Proudest moment for a mother (or a nun)

A friend of mine from college posted this picture on facebook and I just had to share with everyone (or whoever still checks my blog since I haven’t posted since March… thanks for your loyalty ;)

This picture was taken in October 2004… Halloween in SLU. SLU is a Jesuit school and we were trying to upset the nuns so we decided to dress up as pregnant nuns… we went to several parties and bar hoping later... it’s so terrible, it’s great! Good times at SLU… definitively good times at SLU…

Guest Blogger!! DAR

Following an invitation to do a guest spot on Jayne's blog, my wonderful wife* decided to also allow me to share my two cents on her blog so here I go again:


Friends, let this be a warning to you all that WE ARE NOT ALONE.

There are various realities in life that we accept without question and without any deep and insightful thought. The truth of the matter is that we live in a populated planet. We live in cities, we live in neighborhoods - we generally operate our lives with people constantly around us in one capacity or another.

You must accept this premise before you can continue to read.

That said, privacy plays a pretty big role in our lives and can take various forms. There are just things that we have to do alone. And, I argue, these are activities that we have to somehow fit within our daily populated lives.

I present before you, the jury, the strangest of all sociological experiments: the public bathroom

I can talk about this topic for hours, but, let me focus on just one scenario that consistently puzzles me:

I like my privacy in the bathroom as does a majority of the population. So, if I am in a bathroom with 5 stalls, all empty except for the last one (where I happen to be peeing), what exactly motivates someone to take the one right next to me? C'mon, we have the room, don't you want a little privacy too? A little personal space? Can we just pretend for the next 1.5 minutes that this is our time to resolve our biological needs….alone?

And, here is where we come to the striking reality, friends, that we are NEVER truly alone.



* Please note that the author used the term girlfriend and this editor decided to change it wife. Hey, why not? We have two weddings, a Canadian certificate and 200+ witnesses to prove it!

I didn't know Darlene had her own clip art!!

Although I wasn’t the one that found this clip art (I think it would’ve been a very weird moment!) I wanted to share this with you guys because the clip art is uncanny. Dar is pretty sure that it is her and I agree… Take a look; it’s very bizarre!!!

Circa 1992

Through a friend’s site I found this picture. It took me a while to notice that I was actually in the picture! Holy crap... I must’ve been like 15 when this picture was taken… I look so young and I feel so old... :(

I think this was during a mock election that we had in school and I was “voting” for the New Progressive Party. It’s a shame that the elected governor (from that party) ended up going nuts a few years later… Oh well. See if you can find me…

Holy crap!

So while I was doing some work at home (so much for having the day off), I went to attach a file and came across a bunch of old pictures from our apartment.

Our apartment needed a lot of help when we bought it, we knew this. And we spent several months under construction, surrounded by useless contractors and freaking Rasheed (bastard!). I must’ve blocked it out because I don’t remember it being so bad! In any event, here are a few before and after pics. Alos, keep in mind that these pictures were taken about 2 yers ago so some of the decor has changed maybe a liiiiitle bit...

Spain and Portugal with the family

For new year’s we went with my family (we were 12 and this was just my mom and her brother’s family) to Madrid and Lisboa (Portugal). Aside from both destinations being incredibly beautiful, I must say that I am a very lucky person to have the family that I have (not that I hadn’t realized this before!). We had such an amazing time together. We were together for a week and we didn’t have any arguments whatsoever; none. We enjoyed each other’s company so much and had so much fun that it made me realize that I miss my family incredibly. I wish I could see them and hang out with them more often.

Although we had a full schedule everyday, my favorite part was late afternoon around 6pm where we would gather in the hotel lobby and just grab a few (several) drinks, relax and then go to dinner around 9:30-10pm.

No joke, we have close to 800 pictures from the trip (12 people taking pics), but here are just a few of my favorites. Enjoy!

Just hangin' out in Plaza Mayor... what wigs? What are you talking about?

1st night; nice restaurant. Why do we have napkins onour heads? Just 'cause...

Later that night... umm, yeah, I don't know...

Babe, can I hang this up in our living room?

New Year's Eve...

Before

After

“Hey, where do I go?” Dar’s new phrase

So although this has been going on for years now, it has finally been caught on camera. This is Chachi taking over Darlene’s side of the bed… this happens every night!


And here are some other pictures of Chachi and Luka…

Luka has arrived!

So after much anticipation, Luka is finally here! She arrived at JFK last Wednesday around 3:30pm. Unlike Chachi who was calm from day one and incredibly shy to come out of the cage at the airport, Luka jumped out of the cage and couldn’t stop squirming, moving, jumping, licking, running, eating, drinking, etc. She’s incredibly cute and we’re very excited to have her. We went straight from the airport to the vet (I know, talk about having a traumatizing day!), and they said she was fine, all’s good and that she weighted 5 pounds… At this point Chachi is looking like a Giant Schnauzer at 12 pounds!

Amazingly Chachi reacted very well when she first met her; she was playing with her and she seemed very happy. Later that night, after she realized that this new tiny-constantly-moving-thing wasn’t leaving her house, she got really pissed and started to mark her territory. Oh well, a week and a few days later, they’re getting along fine. They play all the day, speaking a very odd language that it seems only Chewbacca would understand, but at least they’re playing… I do miss sleeping all throughout the night though… I shall never take that for granted ever again. I’m thinking (and really hoping) that Luka will get into a regular schedule and sleep all throughout the night soon. VERY SOON!!!

Here are a few pics! Enjoy. On the last picture you will notice that Luka has something funky on her nose; yup, slobber from playing w/ Chachi!

Chachi’s 3rd Christmas!

Like every year, Chachi gets plenty of gifts for Christmas. This year however, I think that she got her favorite so far since she had a big grin on her face! Here's also a picture of her opening one of her many gifts.

It’s that time of the year… Holiday Parties!

Last weekend was a Holiday Parties-filled weekend. We kicked it off with our office holiday party on Friday (blog below) and then a friend’s holiday party on Saturday. This holiday party was not like any other though, yes we had good friends, good food, good music but we also had Santa him (her)self, Mrs. Claus and his/her elf friends! This is actually a few of my favorite pictures!

Enjoy and Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanza and Happy Festivus!

Santa's crew behind the scenes!



then hard at work...



Some were more drunk than others...



The famous Rollin' Vs...



And the Bud Light menorah...

Office Holiday Parties: these could be dangerous!

Last Friday we had our office holiday party. The office decided that this year we should have dinner and karaoke. The night started off fairly mellow as these events usually start. Amazingly in a matter of just a few minutes with the help of Al(cohol) people started feeling more at ease and started to get a little crazy. Here are a few pictures prior to Al making the grand entrance:


















Tricia kicked off the singing and Melanie & Molly followed up with a great act as well:





















Then Al started to make his move:




















The bosses trying to determine if it's OK that they're witnessing all this...




Then we moved on to our private singing room...


































Having one eye bigger than the other can only mean one thing... damn you AL!!!



Keep 'em coming!!!
















And then at the end of the night, they got a free taxi ride!!! But she had to hold the cabbie's hand. You gotta love New York!