The Birthday Cat

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There once was a town called Mathicadoodle

it had many farms, many pigs, many poodles.

There once was a birthday cat, her name was Ladie.

She would send out gifts, even if your name was Pop or Katy.

Now on your birthday, she’d go to your door

She would say, ” Get out of bed it’s 10 after 4!.”

2 minutes later you went to get dressed,

you had a new outfit, you looked your best!

 

At 10:30 a.m. in Mathicadoodle,

time for your birthday lunch on a safari poodle.

On the poodle’s back there is lots of food,

you’re living your life in the happiest mood.

So after that you climb a wall of Skittles.

Why, it was 12 o’clock time for a band of fiddles!

So fiddlers played fiddles

and picklers played pickles,

the music was so GREAT!

it felt like it tickles.

 

The birthday cat was  ready for her 2 o’clock bath.

Katy said, ” I’m glad I’m not in school I don’t have to learn math.”

So as they dried off, they started a cheer,” I’m free to be me!

” I’m glad I’m not a deer!”

 

They went into the jungle of Mathicadoodle.

There were flowers that smelled like pears, peas and noodles.

On their way they saw big bopping bowers

that cut off flowers just for you.

They saw big clopping cloppers

sip sopping soppers.

The flowers are red, pink or blue

The birthday cat said, ” Let’s see what time it is.”

 

So they went to a farm

where there was a time telling arm.

The arm said, “It’s a hair past a freckle.”

That means it’s 5 o’clock,

time for the  birthday bash in a kettle.

 

They needed something to take them in,

so they go to the super dooper mini cooper.

It drove them all the way to the kettle bin.

In the kettle the party began

with head Zonking Zonkers fron planet Can-Can.

The party is great,

the food and the cake,

the birthday cat gave me a brand new cape.

 

It was 10 pm, the presents came in

there were so many

she put them all in a bin

At 12 a.m. Katy’s birthday was over,

the birthday cat drove her home on a big, soft clover.

So that’s what they do in Mathicadoodle,

the birthday cat gives you gifts and a poodle.

If you’re birthday is tomorrow, in May or today,

I will always say, ” Happy Birthday!”

 

RAQUEL BRINCAT  copyright 2011

This poem was written by my daughter and she wanted me to post it in honor of her birthday this week!

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 13

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 13 Question# 13: What was one negative in your life that you were somehow able to turn into something quite positive?

Answer: When I first read this question, I decided to write about the very first thing that popped into my mind. I grew up in my uncle‘s home and he is the typical male chauvinist with an extra added twist; he is a Latino macho man who thinks women are to be seen and not heard. Back then the message I was getting was that I was not to have my own voice, or opinions. You’re a girl, therefore no one wants to hear from you.

So  I began to journal and really made friends with pen and paper pretty quick at a young age. Being that children long for the approval and recognition of their parental figures, I was no exception. One day I ventured out of my shell and I showed him a poem I had penned, which I was proud of because I felt in my heart it was a good piece. I took it to him and I asked him to read it. He did his usual looking down at me through the end of his bifocals which were perched on the end of his bulbous nose much like a surfer trying to balance his board on the crest of a wave.

I stood there frozen, holding my breath and trying to hush the beating of my heart which felt much like a freight train barreling down a dark tunnel at top speed inside my chest. I tried hard not to focus on my uncle’s’ blank face so I looked around in the place trying to count the people around me instead. Finally he finished. I wondered what took him so long to read just a few lines of my prose. The terrible silence continued and all I wanted to do was make a mad dash for the door and forget it all. Then my uncle pushed his military issue glasses back up his snooty nose and then he spoke,

” Well, you know this isn’t any good. Every good piece of poetry  MUST rhyme and since your doesn’t, this isn’t good at all.” He gave me my journal back and turned back to his newspaper. I was dismissed just like a scullery maid.

“That’s it?’ I thought. I was in the 8th grade at the time and I had been reading plenty of poetry, I was falling madly in love with Shakespeare’s love sonnets. I knew for a fact my uncle was being narrow minded because not all of the poetry I was reading   from the  greats I was studying had to rhyme. Being that I was quite shy and also understanding that my uncle would never hear my views, I kept my thoughts to myself.

I didn’t let his insensitivity stop me. No sir! Not when I had been encouraged by Mrs. Gillard in the 6th grade who told me I had a gift and that one day she hoped to see my first book of poetry. Her words have been the steam behind my engine all of these years. Yes, my uncle hurt me terribly but I chose to ignore his biting words and I embraced my teacher’s honey coated positive words.

And I’m so glad I did because ever since then, I have published my first bookand I’m working on publishing my 2nd book; which happens to be a volume of short stories and poetry. When my second book comes out I plan to mail it to my uncle with a thank you note. Because of his mistreatment, I learned to turn the negative around and prove to myself that I can do my dreams; no matter what dirt people throw in my face to blind me along the way.

I am writing this in the hopes that if you’ve been discouraged and kept from following your dreams, DO NOT LISTEN to those haters who tell you you can’t. Turn it around and prove them wrong because that’s the power that you have to hush those voices of opposition.

Sock Conspiracy

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There is a sock conspiracy in my home I just know it! They conspire with PhatCatladie, our Scottish Fold 2 year old cat. Not only that the third offending party is the dryer. I have been watching this activity for a while now and I’m completely convinced that they are an organized crew.

PhatcatLadie  is a clever feline. She waits ’til late, late at night when we’re all asleep. She hides herself in the shadows awaiting her time. Once the house settles in for the night, she’s OFF!! She comes out of her hiding place and quietly goes to my girl’s bedroom. Why start her thieving for socks there? Because the girl’s room is an easy cache; they leave their sock drawer slightly ajar, easy enough for suspected cat to pounce on the prey and make out like a bandit! After robbing those drawers, she makes her way through the dark living room and into my son’s room.

She knows that there are occasions when my son will forget to close his sock drawer. PhatCatLadie has made it in the boy’s room; tonight she isn’t as lucky, his drawers are completely shut up and they aint talkin’. Someone threw away the key to the pad lock for the time being. The suspect turns around,looks over her shoulder and thinks  those sour grape thoughts:” It’s ok, I didn’t need ’em anyway.” She slowly meanders her way back to her starting place. For a minute there she wonders, hmmmm maybe I could try the Lady’s  bedroom; she always leaves her door slightly open….

Phatcatladie slowly, inch by inch, creeps through the shadows and finds herself standing in front of her Lady’s bedroom door. ‘Careful,’ she coaches herself, ‘this one is a light sleeper, don’t want to mess this up’. The suspect pokes her inquisitive head through the slightly opened door and squeezes her long body through the 4-5 inch space, ” I’m in!” She congratulates herself. Then with heart pounding a zillion beats per second, she looks at the sock drawer in dismay: This one is sealed tight! ” I did all this for nothing!” Phatcatladie scolds herself as she makes her way back out of the room ever so stealthily.

My other offending culprit is the dryer. Why is it that when I put all of the socks in the washing machine, they are together. When I throw them in the dryer, the pairs are still cozy, in two by two form. But it all changes when they come out of the dryer; something is always lost in translation and I smell a rat! Something’s missing in the state of the stocking world! What can possibly take place in there? A possible theory is that the dryer and Phatcatladie are in thick as thieves, you can’t tell me otherwise. I am going to continue until I solve this riddle. Somethings in life are a mystery and are never meant to be solved. This puzzle though has to have a solution. What do you think? Is there a sock conspiracy going on in your home? Perhaps you can share. I’d like to hear from other fellow conspiracy theorists  on this matter. 🙂

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 12

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 12 Question 12: As far as you know, who in your family’s history has lived the longest?

Answer: My paternal grandmother, Isabel Sanchez was born in 1895 and she passed away in 1992. In her 97 years on earth these events took place:

1895        Feb 8, Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” premiered in Petersburg.
(MC, 2/8/02) 

1896        Dr. Herman Hollerith, inventor of a tabulating machine (1889), founded the Tabulating Machine Company. In 1911 it became part of CTR. In 1924 CTR was renamed IBM.
(www.answers.com/topic/herman-hollerith)

1897        Gilbert Loomis was the first car-owner to purchase auto insurance for his vehicle. The premium was $7.50 for $1,000 worth of liability insurance.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)

1898        Mar 24, The 1st automobile was sold.

(MC, 3/24/02)

1899        Mar 27, The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.
(HN, 3/27/99)

1900        Feb 22, Hawaii became a US territory. [see Apr 30]
(MC, 2/22/02)

1901        Aug 30, Hubert Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner. [see 1869]
(MC, 8/30/01)

1902        Apr 18, Denmark became the 1st country to adopt fingerprinting to identify criminals.
(MC, 4/18/02)

1903        Jan 2, President Theodore Roosevelt closed a post office in Indianola, Mississippi for refusing to hire a black postmistress.
(HN, 1/2/99)

1904        Feb 3, Colombian troops clashed with U.S. Marines in Panama.
(HN, 2/3/99)

1905        Mar 11, The Parisian subway was officially inaugurated.
(HN, 3/11/98)

1906        Jan 13, The Golden Gate Hotel opened on Fremont Street in Las Vegas, Nev..
(SSFC, 11/13/05, p.F4)

1907        Feb 22, The 1st cabs with taxi meters began operating in London.
(MC, 2/22/02)

1908        May 10, The first Mother’s Day observance took place during church services in Grafton, W.Va., and Philadelphia. In 1997 Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia first proposed the idea that all mothers wear a carnation on the 2nd Sunday of May.
(AP, 5/10/97)(SFC, 9/30/99, p.E5)

1909        Apr 18, Joan of Arc was declared a saint.
(MC, 4/18/02)

1910        Apr 14, President William Howard Taft began a sports tradition by throwing out the first pitch on baseball’s Opening Day. Taft threw to Washington Senator pitcher Walter Johnson, who went on to hurl a shutout win, allowing the Philadelphia Phillies just one hit and ending the day with a 3-0 victory for Washington.
(HNQ, 8/9/02)

1911        Mar 7, The United States sent 20,000 troops to the Mexican border in the wake of the Mexican Revolution.
(AP, 3/7/98)

1912        Mar 23, Dixie Cup was invented.

(SS, 3/23/02)

1913        Apr 21, Gideon Sundback of Sweden patented the zipper. [see Apr 29]
(MC, 4/21/02)

1914        Sep 5, The First Battle of the Marne began during World War I. The German First Army was led by Gen. Alexander von Kluck.
(AP, 9/5/97)(WSJ, 12/31/99, p.A10)

1915        Jan 19, The neon tube sign was patented by George Claude.
(MC, 1/19/02)

1916        May 11, Einstein’s paper “The Basis of the General Theory of Relativity” was published.
(http://tinyurl.com/2dvp8de)

1917        Apr 4, U.S. Senate voted 90-6 to enter World War I on Allied side.
(HN, 4/4/98)

1918        Mar 19, US Congress authorized time zones and approved Daylight Saving Time.
(AP, 3/19/97)(www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/usstat.html)(SSFC, 3/27/05, Par p.15)

1919        Feb 14, The United Parcel Service was incorporated in Oakland, CA.
(HN, 2/14/98)

1920        Jun 13, The U.S. Post Office Department ruled that children may not be sent by parcel post.
(HN, 6/13/98)

1921        Aug 10, Franklin D. Roosevelt (39) was stricken with polio at his summer home on the Canadian island of Campobello, New Brunswick. Mrs. Roosevelt acted as her partially paralyzed husband’s eyes and ears by traveling, observing and reporting her observations to him. As First Lady, an author and newspaper columnist and, later, a delegate to the United Nations, Eleanor Roosevelt labored tirelessly for the poor and disadvantaged. In the words of historian John Kenneth Galbraith, she showed “more than any other person of her time, that an American could truly be a world citizen.”
(HNPD, 10//99)(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D11)

1922        Jan 11, Insulin, then called isletin, was 1st used to treat diabetes on Leonard Thompson (14) of Canada. [see Jan 23]
(www.insulinfreetimes.org/00_spring/giants.htm)

1923        Apr 5, Firestone Co. put their inflatable tires into production.
(MC, 4/5/02)

1924        Jan 25, The 1st Winter Olympic games opened in Chamonix, France.
(SSFC, 2/17/02, p.A19)(MC, 1/25/02)

1925        Apr 10, The novel “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published by Scribner’s of New York. A film version was made in 1974.
(TMC, 1994, p.1925)(SFEC, 2/16/97, Par. p.18)(AP, 4/9/97)

1926        Mar 7, The first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation took place, between New York City and London. AT&T began trans-Atlantic telephone service via two-way radio this year.
(AP, 3/7/98)(WSJ, 10/26/00, p.A12)

1927        Jan 13, A woman took a seat on the NY Stock Exchange breaking the all-male tradition.
(HN, 1/13/99)

1928        Jan 31, Scotch tape was 1st marketed by 3-M Company.
(MC, 1/31/02)

1929        May 28, The first all-color talking picture, “On with the Show,” opened in New York.
(AP, 5/28/99)

1930        Mar 17, Al Capone was released from jail.
(HN, 3/17/98)

1931        Feb 21, Alka Seltzer was introduced. [see Dec 31]
(MC, 2/21/02

1932        Apr 23, The Royal Shakespeare Theatre opened at Stratford-on-Avon. It replaced one built in 1879 that burned down in 1926.
(www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1740490,00.html)(Econ, 3/31/07, p.91)

1933        Oct 10, The 1st synthetic detergent, “Dreft” by Procter & Gamble, went on sale.
(MC, 10/10/01)

1934        Mar 26, Driving tests were introduced in Britain.
(SS, 3/26/02)

1935        Feb 28, Nylon was discovered by Dr. Wallace H. Carothers.
(MC, 2/28/02)

1936        Feb 6, Adolf Hitler opened the Fourth Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. 1061 athletes stood at attention half-hidden by a furious blizzard. Austrian and French athletes gave the Nazi salute in passing the revue stand.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Winter_Olympics)(SSFC, 2/6/11, p.42)

1937        Jan 1, The US Social Security system began levying taxes on workers’ wages.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.23)(www.ssa.gov/history/1930.html)

1938        Apr 25, First use of seeing eye dog.
(HN, 4/25/98)

1939        Jan 24, Some 28-30,000 were killed by magnitude 8.3 earthquake in Chillan, Chile.
(MC, 1/24/02)(AP, 6/22/02)

1940        Feb 29, “Gone with the Wind” won eight Academy Awards, including best picture of 1939. Victor Fleming was named best director, Vivien Leigh best actress, and Hattie McDaniel best supporting actress, the first black performer to receive an Oscar. Best actor went to Robert Donat for “Goodbye, Mr. Chips.”
(HN, 2/29/00)(AP, 2/29/04)

1941        Jan 22, The 1st mass killing of Jews took place in Romania. [see Jan 9]
(MC, 1/22/02)

1942        Feb 11, “Archie” comic book debuted.
(MC, 2/11/02)

1943        Feb 13, The Marine Corps began allowing women to enlist as reserves.
(www.mcleague.com/mdp/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=63)

1944        Jun 6, Cherokee tribal members communicated via radios in their native language on the Normandy beaches. Some 6,603 Americans were killed along the coast of France during the D-day invasion. A total of 9,758 Allied soldiers died during the invasion. “D-Day” by Stephen Ambrose was published in 1994.

1945        Jan 20, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for his fourth term.
(HN, 1/20/99)

1946        Jan 1, Kathleen Casey became the first official US baby boomer following her birth just after midnight. On Oct 15, 2007, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling became the first baby boomer to make an early filing for Social Security benefits.
(SFC, 10/16/07, p.A8)

1947        Apr 10, Ronald Reagan and his wife Jane Wyman provided names to the FBI of Screen Actors Guild members believed to be communist sympathizers.
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F2)

1948        Jan 27, The 1st tape recorder sold.
(MC, 1/27/02)

1949        Jan 10, RCA introduced the 45 RPM record.
(MC, 1/10/02)

1950        Jun 24, In Brazil the Maracana stadium in Rio was officially inaugurated for the opening of soccer’s World Cup, the first in 12 years due to WW II.
(www.soccerhall.org/history/WorldCup_1950.htm)

1951         Jun 1, The first self-contained titanium plant opened in Henderson Nevada.
(DT, 6/1/97)

1952        Feb 29, The first pedestrian “Walk/Don’t Walk” signs were installed at 44th Street and Broadway at Times Square.
(HN, 2/29/00)

1953        Jan 6, Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie threw a party for his wife Lorraine at Snookie’s in Manhattan. His trumpet’s bell was bent upward in an accident, but he liked the sound and had a special trumpet made with a raised bell.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, DB p.34)

1954        Mar 22, The 1st shopping mall opened in Southfield, Mich.
(MC, 3/22/02)

1955        Mar 4, 1st radio facsimile transmission (fax) was sent across the continent.
(SC, 3/4/02)

1956        Mar, The Federal Hourly Minimum Wage was set at $1.00 an hour.
(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/blminwage.htm)

1957        Jul 22, Walter “Fred” Morrison applied for a patent for a “flying toy” which became known as the Frisbee.
(AP, 7/22/07)

1958        Aug 4, Billboard, founded in 1894, premiered its all-genre singles Hot 100 chart.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_100)

1959        Aug 21, Hawaii became the 50th state as President Eisenhower signed an executive order, five months after he’d signed the Hawaiian statehood bill.

1960        May 9, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the pill Enovid as safe for birth control use. The pill was made by G.D. Searle and Company of Chicago.

1961        Mar 18, The “Poppin’ Fresh” Pillsbury Dough Boy was introduced.
(MC, 3/18/02)

1962        Jan 30, Two members of the “Flying Wallendas” high-wire act were killed when their seven-person pyramid collapsed during a performance in Detroit.
(AP, 1/30/98

1963        Mar 21, The Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

1964        Jan, The Beatles made their North America TV debut on the Jack Paar Show. [see Feb 9, 1964]
(SFC, 1/28/04, p.A1)

1965        Mar 21, Martin Luther King Jr. led more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators on the 50-mile march to Montgomery from Selma.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, p.T1)(AP, 3/21/97)

1966        Jan 1, By law all US cigarette packs began carrying the warning: “Caution! Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.”
(www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1992/8/1992_8_72.shtml)

1967        Mar 3, The US performed a nuclear test at its Nevada Test Site. The Mushroom test was part of Operation Latchkey.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Operation_Latchkey)

1968        Feb 10, Peggy Fleming of the United States won the gold medal in women’s figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games in Grenoble, France.
(AP, 2/10/97)

1969        Mar 3, Sirhan Sirhan testified in a court in Los Angeles that he killed Robert Kennedy.
(HN, 3/3/99)

1970        Jan 7, Woodstock, NY, farmers sued Max Yasgur (1919-1973) for $35,000 for damages caused by the “Woodstock” rock festival.
(www.woodstockpreservation.org/pastpresent/maxtribute.html)

1971        Jan 31, Astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell and Stuart A. Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on a mission to the moon.
(AP, 1/31/98)

1972        Apr 17, A handful of women were first accepted as entrants to the Boston marathon.
(SFC, 3/10/00, p.D8)(www.boston.com/marathon/history/1972.shtml)

1973        May 14, US Supreme court approved equal rights to females in military.
(http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=411&invol=677)

1974        Mar 1, A grand jury in Washington, DC, concluded that President Nixon was indeed involved in the Watergate cover-up.  7 people, including former Nixon White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, former Attorney General John Mitchell and former assistant Attorney General Robert Mardian, were indicted on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with the Watergate break-in. They were convicted the following January, although Mardian’s conviction was later reversed. In 2005 Vanity Fair Magazine revealed that W. Mark Felt (91), former FBI official, was the Watergate whistleblower Deep Throat, who helped bring down Pres. Nixon.
(HN, 3/1/98)(AP, 3/1/99)(AP, 6/1/05)

1975        Jan 1, The Federal Hourly Minimum Wage rose to $2.10 an hour.
(www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/coverage.htm)

1976        Jul 4, The nation held a 200th anniversary party across the land in celebration of America’s 200 years of independence. President Ford made stops in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and New York, where more than 200 ships paraded up the Hudson River in Operation Sail.
(TMC, 1994, p.1976)(IB, 12/7/98)(AP, 7/4/01)

1977        Jan 3, Apple Computers incorporated under Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak. In March  Apple produced the Apple II, the first pre-assembled, mass-produced PC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)

1978        Apr 7, A Gutenberg bible sold for a record $2.2 million in NYC. It was bought by Martin Breslauer for the state museum of Baden Wurttemberg.
(www.biblio.com/details.php?dcx=35363264&aid=frg)

1979        Jan 3, The top of the record charts included: Le Freak by Chic; Too Much Heaven by the Bee Gees; My Life by Billy Joel; The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.
(440 Int’l. 1/3/99)

1980        Feb 22, In a stunning upset, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets at Lake Placid, N.Y., 4-3. The US team went on to win the gold medal.
(AP, 2/22/01)

1981        Mar 6, Walter Cronkite signed off for the last time as principal anchorman of “The CBS Evening News.”
(AP, 3/6/00)

1982        Apr 1, The U.S. transferred the Canal Zone to Panama.
(HN, 4/1/98)

1983        Sep 17, Vanessa Williams of New York became the first black contestant to be crowned “Miss America.” The following July, she also became the first Miss America to resign in the wake of her Penthouse magazine scandal.
(AP, 9/17/98)

1984        Feb 14, 6-year-old Stormie Jones became the world’s first heart-liver transplant recipient at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She lived until November 1990.
(AP, 2/14/04)

1985        Jan 1, The 1st US mandatory seat belt law went into effect in NY.
(www.nysgtsc.state.ny.us/seat-ndx.htm)

1986        Mar 6, Georgia O’Keefe (98), US painter (Flowers), died in Santa Fe, NM.
(SSFC, 6/22/03, p.C8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_O’Keeffe)

1987        Jun 22, Fred Astaire (b.1899), Hollywood dancer, died at a Los Angeles hospital. His elegance and fancy footwork graced more than 30 films.

1988        Jan 3, Margaret Thatcher (b.1925) became the longest serving British PM this century.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_3)

1989        Mar 24, Good Friday. The nation’s worst oil spill occurred as the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking 11 million gallons of crude. The Exxon Valdez struck ground in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and spilled 10.6 million gallons of oil. It was later renamed the Mediterranean and operated between Europe and the Middle East. Exxon then spent some $2.5 billion to clean up the spill and filed suit against Lloyd’s of London for reimbursement under a $210 million insurance policy. In 1996 a jury in Houston voted that Lloyd’s and some 250 other underwriters should compensate Exxon $250 million. The Exxon Valdez oil spill fouled approximately 1,000 miles of Alaska shoreline. The oil tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, spilling some 11 million gallons of crude oil. An estimated 250,000 seabirds were killed. The Exxon Valdez spilled 240,000 barrels of oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.
(AP, 3/23/97)(TMC, 1994, p.1989)(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-11)(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A10)(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.T5)(HNQ, 8/14/99)

1990        Jan 31, McDonald’s Corp. opened its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.
(AP, 1/31/98)

1991        May 23, In a five-to-four vote, the US Supreme Court upheld regulations barring federally subsidized family planning clinics from discussing abortion with pregnant women, or from telling women where they could get abortions.
(AP, 5/23/01)

1992        Aug 24, Hurricane Andrew smashed into Florida causing record damage; 55 deaths in Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas were blamed on the storm. It swept across Coral Gables, Florida, and destroyed two-thirds of the Fairchild Tropical Garden. It cost $15.5 bil in insured losses and was the most expensive natural disaster in US history. Insurance losses in the US and Bahamas totaled $21.5 billion.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A11)(AP, 8/24/97)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.62)(Econ, 9/17/05, p.73)

Melting Pot

· 1 Comment ·

We are a nation of immigrants. I’m proud to say that I’m an immigrant as well. I came to The USA in 1976 and I thank God everyday for bringing me here. My aunt Blanca came here in the 1960’s and established herself with a job as a secretary in Chicago; once she was settled in she began to work on helping  many of her brothers and sisters come here with their families. My aunt Blanca is one of my one personal heroes because if it wasn’t for her starting the whole process, I don’t know if I would be here today.

Another personal hero of mine is my uncle in whose house I grew up. He came to the USA in 1968 with his new wife. He was a young doctor in Colombia and he gave it all up to come live here. He followed his sister Blanca to Chicago; his first winter here was rough; coming from a tropical climate like Colombia, he had to endure the great Chicago blizzard of ’68. Not only that, he had to really start over career wise; he would go to night school to learn English and in the day time he had to work hard to pass his tests in order to get his MD licence so he could practice medicine here in the US.

My uncle had made a very comfortable life for himself by the time I came to live with him and his family. 2 years after I arrived, he joined the Air Force. THAT was so amazing to me. He chose to give back to this great country of ours by serving in the armed forces and I have always been very proud of him for that. I don’t know of too many people who would give up their comfortable life style, an established medical private practice and all if its accoutrements  to serve in the military like this special man did. He gave back to a country that gave him almost everything.

So today I salute my family members who have served and are  still serving in the military: Uncle Frank, Mireya (sister), Diego (brother), Kelli, Tracy (brother-in-law), Frank (cousin), Joe (father- in- law, deceased), Kristina (Niece), Larry (brother-in-law), David, Don Sr. ( deceased ).

I also salute and thank all of my friends who are currently serving and who have served this great land of ours in the past. I can’t name them all because they are too numerous to name..you know who you are! Thank you for being the brave men and women that you are who keep this country free from the claws of oppression. God bless you and your families always!

I DARE YOU !!

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I have to share this short video on my blog today. I grew up in the home of my uncle who was a doctor. I remember every time anyone was sick in the house, out came the meds. I had bad acne as a kid and he would give me a couple of meds that made the problem worse. I would stop taking the meds because one of them, this big pink pill would give me bad stomach pains and nausea. The other med was a liquid that I was to apply to my acne. When I did it would burn my skin and I’d look like a lobster; then the peeling and the itching that accompanied it was hell. I’d ask myself, ” Why do these pills I’m taking make my face look worse and give me pains in my stomach? I tell you even back then I would question stuff, but I never had the nerve to ask my uncle for fear of insulting him and his calling. The best thing about that is that I learned to listen to my body and I’ve never stopped listening to it since then.

As you watch this video, I hope you begin to wake up to the fact that the US medical establishment is beyond corrupt. I dare you to start asking your doctors hard questions and see what happens. I dare you to equip yourself with knowledge and let your doctor know that you want to take back your health. Please watch this video and pass it along to as many people  as you can. Remember: Change starts with one person at a time…change starts with WE THE PEOPLE

http://www.youtube.com/embed/K7_e_4AOsFo

30 Day Blog Challenge : Day 11

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 11 Question 11: What is the silliest most off the wall thing you’ve ever done in your life?

Answer:

I just  asked my kids to answer this question because I couldn’t think of anything on my own. They made me laugh so hard with each of their answers. For now, I will tell you about an incident which my second daughter told me stands out in her mind as the most off the wall thing I’ve ever done.

One day my husband was in a particularly foul mood. When he gets that way, he tends to complain a lot.  Usually I am able to just tune him out and ignore all of his noise. On this day though, I just didn’t want to hear him at all. I was in the kitchen making him an egg salad sandwich and he kep going on; about what, the details have long faded. I wanted him to be quite so badly. Finally when I couldn’t take his obscene mouth any longer, something got a hold of me and I took the hard boiled egg I was peeling and I smashed it in his neatly trimmed beard.

We both looked at each other and we were both equally shocked. The look of bewilderment on his face as he stood there, in our tiny kitchen made me wish I had a camera close by. Well it worked! He didn’t say a word and he went and cleaned up. My house was quiet once again and I could actually hear myself think for a change. Never underestimate the power of a tiny egg 😉

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 10

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 10 Question 10: What was the most mischievous thing you can recall doing as a child?

Answer: This memory always makes me chuckle because I really didn’t like my cousin I had to grow up with. He was always mean to me, so it felt good when this happened. We were vacationing in the south of Spain. My uncle was in the Air Force so while we were stationed in Germany, every summer we traveled around in Spain.

We had stayed the night in Rosas

 

a tiny, picturesque beach town. Tio (Uncle) had us get up around 5 am so we could get an early start. I was ready to go and when I knocked on my uncle’s hostel room door he told me to get the others up. My cousin was with me so we went to knock on the door of the friends we were traveling with. I  knocked on the door several times and nothing happened. So I walked away leaving my cousin there, who was still half asleep.

I went back into my room to get my belongings and then I heard a huge commotion. I poked my head out and there was an elderly man standing outside the door I had just knocked on. He was blasting my cousin out in French. I froze for a minute not getting the full picture. Then suddenly I understood what I’d done. I let my cousin take the fall and I was giggling like crazy. The upset French man slammed the door in my cousin’s face right when I walked up. My cousin looked at me in total bewilderment and I never explained to him what had just happened. Payback is hell baby!

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 9

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

Day 9 Question 9: What was the first “big item” that you bought when you were first married?

Answer: I was in my last year  of Fashion Design school and my old sewing machine was on the brink. I had a huge project due and the  old clunker would ruin my fabric every time I’d try to sew on it. The noises it made were somewhat akin to a combination of an old engine and an old horse that’s been put out to pasture. One night, with an encroaching dead line breathing down my neck, I picked up the old dinosaur and I threw it against the kitchen wall. I surprised myself with my own strength. My husband came in to see what was the matter and he didn’t have to ask, once he saw the old beast laying there lifeless. He told me to relax and that we’d go out and buy a new one the next day. So that was my first “big item” I bought as a newly wed.

30 Day Blog Challenge: Day 8

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Please refer back to my earlier posts and read what this challenge is about so that the later posts make sense. :)

 

Day  8 Question #8: What is the oldest keepsake in your possession?

Answer: I tend to  “travel light” so I don’t hang on to a lot of stuff. A long time a go I heard someone say that if you have stuff that you haven’t looked at or used in the last 6 months, that it’s time to get rid of it. Ever since I adopted that way of thinking, it has made for less of a cluttered life.

So today it was easy for me to answer this question. I have a sterling silver pin that I was given on my last day in Colombia. I had been living with my great aunt Clarissa for a few months as I waited for the legalities of my coming to the US to be finalized. That morning, she took me to a cabinet where she kept all of her fine silver pieces.  After looking a round for a bit she found this brooch and she pinned it on my collar. I was 6 years old at the time and I never understood why she chose such a nice piece to give to a little kid. That pin represents the end of my life in Colombia and the beginning of a new life with a new family for me in The States. I love wearing it because it reminds me of my roots.