My Daughter's First

The other day I got a text from my 12 year old daughter while she was a school. She text that someone had asked her to the movies and put "aww isn’t that cute?" At first I was tickled, finally someone notices her! Tweeners are in that stage where they want to be noticed, they want to be liked. It’s the building of self confidence stage. I consider my daughter like any other 12 year old with a few exceptions. She doesn’t like clothes that much ( I’m not a girlie girl she whines!). Although I did take her shopping and bought her about $100.00 worth of new clothes last week, and she said that it was sort of fun and now she knows why girls like to shop. I could tell she was excited to wear her new outfits to school, carefully picking the outfits the night before. But I consider her typical in every other way. She likes computer games, electronics of every kind and is more techno savvy than I am. She’s picky about her food, kinda sassy in the mouth and is a know it all. But when it comes to boys and crushes, she says no one is interested in her (and with some sadness almost bordering on why do I have to be Asian thing), I know what she means and I know how she feels. I told her that I really didn’t have any boy interested in me when I was in 7th grade, (didn’t tell her how boy crazy I was!) until high school and my first crush. So when she text me that a boy asked her out, I was tickled and then nervous. Is he cute I replied? She text back, mom, it’s not how they look its how they treat you and besides he’s a nerd which means he’s smart, so can I go? How’s a mother to say no to that? I text back, we’ll talk. She takes this as a yes, he wants to go on Friday. I get home, hopefully her dad won’t be ranting about this too much, he’s like, what? Is he going to pick you up in his car? I say no on his bike? Seriously tho, I tell her she won’t be dating until she’s well into her twenties with me as a chaperone sitting one row back in the movies trying to keep them 12 inches apart, pass the popcorn please! So she tells him, we can date in school (whatever that means?). She says it was to be nice, because she really doesn't like him. I tell her, no matter if someone asks you out or is interested, you have to learn to say no thank you. Be honest and be kind, but no thank you. She's says yeah, you're right because I'm so confused (and flattered). I'm like see someone did notice you, to which she sheepishly grins yeah!

Let's Make a Deal-Tax Time

For those that have followed our Let's Make a Deal adventure, you by now know that I did receive my prizes, albeit, a whole year later, to which some disgruntled reader commented, "quit your whining!" Ok, I won stuff, you don't have to be a sore loser or have prize envy. Now for that looming question on everyone's mind, will I have to pay taxes on the whole thing? Well this mystery has been solved today. When I got home, I was not only greeted with the smell of ham cooking in the oven, dogs barking and begging, but mail. There it was in an over sized envelope, 3 Door Productions on the return address and a 1099 stuffed inside, claiming my winnings of $1548 and no they did not take the depreciation of giving me a used TV, which by the way, I had to have fixed less than a year later because the power panel inside went out costing my "free" TV and whopping $150.00 to fix. "Better to fix it" the TV repairman says in a Spanish accent. Well, yeah, but it shouldn't break down after less than a year. Thank god for the TV repairman.

So there you have it, if you win, you have to pay taxes like it was income you made. That's the price of 15 minutes of fame and prizes. Would I do it again, heck ya.

Direct TV

Sorry I haven't been posting lately, but I just got Direct TV, love it! We live in Las Vegas and the local cable company is COX. COX has been ok, not much choice in TV viewing, in fact it rather sucked, but what was the choice 5 Network channels? So we suffered as year by year they got rid of my favorite channels. One year COX got rid of Oxygen. Ok, I could live with that although I wasn't happy. The following year they got rid of TV Guide. Getting rid of TV Guide, I was outraged! How was one supposed to know what was on the tube? Sure I could buy the Sunday paper or check the Internet, but that is inconvenient. I was angry, but begrudgingly had to live with it. Or did I? Recently COX decided to pull the plug on Hallmark. That was the last straw! What no Little House on the Prairie, no Sarah Plain and Tall, no Skylark, no Hallmark movies, no corny Christmas movies with Steve Guttenberg? That was the last straw! That weekend, we decided to make the switch. It was hard, I didn't know who to go with, Dish or Direct? I knew some people had Direct, we had it at work, so I started looking online. I decided on Direct thinking mistakenly that they don't have to drill a big dishy contraption thingy on my house, WRONG! My girlfriend said the day before, "uh, ya they do, how else are they supposed to satellite the channels to you, dud!" So I was wrong. Came home that day and it wasn't so bad, the dish being on the side of the house. Bottom line, 250 something channels and loving it! And 3 months of free movie channels so we have something like 300+ channels. And the DVR-so easy! Now I'll never have an excuse to miss my reality shows! And I'm loving my 9 favorite channels listing! In the end, I'll be paying around $15.00 more a month (with all kinds of online rebates which will lower your payments for the first 13 months), but it will be worth it. I have my Oxygen, TV Guide, Hallmark and OWN! One catch however, we have 3 TV's. I got 3 receivers with one being HD DVR. When I realized the lease price was the same on all three, I called Direct and asked them how could I get the non-dvr hd receivers to HD DVR's for the other TV's, they said that I could either pay full price for the DVR, a whopping $500.00, or pay an up front lease price of $200.00+, OUCH! Oh well, at least I have the HD one on my set. My daughter and husband will have to make do, although my daughter said, that HD looks so much better! My TV!

Well, I gotta go, I have some channel surfing to do!

Snow in Las Vegas

Christmas Lights-Which One Are You?

Every since I can remember, I have always liked the white twinkling Christmas lights. Maybe because I grew up on fake trees and colored lights. In Hawaii, it was the silver aluminum Christmas tree with red balls without lights, maybe because the silver was bright enough for my mother in her very plain French way. In California it was always the fake green tree. I used to whine, why can't we get a real tree? to my mother, who would always reply, because I'm allergic, which I'm sure she made that up, not liking to deal with the falling needles and smell. So it was the fake green, with red balls and colored lights. I can remember eating breakfast before school and looking at the tree and it always gave me a feeling, to quote a song, comfort and joy. When I moved out, it was always always, real pine trees, methodically picked and fussed over on the Christmas tree lot. And it always had to be white lights. Real trees and white lights. It wasn't until last year I decided to try the colored lights on the tree and you know what, I liked them. The lights on the house were white and this year, I decided to put up colored lights as well. Of course one should always have a plan when decorating the house with lights, but I kinda just took strands strung them up and plugged them in. Never mind that half the front shrubs had white lights with the last shrub having colored, never mind that the lights leading from the shrub were colored which lead to the icicle lights over the entrance were white which lead to the tree that had white lights which lead to the strand over the garage which were colored. When I plugged in everything, it looked like someone threw a bag of lights over our house and the different colored lights landed where they may. I kept thinking it needed more lights so I made a late night CVS run and bought a stand of colored lights, but only to plug them in, when the entire connection went out. Thankfully, I found which strand it was and had to remove it from the bottom of the tree. I decided there and then, no more fooling around with the lights, because something else will go out. I've come to the conclusion, it's a conspiracy with the Christmas light companies you know. They make the Christmas lights every year in different bulb sizes so you can't interchange the bulbs from one strand to another, let alone trying to find the one bulb that is burnt out. It's just easier to buy a new box. I know the house looks kind of pathetic, but at least it's festive unlike the non-lighted homes on the block. Hopefully next year, it will either be all white or all colored lights, meanwhile, now I have to decide, to tinsel or not to tinsel! So many decisions!

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The author Stieg Larsson is Swedish born, which explains a lot of the way he writes. First of all the names in the book were distracting. The main character Mikel Blomkvist which I supposed resembles Larsson himself, name needs to be changed to Michael Bloomquist. All during the book, I just kept reading him as Michael and will do so here. The first 100 pages were somewhat a yawner. Come on now, when are we going to get to the goods? I knew it was some kind of murder mystery, but the mystery doesn't appear on the scene until we have to learn all about Bloomquist financial down fall from his magazine empire, which has little bearing on the story itself. Michael is called to investigate the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, the young heiress to one of Sweden's wealthiest families. The octogenarian uncle persuades Michael to live on the island for a year to investigate the mystery. It is here that the book starts becoming interesting, finally! Michael enlist the help of a tattoo genius hacker, Lisbeth whose own personal life is in shambles. The two team up to cipher clues to the mystery and uncover something much more sinister and evil. A good bedtime read and will probably make a great movie along the likes of Silence of the Lambs. I think I'll wait for the dvd release, I want to sleep at night.

Who Knew Porcupines Could Be So Cute?

Meandering Thoughts on DWTS

I can remember when Dancing with the Stars used to be a showcase for D listers. Those quasi-celebrities vying for a come back, in fact I can't even recall past winners, which is probably a good thing, who needs to have that information stored in one's head? I did start to watch regularly when Donny and Marie Osmond started making it respectable. I loved their wholesomeness but I'm biased since my 7th grade gal pal was in love with Donny and I loved it when Marie fainted. Come on, how many times do we get to see someone faint? But who are all those athletes? Sure Apollo Ono, what a cutie, even if is as tall as the Travelocity Gnome. Or Evan Lyschek, I simply adore ice skating, sequins and all, but come, big burly line backers doing the fox trot?

So as a there's nothing else to watch watcher, I will have to put in my two cents regarding this seasons contestants. I loved Brandy, she definitely knew how to move, much to the criticism of the judges, I thought she was good enough to win and well, Maxim as a partner, yum! Jennifer Grey winner of last nights finale, the girl has been through some physical challenges, but do we have to hear it every episode? If you enter a dancing contest where you are required to move it and shake it, then you better be physically fit or bow out. Enough already with the neck, the back and the Patrick Swazye. Out of the three left standing, she was clearly the winner. I just thought it would have been nice if she did do a tribute to Dirty Dancing after all isn't that what's she's known for?

I thought Kyle Massey was cute in a chubby sort of way and he sure can hip hop. I'm just wondering why he didn't drop any pounds?

And now for Bristol Palin. The girl can't dance. She dances like a white girl, all wooden and stiff. Sure she improved 100% from when she started, so snaps for that, but all that tea party voting just because her mom is Sarah Palin. Well, to me that stinks of voter fraud and I'm sure tea partiers wouldn't stand for it if Democrats stuffed the ballot boxes with 80 votes each. No matter how many lessons from Arthur Murray, the girl will never be a great dancer and maybe DWTS knew better than give her the mirror ball trophy!

Immortalized on the web-they used to have the 3:14 minute video of me on LMAD, but I guess CBS takes them off after they have aired-poo! At least I have a real picture of myself and Wayne Brady together!

The Last Child

The Last Child
By John Hart

This is definitely a book I would take to the beach and if not beach time, then read it while riding the bus, on a train, on a plane, on vacation, but don’t read it before you go to bed, because you might not get to sleep! The last few chapters had me sitting on the edge of my seat, I couldn’t put it down. I was out of town for work and the minute my meeting was over, I would rush up to my hotel room, order room service and settle in with book in hand and food in mouth.

The story centers around Johnny, whose twin sister is kidnapped a year earlier and his desperate search for her. All of twelve, his search is methodical, exhausting, bordering on calling the magical forces whose belief in talismans and totems serve to sustain him in what would otherwise be a hopeless, futile search for any adult. But Johnny believes. truely believes, irregardless that his mother can’t cope with the loss of her daughter and the desertion of her husband, and gets through each day in a fog of pills, tangled in an abusive relationship with the town’s most powerful man. There’s the detective whose inability to solve the case and his obsessions with Johnny’s mother haunts all corners of his professional and personal life.

A tightly woven story which keeps you biting your nails, hoping against hope that somewhere out there Johnny will find out what happened to his sister, his mother will come to grips with her grief and the detective will be able to mark the case closed.