May 28, 2010
a young peruvian street salesman approaches to hustle his wares…
“i am pablo picasso!” he shouts while whipping open a small folder of prints.
“no, no, gracias” i say with a shake of my head and a quicker step.
“and you are michelle obama” he offers never breaking stride.
did he just say??? i wonder and turn in his direction.
“…with too much money” he finishes before proceeding to flip through more prints.
really dude? was that your pitch? ha!
- just another stroll through tourist town
a.k.a. Cusco, Peru, S.A.
May 13, 2010
it’s been awhile since i’ve posted anything on this blog, huh? sorry about that :-( time really does fly when you’re having fun!
having relocated back to los angeles at the start of the year and spent most of my time settling into the good life, i seem to have neglected my little blog. leave it to sesame street to get me back in the game!
i’ll start by saying that i am absolutely loving LA! the beach, the sun, the bikes (with and without motors), the boats and the bottles of fantastic wine…well… they’re just some of my favorite things :-) i have not, unfortunately, been able to fully adopt the la la land eating habits.
while my health conscious socal friends are only looking for organic, locally grown fruits and veggies at the santa monica farmer’s market, i can typically be found making a beeline for the acadie stand to get nutella crepes with rich whipped creme or possibly creeping towards the cafe laurent booth for a chocolate almond croissant (which, by the way, are almost always sold out by the time i arrive… sniff).
i think i should feel badly about this, but i just know (FAR too well) that fat makes things taste good. we all know it! so, when you present me with the the choice between organic veggies and battered red-velvet pancakes with warm cream-cheese frosting, what do you expect me to do???
cookie monster, i feel you! if i asked for cookies, i want to see hot chocolate chip cookies being pulled from the oven and NOT bananas on the table. fruits and veggies are great and all, but “me want cookie!” means i’ll eat healthy tomorrow :-D
December 3, 2009
Wow! I really thought that I’d learned all that I was going to learn from Sesame Street but, go figure, I was wrong. In 7 short words a giant yellow muppet simultaneously summed me up and called me out without even knowing it (or caring I would guess). It was a disturbing revelation.
I recently read that children who receive praise for “intelligence rather than effort” have it backfire. They come to “see mistakes as signs of stupidity” instead of learning experiences. Yup, I can relate to that. I am pretty much petrified of screwing up or – as Big Bird so eloquently put it – to lay an egg. That said, I’ve been fortunate enough to do fairly well at some things without having to go out on a limb. I suppose that means I’ve been doing what you might call (and if you know me… don’t laugh), playing it safe.
None of this is to say that I haven’t tried things. New activities. New places. New challenges. I’m certainly no hermit. What I have rather consistently avoided; however, is really stepping out there… taking on mountains from which I could crash and burn. If you don’t try, then you can’t fail, right?
What? You don’t buy that? I guess I don’t really buy it either but, I had a good run with that little gem of faulty logic.
“What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”
I’m not sure, but I think I’d like to figure it out. When I do, I am going to try taking Big Bird’s advice. Why not charge in completely unafraid to lay an egg? I mean, Big Bird is supposed to be like 4, right? I’m already WAY behind!
November 13, 2009
Read in the SantaLand Diaries…
“A spotted child visited Santa, climbed up on his lap, and expressed a wish to recover from the chicken pox. Santa leapt up.”
It’s probably not so nice to laugh at someone else’s bad day, but I’ve gotta take my chuckles where I can get them :) Here comes the holiday season!
November 11, 2009
I must admit that I have not been a big fan of Twitter. Mostly it just bores me. Thanks to a friend’s clever blog; however, I stumbled upon shitmydadsays and got a great laugh off of some guy named Justin. These are a few of my favorites. Enjoy!
- “Jesus Christ, Just give the dog his f**king food. Why’s he gotta do a trick first? YOU don’t have to do shit before YOU eat.”
- “Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn’t invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that.”
- “I need to change clothes? Wow. That’s big talk coming from someone who looks like they robbed a Mervyn’s.”
- “Oh please, you practically invented lazy. People should have to call you and ask for the rights to lazy before they use it.”
- “The baby will talk when he talks, relax. It ain’t like he knows the cure for cancer and he just ain’t spitting it out.”
Ah, yes… nothing beats a good laugh on a dreary day!
November 9, 2009
So… patience is a virtue I was never given in large measure. I recognize the problem, but I have yet to figure out how to correct it. Attempts to just be more patient haven’t panned out at all. Instead, I’ve developed quite a knack for restlessness over the years.
Knowing this, I suppose my current state of mind is no surprise. Having set a few major goals, I am feeling unbelievably impatient about the speed with which they’re coming to fruition. Can we move this along, please?!!!
If he did this and she did that, just think of how much more could be done by now!
It is amazing the speed with which I can construct these alternate scenarios where people, events, time and circumstance could move or change MUCH faster than they do when left to their own devices. Unfortunately, I have no control over most (well… any) of these things and I’m relegated to the task of quieting my mind instead. This is no small undertaking.
When I saw this sign yesterday, I stopped to snap a picture of it thinking… “Wow, wouldn’t that be nice? Peace on earth. A cessation of the endless quarrels that plague the planet.” Aaaahhhh… lovely. Then reality pinced me and I realized that it was my own peace of mind that I was actually fantasizing about. An end to the maniacal restlessness in my own brain. A little peace and quiet at home. Gee, that seems a little selfish. Definitely not as noble as the first thought. But then again, why not? If peace can prevail in chaos in my head, then A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G is possible! And like the blog says… you’ve gotta start somewhere, right? :-)
November 8, 2009
While reading When You’re Engulfed in Flames today, David Sedaris surprised me with his description of crackers he’d been buying. “I can’t make out the list of ingredients, but they taste vaguely of penis.” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud!
November 2, 2009
i bought this card several years ago in a london airport terminal, but never gave it to its intended recipient. i guess i had second thoughts.
instead, i’ve held onto it through several moves and lots of changes. i couldn’t part with it. somehow i’m always sure that i’ll want it again one day.
the card resurfaced several months ago (as it’s done quite a few times since i bought it) while i was rifling through stored notebooks and papers packed away almost 2 years ago. despite the fact that i was searching for more important documents at the time, i tucked the card in a binder cover of things to take as if it too was something of importance.
recently, the card slipped out of the binder where it had been hidden and landed at my feet. i grinned and picked it up wondering how it got there. why do i still have this silly card? why on earth have i kept it?
today it occurred to me that maybe i’ve kept it because it’s silly… ridiculous really. fruits in love? it makes no sense. but last i checked, love never does. you simply have to step out there and look silly or feel foolish and just go for it!
wow… personal insight from a photo of someone playing with their food? you just never know :-) that said, i think i’ll continue to hold onto my card of the cute kissing strawberries because they never fail to remind me of passion, love, romance and how when you find them, you gotta go with it… no matter how silly you may look. :-*
September 26, 2009
so apparently, if i were a car, i would be a BMW (and a H-O-T one at that!) funny, i always thought i’d be a benz :-\ either way, i’m not complaining. instead, i’m dreaming of my own BMW GINA concept car complete with winking eyes and outstreched arms (sometimes mistaken for doors) that invite me to hop in and hit the road! yes, i approve… and oh how i love convertible cars! what now is taking them so long to deliver??? – i have noticed it’s absence both in my driveway and on the international auto show runway :-(
what was not lacking on the IAA auto show runway in frankfurt, germany were the many renditions of presumably “eco-friendly” electric and hybrid vehicles. audi, bmw, fiat… mercedes, lexus, volkswagen… nearly everyone has thrown their hat into the toyota prius ring. from disel engines to fully battery powered cars, every automaker has their own flavor of efficiency. ford (our own nearly bankrupt auto maker) even put in a plug for its battery-electric focus! everyone seems to be on board.
so, does that mean that we’ve all forgotten that american auto companies are the ones who killed the electric car once already? are we running in circles or have we actually learned something this time? no more crushed new cars and shredded ev1’s? have we finally come to recognize that we cannot sustain our current levels of resource consumption and waste or is this “green” surge just a novelty that will pass in time and bring us around full circle?
i would rather not think of our current situation in too jaded or cynical a light. i prefer to think more flexibly. perhaps the green machine has put automakers on a better path from which we all will benefit. i would like to believe that we are all moving toward a more conscious and sustainable way of life. lastly, (i’ll sheepishly admit) that i hope BMW installs an awesome electric engine in that flexible-lightweight-totally-adorable GINA and delivers it to my door asap! i really don’t want to have to commandeer the one in the BMW museum ;-) in case you haven’t see it before, check it out here. HOT!
September 20, 2009
“Keepin’ your head above water!
Making a wave when you can.
Temporary lay offs.
Good Times!
Easy credit reports.
Good Times!”
one month after my return from costa rica, i’m still singing our theme song :-) with an awesome travel buddy by my side, we took on the costa rica roads (devoid of much needed street signs), rappelled the falls, braved the rapids, surfed, hiked, ziplined, and breathed through regulators to get up close and personal with the caribbean sea. now that is my kind of a vacation!
of course we may have gotten a little closer to the action that we intended on occasion – like falling out of our raft in a class IV rapid (stupid dos montañas!) or letting the playa cocles rip tide take me and my longboard WAY too far out to sea – but we never got into any trouble that a few margaritas couldn’t cure.
thanks to our “stellar” spanish skills (illustrated stage right), adventurous spirits, love for the water, and a little old fashioned foolishness, jillian and i conquered the rio pacuare (dos montañas included), spotted the top of volcan arenal despite unforgiving cloud cover and earned 2 shiny new PADI certifications for open water and advanced open water scuba diving, respectively.
next time i hope to have an underwater camera and lights on hand to grab a shot of the adorable little octopus that made an appearance on my night dive or maybe some video equipment to capture the bioluminescent sparklies in the water! until then, our big, fat picasa album memories will satisfy me just fine :-)
P.S. thanks to jilli, “Suavemente” holds a very close second on the charts for costa rican vacation theme song.
