Trash Cans, a NYC Cabbie, and Speaking English

Just a random thought... Have you ever noticed that once a trash can gets full, you can still put an amazing amount of trash in it before you actually have to empty it?

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In case you haven't seen it yet, you might want to check out New York Hack's blog. It was a featured Associated Press story a week or two ago (yes, I'm a bit slow to update) and has some pretty interesting takes on life as a NYC cabbie.

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Last weekend, Kenin and I were having our usual Saturday date at Wal-Mart (groceries, don't ya know?) and I swear we were the only people on three aisles that spoke English. Now, I know that America is the great melting pot, blah, blah, blah, but come on, folks! Learn to speak the freaking language already, will ya? Wouldn't you think that'd make your life easier if you could actually understand what people were saying to you? If I went to live in Germany, for instance, it'd be in my best interest to learn to speak German, wouldn't it? If I moved to Russia, or China, I'd need to learn a new alphabet and a new language. Don't tell me it can't be done, because I know it can. My oldest brother, Roy, speaks English and Spanish. My younger brother, Robert, speaks English and Russian and his wife, Guli, speaks four (Count 'em out loud now: Uzbek, Russian, Turkish, and English) different languages! And bless her heart, she even says y'all! Now, granted, I can barely speak English (although I'm well versed in Southern), but you don't see me immigrating to some other country now and needing an interpreter, now do you?

So anyway, Kenin and I decided that we want to have t-shirts printed up that have the word 'Pendejo' written in big, bold letters. Underneath it, in smaller letters, it will say 'I'm learning your language, so shouldn't you learn mine?' Anyone want to place an order?

PS - If you don't know what pendejo means, expand your horizons and look it up. Here's a hint - it's Spanish.

In Memory

This morning I had to have my cat, Shadow, put to sleep. Her kidneys were failing, she was going blind, could no longer clean herself, and threw up everyday. Shad was 15 years old, which is quite old for a cat, and was a huge part of my life. She was 6 weeks old when I got her and her sister, Patches, from my friend, Betty Jo. I'd only planned on getting one cat, but they were both so beautiful that I couldn't make up my mind and ended up getting them both. A couple of weeks after I got the girls, I found out I was pregnant with Ashlyn. Usually, at this point of the story, I say the moral is to find out if you might be pregnant before getting a new animal but I think for today, in honor of Shadow, there should be no moral, but instead this simple thought: Love deeply and wholly, because what you give, you will also get in return.

Ah, Finally!

Well, Saturday morning I got the bright idea to completely wipe my hard drive and start fresh. Happy as a clam that I was finally going to have a little extra space in which to play, I backed up all my music, zip files and other documents and then promptly plunged into despair when I realized that I cleared the hard drive without saving all my emails and email addresses. Luckily I have a fairly decent memory supplemented by a mom and mother-in-law who generously share all the family email addresses. I spent Sunday re-installing several gigs of Poser stuff, and now (I think) I'm done. All in all, I managed to give myself an extra 24 gigs of space, so I can't complain.

Now if I can just coerce myself into cleaning the house...

Football Bowl Games

Depending on how old you are, you might remember that years ago, there weren't a hundred different football bowl games. Back when I was younger and dinosaurs still roamed the earth, there were only four: the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the Cotton Bowl. Last year there were 28 different bowl games. 28!!! And, according to About.com, there are 30 games this year! What the hell is up with that? They range from the original bowl games to the Chik-fil-A Bowl to the GMAC Bowl to the Motor City Bowl. Apparently, anyone with a little extra cash on hand can have their very own personalized bowl game, so here's what I've decided to do... I'm going to start my very own bowl. It's going to be called the Huffstetler Toilet Bowl, and will feature the two worst college teams I can find. And, in the true spirit of competition, I'm going to change the rules in the last 5 minutes of the game and make it so that whoever has the least amount of points, wins. And why do I want to do this? Because I want my very own Toilet Bowl.

Kudos to Colleen!

Let me backtrack just a bit, and tell you about Christmas Eve.

Our incredibly generous apartment manager, Colleen, organized a Christmas Eve Open House for the residents of our complex. Now, Colleen doesn't do anything halfway, and the Open House was no exception. She began baking just after Thanksgiving, and continued until the day before the event... I know - I was there. There were cookies, bars and treats of every description. There were mini sandwiches, meat and cheese trays, mexican cheese dip, meatballs, little smokies and delicious punch, and everything was paid for out of her own pocket. She and I worked until after 10 pm on the 23rd trying to get everything set out and organized, and ended up being greatly rewarded by the appreciation of all the people who showed up. Kenin helped out a lot, too, and now has plenty of places to run off to if I ever lose my mind and kick him out. You should've seen all the little old ladies practically swooning over him!

Anyway, during all the preparation, I saw how exhausted poor Colleen was, and I asked her if it was worth all the trouble. She immediately answered that it was. She told me that so many of the residents, due to age or health problems, were unable to go anywhere for the holiday, or no longer even had any family left to go to, and this was her way of giving them Christmas and letting them know that they were still cared about. At that point, I couldn't quite understand how she could deprive herself from something so basic as sleep, just to do this for people who weren't her family. The next day, however, made me completely understand. The Open House was a huge success! Everyone was so greatful for it, and really seemed to have a good time. Newer residents met older ones, and the few children that were there were a big hit and adored by most everyone (my own little one drove me crazy, but that's another story LOL). The event itself only lasted for 3 hours, but the feeling of caring and giving that came along with it will last forever, and I feel so lucky to have been able to be a part of it.

Dreams

I have strange dreams. And I don't mean those dreams that disappear from your mind after you've been up for 20 seconds, either. I have dreams that stick with me for years!

I've dreamed that I poured concrete to make a motorcycle seat with Jon Bon Jovi, and dreamed I was a spy - a female James Bond if you will - swimming in a pool, trying to get away from the bad guys. One time my then-best friend, Betty Jo (yes, I know how southern that is) was a gang leaders girlfriend and he used her for bait so that he could find me and kill me. When things get rough, I have a recurring dream that I'm driving uphill (like San Francisco uphill) on the interstate, trying to get to my parents house, but there's all kinds of road construction, and eventually my car takes flight to get away from it all. I've dreamed that World War III takes place in Boston Harbor, but I lead my friends and family to safety in the mountains (and as far as I know, you can't see Boston Harbor from the mountains). I've been fought over by actors Don Johnson (ew) and Jared Padalecki (yum). Sometimes I'm flying over the beach in a plane, defending it from aliens. Before I met Kenin, I had a recurring dream that always ended with me being held closely by a big, strong man, and I always woke with an incredible feeling of safety. Strangely enough, or not strangely at all, since I met Kenin, I've never had that dream again. And last night I dreamed I was pregnant and in labor in a hospital emergency room on a gurney next to an old black man, who was also in labor.

Weird stuff, my dreams, weird stuff.

Crying

Do you cry? I cry. A lot. And it's not because I'm sad or depressed. I mean, I cry at commercials. Commercials, for God's sake! How crazy is that?! You know those Hallmark commercials? Those make me cry sometimes. But you know what really gets to me? OnStar commercials. You know, the ones where the person's been in a wreck and they call OnStar and then the OnStar rep calls 911. Don't ask me why, 'cause I don't know. I just know it happens. And movies... oh my. If I see a movie trailer that looks like it might be sad, I know that I'll have to wait until the movie comes out on netflix before I can watch it. I get a major case of Rudolph nose when I cry, so crying at the theater is a definite no-no for me. I still haven't watched the Passion of the Christ because I don't think there's enough kleenex in the world for me to see that movie. I can watch the last 10 minutes of a movie I've never seen before and cry, so you know I'm bawling at movies that are repeats for me. I won't have a clue what the movie's about, but if the last few minutes are sad, or even happy(!) then I'm done for. I think the movie that made me cry the most was The Notebook, which is probably the greatest love story ever written, as far as I'm concerned. If you haven't seen it, DO!

Real Life

Okay, here's proof that I really went to Denver to see the family.


Left to right, there's my Dad (This is the only picture I have of him smiling... ever.), my wonderful sister-in-law, Guli, me, my brother, Robert, and my son, Hunter. The cutie pie in the front is my daughter, Ashlyn. Thanks so much to Aunt Sally, who took the picture!






This is a picture that I took last night from my bedroom window. Yes, it's a bit distorted, by - you guessed it - snow! I came home early from Denver (Saturday vs. Sunday) so I could miss the nasty weather that was headed our way. We ended up getting a blizzard here in Iowa on Sunday, although only about 4 inches of snow fell. Then, yesterday, we got 4 more inches and it's supposed to snow more tomorrow, be cloudy on Saturday and then snow again Sunday and Monday. Ah, I love winter. (Okay, enough about the weather.)