Just a few observations

I tell you some weeks don't have anything and then some weeks it is like everything happens all at once. Here are some highlights of the past 2 days in my life.

General Observations:

Last night I ask Nick what he wants for Christmas and he states "binoculars, cuff links and a remote control helicopter". Pretty sure my brother is a spy.

Today I passed 2 old men in an old Buick wearing cowboy hats and had a collection of beanie babies in the back window of the car.....and that is how you know I work in Tooele.

Gym Observations:

I think I run further when my treadmill is in German. I don't know how it got to that language but at least the 2 a/days are interesting.

I no longer make fun of those that come to the gym in jeans...I mean really, that is some dedication to work out no matter what you wear.

I don't think that girls wash their bras as much as the should. I am pretty sure that the lady next to me in the yellow bra....hasn't washed hers maybe ever. Maybet the color isn't even really yellow to begin with....

I have determined that if I am going to run long distances I pretty much only want to listen to Eminem. And for abs I just want to hear Jay-Z. I don't know why my but I tend to do more if that is my play list.

Yes, this is what I think about and notice when I go to the gym. Jealous?

Lovin' the Walmart

Picture this:

11:30pm at the local/slightly ghetto Walmart

I am in line with 2 very "classy" girls on their way to a club. My guess they are in the age range of 17-19 in the most random clothing I have ever seen and no, it is NOT a costume. As I am standing in line listening to them talk about their night ahead of them wearing bright colored animal print tight spandex dresses and shenanigans, I notice that the purchase they are buying is gum and a "buty" which if you don't know (which I did not) is a pair of underwear with padding to give you a bigger butt.

2 questions:

1. I am pretty sure that last I checked girls were trying to decrease the size not increase...did I miss something?

2. Why on earth is the poor girl putting a buty and gum on a credit card! I mean going in to debt for a big but and good breathe?? REALLY?

And then I look down at my purchases

Cat food and vitamins

At what point did I become the lady buying pet food in a cardigan and jeans while the 18 year olds are plotting their night on the town?

I have never felt older. AND I have never been more okay with being older than that moment at the ghetto Walmart.

Embracing the madness

Do you ever have those days that you think “I want a do over”….where you want to go back to bed and pretend that this day never happened and start all over…well, welcome to my day. I have to say for the most part I find humor in pretty much everything I do…for example….

Last week…I wore a “fashion forward” shirt with a zipper in the back and this is the response I got...Mark wearing/posing in his shirt backwards.


Then I got a voice mail that said “Eiko, if you know who this number is and you think it is worth your time you should call me and se should hang out…” Let start with this.

1. If you are not one of the 500 contacts in my phone I am going with you are not someone I want to talk to…in fact if you are not in my phone I don’t even want to screen you.
2. I think I know who this guy is and to be quite honest I am pretty sure I my exact words when we hung up were “Never going to happen”.
3. If you are not man enough to apologize or even have the guts to leave your name…why bother? Do you really think I will call? Weird. Again, never going to happen.

Today…man talk about a perfect storm. So I decided to get the most out of the early Fall and the last bit of summer and so I wore some sweet platform Aldo shoes.
1. Just because they are platform contrary to what people think they are NOT “stripper shoes”…there is no clear plastic heels, glitter or anything that would lead you to believe they are used for that purpose.
2. I do not use the stairs at work because my shoes are so high that I am afraid I might fall. For good reason. Today, when walking down the stairs…oh yeah that is right I fell. Made a huge noise and walked away with a few bruises. Elevator = yes.

Then I get this text (see above)…oh boys….where do I start? First, last I heard you were asking me...but okay. How about this.
1. I am happy to make time to go out. But you are the boy who asked to go out and just because you can not man up enough to make a plan….do not send me these messages.
2. Clearly the past 2 weeks this has been weighing on your mind. Crap. That random guy at SBK was right, apparently I CAN take away happiness.
3. I apologize for not making a plan….what can I say I did not understand that that is what you were expecting me to do.

Then I think it is nice and cool outside so I will go for a run….remember that fall with my sweet shoes at work? Well my knee is a little swollen and it actually hurt when I tried to run….so home I went. Yes, I totally girl'd out and didn't run because it hurt....I'm okay with it.

And finally I get home and realize that in a moment to do more with my time I have turned off my cable. Awesome. Because tonight is the one time that you love your TV and watching anything to escape the day. But that is okay because I think to myself…why don’t you just man up and work out the pain. So on the treadmill I go….2 miles in the damn thing just shut off. I am not the type to even begin to pretend to know how to fix this…crap maybe I should have planned something with Nate or called that other dude back and they could have aided in the repair of my treadmill.

But don’t worry….I can roll with the punches. I have rediscovered Hulu…this day may be salvageable yet. Jealous of my life yet?

*side note…not all boys are lame…you know who you are.

Things that people say that makes me laugh out loud

In my daily adventures of life, people say things out loud that make me laugh....and I have and will continue to collect them....enjoy!

"I used to work at Pizza Hut delivery, not braggin' just saying'"

"Shut the door...twice...."

"I am freaking GOOD, not braggin' just sayin'

"I can't hear you with your clothes on"

"Hola, I am Michael Jackson"

"I don't take pictures in the bathroom mirror, wear my hat backwards or wear anything with dragons or wings or Ed Hardy.."

"Po' kids can't buy other po' kids ponies"

"Buy me a pony!!"

"Clearly I have an attention span"

"Shut up and be beautiful"

"No, standing as close to me as you can, will not make me move faster"

"Mexicans and Lesbians ---those are my people"

More to come.....

Prison Mix Vol. 25

My sister in law Corina has been making me CD mixes for over 10 years. The CD's used to be labeled "CD for Eiko" with statements like 'God Bless America' all over it. As the years went by the names got more and more creative with titles like "Gettin' it on Music", "SF Mix" and my favorite "Eiko's Prison Mix" and fun fact these CD's come in various volumes. So an example would be my "Prison Mix" which is volume #25 and no I do not own volume #1-24, only volume #25. I know, I am truly blessed to have this gem in my life. So part 2 of the story.....

I have been driving my Mom's car for a week while mine was in the shop and so I took this as an opportunity to put in some CD's that I recently found. One of which was SF Mix '07 volume 14 (side note I do have 3-4 volumes of SF mixes volumes 3, 27 and 9). Now as I am driving in my Mom's convertible with the top down, listening to my mix LOUDLY in traffic I notice that this new song sounds familiar but wait....who is that singing?...oh that is right Paris Hilton and her one hit wonder. Now was it embarrassing that this was blaring loudly from the car in rush hour traffic, yes, but more embarrassing I was singing along. Remember that scene in "Office Space" where he is rapping in his car and then turns it down.....yah, it was like that.

Marathon Sleeper

A friend of mine recently referred to me as a "marathon sleeper" and to be fair it is a fairly accurate description of me. I think if I were to be addicted to anything I would be okay if it was sleep and I had great dreams all the time and of course that I didn't miss out on my life by doing so...and seeing as none of these things will be I will stick to being a marathon sleeper for the time being.

I have to defend myself a bit, I will not sleep in past 10am unless I am completely and totally exhausted. I feel that I have to make a contribution to the world or at least my life and so I get up fairly early all the time and get going. I will however stop mid-day and take a nap, any day and any time. I LOVE taking naps. I wish I would have jumped on that band wagon when I was younger, but no I decided that nap time was a time to practice my jail breaking skills and push out the screen and crawl out the window well to play outside with my dolls. What can I say, I don't like to be told what to do. In fact if you are wanting me to do something your best bet is to pretend like it was my idea. My poor Mom, someone should have clued her in on that one. I believe it took awhile to figure out all of my escape routes through out the years.

But I know what you are wondering, why is there a picture of a cat?

Here is the story, I recently got a kitten, Lulu. My family is big on pets and everyone has a cat except for me and seeing as they are fairly low maintenance and self sufficient I felt that it was a great fit to my life style and way more entertaining than the alternative; fish or plants. I have had Lulu about 2 weeks at this point and I ADORE her and I find her completely enjoyable to observe as her curiosity grows. But even though I am absolutely in love with her I am also in love with my sleep. And so, as I did with my dog, I have trained her that bed time is at 11 pm every night and that she goes to her actual bed and goes to sleep. I am not kidding when I tell you that I am a bit of an animal whisperer when it comes to sleep time. Both of my wonderful pets know what I mean when I say sleep time, both go to their beds and both will stay there until I wake up. Only down side is they are also both grumpy if you wake them up before they are ready ANd if you can believe they both get moody when I don't go to bed on time and I keep them up. Amazing. I know. It totally amazes me as well.

Things I believe

May we resolve from this day forward to fill our hearts with love. May we go the extra mile to include in our lives any who are lonely or downhearted or who are suffering in any way. May we “[cheer] up the sad and [make] someone feel glad.”11 May we live so that when that final summons is heard, we may have no serious regrets, no unfinished business, but will be able to say with the Apostle Paul, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

“Behold ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. Fear not little children fro you are mine and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father have given me” DC 50:40-41

Love with everything inside of you, risk it all, go all in, love your life, EVERY moment, every detail, every breathe you breathe good and bad. It will all work out in the end. Stand tall. Stand true. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. Relish in the moments that make your life worth living.

Learn to forgive, practice patience, do what you can with what you have, never doubt yourself….believe in who you are, what you can do and who you CAN and WILL become.

“Energy and persistence overcome all things” Benjamin Franklin

I want to teach 5th grade

There are so many things that I could say about this one statement. Let me paint you a quick picture of my day, first of all I wake up on time, get ready and am out the door in record time for my 8 o'clock meeting. I even remembered my laptop, which has been the latest victim in the things Eiko leaves behind game. As I am driving, not speeding because I am so on time, I think to myself, while singing to OneRepublic "Good Life" (yes, out loud and yes, I can both think and sing at the same time. I know what you are thinking. Pure Talent. I thought that too.), "today is a great day, I am stoked to get everything done today and I feel on top of things for next week. This is fantastic......"

Fast forward 3 hours and this appears on my work Facebook page "Eiko Espiritu has ruined my happiness". Good bye great day. Hello nightmare. Now, I know to most of you the fact that I did not post back some comment along the lines of" wow, if I am in charge of your happiness you have bigger problems than with the fact that I ruined it for you" is a small miracle. It seems that in my adult life or more accurately semi adult life I have begun to create a filter for these situations. Consequently I posted nothing. Shocking. I know. The boring part of the story, blah, blah, blah, work, legal, work, legal blah....end of day!

Now, I have a new found friend who teaches 5th grade. And while driving home he and I are talking about my new powers of controlling happiness via Facebook, while he interjects funny stories about his students. One of which is in charge of waking himself up, which means that he is late daily to class. And the best part is this little boy stole my friends happiness at 8:45 am. At which point I feel grateful at the fact that I didn't have that feeling until about 11 am. Point of my story is this. My job is fun. However, it is full of 35 - 50 year old males who when they do not get there way act like 16 year old girls. Which then makes me want to rethink my career path. And I know in the past I have struggled with being a good example to children, however in this case I would have rather struggled through a day of 5th grade or hell been a 5th grader for a day just to avoid the debacle that started as my perfect day.

**side note** This "man" will meet me face to face next Friday. I am so EXCITED to shake his hand and ask him if he is happy! And he wants to volunteer at the track?! What is wrong with this person? Perhaps I will just drop kick him when I see him.

Sometimes life is like magic...

"See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.

After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theater the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm.

That’s what I believe.

The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. It’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” It just happens.

These memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I’m going to be when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic if I am ever going to conjure magic again. I need to know and remember, and I want to tell you."
— Robert R. McCammon (Boy's Life)

Who is that guy??

Sometimes I make myself laugh out loud. So, had this guy message me on facebook and I looked at his photo and I thought....how do I know him?? Here is what I then realized. I had lunch with him once, forever ago and he drove a red Dodge Neon, and when I told my friend RS about it her response was "what is he a 16 year old girl?".....and that right there is why she and I are friends. So, when I am looking at his name and trying to remember how I know him I hear her saying that. LOL. I would post his photo for all to enjoy, but that is just mean. Ahhh...these are the moments that make my life fun.

Cupcakes?

So living in the industrial part of SLC does not hold as many random stories as the good ol' Aves. And apparently my brain has decided that it can create random stories all on it's own. For the past week I have been having the strangest dreams. I can't decide if I am sleep deprived or if I am silently going crazy. I actually think that I am running so fast that at night is when my sub-conscience gets to catch up. So, these dreams...well they are all over the map and mostly about things that I don't want to forget to do (unplug my curling iron, make my bed, wear a certain pair of shoes etc.) to the most random things that are not even on my radar, or at least I thought.

I should preface this with one time at band camp, okay well not a band camp, but one time, a sweet friend of mine was having some sort of party and I asked if I could bring anything. She says to me "oh yah can you bring an apple spice bunt cake". I reached out my hand and said "Hi, I am Eiko, I don't own a bunt pan and I don't even know what you are talking about". Lesson here is that I can buy you something but I most likely will not be making it.

So, today is Mothers Day and I am meeting up with my Mom and grandma. My Mom must have had a lapse in remembering who Eiko is because she says to me, maybe you can bring cupcakes. Yah, pretty sure I don't even have a cupcake pan. Checking. Confirmed. I do not own one. Mom meet Eiko, your daughter who does not bake, I thought we covered this through the years. Well let's get to the dream part....so last night....I dreamt that I was supposed to bring cupcakes to some function (thank you Mom). The dream was the most random search for cupcakes, all over town, in all sorts of stores, completely stressed out that I could not find these damn cupcakes. This dream lasted all night. At no point did my brain think, oh I can make these and save myself the stress. No, that literally was never a solution. All I can say about that is at least my brain knows me well enough to know that I would go on a state wide search for cupcakes before resorting to baking. On some level I am okay with this and on some level I feel bad for my future children.

Red Vines

So my weight has been so inconsistent lately and in the last week I gained 5 lbs. I thought perhaps it was 'that time' or maybe it was all of the red vines I consumed recently. Well, good news today while I was cleaning I realized that my scale has been bumped and it reads 5 lbs. heavier. Phew, total relief! I thought I was going to have to give up my red vines!

4 minutes = FAIL

There are days when I see a light or glimmer of hope to me becoming a better person. In hopes to "improve" myself (I should know that these type of situations never end well for me), I have been listening to a CD that discusses communication. For the most part it is pretty entertaining, not as entertaining as many other random things in my life, but entertaining enough for the drive to Tooele every day. So, this particular CD gives a challenge to not criticize any one or any thing for 24 hours. Stop. Think about this....it is not as easy as one would think. Now, I have to say for the most part I do pretty well with these types of things, however about 4 minutes after I decide to take the challenge I pull into the parking lot at work and there is woman wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt and I think to myself "Why do people think it is more than appropriate to wear their pajamas to work, it can't be that hard to put on actual pants". Yep, I lasted 4 minutes. I totally failed and yet on some level I am okay with it.