你們聊我先走了

小兔說："我媽媽叫我小兔兔，好聽！"
小豬說："我媽媽叫我小豬豬，也好聽！"
小狗說："我媽媽叫我小狗狗，也很好聽！"
小雞說："你們聊，我先走了！"

小兔說："我是兔娘養的！"
小豬說："我是豬娘養的！"
小雞說："我是雞娘養的！"
小狗說："你們聊，我先走了！"

浪客說："人們叫我浪人，好聽！"
武士說："人們叫我武人，也好聽！"
高手說："人們叫我高人，也很好聽！"
劍客說："你們聊，我先走了！"

李宗仁將軍說："我這人，有仁！"
傅作義將軍說："我這人，有義！"
左權將軍說："我這人，有權！"
霍去病將軍說："你們聊，我先走了！"

老張家的門是柳木做的，老張說："我家的門是木門"
老李家的門是塑料做的，老李說："我家的門是塑門"
老王家的門是磚頭做的，老王說："我家的門是磚門"
老劉家的門是鋼做的，老劉說："你們聊，我先走了！"

National Anthem in....Espanol?!?!

How do I feel about it? This pretty much sums it up....

I agree with President Bush.....yeah, 'nough said.

When asked how he felt about our National Athem sung in Spanish, President Bush replied, "I think the National Anthem of the Unites States ought to be sung in English. I think the immigrants who want to become American citizens should learn English and sing the National Anthem in English."

Aaahhhh.....it's like a breathe of fresh air. Most sensible thing President Bush has said and I couldn't agree more!

Like those 3 for $10 T-shirts say, "Welcome to America, now learn to speak English."

Strange Fruit.....

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Irritation....

I have something to complain about (when do I not?) and it has to do with my sister.

Those of you who know me know that my sister is the dearest thing to me and that she would not, under normal circumstances, harm a soul, and those who cross her will have hell to pay with me.

Her philanthropic nature has always been one of the assets I admire most about her, however, she often gets taken advantage of, but to be taken advantage of by one of her teachers? That is just unheard of!

Let me begin. Last summer, one of my sister's favorite teachers, Mrs. Jillian Rodinni (formerly known as Jillian Javora) got married in the Hamptons and had requested Teresa to play at her wedding. A price was not established at the beginning except that Teresa charges $200 per musician in her group; however, given their relationship, Teresa trusted her. To make the wedding as perfect as she possibly could, she assembled a group of 5 talented musicians and started practicing and rehearsing right away. She spent countless hours practicing and perfecting the group and when the day of the wedding finally arrived, a car pool was organized and they started on their 2 hour drive to the ceremony.

To say the least, Teresa and the rest of the chamber ensemble played beautifully and she was very ecstatic for the fact that, she knew, everything was perfect. During the wedding, Ms. Javora approached her and told her that she could not pay her right away and because it was the day of her wedding, Teresa, being the kind person that she is, told Ms. Javora not to worry about it right now and she can deal with it later.

Later was probably what Ms. Javora heard because Teresa did not hear back from her until January; the wedding was over the summer. And if it hadn't for Teresa accidentally running into her on one of her shopping excursions, Ms. Javora might not have contacted Teresa at all despite the numerous emails to her attention.

Because she was so close with Teresa and she had written Teresa a wonderful college recommendation letter, Teresa didn't press on the issue of payment that rigorously because, still, she trusted her teacher. Teresa and her chamber ensemble usually charges $200 for each musician in the group for a one hour wedding session and because Ms. Javora had told Teresa that she could not match that in the beginning, Teresa dropped the price to $150 per person, which is still a fantastic deal no matter where you go, especially in NY where a typical wedding orchestral group would run you anywhere from $2000 to $5000/$6000 dollars - to only have to pay $750 was a steal in and of itself.

So comes January, Teresa still hadn't heard a damn thing from this broad, so finally, with pressure from me, she sent another email requesting for payment. Boy, did the tone of her emails change since the wedding. She became more and more angry with Teresa for charging her such a high rate, pressing rigorously for payment and that Teresa was starting to show her true color. Bottom line is, after dropping the price to $110, the teacher still insists that she has no money and cannot and will not pay that amount. Finally, just this week, the teacher wrote to Teresa telling her to email her address so that she can "mail her a check whatever [she] can afford." I told Teresa to write that bitch back and insist on knowing the exact amount before giving out her address and this is what the cunt wrote back (and I quote):

Teresa-
With all due respect, you have wasted a lot of time arguing with me about this. In part, perhaps that is one of the reasons you have had to wait so long?
This is the last time I am responding to this situation. Send me your address. I will send you what I can afford. Case closed.

Case Closed??? Oh no no no. If that bitch thinks this is over, then she's sadly mistaken and has another thing coming. I will make this bitch's life miserable starting with faxing all the email responses to her school. Knowing her school, the same school I graduated from, people at the main office are extremely nosy so even with a cover letter, they will have no problem reading it before disseminating it in the appropriate mail boxes; which is fine by me. From there, I will send a copy to her principal alerting him the calibre of teachers he has employeed at his school. Another copy will also be sent to the Superintendent of the school district making sure that he is also aware of the situation, mainly, just to embarrass her. I will try to email a copy to her school's newspaper, and given the juicy-gossipy content of this piece, I have no doubt that the paper will publish this story within a week. I will make sure that this whore cannot walk into a place without knowing that everyone knows she's cheated a 19 year old girl.

Unlike Teresa, I have no tolerance or patience for this kind of behavior and unlike Teresa, I am much more spiteful and vengeful. She will pay, one way or the other. Fuck her.

Bottom line, dont' fuck with my sister.

Cabos!

Less than a month until Cabos! I CANNOT wait!!

It is about time that Jonathan and I had a real vacation. I'm not saying going down to Chattanooga or Florence is not always fun and entertaining, it's just that this time, we need a vacation that is simply relaxing. Between making sure to see and spend equal amount of time with the family and shlepping from one place to another, somehow "relaxation" is lost amongst the chaos. After months of looking at places, fighting over island resorts vs. city hotels, 3-star vs. 5-star, we agreed to Los Cabos, Mexico.

We're going in the second week of May while the weather is still not deathly hot yet. The hotel, the Westin Los Cabos Resport and Spa (www.westinloscabos.com), is located in The Corridor between San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas where the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific Ocean. Many of you might recognize Cabo San Lucas because it is a very touristy-Spring-Break location that attracts beer-chugging college keg-chuggers and Girls-Gone-Wild Sororiety chicks. Jonathan and I are not about that; we're there to purely relax. Of course, that is not to say we won't go and visit, just not the whole Cabo-Wabo, bar hopping debauchery.

We arrive on Friday around noon and after check-in, we're heading into Cabo San Lucas to enjoy the festivities where we will have dinner at the famous sushi restaurant Nick San's, a treat in and of itself. We have decided to go to Cabo San Lucas simply because I wanted to see what the party scene was like in Cabos and the reason it attracts tens of thousands of college kids per year.

Saturday is where the real fun begins. In the morning, we had arranged for the famous ATV rides. Yes, I'm going on a "All Terrain Vehicle" for the first time in my LIFE!! I'm totally not joking and needless to say, I'm VERY excited. After that, we're coming back to the resort to relax and have some lunch. That afternoon, I booked us each a spa session that includes facials, massages and body treatments; this will be Jonathan's first. We'll probably have a romantic dinner at the resort that night and just really take in the beauty of the hotel.

Sunday we will probably hang around pool side for the first part of the morning and around noon, we have decided to head into San Jose del Cabos. San Jose has remained relatively local and authentic Mexican. The college, party hopping crowd hasn't been attracted much to San Jose. It is still a quiet little place with hand-made knick knacks and authentic side-street vendors. We are very much looking forward to that.

Monday, we're packing our stuff and heading home. It is a very much needed, weekend Getaway/Engagement Celebration for us. We just CANNOT wait!

WHOOOOPPPEEEEEEEE!!!

Oh Vicky....

What has the American school system done to you?!?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you........my cousin, VICKY!

I Dream of Jeanne.....

Oooo...my sister has way too much time on her hands. And Jeanne, how does it feel to know that Teresa day-dreams about the way you pick your nose?

Illegal Immigrants....

Oy vey is all I have to say.....

Yesterday was the mass ralleying here in our nation's capital, Washington, DC. If I couldn't recognize myself as a Republican because of my wealthfare and tax beliefs before, than my feelings on this whole illegal immigrant issues have definitely casted my membership in stone.

I don't believe illegal immigrants should be here. There, I've said it. I DO NOT BELIEVE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS SHOULD BE HERE OR MADE LEGAL. This is absolutely perposterous.

Here is an excerpt from the New York Times this morning:

"Ruben Arita, a 30-year-old illegal immigrant from Honduras who joined the demonstration in Washington, said he was marching for the first time because he wanted to push Congress to grant citizenship to people living here illegally and to recognize their struggles and their humanity.
'We want to be legal,' said Mr. Arita, a construction worker who has lived here for five years. 'We want to live without hiding, without fear. We have to speak so that our voices are listened to and we are taken into account.'"

I'm sorry, but he, Ruben Arita, should have thought about that before he entered the US illegally. For him to live in "hiding and in fear" was a choice he consciously made. No one forced him to come to the United States. It must have cost him dearly to hire a "coyote" to sneak him across US borders, which could have gone to applying for a visa or legal entry into the US.

Why am I against illegal immigrants? Here are several reasons:

1. They are a drain on our economy (I'll explain later).
2. They take jobs from legal aliens and immigrants.
3. They do not pay taxes.

So let's look at number 1 and 3. Two is pretty self-explanatory.

3 is a little easier to explain, so we shall start there. Okay. They do not pay taxes because they can't hold legal positions. Why is that a bad thing? Well, because in the event that they go to jail, who pays for their meals and clothings and space of confinement and the guards? That's right, we do. Our honest, tax dollars do. If they have kids, which they always end up having more than one, and they enroll in public schools, who's supporting the text books and the chairs and the desks and the teachers? Yes, that's right, you've guessed it, we do - the hoest, working, tax payers.

Many people would say that these illegal aliens do jobs that we, as citizens or legal immigrants, do not want to do and I think that is complete bullshit. There will never be a shortage of blue collar workers; there's at least one in every family (Lord knows we have one in the Silberman family). So let's do the math. If there are close to 300 million people in America and let's say the average family size is about4 people per family, that means, in America, out of the legal immigrants, we have roughly around 75 million blue collar workers. But the current problem is out of these 75 million blue collar workers, close to half of them can't find a decently waged position because the illegal immigrants are willing to take jobs for less the minimum wage thus making their employment more desirable. And we all know that minimum wage set the bar for standard of living and if the minimum wage requirement cannot be fullfilled, the standard of living will drop.

Another thing, which brings us back to my reason number 1, is that one of the most common practices amongst these illegal immigrants is that they tend to send cash back to their home country to be spent by their family members in their own market, not in the US. So, here lies another problem. If every month, each immigrant sends $100 dollar out of this country, and at the last estimate, there are about 11 million illegal immigrants, that is a total of $1.1 billion dollars every month, and that's about $13.2 billion dollars a year leaving the US market. Every economist, or anyone who has ever taken microeconomics in college, can tell you that money leaving the US hurts the dollar value. For every dollar that leaves the US market and enters the world market, it decreases the demand and increases the supply of the dollar in the world market and based on the universal law of Supply and Demand, this significantly weakens the dollar's exchange rate. So with roughly $13.2 billion dollars leaving the country per year, what do you think it's going to do to our economy? And by making these illegal immigrants legal in this country, do you think that practice will stop? I don't believe so.

I do not believe in doing things the easy way, or the cut-corner way. Many families have gotten into the United States through the proper, LEGAL channel (My family included), so why can't they?

Tennis....Woe is I

Today's entry will somewhat deviate from the rants and raves about my favorite person in the whole wide world. The reason for it is because, last night, I had an eye-opening experience.

I have been playing tennis for a long time now and have always considered myself to be very good. I was 4th single in high school for God's sake. But all that cockiness flushed right out of my system when I played with my tennis partner that I had just met on the courts two days ago; his name is Tom, a Mormon from Utah.

Tom was not only good, he has mastered the top spin on all of his serves which sends all of his balls come flying at my head at top speed making it extremely hard to return. I managed, but hardly. I really think luck had a lot to do with winning some points against him last night. The way he gripped his racquet is like no other I have ever seen. Usually it's either the Continental grip or the Western grip, but his was somewhat inbetween making his returns and shots extremely hard to predict and calculate. Needless to say, he was extremely, EXTREMELY good.

Well, besides the tennis, Tom was a very interesting person, but last night (our first time playing tennis) was almost like a first date. It's very odd. While volleying around before the start of our set, we talked about who we are, where we went to school, what we do...etc. Not knowing anything about the Mormon religion, I stepped on every one of his toes. I curse like a sailor, which I did last night with a lot "fuck"'s and "shit"'s and "bitches"''s and the likes; I drink like a fish, which when I was asked what area of town I like to venture out to on the weekends, I said "Anywhere where there is alcohol", and every few sets or so, I had to stop and tell him that "my tar filled lungs need a break."

"What is so weird about that?" you ask. Well, "Nothing," I thought at the time until I came home and told Jonathan about it. Apparently Mormons, get this, don't (or rather, can't) drink, smoke, or like gay people. Also, on top of all that, they despise cursing. Great. Every one of their petpeeves enbodies the essence of Howard Lee. I think I might have just lost my one and only tennis partner.... Not to mention he CREAMED (okay, all you pervs, and by pervs I mean Jeanne, NO PUNS INTENDED) me last night. Other than Lady Luck, several other points I won were either from technicality or from him letting me win ("That ball? Oh it wasn't out...what, it landed in the other court? no way, it was totally in"). Yes, I was mortified. I think he might want someone more.....morally upstanding... I was dumped after the first date.

Who would have thought a Mormon had time inbetween missionary work (which he did do in the Philippines, by the way) to master tennis and golf and swimming and kayaking and wall climbing...etc. I guess when you don't drink or smoke, you have a lot of time on your hands.

Giving Blood

Being charitable these days is not as easy or as PC as you may think.

About two Sundays ago, Jonathan and I awoke to a warm, bright morning with the gentle morning breeze tickling our noses. We got up, had breakfast, and watched "Everyday Italian" and "Barefoot Contessa", our weekend ritual. We were exceptionally happy that day because of the event to follow - we were giving blood, or I was anyway. I have been giving blood for some time now, but since moving to Maryland, I haven't had the time or the energy to move my ass to a clinic. However, just luck would have it, our community was hosting a Blood Drive by the American Red Cross.

So happily, Jonathan and I strolled down to the mobile clinic around noon. This is where the obnoxiousness kicked in. Everything was fine until I walked into mobile trailer and the "doctor" walked me into her "office" which is just a standard bus bathroom without the toilet seats; it smelled just as bad; I think it was the black people hair grease in her hair that suggested the faint smell of bodily excretion from days of not washing. We sat there and I had to complete a verbal questionaire while she inputs it in her computer.

Everything was going smoothly until we got to question number 22 where it asked me if "I am a male and had sexual contact with another male since 1975". Of course, I said yes, being honest and then that was it, I was "indefinitely rejected": I wasn't allowed to give blood, because I'm gay. As if that wasn't frustrating enough, she proceeded on asking me if I was "biologically male"...okay...that was the last straw...

WHAT THE FUCK does she mean if I'm "biologically male"? Do I fuckin' look like one of those nasty, unGodly post-op transexuals? What THE fuck??? That little nigglet has a lot of nerves asking me if I'm "biologically male" when she, herself, looks like a crack baby with down-syndrome hooked on some crack cocaine and did her makeup in the dark! Her eyes weren't even straight with one looking at the ground and another one eyeing the ceiling. That little snot-nose, welfare receipiant had the AUDACITY to accuse me of being a tranny. How dare that coke-whore! I mean really?! It's bad enough that I was unable to give blood when there is a shortage of blood supply around, not to mention I have one of the rarest of blood forms, but she has to go and insult me like that? Medical or not, that question is complete bullshit; it wasn't even on the questionaire.

Well, that was my gripe with the bitch (an ugly bitch, mightI add), but now, oward to the problem I have with this policy. I just don't understand it. Are we [homosexuals] not being disrespected enough that homophobia has to extend to charitable causes as well? I know where the underlining fear comes from, but I dont' see it and I dont' agree with it. Our blood is as healthy as the next person, straight or gay, and not just gay people get AIDS, common street whores too, so perhaps we should ban rich, white, american men from donating as well? Should we ban African Americans from donating as well seeing how the AIDS virus did orignate from Africa and, I believe, 1 in every 15 Africans have AIDS?

I just don't understand it; it's not right. Hell, at least let me save my own blood for when I need it. I'll be damned if I have to suffer because of stupid, ignorant policies like this one.