your world feels small

...it doesn't take much to make you happy. And oh so happy am I.

We won a set of these dishes on eBay this week. We got hooked on Russel Wright ceramics at an auction recently in Denver, and this set at left was in the seller's family for over 60 years.

Beautiful lines, and the grey glaze is really elegant. Simple and clean, not snooty...just elegant. Can't wait to use them.

With work dominating my (our) time lately, every step toward our finished home (which at this rate will take about 50 years, but that's ok--we're never moving again) is a wonderful distraction, not to mention it will help out on the entertaining side, especially since all our other dishes are disappearing like black socks from the laundry.

The forest and the trees

You'd think we'd hear this dadgum thing...it rings every 15 minutes from atop Cheyenne Mountain (where NORAD will no longer be soon....), about a mile from our house and louder than snot. Snot in a good way.

Mikey says he hears it. How I miss it, I'll never know.  It's like missing the forest for the trees. Well, maybe I do know...got a bit of my own ding-ding goin' on lately.

Had a spell over the weekend of dropsy. Not like the dropsy and scurvy you learn about in school-- (do they come in pairs, or do I just remember them together because they sound funny?)--but the kind where you drop something every 24 hours, on average.

Friday night, before our breakfast/dinner I dropped one glass on top of another, sending orange juice all over the kitchen (which we're about to tear out anyway--here's why). Monday morning, I made an oven pancake for Mikey (left: yummy) and promptly dropped the batter into the oven (sans the pan...I saved that for the floor).

And today, I dropped my MacBook at work. Blech. Can you spell d-o-r-k? Heck, this is becoming a way of life, and I'm not sure I have a coping mechanism for it.

Nothing a bowl of cereal can't cure...if I can just keep all the Fruit Loops in the stinkin' bowl.

Breakfast of champions

I love breakfast. By far, it's my favorite meal of the day.

Doesn't matter whether it's hot cereal (this is my new favorite oatmeal from Nature's Path)...
...or cold cereal (also my new favorite, from Back To Nature)...
I love breakfast. And apparently, so does Mikey.

So much so, in fact, that he's about to get us a new toaster. No big news, really, except that this is not just any toaster. This is the Egg & Muffin Toaster. It makes breakfast for you--an egg and sausage (or other meat) sandwich. The only thing it doesn't do  in the morning is kick you out of bed. Build one yourself. And I'll let you what it's like.

Honey, can you spare a bear? The Sequel

This just gets better and better.

My honey's back. I mean, my honey bear. But he didn't come back without a story. Check him out.

In case you can't read his note:

Don't worry about me, Mama. I'm off seeing the world. Will be back soon.

Miss you!
Your Honey Bear

Not that there was much honey actually left in the little guy, but I was a little worried about him and started to think he'd pop up from places like Mt Rushmore, Washington, D.C. or South Beach.

The next time I saw him, though, none of that mattered. Honey Bear was home. And not only did he not come home without a story. He didn't come home alone, either. (Typical.)

And in case you can't read his message:

I'm back, Mama!

Got hitched over the weekend. :)

Can we move in with you?

So what's a mama supposed to do--say no? Send her honey bear into exile because (1) he ran away from home (stupid prodigal) and (2) he eloped--not even having the decency to wait and have a ceremony before God and everybody?

Like every good mother, I took him back...and the bride, too. Actually, the in-law thing is working out quite nicely. She comes in handy fairly often, especially when it comes to oatmeal time. I'm thinking we'll get along swimmingly.

Holy cow: it's been a long time

Nearly two weeks since the last post. And it's been at least that long since I've had a life...longer, I think. Can't say I'm particularly happy about it.

It's hard to say whether a lot has happened in that time, besides work. I pretty much eat, sleep, work and play tennis--in that order. Tennis dropped from 3rd place to 4th lately because of an injury, an insanely annoying and painful achilles tendon in my left foot. It's getting better now, thank God.

I'm partly thankful and partly full of curses at the anti-inflammatory meds my doctor put me on. I'm completely confident in the doctor--that's no problem. But I guess I have an allergic reaction to meds like these. I can tell because I've had this freaky ringing in my ears for the last few days. Only difference is that, today, it's not my right ear that's ringing but my left. I guess the migration is a good thing...right?

But I am on a diet of sorts. Eating healthier (for the most part), mostly to fuel up better for my matches. Though overall I feel better, it hasn't yet made a huge difference, since my losing streak continued through end of season (last Thur).

Thursday's match was probably the most "normal" I've felt in a few days. And I still lost in the tie-break. Won the first set 7-6, lost the second 4-6, then the "10-point" tie-break, 9-11. And did I say how hot it was on the court? This indoor court probably was about 90* when we walked on. Toastier by the time people came to peel us off the sizzling green surface. I felt like a fried egg after that 2+-hour match.

Honey, can you spare a bear?

There's a little mystery going on at my office.

Actually, it's going on within my cubicle (eeewww, that word is absolutely a horror to say--maybe for its obnoxiously humbling effect). And it involves my honey-bear honey dispenser.

I hardly ever drink tea, but I store honey on my "flipper" shelf at work. If I use it at the rate at which I drink tea, the honey bear should last me a good 2 years.

My honey bear's about 3 months old right now, and already it's nearly empty. I think when I first put it on my shelf, it was right-side up, his butt on my shelf and the dispenser top pointing upward.

Since I usually keep that shelf's "flipper" door closed, I don't see my bear often. So it surprised me greatly when about a month ago, it appeared someone had been using my honey.

How could I tell?  Well, there's a fraction of the honey that there used to be in my bear.

 

Now, this wouldn't be a big deal, except that no one I know will confess to using my honey. I don't really care...it's the mystery that's kind of driving me nuts. So, as a sort of "game" with the suspect, I decided about a month ago to hide the bear.

But they would have to look behind a few things to find him. See the soda bottle on the left and the coils of a notebook on the right? Back in that empty space is where I'd hidden my sweet little victimized bear. Then I covered up this space with a few more bottles. Anyone looking for my honey would have to dig through a few layers to even see him, much less dispense the sticky stuff.

Lo and behold, I found him the next time, but out in the wide open, in broad daylight--staring me in the face from the front row of my cabinet!

Blatant criminals! How dare they look for, find and use my honey bear...and then place him right out in broad daylight instead of his secret little hiding place? The nerve of them...

So I have a new plan. My co-worker and I have traded honey bears. We'll see whose bear the insurgents use this time. Now, I have Chris's honey bear. See the one on the right? That's my flipper, but the bear belongs to Chris; the one across the glass partition, on the left--that's my nearly empty, totally abused little bear. I miss him already.

Was that an ice cream truck?

Just when you try to defend your town as not being a one-horse village...An ice cream truck drives by. Jingles blaring and all.

I was in tune bondage most of yesterday after he drove by. Never the same again...and it was an obnoxious tune, I tell you.

I'm not complaining. And I'm not dissing our Sunday-night milk delivery, either. In fact, it's one of the things I love about where we live. But the ice cream truck--that totally threw me off. I genuinely think my memory triggered back to when I was four years old or something. Strange but true.

The Magic Word: Sounds like Sue She

I'm in hog-heaven. (Where on earth did that phrase come from? Doesn't matter; it's appropriate now.)

Just found this site on eating and making sushi. Most sushi sites are now selling books, videos, sushi "tools," whatever-- this site has free videos on making sushi. The video's a bit lo-res, but you can follow the chef and figure out what he's doing.

It's terrifying to think how much money this would save us, even in a month. I eat sushi like babies drink milk. Well, if I could I would, anyway.

Mike and I were talking earlier, and he happed to mention MOBO, our favorite sushi bar. We usually go there after church on Saturdays. Today's Saturday, right?