So it’s that time of year again when Hubby and I plague each other with whether or not to exchange gifts early. You know what? It’s not the time of year, it’s us. As my mother would say, “Just can’t have nothing new.” And she would be right. Be it a birthday, anniversary, or Christmas present, we can’t get that item opened fast enough. What amazes me most is the great lengths we go to in order to make sure the other has no idea what they are getting. My husband would let me get the mail for a week because there was something in the mail that would tip me off. And I am now doing the same to him with an additional gift I vow not to give him until Christmas.

So we have already swapped Christmas gifts. It’s December 15th and the only gift I’ll be opening on Christmas will be from my mother. That’s not a bad thing but her gift are more thoughtful than exciting.

Anyway… I do want to say that I absolutely love my now not-so-new gift. What is it? Drumroll….

A PS3!!! And I love it. Hubby and I were discussing the PS3 and how it really is an all-in-one home entertainment system. It plays DVD and Blu-ray, streams from Netflix, downloads games (some have demos), and has the new PlayStation Network. So far I’ve downloaded a few demos: Fairytale Fights is disturbingly bloody while Little Big Planet is fun and cute. We’ve alos bulked up out Netflix Instant Play Queue  and have streamed everything from Dora and Thomas the Tank Engine to Jim Gaffigan and SNL’s The Best of Chris Farley.

We haven’t played any Blu-ray discs but have noticed the difference in picture quality. I’m thinking of ordering Star Trek for us and Up for KidWonder. I can’t wait to see what all the fuss is about. Now all I need to do is get Hubby a receiver to go with the surround sound speakers I got him last year.

If he identifies more with his white ancestry, should I breathe a sigh of relief? If he identifies with his black ancestry, should I wait with bated breath? Wouldn’t either choice mean that I am only perpetuating the race cycle? The reason I am having this issue in the first place is because my mother perpetuated the cycle and I have the image of black men being judged by their skin color/tone and not character.

Like the title of the post says, I wonder–and it’s rare–if my son will have some color or race confusion. But I wonder if I will question which race he identifies with, and that is my true worry. I don’t want to think of my son as black or white. He’s my son and all the should matter is that he came from me and I will protect, teach, and support him. I will.

This snippet from the momlogic article is what I fear for any child of color:

My son has been reading since he was 4 years old. He was the only reader in his pre-K class, and every day throughout the school year his teacher would tell all the parents hanging around for pickup how he reads stories to the other children, helps them tie their shoes (because they don’t know how), and spells like a champ. He is also the only African-American in the class. At the end of the school year, a bunch of moms and dads from the class got together, and their whole conversation about my son was about how fast he runs, how he wins all the races at parties, and how he has a very muscular tone for a 5-year-old. These things are true. But not one person talked about how smart he is. Even though that was the messaging they received about my son nearly every day. Not one parent.

Well I got it and immediately after I imported all my pictures, I began to name people. In Faces you are asked to choose from pictures/faces that looks like the person you’ve named.

Here is the proof that it definitely doesn’t get it right the first time around:

This is the first one that threw me off. My SIL looks nothing like my bridesmaid. Maybe it's because my veil is in her face that iPhoto thinks she might be a blonde.

Trying to confirm my sister-in-law. I can understand why my other sister-in-law came up--they're sisters--but why one of my male friends. Sorry SIL if it's insulting but iPhoto thinks this guy looks alot like you.

Attempting to confirm my uncle on the top. That's my husband in the bottom left corner. I don't know why someone's random butt is being compared to either.

I don't even remember which one I was trying to confirm but either way they got something wrong.

Last week, my computer crashed. The Awesome Hubby spoke to my iMac in that computer language he knows so well and found that some rogue RSS feed I no longer subscribe to had written itself over a very important file-ETC(?). So I took it in to have it checked out at the Genius Bar in Stamford. My worst nightmare was having to erase my hard drive and reinstall my operating system. What do you think they told me? Yep, Murphy’s Law in full effect. The nice genius at the Genius Bar named T-Bo (I know!) told me to take my computer home, connect it via firewire to another computer, and start it up via Target Boot–that means hold down the “T” after you hear the ping–so that my computer would load as an external hard drive. Doing this would allow me to transfer the most important items and burn dvds. I, of course, crashed the laptop I was connected to in the process…

I should take this moment to tell you that over the last week I haven’t had the best luck with electronics…

So I took it home and got as much as I could. I ended up burning 9 DVDs of documents, mailboxes, wedding and family pictures, and pdfs from the web. I began the install and hubby had to come calm me down and speak to the computer about freaking me out with words like “journaled” and “corrupted” and made the install start. Everything was going well until the second disc was called upon. Thinking back on it now, I think it might have been best if Hubby had put in the second disc as there must have been something wrong with my electrons that day. The second disc failed, reading “56 minutes remaining”.

I took it back to the Genius Bar in the Stamford Apple Store. I was told they would give me not just a new hard drive but a bigger hard drive, an upgrade to Snow Leopard, and iLife ‘09. I was very excited when I went to get my computer the following Thursday.While at the Apple Store, Hubby and I decided it was the opportune time for him to get his new iPhone. We wanted to add a line to my pre-existing account. The man that handled the transaction instead upgraded my iPhone. He tried to fix it by returning the new iPhone and starting over. It worked. My husband got his phone and new number. So why couldn’t I get service all of a sudden? He had deactivated my phone. So down to the other end of the mall we go to AT&T only to find out that, since I have a first generation iPhone, they can’t activate my phone in the store. I have to connect to iTunes. (And to that AT&T guy, eat more fiber. You’re too young to be crotchety.)

So all in all I had to make two trips to AT&T, waste 20 more minutes with a screaming 2-year-old and hungry husband, and still had to call customer service when I got home because nothing was resolved in the store. And when I did contact AT&T I found out that Carmine the Apple guy didn’t reverse the upgrade or the upgrade fee, and had extended my contract another two years. Infuriating doesn’t come close to describing how I felt about Carmine’s “one little mistake.”

Well at least I had my computer home. Guess who got duped? Ding-a-ling! It was me. My newly refurbished, super-pimped-out iMac was just as lame as it was before. They didn’t do any of the upgrades! Good thing I convinced Hubby to buy a family pack of Snow Leopard instead of a single user.

I now have a different opinion of the big Apple and it’s retail store. If I had just done everything online, there would have been much less hassle. We could have grabbed the computer and picked up an already activated iPhone for Hubby. If you’re going to have people upgrade or add a line in store, provide a kiosk or computer where we can make the mistakes ourselves.

why wasn’t the mother correcting her own child and what kind of mother is she for letting this loontic touch her child even once.

You may need to read the article to get where I’m coming from.

In case you didn’t know, the law states that a woman can not be fired while on maternity leave. It states this because it is illegal to fire someone for being pregnant, and being pregnant (and breastfeeding) is a woman issue. Because it is a woman issue, it is deemed sexist to fire her. Now I don’t believe in sexism but I think the law is stupid. Wait…I think the interpretation of the law is stupid. If a man had to be off work because of something to do with his prostate he wouldn’t be fired. If he were, it wouldn’t be seen as sexist.

Do I think Acosta Taco is wrong? Yes. Absolutely. Did they get what they deserved? Yes. Should this woman’s job be protected while she is on maternity leave and doing everything she is suppose to do for her job AND her child? You damn right! I just don’t agree with the interpretation of the law.

When I returned home, I found that the number of geeks in my home had doubled. DadWonder has brought KidWonder over to the darkside and taught him the way of the force. He now uses the force, has a light saber (I bought him a light up sword at Six Flags before I knew), and his favorite character is “RD2″.

How long before he has a passport and is dancing on the Deathstar?

Video to come of him using the force.

My son will know the difference.

Well now I have the Facebook App, Sorority Life to give me a parody on what Sorority life would be like. You begin with an avatar that you make up with GLAM. People are allowed to vote on your avatars style once a day. People most likely to vote for you are your sisters. Your sisters are those in your house. You get a max of 500 sisters. With these sisters, you can attack other girls “on campus.” The more sisters you have, and the more GLAM you have collectively, the better equipped you are at attacking another girl.

In order to get GLAM and cash, you perform events. There are 4 event categories with many events in each. You can also earn money by getting a job. Jobs range from bar maid to reporter to model. Each with a training fee and an hourly allowance.  You can also buy GLAM using Brownie Points given to you by the House Mother when you complete certain levels of events.

The Addiction: I can’t stop playing it. When I log onto Facebook, the first thing I look for is SLife requests or messages. At one point I even went to a site called SLifeTrain.com were you can add others as friends so that you can add them to your house on Sorority Life. I ended up going from a house of 10 to a house of 100 in a matter of days.

The Downside: You have to be friends with someone on Facebook before you can add them as a friend. All I did was find like-minded people in SLife groups and on SLifeTrain and add the as friends, put them in a specific list, then invite all in that list to join my house on SLife.

Brownie Points: Another downside is Brownie Points. They seem to only be good for making people shop the offers on the House Mom’s page. They can buy GLAM but are hard to come by. If you could use the money you’ve made to buy BP then it might be worth it to have them.

I advise you not to try it if you want to get anything done with your day. Don’t get sucked in as I have. My husband scoffs when he sees me at the computer with that big, pink banner right there at the top os the screen. And I don’t blame him, but he does have his WarFish (risk in Scrabulus format, but was out before Scrabulus) and I try not to judge. But if you can DON’T DO IT TO YOURSELF. STAY AWAY FROM SORORITY LIFE. Or else I may have to attack you and sisters and leave you all depressed and crying for the spa.

This was my first time reading J. California Cooper. I loved the story. Any time I had a chance, I was reading this story. But I felt that the story had too much going on and was a bit long. The characters were well developed, almost too well. Considering that all the information was provided to give us a better understanding of one unspoken attraction, I don’t think that info was necessary. It was like several short stories strung together, which I understand is her forte.

The story structure was daunting and just made me want to get through the book. But the fact that I wanted finish the book says something, I guess.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is absolutely inspirational. He touches on all topics. I’m sure to be going back to this book as a guide to the many paths of life. I liked this book so much that I went to the library and checked out every book they had.

View all my reviews.

After all that, it’s no wonder that today, when the rash has finally subsided, that when he’d had his fill of milk he simply put his bottle to the side and put himself to sleep. Poor guy has had a long week and I am so glad to see him sleep so peacefully. Maybe I should take this chance to do the same thing.

Braces     ?
Driver’s License    ?
Fantasizing about my wedding    ?

A time machine to take me back to 1999 when those things should have been happening – irrelevant because they’re happening now.

He trekked home every night, his wife, Helene, keeping him out of her kitchen.

At the White House, he worked closer to the dirty dishes than to the large desk in the Oval Office. Helene didn’t care; she just beamed with pride.

President Truman called him Gene.

President Ford liked to talk golf with him.

He saw eight presidential administrations come and go, often working six days a week. “I never missed a day of work,” Allen says.

His is a story from the back pages of history. A figure in the tiniest of print. The man in the kitchen.

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