If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Something I am learning about my annual goals process is that they are a lot more fluid than I thought. Life changes so much in a year that those things you set to accomplish for the year can cease to have meaning just a few months later and new goals take their place.

A case in point. For 2007, one of my goals was to update my wardrobe. Although I did buy a new pair of pants, not much was done toward this goal until this month. Since I moved back to Phoenix, I could, again, take advantage of the 50% off everything sale and buy some new cloths for cheap. Of course, this wouldn’t have been much of an issue if I hadn’t gotten laid off in April and injured in May, making my job search a bit difficult.
GOAL GRADE: C+

Read more »

Last night I caught up on some old The Simpsons episodes recorded by our Tivo. One of them was “Rosebud” where Mr. Burns longs for his childhood teddy bear, Bobo. It made me think of something that happened during our recent move out to Phoenix, Az.

The day the movers drove our stuff from California to Arizona it poured rain — the entire day for the entire drive. Unknown to the driver, the moving truck had a leak and a lot of our boxes got wet. We keep original boxes when we can, so our electronic and kitchen appliances were saved by the foam they were packed in. However, I kept a plastic bin with all my precious items in it
Read more »

This thought ran across my mind the other day as I was walking the dog. I currently live in a neighborhood with a high percentage of Mexicans and they love to have family parties with the music blaring and the bounce tent set up in the front yard for the kids.

This weekend was no exception. As Sprocket and I approached the party’s location, I could hear the familiar oom pa pa oom pa pa rhythm of the Mexican music. And it struck me, if it weren’t for the song being sung in Spanish, this music could easily be heard at a German pub!

Isn’t it amazing how two cultures so different in flavor and so geographically separated evolved music that is almost the same? I wonder what the history on that is. Is is something like cardamom, which is used in both Indian and Swedish cooking because they used to trade with each other?

I don’t know. If you do, please post a comment. I’d love to read about it!

On Friday’s I go to see the acupuncturist. He’s been helping me, in conjunction with the chiropractor, heal from sciatica. This past Friday, he was removing the needles when my shoulder started tickling. So I rubbed it with my hand and felt something dripping.

“Something’s dripping?” I said.

“Oh. It’s just blood. Let me wipe that off for you,” he said.

I looked at my hand, and sure enough my finger was covered in blood. How weird.

As he wiped my shoulder with alcohol, he said, “It looks like I gave you a bruise. It’ll go away in a couple of days.”

Sure enough, I felt a small lump in my shoulder and it started aching like I had had a tetanus shot.

When I got up Saturday morning, I found that not only had the bruise grown — it spelled out a word:

Can you see it? It says, “Yo”. Which I think is a hoot!

Yo! I guess I’m hipper than I thought.

Probably not.

My mother, a very talented artist whose work I’ve watched evolve since my earliest memories of falling asleep on the floor of her art studio when we lived in Kenya, is having her first professional art show. If you’re going to be in the area, please do stop by and say “Hi!” And tell her that her loving daughter sent you.