California Dreamin'

I read this on my cousin's blog, and it made me laugh, so I'm sharing with you (with a bit of editing):

Ode to California

I may be a resident of Colorado, but I was born and will always be a Californian...

I'M A CALIFORNIAN, THAT MEANS...
- We can buy alcohol on Sundays and in grocery stores!
- Our chicks & dudes are WAYYYY hotter than yours
- I say "like" and "for sure" and "right on" and "hella" and "totally" and "peace out" and "chill" and I say them often
- I know what real cheese & avocadoes taste like
- I can buy fruit that was still attached to the tree 20 minutes ago, and way cheaper than in the grocery store
- All the porn you watch is made here, cause we f**k better and thats how it is
- I don't get snowdays off because there's only snow in Mammoth, Tahoe and Big Bear
- I can and do wear sandals all year long
- I go to the Beach, not "down to the shore"
- I know 65 mph really means 80
- When someone cuts me off, they get the horn and the finger and they accept it and give it back, because that's the California way
- The drinking age is 21 but everyone starts at 14 (legally 18 if you live close enough to the border)
- My governor can kick your governor's ass
- I can go out at midnight
- You judge people based on what area code they live in, and when asked where you're from, you give your area code
- When you ask someone how far away a city is, they give it to you in driving time, not distance
- I might get looked at funny by locals when I'm on vacation in their state, but when they find out I'm from California I turn into a Greek GODDESS
- We don't stop at stop signs... we do a "california roll"No cop no stop baby!
- I can get fresh and REAL Mexican food 24 hours a day
- We have a taco trucks
- All the TV shows you "other" states watch get filmed here
- We have In-N-Out (Arizona and Vegas are lucky we share that with them)
- The best athletes come from here
- The beach, the mountains, the desert and the city are all only 3 hours away, max
- Mickey Mouse lives here
- I have the most representation in the House of Representatives, which means MY opinion means more then yours, which means I'm better than you

~~ The Homesick Wig

Ballad of Gordon

Remember this? Did you have any idea it was my Ladies? I didn't either. It very much pre-One Week. Enjoy!

Mother Teresa

You probably remember what you were doing when you found out Princess Diana died, and when Heath Ledger died, and when Elvis died. You might remember when President Reagan died, or President Ford, or the Queen Mother. But do you remember when Mother Teresa died? Or Pope John Paul II? Why do we remember our celebrities most, our politicians somewhat, and our religious leaders never?

Mother Teresa died around the same time as Princess Di, and while conspiracy theories about about how the Princess lived and died are published daily in newspapers across the globe, Mother Teresa never seems to be talked about outside of the Catholic community. Well, I want to take a moment and remember a great woman, who dedicated her life to Christ, and served Him by helping the sick, destitute, and orphaned in her adopted country of India. Here are some excerpts from her Wiki article...

Mother Teresa was an Albanian-born Indian Roman Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata (Calcutta), India in 1950. For over forty years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries.

By the 1970s she had become internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. She was the youngest of the children of a family from Shkodër, Albania, born to Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu. in her early years Agnes was fascinated by stories of the lives of missionaries and their service, and by age 12 was convinced that she should commit herself to a religious life. She left home at age 18 to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary. Agnes initially went to the Loreto Abbey in Ireland to learn English, the language the Sisters of Loreto used to teach school children in India. She arrived in India in 1929, and began her novitiate in Darjeeling, near the Himalayan mountains. She took her first religious vows as a nun on May 24, 1931. At that time she chose the name Teresa after Thérèse de Lisieux, the patron saint of missionaries. She took her solemn vows on May 14, 1937, while serving as a teacher at the Loreto convent school in eastern Calcutta.

On September 10, 1946, Teresa experienced what she later described as "the call within the call" while traveling to the Loreto convent in Darjeeling for her annual retreat. "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith." She began her missionary work with the poor in 1948, replacing her traditional Loreto habit with a simple white cotton chira decorated with a blue border, adopted Indian citizenship, and ventured out into the slums." Initially she started a school in Motijhil; soon she started tending to the needs of the destitute and starving.

Teresa received Vatican permission on October 7, 1950 to start the diocesan congregation that would become the Missionaries of Charity. Its mission was to care for, in her own words, "the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone."

In 1982, at the height of the Siege of Beirut, Mother Teresa rescued 37 children trapped in a front line hospital by brokering a temporary cease-fire between the Israeli army and Palestinian guerrillas. Accompanied by Red Cross workers, she traveled through the war zone to the devastated hospital to evacuate the young patients. When Eastern Europe experienced increased openness in the late 1980s, she expanded her efforts to Communist countries that had previously rejected the Missionaries of Charity, embarking on dozens of projects. She was undeterred by criticism about her firm stand against abortion and divorce stating, "No matter who says what, you should accept it with a smile and do your own work." Mother Teresa traveled to assist and minister to the hungry in Ethiopia, radiation victims at Chernobyl, and earthquake victims in Armenia. In 1991, Mother Teresa returned for the first time to her homeland and opened a Missionaries of Charity Brothers home in Tirana, Albania. By 1996, she was operating 517 missions in more than 100 countries. Over the years, Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity grew from twelve to thousands serving the "poorest of the poor" in 450 centers around the world.

Mother Teresa suffered a heart attack in Rome in 1983, while visiting Pope John Paul II. After a second attack in 1989, she received an artificial pacemaker. In 1991, after a battle with pneumonia while in Mexico, she suffered further heart problems. She offered to resign her position as head of the Missionaries of Charity. But the nuns of the order, in a secret ballot, voted for her to stay. Mother Teresa agreed to continue her work as head of the order. In April 1996, Mother Teresa fell and broke her collar bone. In August she suffered from malaria and failure of the left heart ventricle. She had heart surgery, but it was clear that her health was declining. On March 13, 1997, she stepped down from the head of Missionaries of Charity and died on September 5, 1997.

Following her death she was beatified by Pope John Paul II and given the title Blessed Teresa of Calcutta.

I hope we all can live like her, spending our lives in service to our fellow man as a symbol of love and devotion to God, even if we don't get a Nobel Prize for it. My favorite Bible passage is in Matthew, where Jesus is telling the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus says that all who help the least of man in someway, are in fact service Jesus, and will join him in heaven, but those who ignore the least of man are ignoring Jesus, and will spend eternity in hell. I don't know about you, but I want to be counted as a sheep, not a goat. Let's all try to do something this week that is helpful to the poor, hungry, naked, homeless or inprisoned. Donate a couple dollars to a homeless shelter. Go through your closet, and donate all the clothes that no longer fit or you no longer like to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Take some non-perishable food to your local food bank. Be like Mother Teresa. But a stranger's needs ahead of your own, and worship God in service to your fellow man.

I don't mean to preach, and I don't mean to judge. I just feel called by God to raise awareness, and bring this message to the world. I pray that someone who happens upon this blog will read this, and do something kind for a stranger.

~~ The Wig

Happy 232nd Birthday, America!!!

232 years and two days ago, the Continental Congress approved the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, and 232 years ago today, the Congress signed it, and thus became the first colony in history to cast off their motherland, and stand on their own two feet. That said, had the colonies lost the Revolution, all the signers of the Declaration would have been hanged for treason, and we would all be speaking with a funny British accent.

Kaylee enjoying her second Independence Day!

There are two laws, and two laws only, that I break, purposefully and regularly. The first is the speed limit, which I break every day. The second is the ban on fireworks, which I break once a year. If the founding fathers can face death by hanging in the name of independence, I can face a ticket for honoring their risk and sacrifice. Fireworks represent the "bombs bursting in air" that Francis Scott Key wrote about during the War of 1812. They are celebratory, a way to declare joy. And though the many jurisdictions have very good reasons for outlawing them, it's a damn shame that usually law-abiding Americans can't celebrate the day of independence by lighting a few sparklers.

Helping Mommy get ready for work.

All right, enough from the soap box. I spent the day with my nieces and brother-in-law, and his nephew. We watched movies, and took pictures, and giggled all day long.

Say Cheese!

When dusk turned into twilight, we took our contraband and headed to the elementary school behind their house, with a bunch of neighbors, and enjoyed civil disobedience for over two hours. Kaylee fell asleep during all the mayhem, and Christina seems to have finally gotten over her fear of them, and kept singing Happy Birthday, as if she were about to blow out birthday candles.

Tauntie Attack!!!

One of the neighbors had family in from Montana, and they brought the big rockets that go into the sky and then explode. The kind you see at baseball games and waterparks around this time of year. One tiny problem -- two of them seemed to have gotten damaged in the journey, for instead of rocketing into the air, they rocketed across the field we were in. One of them flew directly into the family next to us. No one was hurt, but everyone's blood pressure was a little high for a time.

Dancing for joy!!!

After we ran out of fireworks, we headed back to the house, ate some dinner, put the girls to bed, and I headed home. I'm now home, relaxing with a Colorado microbrew, watching 1776, and decompressing from this, my favorite holiday.

I hope your 4th of July was as satisfying and enjoyable, and that you didn't get a ticket for setting off any fireworks. Happy Independence Day, and God Bless America!!!

~~ The "Patriotic" Wig

Barenaked in Boulder

Barenaked Ladies recently released their first kids album, Snacktime. And rather than going on a mad, whirlwind tour filling coloseums and rocking out, the boys decided to tone it down a bit, and do a kid-sized pubilicity tour at Barnes and Noble bookstores in about 12 cities. Boulder was one of them, and on the day before Father's Day, Christina and I had a "Tauntie Date" to go and see them. It was my 3rd time seeing the Ladies live, and Christina's very first concert. Good times were had by all. Here are some pics, and probably the worst video recording ever taken. In the span of one song, Christina couldn't decide whether she wanted to sit on my shoulders, piggy-back, on my hip, or stand on the ground. At one point I actually drop the camera (it was a choice between it and her, and Frank would kill me if I chose to save the camera and drop the girl). Nevertheless, the sound should be good. And yes, that's me singing along with the band.

Me and Christina waiting for the band.

My Beloved Ladies. From Left to Right: Kevin, Steve, Tyler, Ed and Jim

A rather fuzzy pic of Bonnie's BF Ed on guitar and my BF Jim on bass.

After the boys entertained us with 3 grown up songs, Another Postcard, One Week and Million Dollars, plus 8 or 9 songs from Snacktime, they signed autographs for about an hour or so. According to our wristband, we were in the 10th group to get our CDs signed. By the time we made it up there, Christina was asleep in my arms. Ed said that he'd rather be asleep cuddling my chest than signing autographs. Jim sand Put Your Head on My Shoulders, and all five waxes poetic at the beauty of my darling niece. They also confirmed that they were headed back to the studio this fall to write their 20th anniversary album, for release this spring, and tour this summer. You know what that means? BNL tickets for my birthday next year! Yeah!!!!! Let me know if you want to come -- the more the merrier!

~~The "Barenaked Ladies' Biggest Fan" Wig

Podcasting leads to a different perspective

I went Podcast Shopping the other night, and now subscribe to some 50 + podcasts. And so I've been listening to them lately. And one of them is a free audio book that is released monthly. This month, the free audiobook was The Madman, a compilation of poetry by Kahlil Gibran. Or it's read by Kahlil Gibran. I'm not sure which. Anyway, my point is that poetry doesn't really speak to me, but a couple of poems in The Madman did speak to me, and I thought I would share:

Said a Blade of Grass

Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf:
"You make such a noise falling. You scatter all my winter dreams!"
Said the leaf, indignant:
"Oh, low born and low dwelling, you songless peevish thing, you live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing."
Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept.
And when spring came, she waked again, and she was a blade of grass.
And when it was autumn, and her winter sleep was upon her,
above her, through all the air, the leaves were falling.
And she muttered to herself:
"These autumn leaves, they make such noise. They scatter all my winter dreams."

The Eye

Said the eye one day: "I see beyond these valleys, a mountain, veiled with blue mist. Is it not beautiful?"
The ear, listened. And after listening intently for awhile said: "But where is any mountain? I do not hear it?"
Then the hand spoke, and said: "I am trying in vain to feel it, or touch it, and I can find no mountain."
And the nose said: "There is no mountain. I cannot smell it."
The the eye turned the other way, and they all began to talk together about the eye's strange delusion. And they said: "Something must be the matter with the eye."

I guess the reason why I like them so much is that it's all about perspective. Sometimes we don't understand each other, because the perspective is different. Jesus said that we should walk an extra mile in someone's shoes before judging them (or something like that). It seems that most of the problems in the world stem from a differing interpretation of the facts based on a difference in perspective. I know that what I'm saying is neither world-shattering, nor the basis for a Noble Peace Prize. But as I continue on my summer of self-reflection and pondering the meaning of life, it seems to me that one's judgment should be stayed, and one's tongue should be held, before one has had the chance to evaluate the problem/situation/person/opportunity with someone else's perspective.

~~ The "Philosophical" Wig

Am I Skinny Yet?

Weight Loss so far: 25 pounds in six weeks.

Food doesn't seem to be my problem. I have taken all the junk food out of my diet, and replaced it with fruit and veggies, and my sweet tooth is still satisfied. Especially since it's apricot and plum season.... Yum!

My struggle seems to be with the exercise portion of the diet and exercise dogma. I have tried several workouts:
~ Walking in my neighborhood 1.25-1.75 miles with Malachi.
~ Walking 20 minutes on our treadmill with varying speeds and inclines. I'm starting to like the virtual personal trainer that lives in the treadmill. And add 1o minutes of stretching afterwards, i can watch an episode of A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Sometimes I'll follow this up with 100 real sit ups, the ones you had to do in gym class in middle school. 25 per commercial break. =]
~ An old Tae Bo tape I bought in college before DVDs were fully embraced. I've only tried it once, and I only lasted 12 minutes, but that was a month ago. Maybe I should try it again.
~ Yoga -- but the cheap studios in town are closing, and I can't afford the expensive ones. I love yoga, but I don't know it well enough to do it on my own.
~ A walking DVD that purports to have you walking 3 miles in place, but it was kind of lame, and I felt a little silly.
~ And the piece de resistance... Today I bought the New York City Ballet Workout, thinking that it would be fun and refreshing. I sort of danced in my youth. So I pulled out my 10 year old ballet slippers, put in the DVD, and began the most difficult work out I've come across so far. And it's deceivingly difficult. At the moment, it hurts to hold my arms up to type, and I only did about half of the port de bras movements. It wasn't cardio, it wasn't high impact. But it was HARD. I can remember the last time I've sweated so hard. Usually when I work out, I feel a little bit winded, but mostly invigorated from the endorphins and stuff. But now, 30 minutes after hell en pointe, I feel like crawling into bed and staying there forever.

Maybe I'll head back to my comfort zone, the treadmill, Steven Fry, Hugh Laurie, and old fashioned sit ups, and give ballet some distance for a few more weeks.

It's exhausting to even consider going downstairs for some water. I'm really going to feel this tomorrow.

~~ The Wig, in pain