Three Wise Men?

I'm being very generous with personal pictures this month, discretion be damned! Here are my siblings and me during my Housewarming Party. You can spot me by, ermm, my short stature (although in my defense, I am 5'4'' which is completely average - not my fault my bro and sis are deformed giants).

Here are the captions I sent to my mom and dad:

Les Enfants Prodiges (The Gifted Children)

These Are Your Kids on Crack

Crazy Wedding in Las Vegas

I attended a crazy wedding in Las Vegas last weekend for one of my best friends. It was soooo much fun!


The Groom and Bride. The Groom wanted to rent a tux in Vegas, but found instead a completely purple outfit that cost him the same to buy then to rent. So he went with it. The Bride found a dress in D.C. a mere few days before Vegas and borrowed a friend's hat for the picture.

For some reason, and completely unplanned, the rest of the girls all dressed up by different sequential decades:

Rest of the Gang. Antine as a Cowgirl in the 1930s, 007 in cocktail wear in the 1940s, Yanna as a 1950s Housewife, Mala sporting a fro' in the 60s, Sema with a grooving dress reminiscent of the 1970s, and Nancy with block print from the 80s.

(Note: they got married at the very classy Graceland Chapel so yes, that is astroturf on the ground.)

Chopping Your Arm Off and More Frequent Phone Calls

My brother called me this morning on my way home from Las Vegas to Washington D.C.

He had just seen the movie 127 Hours, with actor James Franco, about a climber who hikes by himself, falls in a crevasse and gets his arm stuck between a canyon wall and a boulder.

One of the take-home message he came away with: call your mom and sister so they know what you're up to, and can find you if you're lost.

I'm so glad that movie about the guy who chopped off his own arm off with a swiss army knife has motivated him to call me more often. Not exactly a full endorsement of his love for me, but I'll take what I can get.

Bored

So admittedly, I've been feeling a wee bit bored lately. For me, boredom is a VERY bad thing, as I tend not to cope very well with it and make stupid decisions. My sister recommends working out, but I'm just too cold to go for a run, and I cancelled my membership since moving because the gym is now too far (*cough* one metro stop away *cough*).

Case in point 1: even though I bought my house less than a year ago (February 26 will be my one-year anniversary), I'm already looking at new houses to buy, flip and rent for investment. I'm set up a coffee date with my realtor to discuss investment value, neighborhoods, alternative sources of funding, and other practicalities. I must admit that I have no cash, so I will need to be very creative with my sources of financing. Indecent Proposal anyone?

Case in point 2: I have a small obsession with furniture, much like some of friends have with shoes and handbags. I've miraculously managed not to amass too many things in my house, but I could easily spend 4 hours each day on the web looking for furniture. I dream of owning sophisticated antique pieces; redoing an artist's study with modern sofas, tables and chairs; I scope out the cheapest yet tasteful items in case I'd ever need to stage an apartment for sale. It's completely ridiculous...

Unable to resist this is what I bought tonight ($15 for both from Craigslist + $10 taxi ride):

Don't they just look positively in love?

Blakeburry

I was just reading an email from my mom this morning. She was describing her vacation and assured us that we could reach her on dad's "blakeburry."

Hum, I wonder if I should refer her to My Mom Is a FOB...

Love you mom!

Well as Long as I Have My Health...

I never quite understood why people were always so cheeringly optimistic about life, "as long as they had their health."

I mean, you can be prefectly healthy yet have 3 parking tickets, kids you have to raise by yourself, an evil boss, and collection agencies knocking on your door every 2 days. That would be a sh***y life really. Even if your health is perfect.

But lately, I've been feeling completely off-balance. It feels like I'm walking in a fun home, with the ground giving way in unexpected ways and offering me an uneven surface on which to walk. I'm never worried when I get sick, mostly because it happens so seldomly, and frankly most ailments in my life just go away after several days. But I do have to admit that it's really distracting to feel like you're about to fall over even if you're sitting quietly at your desk.

I went to the nurse who looked into my ears, and saw some mucus in one of them, which may explain the dizziness. She told me to drink a lot of fluids, try taking Claritin to see if that resolves the issue. A colleague of mine who's a doctor tells me to take multivitamins because dizziness may also come from a lack of zinc, folate, and other micronutrients found in vitamins.

Well it's not a big deal, but I just don't want to end up like the this guy from the great book of intriguing neurological case studies from Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat):

On the Level," another case involving damaged proprioception. Dr. Sacks interviews a patient who has trouble walking upright and discovers that he has lost his innate sense of balance due to Parkinson's-like symptoms that have damaged his inner ears; the patient, comparing his sense of balance to a carpenter's spirit level, suggests the construction of a similar level inside a pair of glasses, which enables him to judge his balance by sight.

Source: Wikipedia

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