Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Sorry I'm a little late with this.
We celebrated by my daughter and her friend making Chicken curry,
and that's a dish I don't know how to make.

Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year!
The 2007 Chinese New Year is the Year of the Boar and is celebrated on February 18th. It celebrates the first day of the Chinese Lunar Calendar and is the most important yearly festival for the Chinese. Each year is named after one of the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac.

Chinese New Year 2007 - Year of the Boar
This Chinese New Year, we are transitioning from the Year of the Dog to the Year of the Boar. Peeps born in the Year of the Boar are supposed to be honest, straight-forward and patient people. Celebrity Boars include Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, Johnny Knoxville, Missy Elliot and Snoop Dogg.

Lady Jan rates Bridge to Terabithia

I recently went to see the Bridge to Terabithia

with my daughter and her friend and of course my husband.

This is not a move like Alice through the looking glass, or a trip to Narnia.

.

No.

.

This a movie made from a book about two lonely kids who make friends and invent a world that comes from the imagination.

.

Jess is the only boy of five kids the rest are all girls, he even shares a room with his five year old sister, and the baby (sister). He draws all the time, he's the artist.

.

Leslie is the new kids, and she runs very fast and beats Jess on the first day they meat during a race. But Leslie is a writer and has quite the imagination and she writes and tells wonderfully imaginative stories that come alive in Jess's mind.

.

It takes a while for the kids to make friends--then they are fast friends.

.

But it is not a whole complete world 'accent' the world of the imagination.

.

They use the game of theirs to empower themselves, and to escape from there daily trials at home and at school. and Bullies.

.

Uh-hum, and there is a bully named Janice? Excuse me? That's not right.

.

They find a place behind the land that Jesse's family owns that you have to cross a deep creek to get too, and once there it becomes Terabithia to them. They fix an old tree house make up stories, and act them out.

.

Until one them dies.

.

Sorry, but if you go to this movie I think you should be warned that there is a death.

.

Luckily it happens off camera and the surviving child doesn't see it, but it was sad really really sad and I and my party sat there and cried right through the rest of the movie.

.

Then the survivor (I'm not saying who it is I don't want to spoil the ending), but that person goes through the three phases of loss:

.

Disbelief

Anger

Then finally acceptance

.

Then the survivor builds a bridge (a real one) and shares this make believe world with another.

.

This Movie gets a Lady Jan rating of C+

Because of the death of a child.

.

And because of that death.

I also don't think this is suitable

movie for children under the age

of ten.

Happy Fat Tuesday!

New Orleans celebrates Fat Tuesday

NEW ORLEANS - Thousands of hurricane-weary residents joined with rowdy visitors for Fat Tuesday, taking a break from rebuilding New Orleans to put on wild costumes and celebrate the second Mardi Gras since Hurricane Katrina.

John Ferguson, who is still rebuilding his house almost 18 months after the storm, said of the celebration: "We never needed it more."

"I work all day at my job; then I work all night and all weekend on my house," Ferguson said. "I just want to eat, drink and have fun today."

Many spectators spent the day along the parade routes or in the French Quarter, where the first Mardi Gras parade of the day was staged by the 1,250-member Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, a predominantly black group that wears grass skirts and black face makeup in parody of stereotypes from the early 1900s, when it was founded.

"I'm hyped up," said Ike Williams, a 42-year-old Atlanta contractor who is black, marching in his first parade as a member of Zulu's Walking Warriors. "I couldn't sleep last night. This is the center of the universe right now."

Earlier in the day, Mayor Ray Nagin rode a horse down St. Charles Avenue.

"We're going to make it happen," Nagin told the crowd at Gallier Hall, which served as city hall for more than a century. "We're going to rebuild this city regardless."

Happy President's day!

My daughter and my husband had today off today, so my daughter got to have a sleep over last night. And today my husband took us out to see a movie: the bridge to Terrabithia (which we thought was a sad movie).

History of the Holiday(president's day)

The original version of the holiday was in commemoration of George Washington's birthday in 1796 (the last full year of his presidency). Washington, according to the calendar that has been used since at least the mid-18th century, was born on February 22, 1732. According to the old style calendar in use back then, however, he was born on February 11. At least in 1796, many Americans celebrated his birthday on the 22nd while others marked the occasion on the 11th instead.

By the early 19th century, Washington's Birthday had taken firm root in the American experience as a bona fide national holiday. Its traditions included Birthnight Balls in various regions, speeches and receptions given by prominent public figures, and a lot of revelry in taverns throughout the land. Then along came Abraham Lincoln, another revered president and fellow February baby (born on the 12th of the month). The first formal observance of his birthday took place in 1865, the year after his assassination, when both houses of Congress gathered for a memorial address. While Lincoln's Birthday did not become a federal holiday like George Washington's, it did become a legal holiday in several states.

In 1968, legislation (HR 15951) was enacted that affected several federal holidays. One of these was Washington's Birthday, the observation of which was shifted to the third Monday in February each year whether or not it fell on the 22nd. This act, which took effect in 1971, was designed to simplify the yearly calendar of holidays and give federal employees some standard three-day weekends in the process.

Apparently, while the holiday in February is still officially known as Washington's Birthday (at least according to the Office of Personnel Management), it has become popularly (and, perhaps in some cases at the state level, legally) known as "President's Day." This has made the third Monday in February a day for honoring both Washington and Lincoln, as well as all the other men who have served as president.

"Woman aren't funny?" Asks Lady Jan, "says who?"

Funny Women

According to a certain article we women aren’t funny!

Not funny?

Since when?

Don’t tell me that women aren’t funny!

And don’t tell that to Gwen or Merle! And come to think of it maybe Jen & Cass don't need to know that they can't be funny either? And it would be such a let down for me too!

I read the article; it seems that because we women have a womb, that we have no need to be funny. It’s men who need to be funny because they are the wooers of women, and being funny is a wooing ability?

Well maybe.

The funny thing is I have been around funny women all my life!

My aunt Lola May was a hoot! She was a short person at five foot two in my mom’s side of the family and that’s in a family of tall women!(my mom's five seven) But she wouldn’t let anything stop her.

She kept her and her husbands cars and trucks running, and occasionally she even take a motor apart and over haul it, and that was during a time when most women didn’t do that sort of thing.

Her husband my uncle Mutt, yeah Mutt--his real name was Clyde, anyway he would tease her daily about her pet pig that she had a long time ago and then they go round and round about it. “He was a CLEAN pig too!” she’d exclaim.

My uncle Bruce (her brother) and his wife Edith and his dog Taco (in that order) moved down to where she lived at Riverside (CA) and he had just quit smoking, but Lola May hadn’t.

She’d complain "When Bruce comes over for a visit and I’d light one and up he’d start coughing, and that was his way of telling me my smoking bothered him!”

Then she’d raise an eye brow and wait a beat or two and then we knew there was more, and she leaned forward and continue with, “and then that damn dog of his would cough too!

And that damn dog has a cough that sounds just like his!”

She always kept a little statue on her tv set that was of four monkeys the first one was see no evil, the second was hear no evil, then hear no evil, and finally the last one a glum looking little monkey titled have no fun!

And that was pretty much her attitude too!

Then there was my cousin Ann who was one of the tallest women in my dad’s family and that is in a family of short women, when I asked her how tall was she? And she told me she "was six foot in her cowboy boots."

And that's an answer?

One time when we went to go see her over at the coast where her and her husband (Sam) lived at Oceano near Pismo beach (CA) she took us girls (me my mom and my sister) around to look at art galleries and gift shops and after one such stop--she fell.

We girls were going to get in on the passengers side of the car and we were startled to see her fall down slowly like a tall tree.

When we ran over to see if she was okay there she was sitting and nursing a hurt knee, and asked us quite seriously, “did I fall gracefully?”

She also had a saying, and I not sure where she got it but it went something like this:

Women have many faults
and men have only two
everything they say,
and everything they do!

She also would tell the best stories too.

I remember her telling us girls about some of her nieces that came for a visit, and she took them to the pool, and there was a young man took a look at the girls and decided he’d try to impress them.

“Then the young man jumped off the diving board and did a double flip with a half twist, and came up out of the water and noticed that the girls were laughing and pointing at him–not the reaction he was expecting.

But them he didn’t expect his short to be floating some where behind him either.”

My mom isn’t usually a funny person she's a real lady, and that is why when she does says something funny it’s even funnier than it should be.

After I had my baby at our Madera Community hospital I had her c-section, and my mom came to see me late the next day. And while we were visiting I was telling her that the nurses were calling the tube that you pee out of a ‘perry tube’ that was just removed (from me) that morning. And then later that day when one of the nurse’s was instructing me on the care and cleaning of my new little baby girl, she called her private area a ‘perry’.

“Isn’t that interesting?” I asked her, “that they’s call that part of the body a ‘perry’ when I’m use to it being call a urethra? Or a vulva? And the tube is a catheter? And here they are calling it a ‘perry’?”

Then my mom pops off with, “I’m glad I don’t have a son named Perry!”

I started laughing, then she looked horrified and I know what went through her head, 'That's not a lady like thing to say?'

And she quickly told me, “Don’t you tell anyone I said that!”

Then I really lost it, and it was, “Ow, my stomach!”

Lady Jan's cold in her eye part 2

Ack!

It went into my other eye too!

Crap!

Sorry I haven't returned anyones comments as yet, it's because . . . well my eyes sting.

Lady Jan's says, "I have an cold in my eye!"

This sounds so stupid like "Earache my eye" by Cheech and Tommy Chong, but indeed I have what is called a cold in my eye.

Asthmatics have the problem with there cold going into their lungs, and I too am an asthmatic and have resigned myself to having to spit (ew) on occasion to get rid of the phlegm. And I have also been diagnosed with super sensitive sinus which means I get it up the nose too and so I can't breath too well.

But this is the first time I had a cold in my eye!

My daughter had it a few years ago so I know what it is, and I'm treating it with eye washes and natural tears eye drops. and as bad as it looks today it was worse yesterday when I woke up and it was mattered together and had to pry it open. the bottom and top eye lids were even swollen and I could barely see out of it.

But the swell is down and I can use it just fine today, but it still looks like heck!

It's GroundHog Day!

El Nino has caused high winds, heavy snow, ice and freezing temperatures in the west.
Here in the East with much mild winter weather we have been blessed.

Global warming has caused a great debate.
This mild winter makes it seem just great.

On this Groundhog Day we think of one thing.
Will we have winter or will we have spring?

On Gobbler's Knob I see no shadow today.
I predict that early spring is on the way.