Greetings...

To my Democrat friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.


To my Republican friends:

Here's wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Deep in the heart of Texas!

Hello from Kerrville, Texas. My grandparents moved here this summer from Fresno, California, where they've lived since my dad was a kid. So they offered to fly me out as my Christmas present this year and there was no way I was turning down that offer. Seriously, I'm not kidding when I tell you that it was 70º out yesterday afternoon. It's 45º right now (almost midnight) but the sky is clear as can be and I can see every single star twinkling up in the heavens. Granted, it's a little less green than Eugene, and I'm still getting used to that, but I'm soo happy to get away from the freezing coldness of Oregon.

I'll write more later about some things I've been pondering lately, but let me just tell you about one of my current dilemmas. See, I have this incredible knack for getting myself into sticky icky situations that offer no good outcome of any sort. Check this one out.

So my grandparents have caught on that I'm pretty up on technology. Most people my age are, but they just don't know that. I'll let them think I'm a genius. But anyway, the other day I burned a CD for them of some of Bing Crosby's Christmas music... baaaaad move, kiddo. Next thing I know, my grandma's spouting off all these albums she wants me to download for her. If you knew my grandma, you would know that you canNOT say "no" to her. She simply won't accept it. She'll just say, "Yes, you can do it, and you will. Now get on with it." She's never wrong, and her answer is always the only answer.

So, like a good lil granddaughter, I just nodded and smiled with no real intention of ever downloading all the music she was commanding me to dig up for her. Sure enough, the tactic worked and she forgot about all those albums... well, all except for one of them. And wouldn't it be just my luck, that one album happens to be a Kenny Rogers Christmas album. At first, I just kept nodding and smiling but I'm telling you, she's not letting this one go. She seriously asks me at least five times a day, "Have you gotten that album for me yet?????????"

So this is my dilemma. I can either download the stinking album and listen to it nonstop for the next three weeks or I can take an earful from my grandma every two seconds for the next three weeks. I'm not sure yet which one is worse.

Marriage.

"Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wifin a dweam... And wuv, twue wuv, will fowow you foweva... So tweasure your wuv." I never fully appreciated The Princess Bride as much as... well, everybody, but i have to say that the "Mawage" scene is pretty good. But that's off topic.

I was thinking about marriage the other day as I sat, confounded and deeply sorrowful about Nick and Jessica's recent split. As I sat, I thought to myself, "Why do they bother to get married anymore anyway?" And by "they" I'm referring to non-Christians who don't believe in the sanctity and holiness of marriage. Think about it (think think about it).

Today at the annual company Christmas party, I had the chance to catch up with an old co-worker whom I haven't seen in quite a while. She just got married in September and I hadn't seen her since June-ish. Of course, the first question out of my mouth was, "So how's married life??" I asked this in a girly gossip tone to where it could easily be interpreted as "Seriously, tell me all about it, I'm so excited for you!!"

Her answer? "Umm... well it's not really different than before. We've been together for six years so there's nothing really different at all, it's exactly the same as it was before." "So there's nothing different, at all?" I prodded. That's when she spilled the beans: "Well, I guess we have a joint savings account now."

Lame. Or gaids, if you're privy enough to know what that means. So, I started wondering to myself, what's the point of them getting married if it didn't change a thing? Obviously they weren't saving themselves for marriage; they moved in together three years ago. And from knowing her, I know that she doesn't have any religious beliefs, therfore she wasn't aiming for the sacred union between two souls thing. So why'd they bother to get married? A cultural norm? I don't know.

And divorce. It's not even a bad word anymore, it's just kindof a normal thing that happens whenever a married couple has "irreconcilable differences." Today's secular society takes divorce very lightly, despite the fact that it's quite a hassle to go through. Lawyers, assets, custody, visitation rights, more lawyers = expensive, yuck. You'd think they'd figure out that they could avoid the hassle of divorce if they just skipped the marriage part. Living together is essentially the same as being married if you take out the spiritual elements. So why do they bother to get married?

You might say, "For the kids." Well, I would say that it's pretty hard for a kid to go through a divorce. Spare them. "Tax benefits." Hey I know, you can set the money aside that you save on taxes, and you can put that toward the divorce fund.

Or, you could say... "I'm gay, and I want the same rights as straight people." Why the heck would you want to be married to your same-sex significant other? Marriage is what straight people do, and homosexuals are all about pushing the envelope and showing how it's okay to be different. So why do they want to be the same as straight people all of a sudden? I don't know. If they had any kind of a consistent thinking mechanism, they would create something new and radical, like Gayrriage... they can even use that name if they want to, I don't mind. Or maybe they could come up with a better name.

So I'm back to my original question: Why do they bother to get married anymore anyway? And I still don't know the answer. So yeah.

This boot is killin' me.

This summer when I was in the Dominican Republic, I hurt my foot. I don't know how, but one morning I woke up and I could barely walk it hurt so bad. But alas, it was Fourth of July weekend and we were at the beach in Sosua, so I decided to suck it up and deal. Pretty much for the rest of the summer, it killed to walk anywhere. In August, when I got my appendix taken out while still in the Dominican, I was off my feet for several days so it healed a little and it didn't hurt quite as bad anymore.

Well, a couple of weeks ago it started killing again (as opposed to the regular dull pain) so I finally went to get it checked out. Long story short, I wound up getting an incomplete in my hip hop class and I'll finish the class next term. They x-rayed my foot and, of course, the x-rays were inconclusive. So it's a probable stress fracture, possible strain. For a stress fracture, I have to wear the boot for 12 weeks. For a strain, only 4 or 5 weeks. Luckily, I already had the boot from a previous injury a couple of years ago.

I don't really hobble anymore because between this and the amount of time I spent wearing the boot a couple years ago, I've become extremely skilled at walking in it. The only pain is driving. The first day I put the boot back on a few weeks ago, I decided to try driving with it on. Hah. Seriously, I thought I was gonna die all the way to work. By its very nature, the boot completely immobilizes your ankle, among other things. I never realized how key the ankle was in driving, expecially a car with manual trasmission. My left foot was busy with the clutch so my poor booted right foot was left trying to work the gas and the brakes. Trust me on this one, when you're wearing a mother boot, it's very hard to tell if your foot is on the break or the gas... or both. Or neither. So now when I drive, I have to take the boot on and off which is quite a hassle, because there's about a zillion velcro straps to fiddle with (refer to the picture above).

But, at least my foot is feeling better. And as for everything else since my last post over a month ago, life is pretty good. I'm done with school for the term and in about a week, I'm off to Texas to visit my grandparents until January 7th. I cannot wait for warmer weather.