Accept what ya get!

I just came home from a one week vacation on a cruise that went to four wonderful islands in the Caribbean (five if you include the home port of beautiful San Juan).

When we were considering which specific cruise to take we narrowed the list down to four options.  One wanted sunny warm weather and beaches.  The other wanted sightseeing in the Mediterranean (a sailing with a different amazing port every day).

In the end the sunny warm beaches won.  Had it not, we’d have been on the Costa ship that went down off the coast of Italy.

Its not just the big decisions that make a difference.

Theme

Since moving this blog over to my own domain, I’ve been using the default theme.  I plan to take some time soon (probably this week) to hunt down an appropriate theme, but I was wondering if anyone had a suggestion.  If so, feel free to leave it in Comments.  The theme should match (or reflect, or capture, or…) the content in some way.

Never bullshitta you mama

This comes to us courtesy of my mother (who is Jewish, not Italian, but close enough)

An Italian MaMa

Mrs. Ravioli comes to visit her son Anthony for dinner. He lives with a female roommate, Maria. During the course of the meal, his mother couldn’t help but notice how pretty Anthony’s roommate is.  Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between Anthony and his roommate than met the eye.

Reading his mom’s thoughts, Anthony volunteered, “I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Maria and I are just roommates.”

About a week later, Maria came to Anthony saying,

“Ever since your mother came to dinner, I’ve been unable to find the silver sugar bowl. You don’t suppose she took it, do you?”

“Well, I doubt it, but I’ll email her, just to be sure.

So he sat down and wrote an email:

Dear MaMa,
I’m not saying that you “did” take the sugar bowl from my house ; I’m not saying that you “did not” take it. But the fact remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner.
Your Loving Son Anthony

Several days later, Anthony received a response email from his MaMa which read:

Dear Son,
I’m not saying that you “do” sleep with Maria, and I’m not saying that you “do not” sleep with her. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her OWN bed, she would have found the sugar bowl by now.
Your Loving MaMa

Moral: Never Bulla Shita your MaMa

Welcome

Welcome to the new home of AJBlogsAt.  Formerly a WordPress.com site, I’ve acquire my own site and my own WP instances with it, so here we are.

I’ll post anything new here.  plus, I’ll be updating this site eventually.  The major thing I’ll be doing is finding a theme I like.  If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

God writes back

My Mom forwarded this to me by email today.  I don’t usually reforward things, although I did send this to a few of my closest friends who I thought would really appreciate it.  But I also wanted to post this here to share with you.  It truly moved me.

For all of you who have ever had a pet that died. . . .
Or a child with many questions. ..

We don’t know who replied, but there is a beautiful soul working in the dead letter office of the US postal service.

Our 14-year-old dog Abbey died last month. The day after she passed away my 4-year-old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought we could so, and she dictated these words:

Dear God,
Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick.

I hope you will play with her. She likes to swim and play with balls. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her you will know that she is my dog. I really miss her.
Love, Meredith

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it. Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet….. I told her that I thought He had.

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, ‘To Meredith’ in an unfamiliar hand. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, ‘When a Pet Dies.’ Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note:

Dear Meredith,
Abbey arrived safely in heaven. Having the picture was a big help and I recognized her right away.
Abbey isn’t sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don’t need our bodies in heaven, I don’t have any pockets to keep your picture in so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by.
Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much. By the way, I’m easy to find. I am wherever there is love.

Love, God

Big Fat Fanny was a pedophile

I’ve enjoyed the music of Queen since the early 80s.  When I was in my freshman year of college at Arizona State University I hung a poster in my window that came inside the album Jazz.

Given that the window into our dorm room was near a side entrance, our poster got a LOT of attention.  So much so that they asked me (told me, actually) to take it down.  I guess you can see why.

Anyway, I was on my way home from work tonight listening to the song Fat Bottomed Girls and I noticed something unusual about the lyrics.  Check these out

I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad,
But I knew life before I left my nursery,
Left alone with big fat Fanny,
She was such a naughty nanny!
Hey big woman you made a bad boy out of me!

So, lets deconstruct this just a bit.

Lad.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, lad means “a boy, youth: a young man”.  So, we know the protagonist is young.  And his claim was that he knew life BEFORE he left his nursery, so that means REALLY young.  Young enough to be left along with a nanny – or perhaps with some kind of emotional or physical problems that he needed to be with a nanny at an older age, but it doesn’t matter and I digress.

So this young boy – DEFINITELY under the age of consent, is left “alone” with “big fat fanny”.  Now, I get that that there was really no political correctness back then, so we’ll forgo the critique of calling Fanny fat.  Again, I digress.  Of course he should be left alone with her, that is the purpose of a nanny, right?   But we find out that she was not just a nanny but a NAUGHTY nanny.  And, she makes a “bad boy” out of our lad.

The only conclusion is that it doesn’t really matter if Fanny is fat or not, she is a pedophile.  So, here in this song, we are celebrating…in fact, nearly worshiping, a pedophile.

I’ll never be able to listen to this song the same way again.

 

 

May be time for a new car

As much as I hate to part with my 1997 VW Jetta, it is probably time for me to start thinking about replacing her.  I currently drive a manual transmission and would like to continue, so I used MyProductAdvisor.com (and AWESOME site, btw) to narrow my initial search list down to the following

  • Honda Accord and Civic
  • Hyundai Elantra, Accent, and Sonata
  • Toyato Camry and Corola
  • Kia Forte
  • Chevrolet Sonic
Looking for feedback on any of the above.  Prefer recent first-hand experience but would be grateful for non-recent first-hand experience or anecdotal experience.

Personality Test

I get a daily email from Very Short List.  Sometimes it junk, more often than not it’s of interest, and once in a while its great.  Actually, more than just once in a while.

Today they featured the Pierly?Redford personality test.  It’s a disassociative test, shapes and odd questions that seem to have nothing to do with the shapes.  When I got done with the 20 questions, this is what I got back as a profile:

Always happy in a crowd, you love to converse, to relate, and above all to have fun. You tend to think in a more holistic manner than many others. Like a crow you are attracted to shiny objects, new ideas, playful exciting colors and the thrill of a new personal relationship. You love to talk or gossip. You are highly invested in the reality of day-to-day life. Practicality is far more important than issues of honor or allegiance. You are a creature of the here and now. You are a natural multi-tasker, often switching mid-thought from one duty to another. You have a flair for presenting your personality in your work, and are known as a great storyteller and natural actor. You are very skilled at taking in a barrage of information and distilling what is most important from it. Naturally charming, you are quick to win new friends. Over stimulation is a danger.

For those of you who know me, I’ll let you be the judge.  Better yet, take the test yourself and let me know what you think.

http://bit.ly/glRsp3

Puns (thanks Mom!)

1. The fattest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian .

3. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.

6. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

7. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in  France  would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

8. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

9. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

10. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

11. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

12. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: ‘You stay here; I’ll go on a head.’

13. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

14. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’

15. The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

16. The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

17. A backward poet writes inverse.

18. In a democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes.

20. If you jumped off the bridge in  Paris , you’d be in Seine .

21. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, ‘I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.’

23. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.

24. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, ‘I’ve lost my electron.’ The other says ‘Are you sure?’ The first replies, ‘Yes, I’m positive.’

Mom’s Car

My mom’s lease is about to expire, in March, but she’s already gone over her mileage on the lease (due mostly from work).  She currently drives a Subaru Forester, which she likes, but she is also considering other AWD cars.  We know we don’t want 4WD, we definitely want AWD.  It makes her feel safer (and it is) and we don’t want her to have to engage it – it should be an all-the-time thing.

She is currently considering the Toyota Rav4 and the Kia Sportage.

Do you have any experience with any of these cars?  Do you know of other cars in the same price range (or close) that we should consider.  This is a decision that will probably be made in the next 24-48 hours, so feel free to post responses here or get back to me directly.