It all began last Sunday. There I was, getting ready to write a blog after almost two months. I was going to write about Sandra Lee and how she was going to murder Indian food on her show by using, among other ingredients, CONDENSED SOUP in a Chicken Curry. Then came a Text Message in all caps. AT&T was going to buy out T-Mobile. I could not believe my eyes. I was hardly able to get my breath back, when an e-mail came to my cellphone with the same news. I work for the company being acquired, and in a past life worked for the company that was doing the acquiring. Did I freak out? Heck yes! Many people I know told me not to worry and that freaking out was not going to change anything. To those people I just wanted to say, "Let me have my 5 minutes of panic, darn it! I'm only human!" But I did realize that no amount of losing it, whether large or small, was going to change the final outcome of what was going to happen. Right now the future is unknown. But I went through "The 5 Stages of Grieving" in about 10 minutes and then picked myself up and went about life as usual. There was laundry to do, groceries to shop for, a dog to walk. None of that was going away.
But as the week wore on, life had more lessons to teach me. Not all of them were bad though. Some were even funny. For example: Everyone tips their hat to whoever came up with the idea of sneezing or coughing into one's arm in order not to spread germs. Before you read any further, here's a disclaimer. You may not want to read this right now. Consider yourself warned. So, what was I saying? Yes, sneezing or coughing into your arm. But did you know that doing this is not always a good idea? There are times when sneezes and coughs cause yucky stuff to emanate from either your nasal passage or throat. If you are in the presence of company when this happens, they all get to see it. Sure you can clean it up, but you will spend the rest of the day walking around with a sweater sleeve that bore some really icky mucus on it, even if for a few minutes. And you spend the rest of the day wondering what is going on in the minds of the people that saw it happen. If you had used the cupped palms of your hands instead, you could have washed them. If this hasn't happened to you yet, consider yourself lucky. If it has happened to you, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaking of colds, I learned that Mom Blowing Nose + Baby's reaction + Video Camera to capture it + YouTube = Viral Video. I have watched many videos where the baby is the star, probably because they are so spontaneous. Case in point the baby dancing to Beyonce, or the baby laughing hysterically at his father tearing up a rejection letter. Anyway, if you haven't seen this yet, here's Emerson. He's a cutie!
I have another video and picture to share, but indulge me while I digress just a little. This month's Readers Digest has a short article titled, ironically, What I learned. It features a book called Savvy Auntie by author Melanie Notkin. I didn't need to read the article to know that I fit the mold of a Savvy Auntie. Sure, I may not wear a strapless dress and 3 inch platform sandals like the picture of Notkin that accompanied the article. But there is a child in my life who means the world to me. I am that special person in his life because I am not his parent, so the time we have together is all about fun.
Then there was Rebecca Black. I learned from her that any publicity is good to jump start your career. So even though she has a bad song and an even worse voice, she has gone viral from everyone picking her apart. I would hate to be her right now. But if you think Justin Bieber is bad, he's much less unbearable to listen to than Black is. I am not sharing her "Fraaaaiday" video, because she's been getting more hits and airplay than she deserves. Let me share with you a little nugget of the woefully bad lyrics from her song: "Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’) We-we-we so excited We so excited We gonna have a ball today Tomorrow is Saturday And Sunday comes after...wards I don’t want this weekend to end." Shoot me now!
Back to the pictures and videos of lessons learned. As long as we have sports, there will be moments you can't make up. And as long as we have cameras to capture those moments, we will have pictures like this:
The guy in blue represents India and the yellow represents Australia. I just hope the picture isn't doctored, or it will make me a gullible fool for falling for it.
Last but not least, thanks to my cousins Santhosh Daniel and Suganthi Jeganathan, I learned that Jay-Z did a song called "Big Pimpin'" If you haven't heard it, it's on YouTube. I'm no prude, but the reason I am not posting the link here because I don't want the explicit lyrics to get me in any kind of trouble. However, I will post the link to the Egyptian Classic that Big Pimipn seems to be lifted off of. Thanks Santhosh, for the video below.
Have a great next week, and I'll catch you on the flip side.
