Animal cruelty?

One day I woke up and realized I am one of those people. The people who can't stop talking about their pets in the same obnoxious way that many new parents can't stop talking about their newborn infants. So here it is, another post with pictures of my boys. Although it is now mid-December, I decided that since I had my camera out, I might as well bust out their Halloween costumes since I never got around to taking pictures on Halloween.

Quasi-Bee

Cal (actually Calpurnia but don't tell him)

I know it's all so wrong in so many ways.

The high cost of beauty.

So in my continued half-assed attempts to attempt a more frugal and conscious lifestyle I've made it out the farmer's market two weeks in a row. Truth be told our farmer's market kind of sucks, there are very few vendors. But in order to get to a better market we'd have to drive 20 or 30 miles which really seems to defeat the purpose of it all.
I was so proud of myself for walking away with a bunch of fruit and even some asparagus for under $10. After my Friday's cheap and fun outing with friends, I was feeling really good!

But then I had to pick up my dogs from the groomer and handed over $85, ouch.
Oh well, it's not easy looking this good.

I wish I could do this myself, but then I look at my own image in the mirror and realize that if I'm not willing or able to give myself a decent hair style, I can't really do anything for these little guys either.

I was so pleased with their looks that I went a little crazy with the camera. Here's a shot that shows how Quasi earned his name: you can see his funny little teeth, his messed up little leg, and even his little tail (a no-no in the schnauzer world). Now, don't worry, I'm well aware that Quasi won't be winning any beautiful-baby contests anytime soon, but the little guy has a heart of gold, is beautiful on the inside, and other heart-warming cliches.

And more on being drunk.

In her most recent post, June Cut-Off Cash tells about her imaginary childhood alcoholism, that girl cracks me up! Her post reminded how I always felt so lucky that all of my uncles were weekend alcoholics.

Now, usually a family full of alcoholics isn't fun at all, but to my broke 5 year-old self, drunk uncles were the best!

Every Sunday, after visiting with the Lord, I was given an allowance. While it was always a day of rejoicing, it was also a day of difficult decisions. You see, my allowance was just enough to buy either a chocolate bar OR an ice cream bar- not both. So for a long time I had to make this most difficult choice, that is until I started hanging out with my drunk uncles.

For some reason, my uncles only bought one beer at a time. Maybe they thought they would have "just one more" and it wasn't worth to just get a six-pack. Maybe we didn't have six-packs back then. More likely though, they probably only had one glass bottle to trade-in toward their next beer. In Mexico, you must return glass bottles everytime you're going to purchase another drink, if you don't return bottles you have to pay a pretty steep surcharge.

Anyway, this recycling model and lax laws about selling alcohol to minors meant that the sales clerk would happily allow me (at 5, 6, and 7 years old) to buy beer throughout the day. So if I volunteered to do the beer runs and I played my cards right, I was allowed to keep the change. So to make what should've been a short story longer, I was then able to sometimes buy a chocolate bar AND an ice cream bar.

Thank-you drunk uncles. Thanks for getting me started on the road to diabetes.

I love wine and good friends (equally).

My former co-workers hosted the most awesome fundraiser, it involved wine, appetizers, and friends, what more could one want? Seriously, this is the most fun I've had with $20 in quite a while. Truth be told I kind of feel like a cheapskate for only donating the "ticket price" to attend the event. All the money is going to improve the lot of high school kids in East Los Angeles. The hosting group of teachers are a bunch of individuals who do amazing things with crappy pay, few resources, and a district that does everything possible to make their life a living hell.

But I digress, back to how fun the evening was: I make an honest effort to see friends frequently but sometimes I get so caught up in the day-to-day stuff that I forget how great it is to just hang out with a friend (or fifty) and just catch up.

I spent at least an hour talking to Mr. and Mrs. GrisWeimaraner, the only people who are even more insane about their dog, than I am about mine. Only this pair understand the anguish that we're going through in trying to find a petsitter for the holidays, so we don't have to board our entire pack of dogs.

But I also met new friends. At the party, I found myself talking to artist Ramon Ramirez, a fellow Cal Bear! This dude is down to earth and just so mellow and cool. I've never known a real-life working artist, (but I've known plenty of stoners who claim they're artists but have nothing to show for it though, does that count?) so now I can check off that box in my to-do list of life experiences. Hmmm although I don't think he'd appreciate being a box on my to do list.

Turf War

Today some students came into my classroom wanting to know if I knew any details about the man that left via ambulance the previous afternoon. When I told them I knew nothing of this most recent tragic event they proceeded to inform me that an ice cream man was robbed and beaten near the tennis courts on our campus. The most frightening thing was that apparently this all happened right as students where headed home for the day.

Concerned about the safety of the general student population I decided to ask Mr. Principal about this event, he informed of the following:

1. The ice cream man (with the little Mexican style cart, not in an ice cream van) was in fact beaten.
2. He was beaten by another "more established" ice cream man.
3. The fight was over ice cream salesman turf.

I guess Wallace Stevens was on to something when he wrote that the only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.

It's not easy staying green

Today one of my students walked into my classroom and said he needed to talk to me. I asked him if it needed to be in private and he responded, "not really, it's just that I found this, and was wondering if you could turn it into the office or something" as he handed me a wallet.

I took a look inside the wallet and found:

1. A driver's license
2. Two atm cards
3. A permanent residence card aka a "Green Card"

I had a sudden flashback to 2003 when my wallet was lost then stolen with the my green card in it. Although I hardly ever carried this precious document, that was the week I was processing my new-hire paperwork for a big, evil district for my very first teaching job.

I cannot begin to tell you the anxiety, heartache, tears, and eventually resignation that losing that little piece of plastic caused.

Needless to say I immediately looked up the address on the driver's license and resolved to hand-deliver the card myself to this poor young woman who must've been wringing her hands even as I sat there looking at yahoo maps.

So I drive up the house, knock on the door and the same woman pictured in the id opens the door and a little chihuahua barks its tiny little head off and the covnersation goes like this:

Me: "are you Isis"?

Her: nods.

Me:"Oh, I found this" and hand her the wallet.

Her: "Oh okay" and looks through her wallet and seems disappointed when she realizes the cash compartment is empty.

Me: "Your green card is in there, I don't know if you've ever lost it before. But just so you know, it's incredibly difficult to replace."

Her: "Okay"

Me: "Okay, bye"

Her: Begins to close the door until the Chi runs out and tries to attack me, but I make it safely back to my car.

So why do I feel so disappointed? Shouldn't I be happy just knowing I returned her wallet?
The truth is, I'm not. I wanted her to be overjoyed, and express relief, and to be thankful, really thankful.

Beginning the process

Yesterday my co-worker had another miserable day at work. He finished his day, went home and took his own life.

The thing is, I barely knew him, and while I've told myself that this is mostly because I'm the new girl in town, deep down I know we never would've been friends. The only thing I know about my late co-worker, is that he'd been on the job for almost 20 years, and that his true passion was horses.

So here I am faced once again with the question of what it is exactly that I want to do with my life. No, I don't mean what do I want to be when I grown up, but rather what do I really want out of life. Sometimes I've been so focused on a destination, a goal, that I forget to look at and enjoy at all the craziness that is happening along the way.

If I can trust my earliest memories, some of the happiest moments of my childhood consisted of sitting in my backyard gobbling up juicy, delicious mangos from our trees. No worries about time, appearance, poverty or wealth; we simply enjoyed the experience.

And so what's my purpose in writing this here, in this format? I don't really know. I suppose I want some sort of record as I attempt to re-learn the art of taking joy in the little things.

The day I die, I want people to be able to talk about me as more than just my job description and 1 or 2 things tha I loved to do. I want people to say "oh yes, that RipeMango sure had an obsession with mangos! But you know, she was also a bit of crazy dog-lady, and a boy was she a flaming liberal! Did I ever tell you about the time she..." and I want everyone to burst out into roaring laughter when that story is finished.