500 channels and nothing to watch
*grumble grumble*
Okay, so the Husband's always telling me to watch TV with him and all. So today I get myself a bowl of cereal, fresh milk, and seat on the sofa. He's watching Tennis. I am munching.
"So what's good on TV?" I ask.
"Nothing."
"Hmm... k." *munch munch munch* My cat Chiquita approaches with her big round eyes and smelling the air with her cute little nose and I offer her some cereal which she takes right away. "So... anything Else to watch?" I can handle a little tennis, but he had been watching it most of the time since he got home.
"Nope."
"Owww Come on! It's satellite. There's gotta be something to watch in all those kazillion channels!"
"All re-runs."
~_~ I keep munching. "The Sci-Fi channel?"
He simply scrunches up his nose. I don't think he really likes that channel... says that all they ever show is crappy second-rated movies. I don't see anything wrong with that. If those movies had a good budget they would actually be pretty cool.
I finished my cereal and he skips to NBC, I think... anyway, an Everybody Loves Raymond re-run is on. I start laughing my head off and he changes the channel. So I stop. Chiquita begins to walk away (no more cereal so I guess she no longer wants to be with me) and he reaches for her... I reach for the remote.
"Hey! No! I am watching the TV."
"I want to watch something else!"
"You can watch the TV any other time. This is the only time I get!"
~_~ Right... as if the cool shows are on during the morning. Oh yesh, I just DIE if I miss an episode of Jerry Springer or Judge Judy. Puuuuhlease! "Fine. Don't even ask me to come watch TV with you again." So I get up and go to the kitchen to leave my stuff and come to my computer.
Came out better because I got to talk to one of my college buddies. He was on AOL IM and we spent quite a few good minutes chatting. ^_^ We even got to make fun of another one of our buddies, Kanto. hehehe
Hugs Hugs for you Jarero! And yeah... hugs for you too Kanto. You know we luv ya.
Grandma came over
yey yey
My grandma on my mom's side came over from Mexico City to visit us. ^_^ And that's good because I had wanted to see her for a very long time. I should have called... but I haven't found a decent international long distance phone card that doesn't carry a kazillion minutes... yeah I know. Lot's of minutes is good, but then, the more minutes it has the more it costs, even if the minute comes out to be 1 cent and stuff. I want something small, like a 10 dollar card. ^_^ something I can use up in that one call, otherwise, I will never finish the card and the minutes will expire.
Okay, okay. Well she's here and I saw her yesterday Sunday. ^_^ Too bad my mom and my sister took her away to Laredo. They should be back by Tuesday. ^_^
On other things... I need playdoh!!!
I gotta start making little Halloween beads!
Female Pride
Interesting...
One of the neighbors is having a party... big party. Live band, loud speakers, the music is Tejano non-stop, which doesn't sound too bad, but... it is past 11:40pm. I thought that inside the city parties had to quiet down by 10:00 pm, especially since it's Wednesday and we all have to go to work tomorrow morning and kids have to get up early to go to school.
Oh wells. It's a first for the block so we can get over it.
And on to better news, the Olympics picked up for the Mexican viewers. Two silver medals on consecutive days. The first one came yesterday on the 400 meter dash by Ana Gabriela Guevara, the first athlete in Mexican history to ever make the podium in a speed test. The second silver medal came today by Belem Guerrero Mendez in the Cycling points race, also making history in this sport for our people.
Now some may say: "Only 2 medals? Our country has *enter a tremendously large number of medals here*." Yes, 2 silver medals and we are extremely happy and grateful to these 2 ladies for making it possible. Mexico is a 'Futbol' country... all the big bucks go to soccer: Men Soccer. Not even the girls' soccer is fully supported (so when they made it to quarter finals we were extremely satisfied as well... since after all, the men got eliminated in the first round). These ladies have sweated and cried in blood to get to where they are because in my country (and many of my friends that come from developing countries, aka 3rd World Countries, may know this as well) there simply isn't a good organization for athletes. Athletes don't get 'discovered' in high school or college. Heck, a runner, swimmer, players, etc can go and say "Hey, I'm good, look, I was rated number one in my school. Please sponsor me. Let me use facilities. Help me get equipment." and our athletic commission says "You good? Heh. Go to Europe and win some medals... prove to us you are really worthy and then maybe we'll give you something."
Riiiight. How is the athlete supposed to do this when he or she is poor. When the athlete lives off cooking tacos at a restaurant, or selling newspaper on the streets? So we have these extraordinary people working around the clock and training on their own whenever time allows with no professional couch by their side.
It's hard on our countries. Much applause for the ladies from Afghanistan. Did you know that their stadium was used for shootings and that they trained in between killings? That the soldiers (who always were looking over them with their rifles on hand) around them cursed at them while screaming, "If I were their brother I would kill them for doing such things." Kenya runners... my mother says they are such nice people. She has run side-by-side with them when they come to the marathons in our cities. She says that they always come wearing the same shirts, the same shorts... that the money they win from the competitions is the money they use to buy their plane tickets so that they may make it to another country and compete there again. These athletes all live day-by-day... the money goes from hand-to-mouth.
That is how the majority of the Mexican athletes are as well. Poor people with a great gift... a gift that goes unexploited because although they are good the monetary aid to help them become great is simply not always there.
Ana Guevara enjoying her 2nd place win after the 400 meter dash; Athens, Olympics 2004
Congratulations ladies. I cried while watching you while my chest filled with pride because 2 of our women took it onto themselves to prove to the Directors and committees that it could be done although everyone told you that you weren't worth the help.
Belem Guerrero showing off her Silver Medal; Athens, Olympics 2004
I am quite upset
I am so sick and tired of having to make changes to that stupid trade website. The thing is done. Finished. Damn it, why does this man have to change his mind so fucking often?
One week he wants it this way. The next week he wants it that way. Then he wants it back to an older format. Oh and now he just wants to scratch everything again, tweak it here, move these to over there, and put other new stuff that was never planned to be for this layout. And I have to make it fit. I just have to do it because 'things always change.'
He still doesn't realize how the stupid website was done. Everything is generated via code. Things follow a format and I have explained this time-after-time. I can't just go in there and 'erase' then take my pencil and draw it in. It fucking took me months to create his stupid code... over 4 fucking times because the guy just wouldn't make up his mind. And now I have to do it again?! Oh and he claims to really, really appreciate my work. I doubt it. There just simply is no respect for what I do. He thinks it's a matter of snapping my fingers and voila, the project modifies itself by pure magic. The hours of work are taken for granted. I will do it, because I am a damned professional, pero chingau...
I am so fed up.
I finished. I delivered. Damn it, just pay me and leave me alone.
Oooohhhh it sparkles!
Sparkle sandals by Sam & Libby
Awwwwwwwwww are these cute or what?!
Check out my new Sam & Libby thong flip flops. These are the Twinkle model. The upper is made of double leather-like strands on a smooth flat footbed made of jute. Strands are tied up (and accentuated) with cute little blue leather flowers covered in blue glitter. The sole is baby blue rubber.
Extremely cute and very casual. Excellent for jeans or high-water demin-like pants (or other pastel colors; they match with anything cutesy). These sandals scream “
I’m soooo sweet.”
Now usability… well, the walking ‘feels’ a little awkward. The jute is so smooth that you feel your foot slipping on the sandals, which in turn causes you to walk slowly and carefully, holding well to the sandals with the two toes hooked by the strands… of course, the pro of this is that you walk with a hippie-like carelessness that says “
I’m worry free. Flower Power lives on!” and that is neato. ^_~
So far on dry ground the sandal bottom grips well. I haven’t tried them on wet ground… nor would I want to, truthfully. I hate getting my toes wet, so it is likely that if it rains, I ain’t gonna wear sandals… especially not ones as cute as these – I wouldn’t want them to get ruined!
Me likes the Sparkly
A photograph has been accepted
I had not mentioned it before, but I am submitting some of my photographs to a stock photography group called Stock Xchng where many amateurs and professionals alike share their works for the enjoyment of visitors… and even offer the use of their works for free! Stock photography out there ranges from 50 to 500 dollars… Needless to say, many of my sites use works found here.
Well, I submitted a photograph a couple of weeks back and it was accepted. Yey! Took a while to get their response but it’s all right. The administrators are all professional photographers and judge the work meticulously. I hope to be submitting more work in the coming week. I’ve got a couple of red frogs that I am quite proud of.
Well here’s my work:
Fence Lock
^_^
Comment from Sister: ... you are sendig me pictures of a lock...
~_~
Niece's mom is here
My sister-in-law arrived to Brownsville on Friday at around 6:30pm. We ate at home and watched Independence Day, which they had not seen… Egad! I could not allow them to leave my house without viewing such a fantastic film - one of my very favorites.
Saturday we spent the entire day shopping, since she said that clothes and shoes were much more affordable here than they were in the New York/New Jersey area. Whoa did she buy stuff!!! Lots of stuff for her and for Basma. We had to give her a couple of our suitcases so that she could take everything back home.
Sunday we woke up early and Husband drove them to the airport. Their plane was to leave at 8:30 in the morning and make a stop in Houston. When they arrived over there, we learned that they were told no seats were available for them… WTF?! They HAD a ticket… so what was this ‘No Seats Available’ all about?! I am not really sure how that happened nor how they solved it. My husband was the one to talk to her only and he did not tell me much. Things were solved, luckily, but I am not sure if they had to wait for another plane. They arrived to New York at around 7 pm and then they made their way to their place by way of taxi.
Basma told her grandparents that she had had a nice time with us, which I am sure she meant. While we do not have many places to visit down here, I tried to keep her busy as much as possible. ^_^ I’ll be happy to have her over again on her next vacations. It is always nice to have a young one over and teach them stuff.
Movie, movie
Had lazy days Monday and Tuesday. We just stayed home and watched the cartoon marathons. Ed, Edd, and Eddy on Monday and Codename: Kids Next Door on Tuesday. Made a big lunch yesterday, chicken noodle soup, breaded fish fillets, tuna patties, and steamed vegetables. Came out pretty darned good. We played board games afterwards and then Hubby took us to the tennis courts at 8pm. ^_^ We played until 10pm and had tons of fun. I did at least. Man I suck at tennis! Hehehe.
Today I took Basma to the opening of The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. I thought there would not be a lot of people as kids are starting classes here and we went to the first show. How wrong I was. The theater was packed! Hehe. Well, the movie was funny enough, the sort of romantic cliché stuff that young girls like. The regular-girl turned princes is clueless about royal etiquette, embarrassing stuff happens, conniving dude wants to take the crown from her, she has to marry to keep the crown, gets engaged but finds out that she is in love with someone else but she’s already engaged, cute stuff happens, etc, etc. Difference in the movie, though… (spoiler) she does not leave the guy she’s supposed to marry to wed the one she truly loves. I am not going to say what Did happen, but you won’t be all too surprised if you do watch the movie. It was a cute movie.
We’ll see what we do today when hubby gets home. Maybe tennis again. ^_^
Sandy Weekend
Well, my mom woke us up early on Saturday (6 am). She and my dad wanted to run 10 kilometers so they stopped by to drop off their truck at my house and then they would run along the main road - Alton Glore is straight road, in pretty good conditions that happens to have a bike lane, so it is quite inviting for the athletes. One often sees groups of runners and cyclists along this road. She also told me that the library was going to show Peter Pan and pass out popcorn and refreshments for free. Woo hoo! I was there!
After we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant with my parents and then Hubby took us to the beach! My parents didn’t go because they were tired from the run.
All was pretty good. Very hot and sunny and I got this really neato tan! ^_^ My legs no longer blind people, woo hoo! Well, we made a sand castle, played a little soocer and rolled around in the shallow waters. I was the only one to go deep, since… well… I was the only one that knew how to swim. Heh! And my husband wants me to teach her to swim no matter what! He should let me teach him first.
Well, as it is with all kids. They are content while getting dirty… but as soon as the mud (or in this case the sand) starts to dry up, they are pretty unhappy. She was all serious and just wanted to get home and to get home and to get home. Oiiii. So as soon as we got to the parking lot of a souvenir shop I had to pour the gallon of drinking water that we had taken so that she could at least not feel the sand all over her legs. Then we bought her an icesicle and complaints ended. She was probably just hot. More comfortable now, we made our way home and we sent her straight to the shower.
We spent the afternoon watching Hindi movies.
Sunday we went to Toys-R-Us and bought several board games. I wanted to go to the tennis courts and play a while, but husband said it was very hot so that maybe we should postpone it for later. By the end of the day we were just playing at the house and they didn't really feel like going out. Hopefully I get to play tennis sometime this week. It'd be fun. We'll see when we get to go.
Vacations continued
Thursday we did crafts again. I taught her to make glue for paper mache and we started making our molds for the project. We decided on making picture frames that she will give to her mom and grandma.
Messy, messy project, so I had to cover up the table pretty well, but it was fun especially since she got to watch how I made the glue (not really glue, but perfect for paper) and then we gave volume to her heart-shaped frames.
We did not finish the frames that day, sine we needed to really let it dry. As it was, one of the frames arched a little. Oops. We did not press it correctly while doing it. Well it still looks nice.
I took her to the pool then. She did not want to go, and was scared of getting water in her ears, her eyes, her hair… etc, etc. But after an hour of playing around she didn’t want to get out anymore! Hehehe. But I forgot to take the sunscreen and I was seriously getting sunburned. My whole face burned and she told me I was red, so that’s when I decided it was time to go. We went to my mom’s afterwards because I had to pick up more paper for our frame project (she has tons of tissue paper of different colors) and plus I still did not have lunch at home and Basma was hungry. So mom gave us fruits and biscuits. ^_^ And colorful paper!
We finished the project on Friday and then went to the pool again. She was asking me if we could go to the pool since like 11 in the morning! Pool doesn’t open until 1pm so she had to wait.
Husband took us to Peter Piper’s and played games while eating cheese pizza. She gathered 175 tickets and exchanged them for 3 twirly, rainbow-colored pens… (a regular pen made of see0thru rainbow colored plastic). Then we went to the movies and watched
Around the World in 80 Days with Jackie Chan. Very funny movie. Watch it.
First days with my niece
Alright, few updates lately as you all can see. I have been busy, busy with my niece so for a few more days my Internet time will be minimal.
Last week we did quite a bit of stuff. Went to the Gladys Porter Zoo on Monday and I got quite a bit of nice pictures. Unfortunately I forgot to charge my camera’s battery so I was only able to get like 40 minutes worth of material (so about 20 pictures or so).
We had fun… even if most animals were not outside. It was very, very hot, (104 degress F) so the majority of the zoo pets were hiding in whatever shade they could find. Not even the monkeys were monkeying around! I did, however, see the Galapagos tortoises for the first time in all the times that I have gone to the zoo. ^_^ They were out!
Tuesday I woke her up early. We dropped off my husband at work and then made our way to the Library… which was closed at 8am. So we went back home and after breakfast I gave her a quick Arts and Crafts class. The result was a neato Hello Kitty door hanger thingamagiggy. It was fun, easy, affordable, and best of all: kept her busy.
After lunch we made our way to the
Brownsville Public Library again and checked out some books: Fiction for her and Non-Fiction for me. In the afternoon Husband and I tried to teach her to use the bicycle but she was afraid, so we rode the bike instead and she just ran behind us. *shrugs* It happens. I guess she needs to get taller, you know, so that she will stop being afraid of falling down.
Wednesday we didn’t get to do as much. My suv was leaking oil so I decided to get it checked. I did not want to have some sort of accident with my niece around, so better safe than sorry! We were at the dealer’s for half a day… ~_~ So basically we were out of the house since 7:30am until 2:00pm. We just got home and had lunch! Then we watched
Finding Nemo which luckily came on the mail that same day. ^_^ I got it off ebay for 6.45!!! The 2-CD special edition – hehehe me likes
ebay.
After picking up my husband we rode around town looking for the public pool from the Boys and Girls club of Brownsville and found the place to be pretty nice. There are many soccer, and basket ball courts, as well as nice areas for picnics. The pool is of average length, not for laps, but excellent for children. At night Husband took us to the movies and we watched
Mean Girls. Ehhh it was so-so, but Basma liked it.
Hubby and niece have arrived.
Alrighty. I got a call from Hubby at around 7am and he let me know that their plane back had been delayed due to bad weather conditions. Originally Hubby and Bashma were supposed to leave the Philadelphia airport at around 8 something but all flights were delayed by 2 ½ hours, approximately. Uff.
So the plan to pick them up by 1 at the Harlingen airport was off. I would wait until they called me from Houston so that I would leave to pick them up. At around 2pm my husband called and said that they had just arrived to Houston and that they would arrive in Brownsville, not Harlingen. Since their first plane was delayed so much, they missed their connection flight in Houston and they were given another plane, which luckily made its flight all the way to Brownsville. All good for me! Harlingen is another city about 40-some minutes away, and we live in Brownsville so that would work nice. He told me that they were scheduled to arrive at around 3:45pm, so I left home close to 3pm.
At that airport I found out that the flight from Houston-Brownsville had been delayed as well and was running about 25 minutes late. Okay, no problem… everybody was waiting and waiting. Finally it arrived at 4:10pm.
My niece stretched up so much! She’s about a foot taller… and she’s not 10 or 11. She is actually 9! Ooops. Heheh. I received her with a small baggie with a teddy bear and drawing utensils: sketch pad, markers, color pencils, Disney No. 2 pencils, Disney blue and black ink pens, rulers, glue, and Barbie and Hello Kitty stickers. All materials swiped from mom’s home. Heheheh. She’s got her garage full of notebooks, pens, pencils, markers, PRISMACOLOR pencils (wow… I was like… WOW… each set is worth so much and she has like boxes full).
Well, next we go to pick up the luggage… the belt goes and goes… and goes and goes… and goes and goes… but no luggage. Seems that in the change and re-change of flights, the luggage were sent somewhere else. Hubby’s got all his stuff at home… but Bashma was only wearing what she had on. Ehhh.
Oh wells. We went home, ate some byrianni that Hubby’s mom made (nicely packaged in topper ware, which husband carried with him in the plane). Then my husband had to take a nap while Bashma and I watched cartoons. We have the same taste in shows. ^_^ So after my parents came over (they came from Laredo and before going to their house they stopped at ours to say hi to Bashma), gave me some pillows and cases for Bashma and then headed to their home. Zulfiker, Bashma and I went shopping for some pajamas and a change of clothes for her, while we got her luggage back.
A couple of hours later we received a call that the airport had located the bags and they would be delivering them to us at around 11pm.
ANNNDDDDD the people from the airport just knocked on the door… it’s 12:21am… Well, better late (or early!) than never!
I’m out.
