Be My Valentina

IMG_9722.jpg, originally uploaded by sylviaguillen818.

This is a photo of my great grandmother’s burial spot in Mascota, Mexico.

Her name was Valentina. Actually, most of the markers are somehow familial. Anyway, I’m hella tired from my pilates class tonight, but I just wanted to share the dopeness of this photo since I found it buried somewhere deep inside my Flickr account. Peace out.

Filed under: Dear Diary, Memories & Musings

Today’s a Brand New Day

I am FINALLY going to work on this blog of mine today – finally, a blog that is all just for me, not business, not networking, not working…just me being me. It’s been a good decade since I’ve done that. And it’s about to start again. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

Filed under: Memories & Musings , me

First Lady Rules of the House

I live by the saying ‘There is only ONE Queen per castle” and this January, Michelle Obama will reign supreme. I’m excited to see what rules she will lay down, as we all know that once the queen has spoken…I was reading on an interview online that President Elect Barack Obama had made a deal with Michelle that he would agree to quit smoking if she would allow for him to accept the nomination. The next couple of things that we, the people, have been informed of is that they need to consider 2 things when getting a dog: 1, allergy issues for one of the daughters, and 2. that the dog be rescued from a shelter…preferrably. (Fantastic btw) !!!

Anyway, since we are talking about First Lady House Rules, I thought I’d add a few of interest that I remember reading about somewhere in my past.

Sarah Polk – talk about player hating! First Lady Sarah Polk banned drinking alcohol, dancing and playing cards in the White House.

Nancy Reagan – After President Elect Barack Obama’s kind of silly joke about passing up on seance activity with the previous First Lady, I’m not sure that I remember news of her holding actual seances, but I do remember reading about how she had a guru of sorts, and would take her astrology readings very seriously. It was reported at the time that she would consult her astrologer when planning President Ronald Reagan’s daily schedule and required the staff to comply accordingly.

Hilary Clinton – Did you ever read her book It Takes a Village? I did, and I still have it. It’s a great book and I totally recommend it. Anyway, during the press junket/circuit, it was leaked that the First Lady would have ’secret conversations’ with Eleanor Roosevelt during her time in the White House.

Lucy Hayes – no alcohol in the White House during Rutherford Haye’s term. Period.

Jacqueline Kennedy – broke the mold by insisting on inviting creative individuals as guests to the White House. Most frequent would be writers, artists and musicians.

Filed under: Memories & Musings , first lady, first lady rules of the white house, jackie o, michelle obama, nancy reagan seance

The Sarah Palin Trickle Down ‘Do

Well, OJ has already spotted a Porter Ranch citizen at the local Ralph’s sporting her Sarah Palin ‘do loud and proud. I’m hoping this isn’t the new Rachel phenom…I will be super sad.

Filed under: Complaint Desk, Memories & Musings , porter ranch, sarah palin

Porter Ranch Fire 2008 Day 2

This morning I woke up to blue sky on my side of the window – a good sign at least, half the sky is blue. The other half of the sky is dark gray. The news is reporting that the fire doubled in size overnight because no sky drops were made. As I type this, I can hear helicopters flying everywhere, and sirens rushing up and down the streets. While Rinaldi is open from tampa – desoto, it’s closed on the front part of the country club, as far as I know…which now that I think about it, I don’t really know anything.

Cha cha is throwing up neon stuff and on edge, but I’m just so happy to be home. The news media has said that we should all be ready to leave at a moment’s notice, and neither OJ nor I have anything packed. If it’s time to leave and we loose everything, will it really matter if you have a trunk full of stuff? I doubt it. I got a text message yesterday from someone (thank you whoever you are) that Porter Ranch Pharmacy (818) 360-1915 is filling free prescriptions. If you are displaced, Shepard of the Hill has open doors – although you will have to pass all the Yes on Proposition 8 signage on your way in.

My car is parked down by Whole Foods because they aren’t letting any autos past Tampa because it is the main road being used for emergency vehicles. Yesterday, I was waiting on the corner with a woman who had forgotten her cell phone at home that day, and her two young children were still at home with no one to drive them down the hill. The fire was 2 blocks from the house, and the police would not let her go up to get them. She was crying, I was crying. There was a line of people giving the police officers their addresses and the names of family members who were immoble and could not evacuate themselves. Although they were not allowed up the hill to fetch them, the police had a series of designated cars/motorcycles/ambulances who were going to the said locations. People in their cars were yelling at the officers, cussing at them and arguing, trying to get past the roadblocks. People were walking down the hill with rolling luggage and hard drives.

in the photo above, you can see the helicopter with a hose hanging down. Yesterday in the midst of the heavy fire the copter would dip into people’s swimming pools and suck up water in less than a minute and fly off to the nearest batch of fire and drop it onto the flames.

The 118 freeway just opened up after being closed for almost a day, I really wanted to run home to my parents house yesterday, but couldn’t mobilize. Today, I’d rather stay at home and keep watering down my patio. We are ready to evacuate if need be.

Filed under: Memories & Musings, porter ranch , porter ranch, porter ranch fire

Porter Ranch Fire 2008

the official shelter for porter ranch residents is the “shepard of the hills” church which is just across the street and south-west a hop skip and jump so me and OJ decided to leave Yong’s house to come home. When we left, we only had a laptop and our cell phones, cha cha and our car keys. Romik told me that they are letting residents walk up to their homes, but not drive their cars. So here we are. Home. As we walked up to the house, I could see those who did not evacuate looking out of their windows at the surrounding flames, and no lie, I’m kind of too nervous to even accept attempting to sleep tonight.

thanks to everyone who opened their homes to us. I’m about to go water down my infamous patio in the hopes that the flying embers don’t make themselves at home anywhere near here.

Filed under: Memories & Musings, porter ranch , fire season, porter ranch

Paper Chasin’

How many times have you heard random individuals make statements like ‘I’m on that paper chase’ or ‘im all about that paper’ or ‘I’m chasin paper, yo”? I’ve heard it way too many times. And most of the time, I kind of wanted to say “you know, I do realize that you’re talking about ‘money’ but bills are actually made out of cotton and linen.blend?” so to be more accurate, I suppose one should say ‘I’m all about chasin’ that cloth, yo.” I guess there is no win in this situation.

I know, it’s annoying but I can’t help it. I do the same thing when people say ‘hawr-thorn’ when they REALLY are referring to, and mean ‘Hawthorne”. Phonetically speaking, there is only ONE “R” in the word Hawthorn, and it resides in the second syllable, not the first.

I suppose I could tag this entry as ‘yet another reason why Syl is single” since I cringe under the 2nd layer of my epidermis when I hear someone say something that does not make sense. Ok, I’m off to bed.

Filed under: Memories & Musings