Hey, look over there!

So, despite her docile surface, Mom was always the most crafty of us all. Her craftiness was primarily funneled into a single day, April Fool's Day. She seemed to slam us every year. One year she had us get up before the crack of dawn scanning the horizon on our rickety porch for a re-entering space shuttle. Dad put his foot down after eating a sandwich with a slice of cheese complete with wrapper (this only allowed her to exert further efforts toward duping her children). We occasionally retaliated, but after raising us all it was difficult to pull the wool over her eyes.

Once, after my mission, Mom invited me to share some experiences with her quilting group. The food was excellent, deviled eggs and the kind of spinach dip that everyone seems to think they're having for the first time every time they eat it. Looking for a quick exit, I divert the group's attention with a classic, "But have you seen that over there?" and made off with two handfuls of deviled eggs. Mom of course didn't buy it for a moment, never turned her eyes and just started laughing.

G-ma Oppelt and Color scheming

we all know about mom's mom's recent taking to knitting things for all of us. most of you get normal colors no matter how silly the item. not true for me. supposedly i told her when i was young that i liked bright colors and 15 years later, she still takes that to heart. however, my presents lead every Rugglet to the question, "how bright is too much?". i used to think that egg yolk yellow slippers or a destructicon themed hat were bad things. not today. you go outside wearing those to check your mail, every girl you see will talk to you. so i guess I'm trying to say, "thanks Grandma (even if you are trying to make me look silly on purpose) and does anyone have any good stories about her presents i don't know about?"

Lots of soccer

All of us have our own memories of playing soccer at various stages growing up. What impresses me is how vivid the memories can be. Especially with Dad - he can recount entire games from 1993. We can still talk about fallacious whistles and epic moments whose stories might lead the innocent into thinking they actually occurred in slow motion. It is funny how much fun I used to have with it being as pathetic as I was. I had some strengths, sure, but I was a rather incomplete player. I had some good times though - and it's still fun to commentate.

Anyone else remember how exciting it was to have World Cup 1994 in the US? We were so sure that was soccer's breakout year - America would be forced to realize its superlativeness. Didn't happen.

And then 1998 was better - we watched 2 games a day all summer until we moved. Of course they were on the Spanish channel Univision, so the commentary was sketchy. And there was that pundit who happened puppet with no eyes - just a massive, bushy unibrow. Any laughing I did had little do with what the comedy they were surely spewing. It was purely ridiculous. I remember the World Cup causing some rubs while we were in California that year - we really wanted to watch it, but things like Sundays and families kept interfering with the World Cup. How rude. I remember loving Holland and seeing Beckham botch it and Zidane be an amazing bald jerk. Great stuff.

Alternative Rock in the Trailer Park

Although some people think people like me are a myth, I'm not a music person. I don't often go out of my way to listen to music, and even less often pay for it (this is a trait inherited from Mom and Dad that it seems only me and Tracy got). What music I do like (and still listen to) I started liking when I was 6: early 90's alternative. I could sing the words (under great protest from musical geniuses like Craig and Brian who claimed I wasn't doing justice to the original masterpiece) to quite a few Offspring and Sublime songs. Cake, Nirvana, Beck, Everclear - these were my musical world. Needless to say, this wasn't the doing of my 6-year-old self, this was because I shared a room with Andy, Brian and Craig and that's what they listened to. Brian and I were talking last summer and we came to the conclusion that music peaked in 1994. Thus, the roots of my bizarre musical taste are exactly where the rest of my roots are, firmly embedded in thick, black, Texan gumbo.