50

I have officially lost faith in all American literacy.

How would you pronounce the following? "Strawberry Blonde". Every person who has attended some form of a public school system that has failed many knows about silent "e"'s. Here's what I get all the time: "strawberry blondIE". It's BLONDE! BLONDE, you half wit! When learning to read, you learn that there are some words that end with an "E" that are silent, and some that are pronounced. For example:

"Taste". Pronounced "Tayst". Not "Taystee".

Here's another: Creme de Menthe. Here's what I hear: "Cream de Menthay." Apparently every single letter in a word must be sounded out. Speaking of sounding out:

"Germanchokolatekake."

I've used this one before. When you learn to read as a child, you are told to sound out the letters and try to form parts of the word until you get the complete formation. Here's what I get:
-Germanchokokake
-Germanchokolate
-Germanchokakake
-What the hell is that?
-How do you pronounce that?
-Germanchokolatcock

Say it with me: GERMAN-CHOCOLATE-CAKE. Now say it all together really fast!

Another one is "Strawberry Banana Rendevous". What I hear is: ren-de-voose", strawberry banana rende-something, that strawberry banana thing. Occasionally I would get one or two people who can properly pronounce it.

The kicker is when it comes to the sizes. When asked what size do they want, instead of reading the labels that are screaming at them right in front of their faces, they have to ask, and look at us like we just mutated after explaining we go by these sizes. Even then it's still a difficult task to say "Like it," "Love it," Gotta have it."

As I segue from the impromptu rant about literacy in this country, or lack there of, I had to make sure that my knowledge of reading was still in tact. For weeks I've been telling myself that I need a lounge/reading chair. Mainly a reading chair. I have this arm chair in the basement that's been around since Germany, but to transport that from the basement to the living room alone would be hazardous. It's too heavy, and I don't know what kind of surprises have been inhabiting underneath and behind the chair. Albeit it is a comfy chair, ideal for reading. It was a no. I've been searching around online through the College '09 stuff, and all of those circular lounge seats that I saw at Target are at least $50 and up. I could buy one now, but there goes my funds. So that was also a no. For some reason the idea of Ikea popped in to my head, but I realized the price would be about the same as the Target option. Then I remembered this chair that we got from Ikea years ago. It was a lounge chair that used to be in the living room, but it was placed in the basement. I used to use that chair for reading all the time. It wasn't like any other chairs, this one already had a reclining back, so it felt like you were lying down while still sitting up. I traveled to my basement and examined all the corners and spaces, clearing that there were no surprises hanging around. I pushed the chair all the way to the stairs, and began my struggle to pull it upstairs. The chair wasn't as heavy as I thought it would be, but it got stuck on every step. As soon as I got upstairs, I had another dilemma; where to put it. It used to be under the divider that separated the living room and the dining room, but it was bad placement. I tried to place it in the corner where the phone is, but it still didn't look good. I finally decided to move Maxx's house over a bit and put it in between the curio and Maxx's house. I brought down my tote bag full of books and my iPod and began reading for a few hours. I even fell asleep in it at some point. My mom was complaining about the living room light being on, because she was attempting to rest on the couch. She told me that she's going to get me reading lamp at her work. I used to have one that you could clip to the chair or the backboard of your bed, but it broke years ago. I have a feeling that's were all my readings for class will be done from now on. My mom asked me what was wrong with the dining room chair, and I told her that I didn't have the option to recline like the chair I use now. When I read, I want to be able to switch positions, rather that just sit up straight and sit one way all the time.

The plan for tomorrow is hang out with Tommy. We were supposed to have a later time, but he realized that he had to get something for his final project at 4:00 or 4:30. He opted to start around 9:00 am so we can actually get a lot of hanging out in. I know he's going to be going to California soon. I told him to have fun, but he said most likely not. Our grandpa can no longer legally drive, and Tommy can't rent a car. Plus the area my grandpa lives at has nothing. Trust me, I used to live there. The only interesting thing was that we were down the street from grandma and grandpa's, the developing shopping center with the grocery store, "Lucky's," that had the creepy clown who gave cookies and balloons. Plus we were across the street from the Budweiser and Jelly Belly factories. To actually do anything requires a car. You would have to drive to Vacaville (cows grazing along the hills next to the highway) or Valejo to get a change of scenery; even then we would only go there for Goldilocks and Red Ribbon. Sometimes I still don't understand why my family goes to those establishments, when we can cook the food ourselves. Those two restaurants I just mentioned are Filipino establishments. Then again I was raised on that stuff, so I can't really complain. Only now the only thing I can eat there are the cakes and desserts I grew up on. To get to a mall, movie theater, etc, you would have to go to Sacramento. To have some sort of excitement requires a drive to San Francisco. That's about 2 hours I think. In the end this still doesn't help the fact that Tommy will be motorless, possibly foodless. My dad and I were going to go; dad so he can get the car and drive us around the state, me taking over on occasion, and me to cook the foods my grandpa loves. I remember the Christmas that was held at my house, he gave me his blessing by proclaiming that I was the best cook since my grandma. Little did he know that he was flipping me off as he gave his blessing. We all laughed, because we know that he has dementia and was unaware of his hand gesture. That became a sort of inside joke since then. He hadn't eaten food like that since my grandma died, so it was a huge trek down memory lane for him. I was cooking those dessert egg rolls when he made that statement, and my family has the tendency to "test them to see if they're 'edible'". He got first dibbs of course, and he pretty much demolished them. I feel sorry for them, I wonder what they're going to do. I know my uncle isn't far from them, so hopefully he and our cousin CJ will take care of them. We have family down south, but they're a good 4 hours away. Plus they're not reliable in the culinary department. They only know how to spend money, not save it or use it towards something practical. Their idea of a complete meal is a sandwich and ramen. As long as their house and appearance are presentable, they're willing to starve. I was going to ask Tommy to buy me some Filipino DVD's, but since he'll be immobile it wouldn't be such a good idea.

Not all will be lost in the travel department. I have to return to NYC next month. When I say "have to" I really mean it. An only family friend is dying of cancer, and the doctors gave him 6 months at the most to live. He's a priest that befriended my family when they migrated from the Philippines to Guam; Father Jack. He's the one that looked after the boys, especially my dad, to make sure that they weren't getting in to any trouble. When they did, he was the one they had to answer to. They were his alter servers, and he remained in touch with our family after he left Guam to go to another parish. I remember my grandma would write letters to him every day when she would stay with us. He baptized how many of my cousins. I met him when we went back to Guam in '92, but I don't remember. He did a great service to my parents, especially. My dad ran to him in a panic when he decided that he wanted to get married, and Father Jack pulled A LOT of strings to get them married in the 3 days that my dad had left on leave. He explained that normally they have to go through that entire process, and asked my dad if he was absolutely serious about getting married. When my dad was growing up, Father Jack would keep that extra close eye on him, because he knew of my dad's temper. My dad would always say that if it wasn't for him, he would've ended up just like his friends now; in prison or dead. I've seen him a lot of family pictures before, and my uncle sent a recent picture of him now. Think of Little John from Robin Hood, only Little John has an eating disorder. It's frightening how much weight he's lost. When we went to NYC last weekend, my dad's old friend was on his way just as we were leaving to see Father Jack. He informed my dad after his visit that we better go now. He's not doing so well, and again he has 6 months or less to go. I have to go back and thank him for all he's done not just for my family, but my parents. I put in leave at work, because I was scheduled for one of the days that I'm going to be in NYC. I explained in my note that a family member is dying, and I'm not going to have any other opportunity to see him. John is cool and I know he'll understand. Plus I didn't put in my two weeks yet, so I'll make it up the dates I had to call out in to September. It just sucks that this is happening to him Father Jack. My dad told me about how we're going to need to make that emergency trip back, he broke down crying. He couldn't believe the drastic change in appearance Father Jack has undergone. Normally I'm super excited about going to NYC, it's my most favorite place in the world. This time it's going to feel strange.

Changing the subject, it's now 12:05 am. I have to get up at 8:00 am to shower and get ready. I wanted to get some more reading down before going to bed, but that requires me getting off this thing. I should get on that. I went to search for "the Time Traveler's Wife", but I couldn't find a cheap copy. I'm considering going to the Friends of Library used book store, Wonderbooks (formerly Book Alcove), and checking Unique for any used copies. Borders or Barnes and Noble didn't send me any good coupons that would be useful, and Target or Walmart weren't selling the book. Target used to have a ton of them, but for some odd reason they stopped selling it. I did see the Julie/Julia book, and I would like to pick that up. I also saw the Julia Child cookbook, and I would like to pick that up, too. For now I'll stick to finding a cheap copy of Time Traveler's Wife. I got my other book in the mail yesterday, it's from this used book store in Georgia. It's supposed to be like Daedalus Books. The book is called, "The Starving Artist's Survival Guide". I thought it was supposed to be a straight humor book, but it does offer a lot of insightful advice, especially on dealing with rejection the first hundreds of times. The one piece of advice that really stuck out the most was dealing with critiques. The book says that one shouldn't be bummed when your fellow classmates give you bad reviews; the only review that matters is the professor. Even then you need to read up on their bios to see how legit they are. It goes through all the stereotypes of artists and the judges, as well as what to look out for.