Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you all have enjoyed your holiday season thus far... and are getting excited for the last hurrah: New Year's Eve. I, for one, am pumped because Sis-T and I are throwing our annual NYE bash at our parents' house (aaand, I'm 28 years old and still throwing parties at my parents' house. nbd).

Speaking of holiday parties, one thing that I think we all get a little too much of during this time of the year is schmoozing. For me, the worst schmooze-night of the entire year is my parents' Holiday Open House. For hours on end, my siblings and I are trapped making small talk with a bunch of people we vaguely know/care about. We smile, nod, tell stories of school/work/etc. Overall, I'd say we're pretty charming (See, mom! You're lucky to have such charming children who entertain your guests).

This year, amidst the schmoozing/charming, something pretty fantastic happened: Sis-E struck up a conversation with someone she thought was a somewhat distant relative. This conversation wasn't run-of-the-mill small talk; this small talk was aggressive. Like, "Are you ready to be a grandpa" and "We're so proud that your son has gotten his act together" aggressive. I'm happy to say, Sis-T and I observed the whole thing, entirely confused as to how Sis-E knew this guy so well (we didn't recognize him at all).

Honestly, I'm not even sure how it happened, but the conversation lasted for a solid 5-10 minutes. At which point, Sis-E leaned over to me and Sis-T and asked, "that's our relative, right?" Sis-T and I looked at each other, laughed, and shook our heads "No!!"

"OMG," Sis-E responded, "This is so embarrassing, I've got to get out of here now!" She darted to the other end of the room and quickly started up a conversation with some people she definitely knew.

Oh! Poor Sis-E! What an embarrassing mistake! But it's the holidays, and these types of mix-ups happen all the time at parties.

I wish I could say that's the end of this story, but it gets better. Later in the evening, our mom was talking to the same man (it turns out they went to high school together) and he commented on how he was super worried about his seventeen year-old son. Apparently, some drama had recently gone down on his son's facebook wall regarding a pregnancy and he had just talked to my sister who confirmed the whole thing!! Now, he has to worry about all the other stuff she had mentioned, as well! The poor man was so distraught that he and his wife left the party soon after.

It wasn't until later in the evening when our entire family was recapping highlights of the party that both sides of the story were revealed (and for those of you who are worried about the son, my mom emailed his father right away to assure him that it was all a mix-up and that his son has not knocked a girl up or is partying too hard). Best party-foul EVER!

Let this be a lesson to you all: before schmoozing too hard at a party, make sure you know exactly who it is you're talking to.

YouTube

Have any of you guys ever heard of a www.YouTube.com? It's this website where people can upload, share, and view videos. And it's AWESOME.

Okay, yeah. I know. YouTube was invented a while ago (actually, according to wikipedia:YouTube, it was created in Spring of 2005, which is also when I graduated from college. This is totally depressing because I can't imagine a world before YouTube, yet I'm unwilling to fully come to terms with the fact that I've been out of college for so long).

Anyway, lately, I've become completely obsessed with it. As in, I can't get enough of it. Like, the first thing I do when I get home is check it for new videos... or, let's be honest, watch the same Oldies but Goodies over and over and over again. Throughout the day, I walk around thinking of my favorite clips, sometimes singing outloud and/or acting them out... in public. Really, YouTube might be the only thing that makes me happy in my sad, pathetic, med school-filled life.

Here are some additional signs that I might have a YouTube problem:

• Instead of actually talking to people I haven't seen in a while (relatives, old friends, etc.), we just get out a computer and spend hours watching different videos.
• Sis-T has made the Bed Intruder Song the ringtone for when I call her:

• I'm going to dress up as 4 year-old in pj's for Halloween, because I just love Jessica's "Daily Affirmation" video so much (sure, this costume is random and will be completely unrecognizable/not funny to like 97% of the people I run into, but I still love it so much):

• I've convinced my friends to also dress up as YouTube characters for Halloween... and they're GOING TO DO IT*.

I guess things could be worse. Right now, most of these activities still involve social interaction. I mean, it's not my fault Sis-T also happens to love the Bed Intruder Song. Or that my friends were lacking costume ideas. Or that other people also seem to love watching and talking about their favorite videos... for hours at a time.

Oh, and just so you know, this is the video that finally sent me over the edge and convinced me to blog about my love for YouTube:

Are you kidding me?! It's a BIRD! Dancing to a ridiculous song written by a 9 year-old!!! OMG I love it.

*In case you were wondering: they're going to be Keyboard Cat and Zombie Turtle Kid.

Yup, still cute.

Okay. Little V has only gotten cuter during my stay and I can't take it anymore. Here are some more pics (S and I have decided that she's not very photogenic; she's much cuter in person). Oh. And now she calls my name ("yackie") whenever I enter the house and waves/says "Adios" in her cute 2-year old voice whenever I leave the room. Like I said before, her cuteness is almost unbearable and possibly a little freakish (I mean, how can one person be consistently cute all the time?!).

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V Pequeña

By popular demand here is a pic of the adorable Little V, the 18 month old granddaughter in our house. (also in the pic are S and K).

Ok no time to talk. We're out the door to get to a fiesta at school. Yay!

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And we're off (for real)!

A day later, we're finally on a plane leaving LAX. And we got upgraded to 1st class! We spent the day cruising around LA. We had to drive to Koreatown to get the refund for the overbooked flight, which led to a trip to Scoops for some yummy icecream. Highlight of the LA trip: getting a nod of recognition from a redheaded man crossing the street in front of us. It went down something like this:
K and S: "J look a fellow redhead!" At this point the Gingerman glanced in our direction, looked at me, smiled and nodded. I responded with a "flame on" (international redhead greeting).

In the evening K and S (my travel buddies from med school) got a glimpse of my awesome roots at a family dinner at my aunt and uncle's house. "Now we understand why you're so... Special" they commented. Dinner was a hit. My little cousins were adorable (8 year old USC football-obsessed G: "USC has been to a lot of Rose Bowls but can't go now because of sanctions"). We watched the quality film "Blades of Glory." Sis-T and I did some Barn dancing (did you know I went to farm camp for 10 years? ha. Of course you did. I'm obsessed with it). Little cousin A's ridiculously cute teacup terrier, Lulu, won everybody over with her cute face and tiny tongue hanging out (just trust me on this one.... It's unbearably cute).

Ok. I've gtg. Time to fly to Honduras (via El Salvador). Did I mention we're in 1st class?

Pun Intended

Do you know what we don't hear enough of these days? Punny names. Okay, so we all know the classics like Pussy Galore from Goldfinger (and thus, from Austin Powers, Alotta Fagina), or Ben Dover from the Simpsons. Maybe these are too obvious for everyday life. Really though, with all of these crazy celebrity baby names, you would think there would be at least a couple clever puns involved!

Well today, I realized that my relatives had done their part to keep the world entertained through clever names.

I present to you: Granny Dot.

I know what you're thinking, "Oooh! Granny Dot! How clever! I totally see the pun here... or not." But wait! My great-grandmother's name was Dorothea Morse. She was related (somehow... and I just spent like 45 minutes searching genealogy sites online) to Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph and Morse Code (made up of dots and dashes for those of you who are unfamiliar with the code). And then my great-grandmother's parents decided to name their daughter Dorothea, or "Dot" for short. Get it?! Granny Dot?! OMG my family is amazing.

Aaand I just realized the punniness of my great-granny's name today while talking family history with my mom. It went something like this:

J: OMG mom, Granny Dot like the Morse Code! Because she was a Morse!! And he invented the Morse Code!!!

Mom: Yeah. You didn't put that together earlier?

J: No. Do you think they did it on purpose?

Mom: Oh, I don't know...

J: MOM!! Of course they did! How clever of them!

Seriously, though. These are the types of clever names we need more of. Less "Ben Dovers" and more "Dot Morses."

ps, this post was on track to being way more entertaining before I got sucked into Genealogy.com. Sorry.

Giacomo is a Rock Star!

Check out Giacomo on the bass!

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