Karaoke Wednesday.

Bet you weren't expecting that, were you? Since I'm going under the knife tomorrow and will be indisposed for who knows how long, I thought I'd leave you with what you like best. I think I've mentioned that I've loved Sting since I was 15 or 16. Anyway, this is one of my favorite Sting songs. I first heard it at a point in my life when it was exactly what I needed to hear. Sting wrote this song when his father died, but it helped me learn something about myself that I've never forgotten. So here I am singing Why Should I Cry.

Podcast episode 6

Sexy American Girlfriend and I discuss personal feminine grooming. Listen at your own risk. It's not pretty, folks.

Pictures and complaints

Here are some pictures I took at the karate tournament my husband and daughter competed in over the weekend.






Here are a couple of pictures of my daughter with Mookie that my husband took yesterday when the two of them went to visit our little puppy.




My brother and sister-in-law are in Argentina right now, so I pretty much hate them. My parents just came back from a cruise, so I pretty much hate them, too. Not really, but I'm jealous of everybody getting to go on cool vacations. Actually, the cruise was my mother's birthday present from my brother, sister and I, so I can't really complain about that one. But I am jealous that everyone but me seems to go away to distant lands. It's my own fault, I know. My brother and his wife don't have kids yet, so they're going to do as much traveling as they can before they start popping out the urchins. My sister and her family go traveling all the time. We never go anywhere. Part of it is money, but another part is that I think we don't have the money. We kind of don't, but I don't want to look back on my life wishing I'd done more stuff that I never got around to. You know, time really is short. OK, I'm going to keep my resolution this year and get those damn passports. I mean it.

Quick update

I've got a lot of stuff to take care of before my surgery on Thursday, so here's just a quick rundown of the weekend: My husband and daugther competed at their first taekwondo tournament over the weekend and they both brought home trophies, which is tres cool in my book. My daughter got two third place trophies in forms and sparring and my husband got a second place trophy in sparring. So, yay for the both of them. I'm the only one in my family who has to work today, so I'm kind of bummed that I miss out on all the fun. Uh, and I think that's it. K, bye.

Annie get your karaoke.

I love Annie Lennox and Eurhythmics. I think Annie Lennox hasn't gotten nearly the recognition she deserves for her talent. I don't think most people really understand what an incredible vocalist she is. I also like the fact that she seems like one tough broad who would just as soon kick your ass as say hello if your presence bothered her. Plus she'd stay elegant the entire time and barely break a sweat. That's my kind gal. I only got to see Eurhythmics once when I was in high school and lived in Utah. A friend of mine and I went to watch them in Park City. For some reason, though, we got bored about five songs into the concert and left. We learned the next morning, though, that the crowd had TOTALLY pissed off La Lennox and she swore she would never perform in Utah again. I don't know if she kept to that promise or not, but we were bummed that we missed all the drama. Ever since then, I've never left a concert early. Anyway, as I've mentioned, I'm running out of songs to sing off my karaoke mike, so I'm just singing to songs off my CDs now. I'm not using the vocal fade function on my stereo anymore because it cuts out too much of the music track, as well. So why don't you just close your eyes, reach out and pretend that you're holding onto a steering wheel--go ahead and move your hands back and forth, that's it--and just imagine we're in the car and you're listening to me sing to the radio. It'll be cool. I promise. So here I am singing Angel by Eurhythmics.

When it rains...

You know how the saying goes. I had my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon yesterday and it turns out that I totally blew my ACL. He pointed to a spot on the MRI film and said, "You see this little stump here?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well, that's what used to be your ACL," he explained.

Great. Anyway, I'm having surgery next Thursday to reconstruct the whole thing. But that's not really the thing weighing heavily on my mind right now. I got a phone call from my sister last night and my oldest nephew had a strange mole on his scalp that doctors think might be melanoma. To say the news was shocking is something of an understatment. The kid is only eleven, so the entire idea of him and cancer just sucks as much as anything can possibly suck. My brother-in-law (who's a plastic surgeon) already removed the patch, but they just sent the tissue to the Mayo Clinic to get a definitive diagnosis. Anyway, I'm going to ask all of you to pray real hard for him because he doesn't need something like this. Thanks in advance for sending any good vibes up to the big man.

Podcast follow up.

I just want to share some good advice Sexy American Girlfriend and I received from one brave soul who wrote in what he thinks constitutes good head, as we discussed in podcast episode 5.

Don't focus on the negative, but work on the positive. The men's tip/head is the most sensitive. The trick to a good bj is to use your hand(s) on the shaft and work the tip with your mouth...

So what do you think? Is that all the ladies really need to do? Is it as simple as that? Because if it is, that's good news for us women. Please feel free to chime in with your opinions on this very important issue.

In other news, we have gotten rid of all the animals in our house. We took the rabbit to his new owner this past Sunday. Now that's a load off.

Happy Smooch Day

Happy Valentine's. I hope everyone got something good from their sweetie. I got my ginormous box of candy, so I'm good. I was at the doctor's office all day yesterday having a stress test and other heart type tests taken. It wasn't fun. Not that anything was particularly hard or anything, it just took so damn long waiting around for them to go from one test to the next. On the cool side, I got to see an ultrasound of my heart beating. I could see the chambers and valves and everything. It was neat. You don't see something like that everyday. I've got my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow to figure out what's going to happen with my knee. The doctor I'm seeing is the doctor in charge of orthopedics for the football team, so I suspect he'll know a thing or two about torn ACL's. If he doesn't, that's pretty damn sad. But seriously, it sounds like I'll be in good hands. I'll have to remember to shave my legs tomorrow morning. Speaking of shaving my legs, I couldn't take a shower this morning because I'm wearing this 24-hour heart monitor and you can't shower or bathe with it on, which sucks. They stuck this thing on me as I was walking out the doctor's office yesterday and told me not to shower and I said, "That's great. You get me all sweaty from jogging on the treadmill and then tell me I can't shower. Wonderful." Anyway, I old-schooled it and did the washcloth and water basin thing this morning. I don't really recommend that as a normal means of washing up. It sucks. According to my monitor timer, I've got 03:03:11 left until test completion.

Breaking news!

Hot off the presses are two new pictures of Puppy Mookie.

Five-Fingered Karaoke.

I can remember the first time I heard Alanis Morissette's You Oughta Know I thought, "Ooooh, there's an angry young girl. Good for her." I like Alanis Morissette just because. Here I am singing Hand In My Pocket. Enjoy.



Now that you've marveled at the wonder of me, feel free to buy me a new song chip so you won't be forced to continue to listen to me singing songs that are out of my range. There is a method to my madness, after all. Natch!

The news is in.

There was a message on my phone last night when I got home. The results from my MRI indicate I have a torn ACL. Here's what that looks like.



How bad a tear it is, I don't know. I'm in the process of setting up a referral with an orthopedist to determine how to treat my injury. Regardless, it'll be a while before I can resume normal activity and I'm pretty agitated about the entire thing because it sucks. I made the mistake of telling my husband about the message when I got to taekwondo class last night because he and the instructor said I couldn't take class if I have an ACL injury. I said I was fine on Monday, but they said I couldn't do class. That made me angry. I don't like being told what to do.

Podcast #5

We get into a little raunchy talk with this one. Enjoy, you pervs.

Stories that make me laugh everytime, Vol. 4, I think.

When my brother was a teenager and in high school he decided it was time to find himself a job. So, as many teens are wont to do, he headed over to the local mall to pick-up applications and find some work. As he walked around collecting applications from typical shops such as The Gap, Radio Shack, video stores, etc., he happened to notice that the Victoria's Secret store had a "help wanted" sign in the front window. Not one to pass up opportunity when it is pounding so loudly on the door, my brother walked in and up to the counter to ask the lovely lady standing there if he could fill out an application for the open position. She eyed him with more than a little consternation and said, "I don't think we can hire you."

To which my brother replied, "It's because I'm Korean, isn't it?"

With flustered embarrassment, the saleswoman immediately handed an application to my brother. He never did get an interview, though.

I'm injury-free.

Well, I finally managed to get through a taekwondo class without passing out or injuring myself. Life is good. I wrapped up my knee really tight and put on a brace. I nearly cut off the circulation from my leg, but I didn't get hurt. Next up is to try and do some jogging, but I'll probably wait until next week to add that to the repertoire. We were hoping to go visit the puppy this weekend, but I just heard back from the puppy lady and she's not open Sunday. Bummer. Guess we'll have to try for next weekend. Saturday is pretty full for us between karate and the Valentine's Dance my committee is throwing at the church. I don't know why the parishioners at my church are such losers, but they are. So far, we've only got about 40 people coming to the dance and that includes those of us on the committee. I don't even try anymore. I just go through the motions to set-up dinner and dancing. I don't put any extra energy into planning this thing anymore because the turnout is always so poor. It's going to be a good dinner, though. We're going to have lemon chicken, house salad, green bean amandine, rolls, red roasted potoatoes, and chocolate sin cake. If nothing else, it'll be a nice evening with my friends and husband. It would be better if we didn't have to stick around to clean up, but those are the breaks as Kurtis Blow likes to say.

Random bitch moment.

OK, this is what I hate: I hate it when strangers try to act like they know you. Case in point, I went to the cafeteria to get my lunch and ordered a special, which was grilled cheese and tomato soup (which is my favorite lunch of all time), but there were no grilled cheese sandwiches so the guy behind the counter had to grill one up for me. In the meantime, I went to get my soup. When I got back, he handed me my sandwich and I said thanks. Then he says to me, "Have a nice smile." So I smiled in acknowledgment of his comment while I put a lid on my sandwhich. Then he said, "What's wrong? You don't seem to be in a good mood today." Now, this kind of thing really pisses me because what I want to say is, "Bitch, do you know me? No, I don't think so. So how the fuck would you know if I'm in a good mood today or not. Just because I'm not batting my eyelashes at your sloppy, toothless grin doesn't mean I'm in a bad mood. I was in a perfectly good mood until you started acting like you know me." Instead, I said, "I'm in a neutral mood," then left to pay for my stuff.

Everyone was kung-fu fighting.

My daughter and husband graduated to their next belt level in taekwondo Friday night. Here are a couple of pictures of them.




I have another nice picture of the two of them with their instructor, but my husband looks like a duffus in it and he forbade me from posting it on the blog. That picture shows them with their new belts, but there you have it. I'm going to start up with the lessons again this evening. It's been four weeks since I hurt my knee and I'm going to wrap it really good and get back on the horse, as they say. I still haven't heard anything about the MRI I had a couple of weeks ago and I'm getting sick of waiting, so I'm exercising again. I've still got to be careful with I move, but I'm walking without a limp so I'm figuring it's healed up enough. Anyway, my husband bought a bunch of cold packs at the sporting goods store over the weekend because he thinks I'm going to reinjure myself, but no. I have no fear of pain.

More Madonna Karaoke

I know, I know. How many Madonna songs can I possibly sing? What can I say? Madonna is a very popular karaoke staple. Is it my fault that approximately 63.2% of the songs on my karaoke microphone are by Madonna? I think not. I think I'm going to start raiding my daughter's CD collection to come up with some fresh songs for you, which I'm sure you will appreciate very, very much. We were listening to Pokemon Christmas Bash this morning while we were brushing our teeth. Maybe I'll do a song from that outstanding album next week. You just never know what you're going to get. I think it's the suspense that keeps this enjoyable, don't you? Anyway, here I am singing Take a Bow by Madonna. Interesting side note, the guy that plays the matador in this video looks exactly like one of my husband's friends from DC. His name is Victor and he's a very nice guy.

Hot cross pets! Hot cross pets for sale!

Well, I have managed to relocate two of the pets. The chinchilla was immediately snatched up by one of the grad students I work with, and I have just learned that another graduate student is wanting the hamster. I think she also wanted the rabbit, but it seems that the rabbit was a no-go for the roommate. Not bad though, not bad at all. I think the rabbit knows something is up, though. I think he can sense that his time is short and he will soon be booted out of Eden, as it were. He looks at me forlornly with an accusing look in his eye. "You evil bitch," I can almost hear him think. "You evil, stinking bitch." Bet you didn't know rabbits could be so vicious, did you? Well, if you've ever seen The Holy Grail, then you'd know just how violent they can be when angered. I hate to break his poor, little bunny heart, but he'll forget us after the first day, I'm sure. We will fade like vapor from his simple, tiny brain.

Wow, Simon Cowell really is an ass.

Last night my daughter was not feeling well and went to bed really early. She was asleep by 6:30, so my husband and I decided to watch television because we usually cannot watch anything that doesn't involve Spongebob Squarepants or Pokemon. As we were flipping through the channels, we decided to give American Idol a shot. We've only ever watched one other episode of American Idol and it was the episode where Rueben Stoddard won the second season. We'd never seen any of the audition segments, so we thought it would be interesting to see what this Idol thing is all about.

Now, I've seen the press about how obnoxious Simon Cowell is and I understand that's his schtick and all, but that man is really an evil bastard. It's one thing to offer honest criticism to people who shouldn't get their hopes too high when envisioning a life in the spotlight, but it's something altogether different to try and crush people in the process. That man really seems to want to destroy people's sense of self-worth and I don't know why so many people tune in to watch him do it. Obviously, he doesn't care, but if I were one of the other judges, I'd basically tell Simon, "You're an ass." I'd tell him that every episode. I think it would be funny to just start off every sentence with, "You're an ass." And, of course, I'd tell all the contestants, "Now, you know Simon is an ass, but I don't think you're suited for this competition." Anyway, it does seem that majority rules with the judges' decisions, so I'm glad to know Simon's assiness doesn't necessarily mean a worthy contestant is booted out before he or she is given a chance.