How patriotic I felt, until they actually called me in!

I voted for the President and came home to find a jury summons, my first jury summons, in my mail. Woo, I thought, as I opened the envelope. Alexandria is home to the federal court that tried the likes of terrorist Moussaoui and sniper Mohammed. I am gonna get myself on the jury of a REAL trial! I glanced at the form. Nope, I am a little juror, or in their words: Petit Jury. Bah. But I was still excited. I have never been on a jury before. What will my peers look like? How do I demonstrate how very bribe-able I am. (You want him to be found not guilty? Pay up?) Kidding, of course!

So I dutifully called in on the first night, only to find they did not need my services. I called every night to find the same. So tonight, Thursday night, I forgot to call until late. Oh, what does it matter? They don't need me, I thought. So I called. And they need me. Dang it. They need me. On a Friday. What the heck? I was feeling patriotic, until they let me get away with being patriotic without having to do anything. Now I am not even feeling bribe-able anymore. I have to be at court at 8:30 am. A.M. As in in the morning. I can't believe I have to go.

It better be a good case. And they better pay me. And I had better wake up in time. And what does "appropriate dress" mean to me... (tee hee).

More than words?*

I have never like Penelope Cruz. I don’t think she is all that pretty and I never like her in the roles she plays in American cinema. People have always made her out to be this great big star, but I have simply never seen it. Until I watched Volver. (Well, started watching Volver. I am only ½ hour into it. I’m a busy girl. I will get to the rest. Also, the film has not truly grabbed my attention, so it takes me longer to watch).

Suddenly I see what everyone else is talking about when it comes to P. Cruz. She seems so strong in her role. Her voice is deeper in Spanish. She is beautiful. Weird how I can’t see this when she is speaking English.

It makes me wonder how I am when I am speaking German, or when I am in Germany. Am I more interesting, or less? I know I am a heck of a lot smarter in English than in German, but how does that make me come across? Would people who don’t like me in one language LOVE ME if they saw me in the other?

*that is honestly the best title I could come up with. I am sleepy. Maybe I should try to come up with a German title. Lemme think... Nope, got nothing.

What's sexy mean these days?

Marci’s blog alerted me to the fact that People Magazine released their annual list of sexiest men. Is People Magazine even relevant anymore? Is this list the only thing that makes us realize that they are still in publication? Well, in any case, I am on their site checking to see if I agree with their choices, because after hearing about a couple of them on the radio this morning, I think that maybe I need to understand what People’s parameters regarding “sexy” are.

Number one: Hugh Jackman. (Whom I keep renaming through my excellent typing skills as Hugh Jackson). LO-OVE him. Have from first sighting when I though he was a hairy, short little man. Apparently I thought he was Robin Williams. Turns out he is 6’2” and a sexy man beast who is not only happily married, but dad to two adopted kids that he frolics in the ocean with. What’s not to love? He is the perfect man. I love that he can go from titanium claw wielding mutant to a fey Broadway dandy and still be manly as all heck. Yes please!

Now, I must check out the others. Be right back.

2. Daniel Craig. The new James Bond. I just don’t get the attraction. Not to say he is ugly, but just not my type. He looks like he can’t speak and he has eyes that make him look like I do after Marci and I blog together. Not good. Disagree with this choice.

3. Jon Hamm. Men Behaving Badly star. He looks like a high school teacher. In the real world this guy would be hot, but in TV world, I am not sold on him either. (High standards, ladies and gentlemen. Deal with it).

4. Zac Efron. I am not allowed to say bad things about him or Harms kids will hunt me down and hurt me. (Though he looks like an elf, much like another young whippersnapper down the list. Is this what the youngsters find attractive these days?)

5. Robert Buckley. Who? Must be British, based on his teeth. Oh, wait. I know who this kid is. He was on some morning talk show once and was adorable.

I don't feel like linking anymore. You wanna see these guys, just go to the People Magazine link at the top.

6. Blair Underwood. When he was on The New Adventures of Old Christine, I was totally on board. He IS good looking, but again, my crushes stem from the characters they play in addition to their looks and he seems to play not so nice characters a lot. Though my favorite EVER episode of Old Christine involved her stumbling over herself when she tried to introduce her friends to him. HILARIOUS! Watched it over and over and over.

7. Ed Westwick. Gossip Girl lothario. EW. EW. EW. EW. This is one ugly child. And he always looks like he ate a piece of chocolate that went bad. (Slight smile, because it is chocolate; turned down mouth because it is gross chocolate). NONONO. He is not sexy.

8. Michael Phelps. No. Maybe he is sexy underwater?

9. Blake Shelton. Country singer? I don’t know who he is, but based on his photo, I veto him from the sexy list.

10. Lang Lang. Virtuoso. Uncreative parents. I believe that nerdy can be sexy. I don’t know about this nerd.

11. Mark-Paul Gosselaar. Zach? Do his friends call him Mark-Paul? It sounds like when my mom calls me by all of childrens’ names before she lands on the right one. If he cut his hair, maybe I would let him stay on the list.

12. Javier Bardem. You know, he rocked the page boy haircut in No Country for Old Men. He reminds a bit of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who played Denny on Grey’s Anatomy. Yeah, Javier has a certain Je ne sais quoi.

13. Robert Pattinson. The vampire in the upcoming film Twighlight. Looks like an elf from the Lord of the Rings series. I dunno. He is too young for me to be looking at lasciviously. (HA! I jest! However, you got me with this choice. He is adorable, but sexy????)

14. Joshua Jackson. He has changed since his Mighty Duck days. I don’t know what to say. He does not strike me as sexy. He seems stern. Maybe it is just his photo. I dunno. These boys are all kind of boring. I am not inspired. Where are the guys that I would knock my chair over to run towards? Oh who am I kidding? I have far too much couth to ever act in such an unladylike way. HA!

15. David Beckham. Yes, until he opens his mouth to speak.

These are the men I would like to have seen. (In no particular order, and while this is already so long, with no explanation. If you need some, lemme know.)

Jason Statham
Ryan Reynolds
Jenson Ackles
Jeffrey Dean Morgan
John Krasinski
(Oh, and if I could go back in time, James Garner!)

That’s all I can come up with right now. Hmm, I seem to think the letter J is sexy, with just a little R thrown in for texture.

Ten years. I still miss you.

People always want to know how many siblings you have. I always say that I have two brothers and a sister. Then they want to know where they are and what they are up to and I can answer honestly about two of them, but the third… who knows what hijinx he is up to.
It has been ten years since I last saw him and he left with the sweetest smile on his face, no doubt trained from the kindness of his personality. He could start some trouble though. When I was little, he built me a tree house. It was more of an elevated platform than an enclosure. We climbed up and I sat in my big brother’s lap, when suddenly the whole thing came down. I was fine. He suffered the wounds of the fall with a 60 pound kid on his lap in addition to the wounding of ego. However, his ego was resilient like none other.

He took me hang gliding at Kitty Hawk. Our group was a bunch of girls from a local all-girls college. His desire to look good sent him on a gliding journey that ventured past the sand dune and over the highway, leaving me and the girls to gape in horror that he might go down and get hit by a car, or even to keep going and wind up over the ocean. Luckily he came down safely and then had to drag the glider all the way back up to the top. But he did this easily, fired up from his ride. (I did not fare quite as well. For me it was hang-crashing).

My brother maintained his youthful enthusiasm for everything. He had a zip-line in his backyard which eventually brought down a tree and part of his deck. His basement had an Eyes (sort of like Pac-Man) video game, the ones like in arcades, that he could whoop anyone on. He decorated the basement with random paraphernalia, like Coke bottles from across the world, and painted the walls with glow in the dark stars.

He made an effort with everyone in our family and was definitely the cool uncle, supplying my sister’s kids with the awesomest toys ever. Now those kids are ten years older and only the oldest remembers him, her God-father. Meanwhile, she is an honor roll student headed off to college next year. The middle one is a killer basketball player and the baby, the one whose sweet face kept everyone’s spirits up on this day 10 years ago, well, he is still the sweet face who brightens everyone’s day.

How much has changed! What would he think? Would he like my apartment? Could I have tricked him into helping me paint? (Considering how much I painted at his house… I think so). Would he have liked my ex? (probably). Would he be singing Karaoke with me at Jen’s house? (Definitely, and the boy had a lovely voice).

I am so thankful that I got to have 25 years with the boy/man who took me roller skating when he was 15 and I was 4; for riding me around town on the handlebars of his bike; for letting me be his roommate and not getting horribly mad (though he did get mad) that I opted to be useless when it came to helping around the house; for being kind and generous to a fault; for being my best friend.

I have no idea what he is up to these days, but if they let him decorate his part of heaven, I can guarantee it has a trampoline and a bunch of good looking broads. And maybe a zip-line that works.

Late night writing ramblings.

In my last post I mentioned that I did not quite grasp the importance of electing a black President. In the meantime, I got to spend some time with two 14 year old girls who not only knew that Obama was elected, were elated to know this. A birthday gift they received was one of MLK and Obama stating one had the dream, and the other was it. Their mother told me that they dissolved into happy tears at his election because now they truly believe that they CAN do anything, be anything. How remarkable. How sad for us that they did not feel that way before. This country should be beyond the notion that some people are not as good as others. It is incomprehensible to me that the caste system is still quietly (not always quietly) running.

Of course now I have to temper this by saying that I do believe some people are more talented, or more intelligent, or simply more capable at some things and we should allow everyone to succeed at what they would excel at (not ending sentence with prepositions is not something I excel at). We should also allow people to be the best they can be without falsely inflating their actual accomplishments (that one's for you, Harvard). We should also allow them to be excellent at jobs that don't require an IQ of 150 or a inclination towards understanding astrophysics.

Now that it is on the table that everyone should be free to attempt to thrive in any situation, can we please stop coddling our children so that they are incapable of accomplishing anything on their own? No more doing their homework.

This post did not pan out the way I had initial planned for it. But well, Harmony tells me that is simply what happens when writing blog posts sometimes. Lord knows, looking back on previous entries, that I often veer into the next lane. It is why you all love me. Either that or you are too afraid to let go. Both ways work for me! Kisses!!

Americans... still believe in an America where anything's possible...

- they just don't think their leaders do. - Barack Obama

I have never given much credence to the whole electoral process. I am completely guilty of taking our freedoms for granted. I know I am not the only one and during the 2008 election the masses demonstrated their understanding that in order for us to carry on in the manner to which we are accustomed we need to not just make our voices heard, but actually stand up and say something.

So we spoke. We got involved. I have never been prouder of us.

Part of me does not quite grasp the importance of this election. What is the big deal about electing a black president? I voted for the person I thought would most capably do the job. I am interested in how the enormity of the 2008 election will one day strike me.

Never before has the country the world looked at a US Presidential election with such interest. Never before have I looked at a US Presidential election with such interest. I hope that he lives up to our expectations. I am glad we surpassed my expectations.
I am proud to be American today.