Hoop

I feel the need to hoop. But this winter weather is really keeping me down. I thought about clearing some space in the living room but if I take out the TV or Bridge Man's hand made book shelf I'll have some 'splainin to do. So I thought I'd share a hooping video with you guys thinking that it might inspire you to head to your local hardware store to pick up some PVC pipe and electrical tape. Enjoy.

Happy Life Day!!

I know I haven't been around much lately. There has been so much on my mind. It's hard to write coherently. But tomorrow is my mom's birthday and I feel the need to say a little something. I feel the need to recognize the day for what it is, not a celebration of birth but a celebration of life. I've been dreading this day for a couple of weeks now and can't even pretend to forget it. The words are written on my calendar in bright blue, permanent ink followed by two happy exclamation points that patronize me every time I pass by. But in the spirit of celebrating life, I will continue to put this on my calendar. It will no longer read "Mom's Birthday!!" but "Mom's Life Day!!" (Can't forget those exclamation points.)

For every birthday at my house when I was a kid, my mom always made a cake of our choice. For Bear it was always German chocolate cake and for me it was usually something with little bits of candy and strawberry frosting. Always strawberry frosting. And the pièce de résistance - the writing on the top. Oh, it never said anything overly creative but the penmanship was impeccable! I can never figure out how the woman did it. Every letter was in perfect proportion to the next. Every 'I' had a perfect little dot and every 'T' a perfect little cross. If you've ever tried to write on a cake you know what I'm talking about. You squeeze the frosting out of a flimsy little bag with a tiny plastic tip. One wrong move and suddenly your 'p' becomes a 'D' and you have to figure out how to salvage "HapDy Birthday." Sure you could add a simple line to the bottom of the 'D' but it's just not the same.

So, in closing, I would like to wish you all a happy life day! And if, in celebration of life day, you decide to make a cake I suggest using the pre-made letters. It's much less trouble, trust me.

Cinderelly Ramblings

In my family there are five of us chick-a-dees. Let me introduce you: I have referred to her as S in the past, but I find that solitary letters as names are hard to read and so I dub thee Bear. Bear is the oldest of the crew and can be described as boisterous and clumsy. Ironically those adjectives describe her precisely. She will tell you exactly what she’s thinking without a second thought and then she will fall down the stairs. Not joking.

Since I’m going in age order here the next sibling in line would be me. I won’t delve into a personal biography here seeing as you should already know about my neurosis from blogs past.

Next in line is the baby girl of the bunch. You may know her as A but I think that she too deserves a blog name: Smash. Most would say that Smash is the blond, Barbie-like version of me. She has the same fiery attitude and the same ability to cry at the drop of a pretty pink Treesje handbag.

Number four brings us to the first of the testosterone ridden members of this faction. His blog name is quite easy for me to come up with as no one ever calls him by his real name. You may know him as B, but from now on he shall be referred to as Bud. He’s the Einstein of the family. When he was in the 3rd grade he could recite every American president and vice president – in chronological order.

I know there are a lot of us but this I the last one, I promise.

He has been known as Z in previous posts but shall be now known as Maestro. This name is one that I gave him a long, long time ago. It is one that he has hated but that I have refused to let go of. Maestro it is. From the day he was born you could tell that he was going to be one mischievous little punk and that proved to be more than true. He has actually knocked his teeth back up into his gums, gotten his finger stuck in some type of metal device and had to have it sawed off (the device, not the finger), and has had a plethora of injuries from severe road rash to being knocked unconscious.

What’s the point to all of this? Well, not only is it to introduce you all to my crazy, wonderful siblings but also to bring you to my point; one of my favorite and least favorite childhood pastimes.

It was no secret in my family; we kids were of little use when it came to cleaning or picking up after ourselves. It was so well known that my grandma sent me a Valentine’s Day card and wrote on the inside: Happy Valentine’s Day Xteener. Do help your mama like you helped me when you were here. Then you might get off restriction. Wouldn’t that be nice? I don't even have to tell you how pathetic this is, but don't judge me people, I've since grown up.

There was no way my mom was going to let us off without chores of any kind. She would type up a monthly schedule of what chores were to be done each day and by whom. (Wash the dishes Cinderelly, clean the toilette Cinderelly.) And each Saturday was dubbed “extra-special-cleaning-day.” This meant that fan blades were dusted, knobs were sanitized, and floors were mopped. We were constantly cleaning. Strangely enough we kids never seemed to grasp the concept of picking up after ourselves, the place was always a mess, and the topic became a constant struggle within our household.

Here’s where all of my rambling comes together – sort of.

My mama was a clever woman. While all five of her messy children are polar opposites, there are two things that tie us together. Song and dance. My mom knew that if she wanted anything to get done she had to make it fun for us. She would put her Dolly Parton CD into the player and crank the volume. Not only was extra-special-cleaning-day productive but it was fun! (OK, I realize I sound like Monica Geller right now. Maybe you had to be there to experience the fun that is musical-cleaning.)

So in summary: chores, not my favorite. I’d rather do long division than fold laundry. Music and dance – I love! Combine the two, a tolerable and effective way to get me to do chore-type things.

I love that my family is so musical. We all inherited the music gene. This doesn’t mean that we all can sing like Pavarotti. Heck no. This just means that we have every lyric to every song ever made memorized and stored away for future use. During a regular-every-day conversation any one of us can pull out something that was said and make it into a song or find a song that has those exact (or similar) lyrics. Let me give you an example.

Bridge Man, I can’t get my car key out of the ignition.

Did you put it in park?

Oh. Ha ha. Makes sense. Thanks. You’re my hero.

And then I break into a rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings” that rivals the vocal talents of Bette Midler herself. I'm just cool like that. I’m in a family/memories/reminiscing type mood. So what are your favorite and least favorite childhood memories? Does your family have any traits that are uniquely your own?

Teeny Violins and a Theme

How did everyone like the first installment of Bridge Man’s ramblings? I asked him to write something because 1)his political rants rival those of Keith Olbermann and 2)I’m trying to avoid any more Debbie Downer type blogs. And so, for this reason, I will avoid telling you about how I got “let go” from my job at the ad agency. I won't talk about how freaking pathetic the job hunt has been going. I’ll refrain from mentioning the awfulness that was the entire month of November. And I refuse to complain about the fact that I can’t seem to sleep for more than three hours at a time. I just won't do it.

If you listen closely, you can hear a teeny, tiny violin in the background playing a sad, sad song just for me.

What have I been doing with all of my new found, jobless free time? Well, my short attention span leads me to abandon the monotony that is job hunting after a few short hours. But, let no one say that I’m sitting on my bootay, couch potato style.

This was Mohawk Day.

I promise, Bridge Man does not always look like that. I think some of the mousse and hair spray seeped into his head giving him a temporary Rob Zombie persona. (I was going to link a picture of Mr. Zombie here but, dang, he is seriously a scary looking fella. You may Google him if you choose but don't say I didn't warn you.)

This was Cigar Day.

This all started when J and I were watching an episode of Friends. You know, the one where Joey and Chandler want to be just like Richard so Chandler grows a moustache and Joey starts smoking cigars. I believe our conversation went something like this:

Mmmmm, cigars smells so good!

Oh, I know.

I wonder if they taste as good as they smell.

Where do you even buy cigars?

Anywhere. The gas station, the grocery store, the liquor store.

Let's go get some.

(Laughter followed by a long silence.)

Are you serious?

I'm betting you can guess where this is going. That's right ladies and gentlemen, at the age of 25, for the first time in my life, I smoked a cigar. And what did I learn? Cigars do NOT taste as good as they smell. Not even the flavored ones. We were (hacking and coughing) giggling so much it was ridiculous. We then made a mad dash to the bathroom to brush and gargle away the awful dirt taste the vanilla flavored stogies left behind.

(You'll have to pardon my awful hair, I thought I'd give it a break after the beating it took on Mohawk Day.)

The last theme day I have for your enjoyment was Cooking Day. Now when I say "cooking," this does not mean gourmet. Oh, no. This simply means that I cook actual food on that day. My recipe of choice, Black Bean Wraps.

They tasted like wonderful wrapped up beanie goodness. And they're healthy too. This was the final presentation:

Notice how there is nothing else on the plate? My menus rarely include side dishes. I always forget to plan that part of the meal. So I usually end up opening up some canned fruit and slopping it onto a plate. Bon appetite!

The plan is to continue to make up theme days to occupy my time. Who needs a job, health insurance, or a retirement plan anyway?

Why in the ...

Disclaimer: For the regular readers of Spotless Mind. The following blog is not from the mind of Xteener. It is from the mind of Bridge Man.

A few days ago I was asked to write a blog for Xteener. I agreed and said I would need to think of something good about which to blog. I guess today is the day and the subject.....politics. However, I almost chose not to write after reading the last few blogs by Xteener. Having been touched, affected, involved (I don't know the appropriate word to describe my place in such an event) by the "life changing event" of which Xteener wrote and obviously being emotionally affected, some political whining by me didn't seem to matter. But, I was wrong; it does matter; it doesn't compare in importance but it does matter.

In a few hours some citizens of Iowa will go to their designated polling place to caucus for the presidential candidate whom they think will best represent the Democratic Party in the run for President of the United States. I'm sure some of you who pay little or no attention to politics could care less about the first primary election or the second or third. I know, it's not very exciting and it's not even the big November election so who cares, right? You don't have to care or pay attention or even give it a second thought but it is fairly important.

Each state chooses when to hold its primary election and Iowa is always first so naturally the candidates spend a lot of time in Iowa prior to the primary elections. When was the last time a candidate visited Alaska or North Dakota? I don't know and you probably don't either because they don't go there because those states don't matter. By the time these primaries are held the candidates are pretty well chosen. If a candidate doesn't win the first 3 or 4 they have no momentum to win in the following states and they drop out. So, basically Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina decide the 2 choices we get (usually they both suck) when electing a president. Why in the F should the choices of Iowans have so much more weight than mine and yours? It shouldn't; not that those citizens are incompetent to make the choice but they don't deserve more influence. My point is this...every primary election in the country should be held on the same day similar to that of the general election. Write your Senators and Representatives; every state should be just as influential as the other.

I hope you enjoyed the blog. Tune in next time for another Xteener blog.
Thank you, Bridge Man.