A Child Shall Show Them

Last weekend my buddy's family put up their Christmas decorations. Since I had eaten lunch at their home, I was asked to help put them up. Can I just say that putting on the lights seems like such a horrific undertaking, thank goodness his wife took it upon herself to do it. I watched as she tangled, untangled and strategically placed the lights on the tree limbs so that their best shine was going to show.

And then the worst thing happened!! As soon as she was close to the bottom of the tree, we plugged in the lights just for good measure and realized that some of the lights in the middle weren't working. At that point, she dropped everything she was holding and decided to cool off. There was a bit of frustration and a little bit of blaming.

Playing near some of the boxes of ornaments was their young son. He had set up some of the elf figurines, Santa and Mrs. Clause dolls into a miniature North Pole. Oblivious to some of the griping and stress, he held the Santa and made it kiss Mrs. Clause. I heard him say in his best Santa imitation "It's Christmas so we have to be nice to everyone and everyone has to be nice to everyone else".

I realized that this decorating event was suppose to be fun and not stressful. We should have learned the rules of playing together that day from their 8 year old son.

Midnight Shopping

I volunteered to go with one of my friend's family to do some midnight shopping after Thanksgiving dinner. There was suppose to be some great sales, amazing sales, sales breaking records. We left for the mall about an hour early. I thought that we'd be the only ones waiting at the doors. I was wrong. As soon as we neared the exit, traffic started to slow down. Ahead of us, I saw a stream of red lights on our side of the exit and white lights on the opposite sides. People were already lined up.

We found a parking space pretty quickly. My friend was smart enough to try the back parking lot first. Everyone else was still hoping to find that one lone spot at the front of the mall. Why is it that people seem to think that there will be one space left? Me? I don't really care where I park. I'd rather just park towards the back and walk, rather than circle, hover and hope that someone will pull out somewhere in the front.

So I get to a store that I want to go in--and the lines to the door is long. Not only is it long, but they have organized the eager shoppers into rows of four. I'm not that needy. I can wait and really, I don't mind if I don't have it here and now. It is something that I want, but I don't feel like fighting a crowd or standing motionless to get it.

What surprised me what the number of families who brought their toddlers with them to this fiasco. These half asleep, somewhat cranky cherubs were shushed when they voiced their distraught from sitting in a stroller at 1 a.m. Some were wired from the cookies and lollipops shoved their way in order to pacify them--and wide eyed they stared at the grown-ups riffling through racks of clothes, which were now in disarray because of others who had already pilfered through them.

Never again. I'll just wait till it all quiets down again to buy the stuff I want. As for Christmas shopping, I can go when I have some time off...Christmas is still more than a month away. Today, I'm still in a haze from extremely early this morning. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving!

Emotional Diseases

Why would you put the name of a disease in the title of a love story? I don't get it, but it caught my attention. I had to look twice to make sure that I had gotten the title correct. Matter of fact, I was reading about gastro-intestinal diseases when I first saw the commercial and maybe that's why the commercial stuck in my head. I had also thought I misheard the title because I was studying the very topic. But when I searched the internet, there it was, I had not misheard afterall.

I'm not going to say the title, I'm sure most of you have heard it. I just don't want people to accidentally find this blog because I mentioned the movie. I kept trying to figure out why cholera and love would be in the same sentence. And then I thought, maybe it's because love makes your stomach churn and feel funny, the way a diarrheal disease might. Could that be the reason? Or maybe because when love ends, you feel like all your insides have been pulled through your bung-hole. And it's that expulsion that you want to flush down the toilet. Maybe that's the reason.

I applaud the person who came up with this title because people like me will be talking about it, therefore giving it some attention. However, the curiosity doesn't hold me enough to go and see the film, not even when it ends up on TBS or cable somewhere. Still though, it was enough for me to write three small paragraphs about.

I Tagged Myself

Lee Ann from Castle of Nannbugg did a meme which I found interesting. Being the lazy blogger that I am, or because my life is so boring that I have to rely on doing a meme every now and then to have a post, I'm going to do her meme.

5 Items

Five Items In My Fridge
1. Fat Free Italian Dressing
2. Bacon Bits (negates the fat free of the dressing)
3. Mustard
4. Oven Baked Turkey slices
5. Water

Five Items In My Closet
1. Shirts
2. Jackets
3. Blazers
4. Dress pants
5. Shoes

Five Items in My Car
1. Sunglasses
2. A Rosary hanging from the rear view mirror
3. The registration
4. A sweat towel for the gym (I should wash this shouldn't I?)
5. An unopened Atlas

Five Items in My Messenger Bag (Lee Ann said purse, but I don't have a purse)
1. Work-out gloves
2. Gum
3. Pens
4. Post Its
5. A Notebook

Five Items on My Nightstand
1. the book Pathophysiology for the Boards and Wards
2. the book A Life in Medicine
3. Seasons 1-4 of Scrubs, Seasons 1-10 Friends, Seasons 1-5 Will and Grace
4. A picture of my friends
5. A box of notecards

So you see, even in the meme, I'm boring.

Mind Playing Tricks

Why is it that I can normally sleep with the lights off until someone tells me a scary story? Seeing a scary movie on television doesn't usually bother me because I know it's fiction and I'm usually fascinated by the fact that many of these horror movie actors/actresses don't usually move beyond the B movie realm (I'm saying most because back in the day, many A list actors and actresses didn't do movies like that---the one famous person I know to survive those types of movies is Jamie Lee Curtis). Anyway, I digress.

The other night I was talking to a buddy of mine who for some reason started to talk about ghosts and whether or not he believed in them. I told him about a time during medical school when I was studying in an empty, but well lit area of the school that I could have sworn I saw something moving in the shadows. But what freaked me out was the fact that I looked over to a classmate studying in the same area and she must have seen what I thought to have seen. She had a frightened look on her face.I later found out that that the old morgue was in that section of the school. Or so someone said (I'm more apt to believe someone said it because of my classmates and my claims of seeing this figure). Anyway, I'm making a short story long.

I don't really see shadows or hear funny sounds unless I talk about this stuff. And that night i could hear the wind blow through the garden and against the house.

So after my buddy and I talked, I closed the blinds of my bedroom, the door from my bedroom to the bathroom, the main door of my bedroom and turned on the night light. I also turned off the television (which throws eerie lights off at night when you are spooked). I'm still a big fraidy cat.

I See The Light

I spent the night with the family of my best friend on Friday. His son Josh turned 8 on Saturday and part of his birthday celebration was to get up early and play baseball at a nearby park.

At about 5:30 a.m., I felt someone shake my bed and then I heard my buddy's son say "Umm Uncle Angel is it Saturday yet". With a grumble I looked toward the digital clock on the dresser in their guest room. It registered 5:30 a.m.

I told him that it was indeed Saturday, but it was still really early in the morning. I explained that no one would be up yet and maybe he should just go back to his room and sleep until he heard everyone gathering in the kitchen. He didn't go back to room, but sat on the end of my bed and said that he would wait. Extremely sleepy, I fell back asleep.

My bed started shaking again and when I moved, Josh asked "Is it morning yet"? I looked at the digital clock which registered 5:40 a.m.

I got up, took Josh by the hand and said "Let's look outside and if the sun is up, then maybe we'll go around and wake everyone up".

We went to the front door and opened it. We stood looking at the dark blue sky speckled with a few stars and the darkness which enveloped the neighborhood.

I asked Josh, if it looked like morning.

He whispered "There Uncle Angel, I think I see it...see over there?". He was pointing to the distance beginnings of a sunrise. "There, it's morning over there".

He let go of my hand and quickly ran to his parents room. I heard him excitedly saying "It's my birthday, it's my birthday. It's already morning".

I wonder where the excitement for birthday celebrations or even for morning have gone.

Happy Birthday kiddo!! Playing baseball in park with you and your enthusiasm made my weekend!!

You Really Want To See This....

What is the fascination with the celebrity sex tapes? I mean really...are they all that upset? Most of them had to know that these tapes would probably end up in someone's hands or on the internet at some juncture after taping. And why are they taping them anyway, knowing that they could be used as blackmail or a money making venture sometime later.

So some of the latest "victims" of this is that Long Island chick that most people have forgotten about. I don't even really remember her name, but I do know that several made for television movies have been made about the tragedy that is her life--and I don't know why I even know that.

Is there something exhilarating about making a sex tape? Personally I think it would be awkward to watch myself go at it. I don't even know what my orgasm face looks like and I really don't want to know.

And for the most part, people who are interested don't really have to buy them right? There are clips of most of these on the internet anyway.

Have a good weekend folks!