Challenge Accepted

by Millionaire Hoy

I love new ideas and taking on personal projects or new goals. I’m a big fan of TED and their TEDtalks online video lecture series, and I was recently inspired by Matt Cutts’ “Try Something New for 30 Days” segment in which he stated to “Think about something that you’ve always wanted to add to your life… and try it for the next 30 days. It’s a very simple concept, but for someone like myself – who can procrastinate and even hold off on things for years – it’s a great way finally get things done that I’ve put on the back burner for far too long.

My first 30 day challenge was simply to make sure that I refrain from going to sleep before telling my kids that I love them, but it has been powerful and very rewarding. I’m currently on my first 30 day challenge – which I plan on continuing until I die – and being that I’m a goal driven person, doing these challenges will allow me to finally get my drivers license [something I’ve held off for almost 12 years], take a 30 day dance class to cure my 2 left feet, learn a new language, finally get that health blog of mine on the web, cook a new meal for 30 days straight, improve my writing, or even take a 30 day technology fast and get my butt from in front of the computer… the possibilities are endless.

Taking on 30 days of” sum’n” new is a great fit for a forgetful, yet driven person like myself and it makes every day purposeful and rewarding. Have you been holding off on going to the gym? Looking to wing yourself off of chocolate? Start a novel? Do something charitable? Catch up on a new TV show that you’ve wanted to watch for a while? Take a photo of yourself for 30 day? Maybe you should give the 30 days of something new challenge a go and finally check those things off of your list.

Outside/Inside

by Sirami Cohran

Pulling at silk is usually a bad thing; the fabric happens to be so fragile, so hard to develop and yet, so desirable, the Chinese, for centuries, had an edict of an automatic death sentence for anyone found to be associated with any attempt to smuggle any of the technology of silk-making beyond it’s borders.

However, with index finger and thumb pressed firmly together, my son, Sabik, pulled at the sea-foam green silk ribbon that would unravel the plume of bows that sat atop the package on the table. A few maneuvers with the knots at the base of the plume force the ribbon to succumb to gravity’s blunt reality, leaving to fall on the floor a piece of fabric I had spent twenty-five minutes agonizing over. 

Next up was that age old faint attempt at care and concern when one tries to enter a beautiful thing for the first time. This is a problem people have with entering a beautiful home, a relationship, an art gallery or any number of places, things and situations. Though people save their most canting pantomime for opening gift-wrapped packages. Sabik, being no  less human than I, makes precise attempts at the fine creased corners, before slowly spinning the box around in an attempt to find the transparent tape affixed to only two visible parts of the package. However, because the pattern of sea-foam green frogs wearing gilded gold crowns, on a background of solid popsicle orange are all lined up to perfection, the search cloys at his patience. 

An elevated heart-rate is not conducive to the calm, reasoned, manipulation of “beautiful things.”

So after a short pause, if only to allow the idea that beautiful things-at times-must be destroyed in the pursuit of things we desire, the hardened protein we call keratin at the tips of his long fingers begin to claw and tear at the package’s edges. First with preciseness, then manically. The crinkled brow and flared nostrils do not connote contemplation or appreciation for the gift Cai Lun, an imperial enuch in the Chinese Court, gave the world in the 2nd century AD.

“RIIIIIIIPPPPPP!!!!!”

“Success,” he thinks to himself upon successfully breaching the stratum of the package, leaving strips of the partial visiages from the Amphibious Royal Family all over the floor. 

By now the only thing standing between Sabik and his prize is a clear piece of tape right down the center of the corrugated box’s top. One punch -yes, PUNCH- at the center, and the contents reveal themselves to his disbelieving eyes. 

BONANZA!!!!!!

Inside: a duality of delight.

For him, there are all of the new things he wished for on this, his thirteenth birthday.

For me, the warmth that can only come from knowing someone you love to an indescribable degree is deliriously athrill.

Happy Birthday, Son. I love you.

What’s That You Say?

by Shirley Dolitz

“Ostimeaner’s Ostimeaner’s!!?” Sandi, my sister exclaimed over the telephone. “What are they, these Ostimeaner’s? And what do they want to see our mother for?!!” I replied “No, not Ostimeaner’s…Ostomy Nurse!” “Oh! Sandi replied, I thought you were saying Ostimeaner’s, like some alien from another planet coming to get our mother.” I laughed, she laughed…I couldn’t even begin to imagine what she thought these “Ostimeaner’s” looked like, but it struck me so funny we both couldn’t stop laughing.

It’s funny… what you say over the telephone, and what people think you said.

Another example, this is one I “borrowed” from my sister Sandi off her blog(with her permission):

email from my seestor

My mother – much like me -(the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree right?) is experiencing some slight hearing issues right now… And while I feel that I often “hear” something that was actually more interesting than what was really said and I then find it amusing when I realize that I have once again misheard and reinterpreted something – My mother, on the other hand, is experiencing some justifiable frustration with this “problem” especially when she talks to my sister over the phone… (see email below from sis)

“…Hola seestor! I was reading your blog [ostameaners post] and it reminded me of a phone conversation I had with our mom a few days ago. She called me up to ask me what I was watching on TV. I said “Wife
swap”. She said “I slop?” and for some reason I got the giggles, I said “no… wife swap”. She said “I sleep?” I was trying very hard not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. I said “NO!…WIFE SWAP!” She started to sound frustrated…and said “WHAT? I SLEEP?” OK.. By now I can’t stop laughing… (I was actually lying in bed and had to get up to catch my breath and do the dance of many pigs, because I thought I was going to pee on myself from laughing so hard.) I could hear her mumbling on the phone “I don’t know what your saying”…which was making me laugh even more. Finally I was able to compose myself to spell it out to her and she finally said “OH…WIFE SWAP!”.

MAN! Today she called me and asked me “what are you watching?” I said “Pimp my ride” She said “I’m not even going there…”

(Thought you could use a laugh.) Shirl…”

**************************************************************************

I think its also funny when someone takes a phone message for you when your not there then they repeat the message to you.

For instance, while I was out, a boyfriend of mine once took a call for me from an elderly woman. When I came home, he told me so and so called and she said what ever it was that she asked him to tell me,
but instead of continuing to speak in his normal voice, he repeated to me what she said using a high pitched more femanen sounding voice, as if he were trying to mimick her. For some reason, it struck me funny. I had never really realized before that we all do that. And to hear this big burly man change his voice to try and sound like a little elderly lady, just to tell me what she said made me just start to giggle and then I couldn’t stop laughing. He looked at me confused, as I regained my composure or tried my best to, and finally I said (while still giggling), “if I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was standing in the room telling me that herself, what a great impersonation!” He looked at me and realizing that he had changed his voice to tell me, also began to laugh. Then said he never really thought about that before…you know…changing your voice when repeating to someone what somebody else has said to you. I told him to listen and see how many people really do that. I became more aware of it after that and it seemed everyone did it.

Everytime, I heard someone do it after that day, I’d giggle & of course begin to laugh. They would off course, do what he did and wonder what I was laughing at, when I’d explain, they would say the same thing about not realizing it. It must a subconsious thing we do to distinguish between what we are saying and what they’ve been asked to repeat (or not), but I find it funny, ha ha ha ha…just thinking about it is funny.

Sometimes I think I like what I think I heard better than what I was suppose to hear…makes for a funnier conversation & to me any excuse to laugh is a good one! 🙂