años nones rule!

My grandfather had this saying: "Años pares, años de males; años nones, años de dones". This sounds incredibly good in Spanish and loses all its charm in English, but here's the gist for you, English speakers: 2009 will be a great year, full of blessings!

pop quiz

9 / 12 = 75.0%

YOU GET THE P.H.D.! Your knowledge of Hugh Laurie is profound. And a bit scary. You are definitely a fan!

.

I took the Hugh Laurie Trivia, and my results were the ones above. Definitely scary...

banderita tricolor

I took this picture yesterday when it was about to rain on this side of the Border. As you can see, it was already raining in Tijuana. This is the view that we have from the kitchen at my sister's house. The fence that you see there, is the infamous one.

more rain

It's raining now. I love a cold Christmas day with rain.

zorionak!

A few minutes ago, my sister and I sat down to nibble on berberechos, mejillones, jamón serrano and queso de Idiazábal, along with great Muga and bread, a light snack before tonight's dinner. She's just put the ham in the oven and now she and Mom are arguing about the cooking time; I'm betting on mi amá.

The calamares en su tinta smell so good, that I'd be all over the stove right now if it weren't for the pintxos we just had.

We were all talking about how this recession we are in is affecting all sorts of businesses, and how people are not spending so much this year for fear of losing their jobs. Us four are very fortunate for what we have and for having the chance to spend time together. Well, us six if we count Terco and Twinkie.

To date, three friends are following this blog: I know one of you is in London with family, one of you is at home in L'Hospitalet with your significant other, and one of you is having Chinese and watching a movie, probably somewhere in The Valley (and maybe thinking of witnessing tomorrow's sales).

But I am sure there are a few other passersby who stop and read my posts, so, to all of you, I'd like to wish you Happy Holidays and also you have a prosperous 2009. Zorionak eta urte berri on!

cheap and delicious

We have cancelled the Christmas Eve celebration this year because my sister had to be on-call tonight and is working at the lab for a few hours. We will get together tomorrow for Christmas and that is when we will have our celebratory meal. The calamares en su tinta will have to wait until then. In the meantime, I am the victim of these cookies next to me; they taunt me every time I come visit. The funny thing is, that even though they are not really meant for dogs, these really cheap Springfield brand vanilla cookies are bought explicitly for Terco and Twinkie. Cheap and delicious, now that is my treat... Thank God for nonfat milk.

achís y achú

I am coming out to play after several weeks of not posting anything, except for my constant tweets. I spent a couple of weeks fighting this nasty virus that I got, and that had me wishing for better times. I say to myself everyday, "I am health", but that didn't work during my festival of mucous. I spent all my evenings in bed bleeding my DVR to death: I even started watching House, MD (I know, Jason, I know...) and find myself after all this time actually enjoying this show. And it is not so much the stories or the special effects: I am utterly fascinated by Hugh Laurie; he is a god if you ask me. Plus, knowing I wasn't as sick as the characters made me feel good... very morbid of me.

I even thought of the sneeze sounds in Spanish and in English. It seems that in Mexico we favor a brutal ¡achú!, when in Spain a demure ¡achís! is the way to go, when in English achoo! and atisshoo! do the trick.

And how about that literary a-tissue, or atisú in Spanish? Those were clearly not the sounds I was making; there were two words for them: abundant and disgusting.

hmm...

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prop 8 - the musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

one word: fog

The fog was thick at times early this morning in Long Beach. I liked the way the palm trees looked in it.

welcome back, hill!

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Looking good, Madame Secretary of State...

world aids day 2008

Jason Lee/Reuters

Last month in Berlin, doctors reported that they had cured a man with AIDS by giving him transplanted blood stem cells from a person resistant to the virus. That alone is an enormous Whoo-hoo!, but, can you imagine the cost of such treatment? That left me thinking of how unobtainable it will be for thousands of common people who suffer from AIDS.

This year is the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, and things have definitely changed during the past twenty years, but there is still a lot to be done, especially educating people about this disease. I read recently that AIDS is now thought of as a chronic disease like Diabetes, and that could the reason why a lot of young men have stopped considering it a risk. And maybe that is why a lot of seropositive men do not consider protecting themselves and others by having safe sex.

It all boils down to education, and early education and prevention is the key. We owe it to ourselves to be more informed about AIDS and also about stem cells. While these may not be the solution to the problem, they hold the code to curing many illnesses. I am hopeful that this upcoming administration will fund stem cell research and sex education in schools. Religious beliefs can simply not be the reason to let people suffer and eventually die, and I am also hopeful that people will realize this soon.

In this State, people rightfully and compassionately voted to let the chicken be cage-free and to prohibit parents of underage girls who face the difficult option of having an abortion be informed of the procedure. And the same universe of voters decided to strip a civil right of the gay citizens away by saying yes to Proposition 8. One word: ignorance.

My dad used to say that ignorance is just the lack of education, of knowledge, and that ignorance becomes harmful when a person willingly does not want to learn about something. That is what I see happening more and more when someone speaks shielded by a religious belief without questioning him or herself if this belief is unfounded or not.

To learn more about safer sex guidelines, please click here. And remember, AIDS is not gone. Thank you.