Red leather, yellow leather...

 Hello happiness.

New 100% leather jacket. $19.99. Savers.

It is RED (where in the world DO they get those red cows...?).

It is the right length so I don't look any shorter than I already am.

 It looks good with my fedora.

 Love. Enough said.

Pretty happy with my find. I am still waiting for the day I find a really cool, really rough BLACK leather jacket in some second hand place. I've been looking for a while and cannot find anything that suits me. And I absolutely refuse to buy some vinyl, yukky fake from the mall. The day will come. But until then I will wear this one and keep looking.

*title from a random tongue twister/tongue warm-up thing I learned back in my acting days.

"Red leather, yellow leather, good blood, bad blood,

Red leather, yellow leather, LAVENDER leather."

Go ahead, say it. Lots of l's and vowel sounds. Good for your annunciation and...stuff.

Quote-ables.

I don't watch a lot of TV, I confess. I have too much to do to give any large portion of my life over to a big, black rectangle and a remote. People will ask me "Do you watch *_________* (insert words like American Idol, Lost, 24, etc)?" and I say "Nope." This usually gains me a shocked face or several questions. TV is a life sucker, so I avoid it as much as I can.

But some week nights, usually after the hour of 9:30, once my brain cannot really produce anything intelligible with written words, and all my fingers want to do is to crochet/knit/sew/create something, I tend to end up in my (as in, not really mine, but anyone who sits there gets lifted out and carried away to another place of seating) green chair in front of the telly.

I don't really have a favorite show, and the shows I do like don't ever end up on normal people's favorites lists so... we will skip to what I really want to talk about here.

Commercials.

Oh the things I could say about commercials. Some are fantastic. Some I cannot stand to the point of muting the TV and then doing voice overs.
Some of my current favorite commercials are the Old Spice ones (okay, I know, little weird, but...that are just so random it makes me laugh) Hillshire Farms *GO MEAT* (and yes, that did just come out of the mouth of a vegetarian. That, my dear children, is what we call irony.) and...

...THIS ONE.


This cracks me up, every time. I may or may not have the YouTube link on my desk top. I don't wear contacts, I don't like contacts (Me, touch my eye? NO thank you!). There is just something wonderful about the intentionally cheesey acting, the weird way that man says "BRAAANNND!" , and when the woman says "look, look with your special eyes!"

Totally ridiculous! Every time I hear her say it I cannot control myself. I find it absolutely hysterical and I really don't know why. So that is today's quote. Watch the video. Just "look, look with your special eyes."

Does anyone else think this is worth laughing at? Will anyone else be walking around telling people to "look with their special eyes" today? Anyone else like commercials? Which ones?

Rinceoir Le Aman, Lords and Warlords and a Brief Look at Irish Culture.

Last night I went to see Lord of the Dance.

My uncle Peter took  my cousin Sarah,  her friend Shayla, and I to go see it in Springfield, MA. Shay and I were last minute additions when Sarah's 2 older sisters couldn't come because of school-related engagements. But I am really grateful that I got to be the replacement. We had a great time.

I was the only dancer of the bunch (*going on 12 years, babayyy!) and for me, this show has extra special meaning.  Back in the 90's when Michael Flatley, dance legend, created the show, my dad somehow heard about it and brought home a VHS of the performance live in  London's Hyde Park. He thought it would be a cool thing to expose me to, culturally, musically and all...

But it did way more than that. At seven years old I became OBSESSED with Irish Step Dancing. That videoed performance is to blame. After turning it off I spent hours 'dancing' around my house, and any flat surface I could find, begging my parents to get my some lessons. I had heard of the stuff before, my friend Alanna was a dancer and her mom owned a studio in my town, but I had never really had an interest in dance. But when we popped that video in our VCR, the first song, Cry of the Celts, began and the story of Lord vs. Don Dorscha began to unfold, I was changed.

At seven, I thought Michael Flatley was not only 'Lord of the Dance,' but a real, live super hero.

Wow, I have come a long way.

For those of you who have seen  Lord (or Riverdance, or Celtic Tiger) you can probably just imagine shirtless, sweaty Flatley and his "feet of flames" rhythmically making his way across the stage, doing crazy stuff with his arms and kissing his glittery girl. For those of you who haven't seen it, I just gave a pretty decent summary of the parts including Flatley.  Lord of the Dance and its creator are greatly accredited for the widespread rise of Irish Step in the 1990's. Michael Flatley became the face of Irish Step. Still, now 16 years after the show first appeared, when you say any sort of sentence involving "...Irish step dance...", most people  immediately bring up Flatley.

But...that is a very inaccurate picture of Irish Step. The true Irish don't so much love Flatley. They don't so much like the way that he modernized their traditional and beautiful form of dancing. They don't so much like that the pompous, American born/Irish raised man messed with their culture. They don't so much like the fact that when people think of Irish Dancing, they imagine a full-of-himself, sweaty guy with his chest painted and arms waving about, and girls with less clothing than necessary clinging to him.

 I promise you, NONE of that is Irish. I know and love Irish and that is a distorted image of what it truly it. I have learned. I have competed. I have performed. I have danced on a big, bad stage in Ireland. I assure you, I have done NONE of that above mentioned shenanigans. But when Flatley did it, it turned the world's eyes to Ireland. Suddenly what they had been doing for centuries was a world wide phenomenon. Thousands of kids like me, suddenly wanted to learn what this guy knew. He more or less single-handedly changed the globe's view on Irish Step!

While it is a modernized form, it sure looked to me when I was seven! It wasn't so much the show, or him, or the costumes that enthralled me back then. It was the music. And how their feet sang the words to the songs. It was like a bunch of performers in musical, telling the story with their feet instead of mouths. I found, and still find, that fascinating. As much as I have come to love Irish music, what I love more is that WE ARE the music. Sometimes at shows my teacher (*yes, the aforemented Alanna's mom) will have a dancer perform an impressive solo, in hard shoe, to music. Then she turns off the music and the person does it again. And the feet sing the same song. 

That is why I love Irish Dance. Soft shoe feels like flying and Hard shoe feels like playing a rhythm instrument. I have never lost that feeling. I remember my first class, back in the summer of 1999. The feeling I felt then, I still feel every time I go to dance. There is nothing else like it.

So while I can look back and say "You liar! That isn't Irish. Please put a shirt on and stop flailing your arms." and also can look back and see the huge affect that it had on my life. Last night I listened to that music, hummed it all by heart, danced the steps in my head, and thought back to the first time I watched the show, on my living room TV. That day quite literally changed my life. Yup, I've come a very long way.

So thank you, Uncle Peter, for taking me to see it live, for taking me back to that moment where Irish Dance captured my mind, my heart, and my feet. Thank you for reminding me of what I love. And thank you sweaty, feet of flames Flatley! Thank you for introducing me to what I love. I owe you one.

Declare nothing to be impossible!

In a previous post, titled Chipmunk Whispering for Dummies, I mentioned how I think a chipmunk would make a fabulous pet. And how I think one should sit on my shoulder and do back flips. And how I have tried this several times and have failed miserably.

BUT IT IS POSSIBLE!

Well, not the back flipping bit, but the training, and even the trick doing. A random google search produced this result; How to Teach a Pet Chipmunk Tricks. And it is listed as Moderately Easy! Here, take a looksie. I know you, like me, are dying to try this on your very own pet chipmunk.

Teach Your Pet Chipmunk to Eat From Your Hand

Step 1- Sit very quietly near your pet chipmunk's cage. This will allow him to become accustomed to your presence while he feels safely enclosed in his cage. I did this! Just like a REAL chipmunk whisperer...

Step 2-Let your pet chipmunk become accustomed to your hand by feeding her a peanut while she is still in her cage. This is where things went down hill. My hand was in the cage, all nice and still. The door was cracked open, obviously, because my hand was attached to my body, like it normally is. Fifer sat there all nice and calm (little liar) and then he *VOOMED.*  On my hand. On my arm. On my head. Onto the deck railing. Off and into the the woods. No more chipmunk, so you can skip the reading of the rest of the steps if you want.


Step 3-Take your pet chipmunk out of his cage and put him on a tabletop. Make sure he is accustomed to you and is unafraid of your hand.


Step 4-Lay your hand on the tabletop near her with a peanut resting in your palm. In time, she will want to investigate the goodie in your hand.

Teach Your Pet Chipmunk to Come When You Whistle
Step 1-Make sure your pet chipmunk has mastered his first trick before attempting to train him to come when you whistle.


Step 2-Whistle a simple tune every time your pet chipmunk comes to eat a peanut out of your hand. Be sure to whistle the same tune each time so she will connect that tune with the treat. What tune would you whistle, if you had a chipmunk to whistle to? I'll have to think on this one... it would probably be some ridiculously complex piece of classical music...but that would mean I would have to work a lot on whistling,  as I am pretty awful at it right now.


Step 3-Stand a little further away every day. Gradually increase the distance between you and your pet chipmunk. Eventually he should come running across the room when you whistle.


Step 4-Try adding a new tune once he has successfully mastered coming when you whistle. If you are patient and persistent, you may succeed in training him to come when you call his name. *ohhh Fifer of Worchestershire the 3rd...*

This all sounds great, right? Now you want a pet chipmunk? Well, unfortunately it is mostly not so very legal in most states. Darn.
 
MY PERSONAL STEP ONE: before I try and take this intense quest on again, before I get me a magical flippin' rodent, I need to find a new state to live in...

Oh technology...

If you give a two year old a web cam, she is going to want some more technology to go with it.

So she will take your cell phone, open it up, and say "HI PEOPLE ON THE PHONE."

Then she will open up your inbox and try and send a respond text to your friend Sam.

But you should stop her before the nonsense it sent, lest the friend think are insane.

Then she will make her "shock face."

 

 Then you will scowl at her, and she will laugh hysterically at your horrendous looking face.

Then she will go back to taking your cell phone. And then actually dial a number involving lots of 4's and 1's. Then she actually hits send, and you take it away and quickly hang up before your little sister starts conversing with random strangers.

But you love her, a lot, so you will give her that web cam and that cell phone all over again....until she demands that you open up You Tube and watch Sesame Street monster videos with her. Then you draw the line and say, "get off my computer, kid and go read a book."

Oh, what has technology done to the children?

(sort of kind of another) Quote-able.

I try to be diligent about reading the Bible. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love to read it. It AMAZES me how it is always relevant. Written thousands of years ago, and yet it applies to my life today! And tomorrow! and FOREVER! It is just another way God is awesome.

But sometimes I slack at the reading of it. Lately I have been getting back in the habit of Bible reading/praying on a more regular basis. I've made an effort to black my computer screen and place my cell phone out of reach until I give God and my cup of coffee the first of my day. And it has been SO good.

My NIV Bible is well-worn, extensively underlined, ink explosion spotted, and is about to lose its leather cover. While NIV is my translation of choice, I was finding that as I read it, I was skimming over stuff because I had heard it all before, so many times, and had quite often underlined it as well. Last year when I graduated, some youth leaders gifted me an ESV Journaling Bible (meaning on the side bars of each page there are lines for writing down thoughts). Since then I have been trying to do my devotional reading out of there. Slowly but surely each book is being marked up, and the little lines are becoming full of my notes. It is an ingenious invention. 25 points for the guy who came up with it!

One of my favorite books to read, over and over and over again, is Psalms. The Psalm were originally written as songs, and I, as a vocalist and musician, am always intrigued by a well written song with beautifully crafted lyrics. Sometimes I sit at my keyboard and try to sing the Psalms to some sort of melody. I usually end up wishing David had recorded the melodies to his song and posted them on his myspace...oh wait...

This morning I was reading Psalm 103. The whole thing ( 22 verses) is phenomenal, but here are a couple verses that stood out to me.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives your iniquity, who heals all you diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."- verses 1-5

"The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." verse 8

"He does not deal with us according to our sin, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west so far does he remove our transgressions from us." -verses 10-12

It just amazes me how...unconditional... the love of God is. He is faithful even when I am far from it. He is loving and steadfast when I am so not. He is good when I blatantly choose not to be. He is slow to anger when I am quick to be furious. He is ever forgiving and I am ever screwing things up. And he doesn't deal with me according to the mess that I am; he is GRACIOUS and MERCIFUL! How does he DO that!?!?

What are you reading in the Bible? If you cannot answer that quickly I think it is safe to assume you simply AREN'T and should get off my blog and dust your Bible off. It is powerful stuff.

Quote-ables.

The weather here has been really humid lately. Some days rainy, some days sunny and a good many days cloudy. Yesterday was around 80 degrees and sunny, with humidity levels of...I don't really know, but I am going to say levels similar to a sauna. Just...sticky.

I don't usually like to wear shorts. It is near impossible for me to find any I like and even when I do they certainly don't do my short, white, dancer-muscley legs any favors. I make it through most of the summer in jeans. But yesterday was an occasion well worth the wearing of some cut-offs.

When I got home from church (*I was at church all day. 2 services in the morning, missions meeting in the afternoon. Sound check. The youth group at night. This how I do Sundays) around 9:00 my room was toasty roast, to say the least. I am not fond of AC or any type of forced air, so I popped open a window, set the ceiling fan on high, and dealt with the sauna-likeness by sleeping in pajama shorts and a tee shirt and using minimal blanket coverage.

This morning I come downstairs to join in some birthday festivities for my now 9 year old sister still in these aforementioned pajamas. Everyone is gathered around the kitchen table watching Gianna open presents. Avi, the 2 year old genius and constant comedy act, is seated in her high chair, holding onto a giant, purple bouncy ball that belongs to the birthday girl. She looks at me a little funny and says,

"Hi Bella! Where's pants?"
(Grammatical Translation and Two-year old correction; "Hi Bella, why aren't you wearing any pants?")

This is a question I frequently ask her, when she is running around in just a onesie (which at two, is somehow justifiable). Apparently she hasn't really ever seen me in shorts (or doesn't remember last summer) and was greatly confused by why her 19 year old sister's legs could be seen. Thanks Avi. Guess my shorts weren't good enough for you. I'll go put some pants on for you now, so you can stop being afraid of my legs.
Kids. Funny creatures they are...