Scoots and Skirts

As many of my avid readers know, I ride a scooter during the summer. My boss Craig tells me almost everyday that I need to be really careful because my scooter could kill me. There are precautions that I take in order to be more safe, such as wearing my pirate princess helmet, keeping a good distance from the car in front of me, and avoiding really busy roads like University Avenue and Geneva Road.
As mentioned, I have a really cool helmet with a sticker on the back that says pirate princess. I actually like my helmet, and I almost always wear it. The only times I don't wear it is if I am going somewhere pretty close to home, it is really hot outside and wearing a helmet would be unbearable, or if I really don't want my hair to be all squished down.
A couple of days ago, I was riding down to return a dvd that I had rented. It was a very hot day, and I was only going down to Blockbuster, which can't be more than a couple of miles from my house. Taking those things into account, I didn't wear my helmet. No big deal until my friend Collin spotted me. He is probably more concerned about my scooter safety than anyone else, and he sent me a text telling me to put my helmet on. His text made him sound very serious, and even though he couldn't hear me, I thought Collin is right, I should be wearing my helmet.
There were a couple of things that Collin didn't mention in his text. The first is I was wearing a skirt. I think this may be more treacherous than not wearing my helmet. When I ride my scooter in a skirt, which I don't do very often, I tend to pay more attention to how far my skirt is pulled over my knees, or if for some reason, my skirt is coming over my knees, I concentrate more on pulling my knees as close together as possible than I do on traffic around me. Stopping in a skirt is also a problem. Normally, I slow down, and then put my feet down when I am almost stopped. In a skirt, I try to only put one foot down instead of both. You could kind of think of it as the same idea of riding side saddle on a horse. I don't want to straddle the scooter in a skirt just in case there are a lot of cars close by or possible a pedestrian or maybe other scooter or motorcycle riders. Anyway, this kind of throws my balance of when I stop and go, and if I ever rear end a car while on the scooter, I am sure I will be able to blame it on a skirt.
The second scooter transgression I was committing was my choice of footwear. I was wearing my 2nd favorite pair of shoes. They are super cute kitten heel slides. The toe cover is cream fabric with green flowers embroidered on them, and there are a few little sparkles sewn on. The heel is probably only an inch or an inch and a half, so that isn't as much of a problem as when I wear four inch heels, but there isn't a back on this pair of particular shoes. A couple of times that day, I lost my shoe when I picked my foot up to start going. I would have to put my brakes on very quickly to collect my shoe, but I made it all day without losing my shoe.
Don't worry about my safety. I still know what is important. My brain, sure. My shoes, definitely!

Yellow Polka Dot Bikini

Last Sunday, my sister Stephanie and her three kids came over to my parents house. My super cute nephew Owen is three years old and has had a really hard time learning to talk. Now that he has finally figured out how to use his words, he never stop talking!! He came over to me and asked me if I wanted some bikini. Huh? I thought I had just misunderstood. Then he told me to eat some bikini bread. Bikini bread? I'm not sure that is modest! Finally, I asked my sister what was going on with all the bikini talk. Zucchini. Owen wanted me to eat some Zucchini bread. I think bikini bread sounds like it would taste better.

One (Uno) Leg Juan

I got home from Nicaragua a few weeks ago, and ever since then I have been really busy. I keep running into people that I haven't seen since before I left, and they all ask me how Nicaragua was. I thought I would outline some of the highlights and then I can just direct them to my blog. That way I don't have to keep telling the same stories and the popularity of my blog increases. Watch out Rebecca, I am going to start competing with you for most popular blog...

The best Nicaraguan story is about one leg Juan. We helped out on a building project for the first few days that we were in Nicaragua. The first thing I learned how to do was mix cement. We had to measure a certain number of buckets of sand, water, and cement powder. Then we mixed up the cement with shovels. I am telling you--this is hard work. I was mixing my first (and only) batch of cement when I made the comment that Kelly and I were the only ones mixing, and all the Nicaraguans that were there were just watching us. Our friend Brooke looked over and said that they were all watching us because when I leaned over, you could see down my shirt. Well, that was a great excuse to not have to mix any more cement, and I started a new job as the site historian.

This is how I really got to know Juan. I was taking pictures of everything, and Juan loved getting his picture taken. He started talking to me, but he only speaks Spanish. Unless someone is counting or saying the colors of the rainbow in Spanish, I don't understand. I was just smiling and pretending that I knew what he was talking about until Jon Portie came over to interpret. Juan had been telling me that he had been in a construction accident a few years ago, and he only has one leg. He got a prosthetic leg from the Red (rojo) Cross a few year ago. He then pulled up his pant leg to show us that he has a plastic leg.

Juan continued to talk to Jon, but quite suddenly Juan started to unbutton his pants. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't know quite how to react, and the only the Jon Portie said to me was "I'm not sure what he is going to show you this time". I wasn't sure I wanted to know what he was going to show me. He unzipped his pants and pulled one side down over his hip to show me that his plastic leg goes all the way up to his hip. I was trying not to laugh, but for anyone who knows me, you know that I am a giggly girl, and I couldn't hold it in. My face was red, I probably snorted, but I was glad I only saw a plastic leg and not anything else.

I think maybe Juan felt comfortable pulling his pants down in front of me because he had seen down my shirt earlier. Kind of like an eye for an eye. Or maybe in his culture pulling your pants down is not that big of a deal. I'm not really sure of anything except it made me really uncomfortable and nervous and was very funny.

Stay tuned for the next Nicaraguan adventure story!!

Recipe Swap Fiasco

So, I never, ever, ever respond to chain emails. I don't believe that I will have bad luck if I don't forward 10 people an email that tells them they are beautiful or loved or lucky or whatever. Usually these emails are deleted even before they are read. Recently, actually yesterday, I made one exception.
My best friend, someone who has been my best friend since I was 14 sent me a recipe swap email. I love her like a sister, and thought okay, I guess just this once I will respond. All I had to do was send one recipe to one person, and then forward the email to 20 other people. Even after I had decided to participate, it took me a couple of weeks to actually follow through, but yesterday, I finally did it.
I'll be honest, I am horrible at keeping in touch with people. When I don't see someone on a regular basis, I probably won't call them just to chat or try and get together to go to lunch. That being said, I don't have a huge number of emails saved in my contact list. Twenty people was kind of a stretch for me. Luckily, I have five sisters, one sister in law, and one mother, or my twenty emails would have been really hard to come up with. I barely managed to come up with twenty, but I did, and I sent off my email. (some of you who are reading this know that I sent the email, because you were the lucky recipients:))
I felt relieved. I did it, I came through for my best friend, and now she would receive 4 million recipes within 5 days, all of which would serve to keep her family healthy and happy for years to come. Sadly, this is not where the story ends....
Less than two hours later, guess what showed up in my email inbox? Another recipe swap request! Someone who I had send the request to had already completed their email, and someone they had forwarded it to had resent it to me!!! Ahhhhh!
Now what do I do? The person on the top of the list that I am supposed to be sending a recipe to is a really good friend of mine, and she responded to the original email almost immediately. I am back to the same dilemma of wanting to come through for her, but I can't send the email to the same twenty people as before, and I'm not sure I can come up with another twenty people. That is forty people that I will have sent this email too. And, what if everyone I send it to actually participates? I will have 3 billion recipes come to my email box, which will probably clog up my email, and I will miss really important emails telling me about specials sales at Banana Republic and J Crew while I am reading how to make macaroni casserole.
I feel like I have learned a very valuable lesson through this whole thing, forwarded emails are of the devil. Don't give in to even a little bit of temptation or you will get pulled in all the way. What starts out as twenty emails will soon turn into two hundred, and you will have to fight your way out.
P.S.-If anyone would like to be involved in a recipe swap, please forward me your email address.