So who's in charge anyway?

Once a friend said to me, "I cannot believe you are a fatalist!" This was said as though it is a bad thing to think that there may be some higher power in the universe controlling what happens...

Sure- I believe people are responsible for their own actions (Lord knows I spend ALL school year preaching this to 10 yr olds!) But some things... some encounters... some meetings.... well, they have to happen for a REASON... right?

I love quotes... and so thus, upon thinking on this tonight I of course looked up quotes on fate...

Fate is for those too weak to determine their own destiny.

Yeah... no, I don't agree. Does everything in life have to be so cut and dry? Again, yes, people make choices in life. And those choices have consequences-- either good or bad; right or wrong. But there are some things we have NO control over. These things also have consequences.

We create our fate everyday we live.

Agreed. Chain reactions, right? We do something... this leads to something else, and so on. But again, not EVERYTHING is in our control. Can we control accidents? natural distasters? the actions and choices of others?

I think some people just can't stand the idea of not being in control. And don't get me wrong, I like to at least have some grasp of control of my life. At times it feels I am completely out of control... And I must say, it has just been recently that I have felt I am getting myself back together... Lots of things have happened in the last 8 or so years-- many out of my control-- that have affected the course of my life.

When my mom passed away I inherited a lot of new responsibilities-- a house, an elderly grandmother to look after, LOTS of STUFF... This was of course very stressful. It was also enlightening b/c through all of this, I realized what amazing friends I have in my life. People pitched in to do everything from help me pack, move, and sell the house to yard work and organizing the kicten and bathrooms... I was truly overwhelmed. And for someone who likes to have control-- this was terrifying.

And through the years I have had many experiences and met many new people-- several that I am now proud to call my friends. Of course there have been the people that I have fell out of touch with or not longer have contact with for one reason or another. But even those that were not worth keeping around helped me grow and learn and become stronger... (I think even Justy said something to this effect tonight...)

It has occurred to me here recently that I am really becoming much more comfortable with who I am-- perhaps I because I am getting older and (gasp!) more mature. I feel I am being more honest with myself and others (many thought THIS was not possible!)... Sure it seems at times like everyone else has gone farther in life than I have-- but I have a lot of accomplishments to be proud of-- I have a masters degree, a good job, a nice condo, FABULOUS friends & family... I travel a lot... and for the first time in a LONG time, I feel like I am living life-- and liking it!

Don't just live the length of your life, live the width as well.

If you had asked me 10 yrs ago if this is where I would be and if this is what I would be doing... I probably would have said no... but someone/ something-- or fate-- had other plans. So now I make my decisions based on where I am now-- not where I thought I would be.

Wherever fate demands me-- I will go!

Has anyone else noticed how Don Rickles...

...looks a lot like John McCain...

Ah... I love Ran(dom) Man's stories...  Plus, I just re-watched Back to the Future this weekend....

Crazy Cab Driver

I had little trouble hailing a cab on my way to the airport, because luckily a crazy-ass cab driver was nearby, being crazy. I waited at the trunk of his 1990s-era LTD Crown Victoria, and when he finally popped it, I saw it was littered with old coffee cups and used paperbacks that he probably got for a dime each. I decided right away this guy is one-third cabbie, one-third hobo and one-third retired adjunct professor at a community college. He got out and came around to greet me, and I swear he was a dead-ringer for Christopher Lloyd from his “Back to the Future” days. Once we had fit my luggage into his mobile dump, we climbed in, and I told him I was headed to the airport. His face lit up as if no one had ever invited him to an airport. “Yessir! But first, my hat?” “Excuse me?” “I used to have a hat. Is it back there?”” No sir.” We both went on a search and eventually discovered it had fallen into the trunk. Then we drove off on a surprisingly uneventful and even pleasurable ride to the airport. I think he was in a hurry because he had to go climb a clock tower to stop the spread of Parkinsons or something.

This week has SUCKED @ school.... The kids I can handle... but parents are sometimes more than I can take.

Add that to the prefessional development I had to go to this AM:

see more crazy cat pics

I am so glad tomorrow is Friday. I am so glad school is almost out.

Hopefully next week will be better and I will have some more ME time... and more sleep time.

20 “Not Necessarily New” Things for 2008

1. Apply to teach abroad

2.  Take a Power Pilates Class

3.  Get certified in CPR

4.  Watch American Idol/ Get hooked/ VOTE for one of the candidates!

5.  Drink tea (& somewhat enjoy it…)

6.  Go to Cancun/ Mexico

7.  Visit one of the new “7 Wonders of the World”—Chichen Itza

8.  Swim in a senote (sinkhole in Mexico)

9.  Go sea kayaking

http://www.slide.com/r/nias3ncK1D8yD96O0QCje4jMJtIkgAO3?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

I addicted. I admit.

This is an article Leigh and I enjoyed from the airline magazine... Good beach-time reading....

THE BIKINI WARS: by Jason Love
A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
A bikini wax, then, is best left to the tougher sex

Men aren’t cut out for hair removal.
A guy can eat nails, drive a Harley,
bench 700 pounds, and still snivel
at the sight of tweezers (or as I like
to call them, Devil’s Chopsticks).

So as a man, it’s baffling to me that women, the gentler sex, endure the bikini wax swimsuit season after swimsuit season.  It’s always swimsuit season somewhere, I’ve learned.  Come to find out, I’ve also learned (through personal experience) that women are the only ones tough enough to handle a wax.

Just the country Brazil is enough to make a man curious about a wax and then make himself an appointment - even if it’s under the guise of seeing the dancers, the Brazilian dancers.  In the waxing chamber everything is fresh and folded and surgically white.  Enter Blanca, an earthy Bolivian, likable really, with a voice straight from Evita that soothed like a lullaby.  I sensed that she could just as well soothe with a half-nelson.

For some reason, it only now occurs to me that Blanca will see me naked.  I feel like we should get to know each other, have a drink or something first.  Reluctantly, I strip off my jeans and board the waxing table which was like being at the chiropractor only with leg stirrups.  On second thought, it’s nothing like the chiropractor at all.

A voice interrupted: "You muss be see lucky man."  She got it all wrong.  She goes right to work like a mother changing a diaper, pulling out her weapons of destruction - liquid wax, cloth strips, a box of Kleenex (for my tears).  Evidently, the "Brazilian" part has nothing to do with live samba dancers.

"Brazilian es when everysing goes.  French es when you leave a leetle strip..."  She diagrammed.

I asked if we could start with a cooler, more conservative country...say, Poland.

Blanca laughed as she dipped a rag in hot - extremely hot - wax and immediately molded the goo onto...rrrrrrip!  I screamed but no sound comes out.  Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.

"Es okay.  Es beautiful.  See."  Blanca lifts the strip of fur on cloth for me to witness.

I look at her with runny-red eyes the way you do a flight attendant in turbulence: Her smile is all I have.

"See, es almoss over."  Rrrrrip!

With every pass, the wax gets hotter.  I ask Blanca if the heat will max out at some medically safe temperature.

"Hot wax es better," she says.  "It grabs see hair from undernease."  Her thoroughness is killing me.

It’s a little-known fact that the person who coined the phrase "mind over matter" died of a Brazilian bikini wax.  I’ve endured broken bones, carpentry stabbings, a bee sting that made my lip look like Meg Ryan’s.  None of it prepared me for this.  Finally, mercifully, Blanca has clear-cut Georgia, Alabama and parts of Florida.

She instructed me to be naked if possible, at least for the next couple of days.  Good thing I work at home; that could have been awkward for everyone.

A week later, I’m still not myself.  The draft in my basement never subsides.  I feel less manly, like Samson.  I’ve stopped showering at the gym, and it may be years before I can eat Brazil nuts.

My hair is returning slowly, in patches, like Earth after a nuclear winter.  My compulsion to scratch is severe.  Blanca siad that if I wax often enough, the hair will stop growing altogether but that would mean making a second appointment.  Even now, her sweet Evita accent echoes in my mind: "Es almoss over, es almoss over..." Rrrrrrip!

While waiting on Leigh @ the airport I observed a bizarre, I think incestuous mother-son duo… The boy was probably 16 and they were obviously wealthy… Now, I have 2 brothers but I have never seen them rub/ massage their mom the way this kid was… and the dad was just standing there, in a resigned sort of state… UGH!

Luckily Leigh arrived and drew my attention away from this scene. We made it through all the security and such… while waiting for boarding we were approached by some sorority sisters asking of we went to UT… I should have known. Upon boarding the plane—I was smack in the middle of sorority row. As I read my book, I passed things from row to row for them…

Top comment overheard on sorority row: ~Don’t drink so much water—you have to save room for the beer!

 We made it to Cancun, bobbed and weaved through customs, and finally found our shuttle to the resort. MW was waiting for us at the front of the resort. My new friend Norma checked us in: "How many years are you?" "31" I replied. "You look MUCH less," said Norma… LOVE HER!

Dinner @ Paco’s Tacos was great… CHIMICHANGA… and my first margarita of the trip… Ah—this is the life!

Here I must tell you that our theme for the week is Mexican soap opera. So we all have new names and personas. Leigh is Marcella—she is a gold digger by trade. Laura is Pilar—an archaeologist/ anthropologist—she is good at "digging up" others’ secrets—plus we think she will be most useful to the trip to Chicken Itza. MW is Rosa—she is a tabloid reporter who relies on the maid—me—Sophia Lupita Margarita Chimichanga—for dirt on my employers: Marcella and Soledad (DJ)—who is the governor of this place where we are. There are several side players which I will introduce later when more of the plot is revealed.

(L to R: Pilar, Sophia Lupita Margarita Chimichanga, Rosa, & Marcella)

We went to Pancho and Willie’s where we were supposed to meet up with MW’s family after a wedding event… They never showed, but we had a great time jammin’ out to the cover band and drinking…

There were lots of interesting tourists to watch. MW and I hit the dance floor only to have an up-close view of a FAT man pull up his shirt, slap his stomach, rub it, then slap his ass and shake around. Members of the band couldn’t sing they were laughing so hard. We headed back to the table where we had a front row seat to another interesting performance.

There was a table of 6 adults in front of us—I’d say they were in their 50s… well first one of the ladies jumped up and started dancing. She had on a strapless white dress with 2 ruffles (think ala 1985)… First we weren’t real sure the dress would stay up… next she grabs both ruffles and starts shaking them up and down… Lesson learned here: TOP RUFFLE ONLY!!! After awhile, white dress lady went somewhere only to be replaced by her friend (also dressed in ALL white—perhaps fresh from shooting ONE OF THOSE commercials)… This lady had on one of those white crocheted sweaters—the one most people wear a tank top under… Yeah, not this woman… just the bra… classy. Anyhoo, she pops up dancing… even between songs when there was no music, she kept moving… Next thing we know white dress is back and the two head off towards the dance floor. While they chose to stay off the main floor and dance together in a secluded spot—they were certainly entertaining.

Monday we lounged by the pool, enjoyed free tacos and beer @ Pancho and Willie’s (YES, they let us back in after we closed them down the night before)… and took Pilar to the slightly sketchy doctor for her diagnosis: conjunctivitis… That night we hosted an appetizer party for Rosa’s family—we had pizza dip, guacamole, ham rolls, a dessert roll, chips, nuts, birthday cake, beer, margaritas, and mojitos.

On the way back from lunch Marcella almost stepped on an iguana on the sidewalk It was quite a hilarious scene… especially as when we went back to the pool two guys walking around taking pictures of people with this HUGE iguana.. they honed in on Leigh trying to get her to pose with it… At one point I was convinced she would jump in the pool to get away.

Today Leigh and I spent the whole day by the pool… MW woke up feeling shitty—spent the AM covered up by the pool—FREEZING…. Yeah—it was 80+… so the next trip to the sketchy doctor office was hers… 2 shots later she looked much better. Her 104 fever broke so things are looking up for Rosa. Sophia Lupita Margarita Chimichanga and Marcella are scared to wake up tomorrow—unsure of what illness will befall them…

TO BE CONTINUED…