Does As I Say...

Last week I talked about having common sense when posting things on the internet and reminded everyone that nothing is private -- that it can be seen by anyone and everyone. On Sunday that point was brought home for me.

On Friday I wrote about a US airman who was killed in Ciudad Juarez, and Sunday afternoon a friend of that person commented on that post. Despite my efforts to choose my words carefully, I still managed to upset this person.

*waits while you read the comment, if you so choose*

Now, I could get defensive and huff and puff that this person doesn't know me and clearly hasn't read my other posts, but what happened proves my point exactly. Even though I take care to present myself in a way that would never require an apology on my part, that very thing happened. If you google the incident, that blog post shows up. People who normally would never stumble across my blog -- like the airman's friends and family -- are introduced to me via that post. It's not their responsibility to skim through old posts to get a better understanding of where I'm coming from, it's my responsibility to make sure I'm clear the first time around.

I apologized in my comments and I meant it. Of course I'm not glad anyone died. Perhaps I've grown too cynical since moving here, but that doesn't mean I feel anything other than sadness when innocent victims are killed.

Working Like a Dog

My recent lack of activity aside, Ibis and I are both very athletic and try to get some form of exercise every day, or at the very least several times a week. We enjoy a variety of sports/activities -- volleyball, tennis, rollerblading -- and actually like going to the gym on a regular basis. So it's only fitting that we'd expect the same from our dog, right?

Owen is over four months old now, so we figured there's no time like the present!

First I went over his workout regimen.


Then I got him started on neck and back exercises.


Next up: loosening those teeth! (He lost three more Thursday & Friday)


Survey says: he likes it!


Sure, it only weighs a couple ounces and squeaks, but you have to start someplace.

US Airman Killed in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

I saw this headline Thursday morning and my first thought was Good. Not good that anyone was killed, but if an American is going to get caught in the drug violence, better it be a member of the US armed service because it'll be harder for it to be swept under the rug.

From the AP:

A gang of gunmen killed an off-duty U.S. airman and five other people early Wednesday at a bar in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, authorities said.

There was no immediate information on a motive for the attack that killed the U.S. airman at the Amadeus bar in Ciudad Juarez, which also left a seventh person wounded, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for prosecutors in northern Chihuahua state. But the methods bore the hallmarks of attacks by drug cartels.

Staff Sgt. David Booher, assigned to the medical unit of the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) north of Ciudad Juarez, was among those killed in the bar, the U.S. Air Force said.

Earlier this year, the 12th Air Force barred airmen from traveling in Mexico's Chihuahua state. Soldiers from Fort Bliss, just outside El Paso, Texas, across the border from Juarez, also are barred from going to Chihuahua.

I'm very curious to see how both the US and Mexican presidents respond to this attack. Aside from a couple articles online, it seems to be quiet. I'll be very disappointed if nothing is done, even if it was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I Got the Hummus

It sometimes surprises me what foods I miss from the US. The everyday comforts from home we can get here, so it's the little things -- Triscuits, Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, dill pickles -- that I find myself longing for.

The latest: hummus.

When I was in Chicago someone told me an easy recipe and the search was on for the ingredients, or substitute ingredients since some of you may recall, Mexico doesn't have lemons. (At least not where I can find them.)

My ingredient list:

2 cans garbanzo beans*
5 cloves of garlic**
1/2 cup lime juice
1 heaping teaspoon of peanut butter***
1/4 cup oil
salt to taste


* These were HARD to find. They are not in the special bean aisle (there's an entire aisle for beans) but next to the olives. Or what I call "the aisle for food only tourists eat."

** This was too much. I'll go for 3-4 next time.

*** Because we don't have tahini.

It turned out MUCH better than I expected, especially for my first attempt, and I'm excited to make it again (once we finish the garlic-fest going on in the refrigerator).

All this talk of hummus always makes me think of a famous Spanish song:



Which then makes me think of one of my favorite Marc Anthony songs, one that EVERYONE is the club always wanted to dance to (his hair is PRETTY in this):



So what do you like to eat with hummus?

(Once again -- major props to anyone who can name the Friends episode that I stole the title of this post from.)

Priorities

My plans for editing alongside the NaNo participants is not going very well. I went through the entire document on Monday, but Sunday and Tuesday were both a bust (busts?). Fortunately I have good reasons for not cracking the wip yesterday.

First, I found a job site that has a TON of listings that I wasn't finding on a combination of other sites. The woman in charge of hiring at a place in Vancouver told me about it and I applied to five jobs yesterday. The most I've found in one day up until this point is two or three, so that made me very happy. Of course now I have to actually hear back from these people, but just finding jobs that interest me is a good feeling.

Second, I not only had breakfast plans with a new friend, our American neighbor is back in town and we ended up going to lunch with her. Meals in Mexico usually take a couple hours, and combined with several hours applying for jobs (plus the regular nonsense that eats up my time) I was too tired by the end of the day to edit.

A wise friend pointed out that any edits done while exhausted will most likely require even more editing, so I allowed myself the night off. I feel guilty, but the job search needs to come first.

If you're a writer, how is your writing coming along? And a complete tangent -- can you believe it's been a YEAR since Obama was elected? Crazy

Too Much of Anything...

I've officially started the second draft of After the Fall, which means that so far I've transferred my beta's comments into the "Second Draft" file and made all the easy changes. Today I'll begin the actual rewriting/editing. This may sound odd to some people, but I like to have everything prepared before I dig in -- the same way I like to have all the ingredients spread out on the counter when I'm cooking.

In my first novel, The Other Side, a kind beta reader pointed out (very gently) that everyone was "looking" waaaaay too often. Sure, there was an occasional glance or gaze, but the majority of their gestures focused on (*snort*) their eyes.

This time around, my characters' main problem seems to be their hair. (Sorry with the puns -- I amuse easily, remember?) The stroke it, twirl it, and the most common offense, they run their fingers through it. Over and over and over. Perhaps this is because I tend to play with my hair a lot, plus one of my characters is a teenager girl and I know they can't keep their hands off their tresses.

Whatever the reason, I need some new gestures. I did a Find and made the comment "HAIR!" at every instance. There were a lot. I also discovered that I use the word "chair" a lot, but since they only rake their fingers through a chair once, I don't think it'll be a problem.

(I also discovered that including a space before and after the word you're searching will prevent this from happening.)

I'm sure I've asked about gestures that you overuse, so do you have any that struck you as really funny, or completely impossible?

A Little Common Sense Please

You see a lot of chatter online about how easy the internet makes it for people to spout off without consequence, and how many people hide behind an anonymous username to bash, trash, or thrash whatever happens to piss them off that day.

What bothers me are the people who seem to forget they're posting things ON THE INTERNET. This applies mostly to facebook, as people who have blogs do realize that anyone can find their posts, but I see it all over the place. People complaining about day-to-day things, like a crowded bus or slow person in line ahead of them, that make me want to smack the person upside the head and tell them to be grateful for what they have. I want to pull these people aside and tell them "you have access to public transportation, you have money to stand in line to buy something, you're healthy enough to be doing these things in the first place."

I get that a side effect of living in a first-world country is people take things for granted, but I wish these people would realize how ungrateful they appear. I have several hundred friends on facebook and the majority have a balance between positive and negative -- it's only a handful who don't seem to realize how they sound to the rest of the world. I know that with facebook only your "friends" can see what you post, but I'm guessing they present themselves in a similar manner everywhere else.

I don't mean for this to come off as a rant about facebook, and I'm not trying to single anyone out. My point in all this is to remind everyone that the next time a stranger upsets you -- whether they moved too slowly, reacted in a way you didn't appreciate, or committed some other unforgivable social offense -- take a moment and put yourself in their shoes. Maybe the slow person has a migraine and is moving as quickly as she can, or the cranky-pants the next car over is worried about his mother in the hospital. Whatever.

I'm guilty of this too -- I get worked up far too easily over stupid things -- but I don't turn around and blast that person all over the internet. I complain to my husband or a friend and then I MOVE ON. Yes, I occasionally post complaints, but it's usually a general thing and never hurtful. I try very hard to live my life in a way that I won't regret anything and I hopefully won't have to apologize for something I did or said. I know that's a lot to ask of people, but I'm hoping this serves as a reminder to think a moment or two before telling the internet about the latest idiot in line next to you.



(As a side note, I'm not talking about people who complain that they're stuck in traffic, it's the ones who wonder "WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO DRIVE HOME AT THE SAME TIME AS ME???" every day.)