Mid Autumn Moon Festival Dinner

This evening we had our big dinner at Miss Yip's Chinese Restaurant on Lincoln Road mall in Miami Beach...South Beach, to be exact. Here's T hamming it up with Lori, who is one of the officers in the FCC group. They had loot bags for all the kids and we ate a delicious authentic chinese meal. Our friends Aunt Jodi and Uncle Jack, along with Jodi's brother Mickey were able to join us for the festivities.

T dug into her rice, and actually managed better than mom to get some food into her mouth using chopsticks.
After dinner, we strolled down the outdoor mall to the beach. We all had white balloons, signifying the moon, and we attached little notes to them. I told T that when we let them go, the note would go to China, and she was so excited about that thought. She drew a special picture for china, and I attached a note, saying "I love you, Taylor". I got a short video the letting go of the balloons ceremony, that I'll post shortly. Those videos take a while to upload, though.
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Before going out onto the beach, we all posed for a picture. Here's T with Lori's 2 children. Aren't they the cutest? I laugh about little Ethan and his shirt. I got this shot right before Lori went to work fastening it back up. To me, he looks quite Miami Vice sporting a "chinese guayabera". I think any minute he's going to check out one of the little girls and say, "You look marvelous!" Yep, he's one cool cat!

Weekend Update

T had her last swim class on Friday night. To graduate, she's thrown in the pool in full "winter" clothing. Last night it was "summer" clothing. The point is that if there is a pool accident, its likely that a child will be fully clothed when falling in. Therefore to graduate, they are put in situations that simulate the accident, and have to get out of it. T was thrown in head first, she was dunked under by surprise, a wet cloth was thrown over her as she floated, and other controlled "obstacles" were employed. Needless to say, T did NOT like this and let everybody know. However, she passed with flying colors.

On Saturday, it was once again gymnastics day. T literally woke up a the crack of dawn, around 6:00 a.m. and insisted on getting into her leotard. She was so excited the whole morning that she couldn't stand it and hardly ate a thing. We got there, and she TOTALLY balked. Didn't want anything to do with it. Things started turning toward an all out tantrum as I tried to coax her to join the class.

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Turns out, she had gotten up so early that it was now "nap time". I should have realized that she can't go to bed at 11:00 p.m. or later by the time she finally fell asleep, get up at 6:00 a.m., and do gymnastics at 10:00. Stupid me. She came home, and went right to sleep, poor thing. You can see, she's still in her leotard. Oh well. Lesson learned for the future.

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Tomorrow (Sunday) we have a FCC dinner at a Chinese restaurant located at Lincoln Road on South Beach. Its in celebration of the Chinese Autumn Moon Festival, a national holiday. Dot and our friends Jodie and Jack will be joining us at the celebration. T will be tricked out in her finest chinese "silks" that we bought in China. Stay tuned for pics from that event. Should be fun!

My Blog Rating

My bloggy friend over at Stress is the New Black rated her blog and posted about it. She was slightly annoyed that she got a squeaky-clean G rating. I TOTALLY understand her thinking. One likes to think that your life has enough excitement and edginess in it, that one would at least score a PG rating. Yes, I know my life is diametrically different than the life I lead for 6 years at the University of Florida, during undergrad and Law school, but that's as it should be. I'm 43 for God's sake, not 21. However, like Lori, I went to the site hoping for a racier rating.

Well, I got an R rating and was thrilled!!! Um, that is, until I read WHY I scored the R rating. According to the site, I received that rating b/c I used the following words, the following number of times:

pain (4x); shitty (3x); damn (1x)

That's it? That's all you have to do to get an R rating? Gee, I know that somewhere on my blog is the word "Fuck", but apparently that doesn't rate in the scoring. Now, when I was 16 and getting in trouble for saying that word, I would have agreed. My argument was that: why was one word singled out over others? Fuck is the same as Intercourse after all, the only difference is that one is of anglo-saxon origin and one of latin derivation. Kind of like dick vs. penis. One acceptable, and one not, yet both refer to the same thing. My parents never bought that argument, but apparently this annoying blog-test does.

So, I'm now going to post this post, go back and rate my blog again, and see if whether or not I'm now up to an X rating, given the four words I've just been discussing. I'll report back.

UPDATE: I'm still at an "R" rating. Now the reasons are as follows: Pain (5x); shitty (4x); damn (2x); and dick (1x). Again, "fuck" did not register. Interesting.

So theoretically, I guess I could post all day and night about having upside-down-monkey-sex with every Tom, Dick (oops) and Harry, and I'd score the same as my current celibate-toddler-mom life. That's just wrong!

UPDATE #2: Still an R rating, but now the F-word is registering. However, upside-down-monkey-sex does not register. Of course since the last update, I confess that its occured to me that perhaps the reason that I'm leading a celibate-toddler-mom life, is b/c I'm at home on a Friday night busy screwing around with rating my blog vs. being out and about attempting to "get busy" doing other things, but I choose not to dwell on that. I just don't have the energy!

My New Crush

Those who know me, usually have a fair idea of my biggest crushes throughout the years. I'm certain Ceci and a few others could name them. My earliest were boys/men like: Donny Osmond; that 1960's actor in musicals...Dot or perhaps Laura M would know his name..."The girl that I'll marry will have...to be..."; Dick Van Dyke (from the 1960 years, not of recent times), Vinnie Barbarino; Arthur Fonzarelli; George Michael (before I knew he was gay), etc.

More recently, I'd have to say that my current crush has been Steve Martin. However, poor Steve has been shoved aside in short order, by a man who is hot, smart, and funny albeit perhaps a bit too short. Two separate friends have sent me the link to his site to view this clip.

Fair warning: Its Political, and its a riot. And its exactly why I hate the "Rep. Hate Machine". Do they really think we don't remember their arguments and what they say? What's scary is that a large portion of this country is either too stupid or too ambivalent to care.

Introducing, my official new love:





ooops...I'm having technical difficulties...you can't hear my love over T's music. Sooo, here's the link to the site:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card

My Little Drama Queen

I've mentioned before how T is a HUGE drama queen. She loves taking an emotion..happiness, sadness, madness, etc, and pretending to feel it to the nth degree. Here's an example of what she did tonight...

She's in her bedroom, clad in a princess dress of course, playing and watching TV. Suddenly I hear her making a noise...perhaps a cry, perhaps a groan of pain. It sounds like: Uhhh....Uhhhh.....Uhhhh....Uhhhh...over and over again. She comes running out, continuing the sound, and climbs up onto my lap, puts her head on my shoulder, and continues making the sound. One of my difficulties is sometimes trying to decipher whether or not she's faking. So, I start rubbing her back, saying "its OK,"... saying "Talk to mama, use words, use words Taylor, I can't help you unless I know whats wrong."

T picks her head up off my shoulder, gives me a VERY pathetic look, and says three words....


Cho-co-late chip cooookies


p.s. Dot's trip to Houston is cancelled due to Ike. I hope everyone says a prayer or sends good thoughts to all the people on the Texas coast. The Nat'l Weather Service has just forecast...for the first time ever... "Those who don't heed the order to evacuate who are in 1 or 2 storey homes, face certain death" for those who do not evacuate Galveston. That's really scary shit.

On the move...

Don't forget to check out the Families on the Move blogs. There are two separate families that have received their bundles of joy from T's same SWI, Maonan. One of my favorites is Bringing Emily MeiLynn home. Mom Vicki is a riot and keeps me highly amused.

Speaking of being on the move, listen to Dot's travel schedule in the coming months...its exhausting! Dot is scheduled to fly to Houston this Sunday...that is, if Ike doesn't cancel the trip. She then returns home for a few weeks, and on October 5th flies to Manila for about 3 weeks. She'll come home in November, and return to Manila in December. Boy oh boy will we miss her. Luckily, she'll be home for xmas. Since she's going to be gone for so long, we've scheduled a semi-impromptu trip to Disney. Our annual passes expire on Oct. 14, and we want to get one last trip out of them. Plus, I got a steal (relatively speaking) on the Coronado Springs room rate.

Here's the plan: We'll be driving up to Disney on Sunday, September 28 and driving back to Miami on Wednesday, October 1. T will probably lose her mind when she realizes that she'll be having lunch with the Pincesses in Epcot on one of the days. We're keeping mum on that, otherwise I'd never hear the end of it.

That's all the news for now.



P.S. Since we all seem to be getting older, I've been tinkering with the Font and have figured out a way to make it bigger, i.e. easier to read.

Shitty Day

Courtesy of Ike, its a pretty shitty day here today. Lots of wind and rain. Luckily, its the Tropical storm type that comes in s flash, pours almost horizontal, and is gone in about 5 - 10 minutes...only to return.

I'm off today. My followup with my gyno re the pain and fibroids revealed that there is no reason on earth for a 2 cm fibroid to cause this pain. The ER got it wrong. I'm off again today for another "pelvic sonogram".

All I can say is Thank god my friend Marie was with me in the ER, when they mentioned my having one for the first time. She's given birth to 2 babies, and clued me in as to what exactly was involved. For those of you in the dark as to what I'm referring, lets just say that a large white plastic wand and lots of gel is involved, which is inserted inside you. No, it does not vibrate. I asked :(. Marie's advice was just lay back and enjoy. Of course, that was difficult to do, given that I was lying on a gurney with some nurse and a strange male wielding the wand. Me, apparently not up on pelvic sonogram ettiquette, nearly fell out of the damn gurney when he asked, "Would you like to insert it yourself?" WHAT???? Uh, nooooo, was he out of his mind? I just had to laugh.

So, my gyno said that the pain could be a ruptured cyst "or something else". She never did define exactly what the "something else" could be, and I didn't ask. She said no need to go over what it could be, when its so easy to find out what it is. That sounded good to me. I figure that the alternatives to the cyst can't be good. So, I'm off to have another test, at a place that specializes in just pelvic sonograms. Apparently the test is only as good as the radiologist reading it, and the hacks at the ER apparently aren't that experienced in the girlie diagnosis's (how does one make that word plural?...diagnosices?) to be reliable. nice.

Anyway, that's my big day. At least I scored a day off.

UPDATE: They didn't find anything in this eval. either. They think that it was me ovulating. Huh? For four days? Who ovulates for four days? When I queried why I've never felt anything like that before.....their responese? Our bodies change over the years. OK, did they just call me old?

Here's a science lesson...apparently your egg is in some kind of cyst-like pouch, and it explodes out every month. Hence, ovulation. They think that's what I felt. So, I'll go back and consult my gyno with this result, and see if it could be some other thing or if she concurs that its nothing. While its frustrating that I feel that I didn't really get any answers today, I guess no answer is better than some of the alternative answers. I wish I'd just go through menopause, and get it all over already. With my luck, though, I'd start growing a mustache and beard.

As Roseanna Roseannadanna used to say, "It's always something".

Weekend Wrap Up

Well, this crazy weekend is finally over. While the adults were slightly crazed with the potential storm, T had a great time watching movies. Here, she's watching the movie Enchanted. Notice how she can't even take her eyes off the screen long enough to wave Hi to the camera. As is usual for any of these princess movies, T insists on full dress-up. That way, she matches the TV when the ballroom dancing starts. Although, how she managed to dance and spin in those non-matching shoes is beyond me.

Dot took her to gymnastics class on Sat while I was dealing with the window man. I swear, the only person on the face of this earth, who thinks T is as beautiful, smart, accomplished and otherwise perfect as me, is my sister. Sometimes, she's worse than me! She regaled me quite a few times with how much better T was than the other girls in the class. Gee, think she's biased? Dot is certain she'll be in the olympics in 2020...in gymnastics, swimming and diving. She'll strip that "hack" swimmer Phelps of his glory in short order, as she'll do it in 3 sports!

We took the opportunity this weekend to purge toys and books. Remember my vow of "One toy in, one topy out"? 4 garbage bags later, there's now lots of room in the designated toy boxes. Dot thinks this is perfect, with Xmas coming up. I've already banned her from purchasing some toys, such as the LiteBright. T is still too young and I don't want to spend the next year of my life picking up those stupid pegs.

Lastly, I've gotten alot of good ideas about what to do with the bread. Did I mention that Dot bought a loaf too? Since I think I have one of the smallest freezers known to man with my "counterdepth" fridge that I had to purchase b/c of my tiny kitchen, I've decided to give the stupid bread away...along with one of the jars of peanut butter that I never eat, insist on buying every hurricane scare, and end up chucking b/c its gross and expired. I think I'll hunt up some hobos who live under the overpass near my office, and give it to them. At least they'll appreciate it. Hopefully.

Anyway, hope you all had a great weekend.

Still Looking Good

Yep, its still looking good for us in So. Fla., thank god. Not so much for the rest of the region, as its a strong cat 4, and hitting areas that were just hit by Gustav. That's a true shame.

Meanwhile, we're having French Toast for Breakfast. Yummy.

Searching for recipes and a little religion

Can some of you religious-types assist? Isn't there a saying that the good Lord takes care of children, idiots and morons...or something like that? I think its from the bible. Not sure, though. Whatever the actual quote is, I'm certain that its quite applicable to my family at the moment. Ike is continuing to haunt all parts south of us. Me, an admitted non-religious-type, is busy saying a prayer of thanks. Why? Turns out that Felipe the window man would not have been able to install the new windows at my parents house in time for the storm. If the windows are not in stock, it may take a few WEEKS to order up the hurricane windows and get them installed. Unlike my sweet Aunt Connie who has kept both her sanity and her common sense as she's aged, it would take an act of god of Miracle-sized proportions to get my parents to come to my house during a storm. All I know is that I'm breathing a MAJOR sigh of relief.

I have to stop watching the weather channel. They're worse than channel 7. I've just watched a documentary on Hurricane Andrew and its destruction. Just what I needed to feel safe and secure.

Meanwhile, Anybody got some good recipes that use bread? A really good bread pudding recipe that includes liquor, or some other such dish? What the hell are we going to do with 4 loaves of bread??