Comedy

I like things that are funny. Comedies, jokes, anecdotes, etc. I love romantic comedies as movies and television comedies. Having said that I do have a complaint. Why do comedians feel the need to use four letter words to embellish their stand up. Comedy Central was advertising a new George Lopez live performance. I saw his first one on television. What I saw was the edited version, and he was hilarious. His "Why You Crying" stand up was right on. Now, I am married to a Mexican and we both were rolling on the floor because his show was right on the money. He made his points, and hit them straight up. His new stand up show was America's Mexican. We were so excited, especially after his first one. Holy cow!! Talk about tons of "bleeps". If you have to rely on four letter words to prop up your set, it's not funny. We were so disappointed. What was sad was his need to fall back on those words. Now, he followed Gabriel Iglesias. No relation that I know of to the other famous Iglesias family. This Iglesias is Mexican and is "Hot and Fluffy." He probably had a half dozen bleeps through his entire set. He is hysterical. He was able to stand in front of a large audience for an hour, make them laugh, and not need to use those words as a crutch. If you are funny, be funny. Adding four letter words does not in itself make things funny. I hope Gabriel makes another special because I would watch him any time. George, clean up your act. Especially when kids know you from the family show on tv. Why mess up a good thing? Live up to your publicity promos. It would be worth it.

Change

It's been said that change is good. What if, faced with a major change, your comfort level alters? I hope that I can adapt to whatever changes come my way. The potential is there, I just hope I can face the change head on and embrace it. Sometimes the theory is better than the reality. Let's hope that is not the case. Change may allow a person to grow and become a different, and hopefully, better person. Here's to changes...

Bait and Switch

If a homeowner contracts with you to do a job, can you please do the job. The owner hired you because of your qualifications, abilities, etc. It is not fair to an owner if you substitute other people in your place. Especially those who do not have any skills needed to do the job. A homeowner works darn hard for their money and have allocated a certain amount to do needed repairs, upgrades, etc to their home. Please have the decency to show up to do the job YOU signed on for. Don't disrespect the owner by doing a bait and switch. You charge high because of your skills, then substitute a worker with no skills. Do you then lower the price along with that? Of course not. It is so not fair to hardworking people. We are all getting gouged at the gas station, grocery stores, etc but we know what we are getting for our money and we make that choice ourselves. The poor homeowner thinks he's getting one thing, but is soooo not. If they only knew what goes on while they are away working to earn that elusive dollar. My husband is a contractor, and he feels very bad for these unsuspecting people. Please, in an industry based on customer service and relations, value your clients and show them some respect. And if possible, try to take a few minutes out of your schedule one day, and drop in when they are not suspecting. You'd be amazed at what you find.

Easy Money

There's no such thing as easy money. Now, as a disclaimer I will freely admit that I am not an expert on the construction area, but I have been married to a contractor for over 16 years, so I know a little something about the industry. But, speaking as a consumer, I would have to beg you, as a professional, please treat my money with respect. I know that everybody needs to make money, but please, can you do something to earn it? My husband came home, again, frustrated with the other contractor on the job. Now this contractor negotiated with the owner directly. My husband and him walked the job and my husband gave him his professional opinion about what he would charge. The contractor then added quite a few more thousand to that price and bizarrely enough got the job (that's another blog). My husband has been on this job doing the work every day (except for the one day he took off, for my son's field trip), the other one has yet to show up. Now, at the end of the project is it fair that each make the same amount of money? I don't think so. The other contractor has been sending laborers (as in they don't have the specific skills needed for the job) in his place. He wants their pay to come partially out of my husband's share and not as a price to be paid for not showing up on the job himself. That was the choice you made, to now show up. The secondary problem with sending other people to the job is that my husband has to take the time to show them what needs to be done. When he gets to the job and finds people standing around just talking, spending working hours continually on the phone, leaving work early, etc. that is a problem. There's a deadline people!!! The job has to be completed within a certain time frame for them to get paid. 1) sending unqualified people that need to be babysat takes time away from the job; 2) wanting to get paid for just showing up is not cool either. A body means nothing, at least pretend to be working. Your casual attitude towards your customers, towards work, etc. is impacting my family's income. That affects my children and that makes me angry. Whatever happened to an honest wage for an honest day's work?

Traditions

Trying to set a tradition so the kids have something to look forward to. For us, it's Pizza Night Fridays. Now, we have started making our entire pizza from scratch. Needless to say, we have our ups and downs with how it's turned out. Last week the pizza got a little brown, all right, black on the bottom. Tonight, although it took longer than usual, it turned out great. Too bad I can't say the same thing for the homemade ice cream. Guess it would help if we planned ahead. Remember, freeze the container. Cold is apparently important in making ice cream. So next week starts a new tradition. Pizza and Ice Cream Night Friday. At least that's my hope. Traditions aren't quite the same when they implode on you. Hope all your traditions are good ones.

Celebrate Good Times, Come On

Yes, I am dating myself, but oh, well. Kool and the Gang's song came out around the time I graduated. With that said, who wouldn't want to celebrate life. More so, who wouldn't want to live in a town called Celebration. I was just just informed that this town existed. After much research, the is the ideal town to live in if possible. The town was created by Disney back in the 90's. Has its own school, banks, post office and has very little crime. Ultimate small town Americana. Beyond that, it has its own road straight through to Disney World. If I could manage it I'd move there tomorrow. Too bad I didn't know this town existed earlier. Would have changed a couple years of my life. So, if I had to live anywhere, it'd definitely be in the town that the mouse built. My cats will enjoy their twilight years with the rodent. Here's to the celebrations in your life.

A Day at the Zoo

Yesterday was family day at the San Diego Zoo. We had not done something unique for quite some time and we were really looking forward to it. I forgot how much walking is involved in touring that zoo. You could walk all day and probably still not see everything. Now we couldn't beat the price to get in - it came to a whopping $10 for the four of us. This was thanks to my son's school. Field trips rock!!! Now what we saved in admission, I think we more than made up for it in food. One soda is $4. I think we ended up spending about $50 in food. And we didn't really buy anything. A few sodas and lunch. That was it. Good grief, did I buy rib eye steaks with a margarita? I had a sandwich. Oh well, at least it goes to a good cause. Support the zoo. Now we did find some interesting animals. Some make you scratch your head. What is the purpose of a naked mole rat? That poor critter is probably one of the ugliest rodent out there. Sorry Rufus... We did enjoy the meerkats. And of course the red panda, which looked more like a fox than a bear. And of course, my ultimate dream bird. The hyacinth macaw. Someday, sometime, somewhere, I am going to own that beautiful bird. Not that it could ever replace Bandit, who I still miss terribly.

Now this account of the day would not be complete without a shout out to my son, who rescued the fuzzy duckling. Yes, spring was in full force at the zoo, with lots of baby ducks racing behind their moms. One little guy escaped from his fenced enclosure (that small, fit through the bars), and wandered into the walkway. Poor thing was sitting there crying pathetically for his mom. My son, inheriting the pet lover gene from me, picked him up and tried to put him back in. He was successful, but it took some doing. The fences are not only designed to keep the animals in, it is also designed to keep the people out. He thought that was so cool, handling this baby duck. Baby was ultimately reunited with mom, but she had to come back and get him, as she had taken the rest of the troop to the water. Unfortunately my 2 year old daughter could not figure out why a duck would not come to her and willingly climb into her lap so she could hold one too. Poor thing was heartbroken when we finally had to leave and she was unable to convince a duck to be held. Maybe next time...