Steel & Pigskin

It's no secret that I love my brothers.  Very much.  I also love men who carry guns.  And one of the few perks of my job is occasionally getting to drool over the eye candy that is these gun-toting federal cops. 

My dilemma?  The Raiders are playing in San Diego on December 4th.  It's the same night as one of the few events where said cops will be present.  And also a school night.

I've never been to a professional football game.  A fact my baby brother used to guilt me into coming down that night.  He also called our other brother, the hard core Raiders fan, to convince him we're doing this. 

L'sigh. I now have the 4th and 5th of December off.  So that I can go down to watch football with my brothers.  Instead of getting some necessary overtime, with men who know how to use guns.

You're so buying me dinner for this, little one!

Flirting with Change

My parents are trying to get rid of me. They want me to go far away. Probably because I haven't given them grandkids. My baby brother took his way down south, Big Fish keeps his brood around the corner, but apparently I'm just taking up space.

Or maybe they want an outpost up north too.

It started when my dad sent me a job listing for a position in San Francisco. He knows how much I've always wanted to live there, and the job is right up my alley. It's for a great company, too.

C-dub would love for me to live up there with her. Rumor has it that a certain man might be returning to the area too. So I'd have a little tribe ready-made. A really good, sexy tribe in one of the best cities in the world. Who doesn't want that?

But I feel like I just got my sea legs on the job I already have. I've been in the new position for a mere 8 months. But I'm good at it. My employees like me, my boss adores me. And I just had the opportunity to draft plans for a new infrastructure. Little ol' me is helping redirect the future of my company. I like that, both the responsibility and the accolades.

I'm not sure I'm ready to give that up.

Though I suppose it couldn't hurt to dust off the résumé, right?

Are You Smarter Than This Riddle?

You have, undoubtedly, received this email already. It's a simple math problem supposedly derived from the game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

And since we here at Exxy HQ highly recommend having a college degree in order to read this blog, this should be embarrassingly easy for everyone. Especially you kids with the super advanced JDs and Doctor titles.

The Krazy Mommy and I both got it in under 5 minutes. But Big Fish, the engineer with a master's degree, was off by a gianormous margin. *smirk*

Here you go:

In a bus there are 7 girls. Each girl has 7 bags. Each bag has 7 big cats. Each big cat has 7 small cats. How many legs in the bus?

Don't make the idiotic mistake of giving all the girls four legs. That's just not right.

Also, the answer is floating all over the internet, but if you can actually get this by pure brains, more power to you.

Overheard on Christmas

I don't know if it's a Latin American thing or what, but we've always celebrated Xmas on the Eve rather than the day of. The entire family gets together at my parents' house for a meal that includes mostly Puerto Rican fare, topped with Mexican salsa. It's fusion at its best.

Like most Puerto Ricans, our family is LOUD. Mostly because there's a lot of people in one space, but also, because they're Puerto Ricans. You have to be able to handle this if you're ever invited to a family function. The weak are eaten alive or summarily ignored. Those who have a mouth on them and like to use it are immediately adopted.

The Thanksgiving Incident was referred to numerous times. We like to poke fun at ourselves, and by extension, the rest of the family. And since some of the family hadn't been there, we had to bring them up to speed.

During a particularly rousing game of Mexican bingo, the following took place at increasingly decibel levels:

GPG: You guys, keep it down, or my mother is going to throw you all out!
Mom: *rolls eyes and chuckles*
Aunt J: You were in Hancock Park for crying out loud, what did you expect?
Cousin R: *loudly* We expected them not to be so uptight!
Aunt J: *louder* Eh, you were being low class, of course you got thrown out!
GPG: Mom, are you going to tell these people to shut up and go home already?

This threat kept coming up the rest of the night. It was much fun at someone else's expense.

***

My father believes everyone should drink wine. You don't get to come over to our house and not drink. He takes this as a personal insult:

Dad: *to my younger cousin* You want a drink?
GPG: Dad, he's only 15!
Dad: So?
Cousin: It's okay. I don't drink.
Dad: Well, I'm surprised.

***

The elder generation likes big families. My father has 6 brothers and sisters, my mom has 3. My mom's sister, Aunt L, had 5 kids. Apparently she and her husband expect the same of their own kids:

Uncle: I want 25 grandkids.
Cousin: Keep wishing. Or, go to Africa.

Adoption jokes are funny.

***

Later, we plugged in a Wii someone received for Xmas. It started with baseball among the 8-year-old set:

Cousin R: Now, I don't want to see you on 'roids, okay kids?
His brother (their dad): Hey, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying!

***

And of course, because my baby brother is routinely mistaken for Middle Eastern (and his fiancee actually is), his nascent brood are the butt of more jokes:

Cousin M: Do we have a terrorist in the house?
Cousin R: Great, now we're going to get thrown out because of YOU!
Baby brother: My wife-to-be is actually part terrorist: she's Turkish and Iranian. Total Arab.
Cousin R: No shit?
Shambot: Hell yeah!
GPG: Please, we refer to his kid as Baby Terrorist!
Baby brother: *proudly holds up his son* Terrorist in training!

Politcally correct we are NOT.

***

The Shambot got her nickname because she's clumsy. Like a bad robot. We shouldn't let her drink:

Shambot: Oh no, look what I did! *shows red wine spill on her son's sleeve* I'm not even drunk, I'm just retarded!
GPG: Better on him than my mother's couch!
Shambot: Better on his sleeve than his head!
GPG: You were planning on giving him a Catholic baptism, right? Baptism by alcohol!
Baby brother: Get him a shirt that says, "My mommy spills wine on me."

Religious jokes are funny too, especially on Christmas!

***

When the night was finally winding down, the discussion turned to the baby's inability to sleep through the night already. My older brother, having lived through that hell with his two kids, made a suggestion:

Big Fish: Trust me, read the book. We gave you the book for a reason, READ THE BOOK!
Shambot: I have. But it's hard when you're in the situation and they're crying. I can't just let him cry.
Big Fish: READ THE BOOK! READ THE BOOK! READTHEBOOKREADTHEBOOKREADTHEBOOK!!!
Shambot: *to BF's wife* Your husband is being annoying.
BF's Wife: BF, shut up.
Shambot: Yeah, shut up.

And then it was midnight and time to go to sleep. So we could get up again in 6 hours because they kids hadn't yet opened up ALL their gifts.

Hope your holidays have been as memorable!

Overheard in the Family #9

Sunday I met up with the boys for breakfast. And by boys, I mean three generations of family members: dad, baby brother, and baby brother's baby.

I had pancakes. 3B had formula. In a bottle. Because he's a baby, get it?

3B was wearing pants that his daddy referred to as Aladdin pants. So his new name, since Baby Werewolf wasn't really catching on, is Baby Aladdin. Because he's part Indian, get it?

After breakfast, we met up with the rest of our generation and his progeny to watch the foosball.

My two brothers had the following conversation while the older one rocked 3B to sleep:

Baby Brother: Man, Baby Aladdin's got the life. All he has to do is eat and shit. I wish that's all I had to do.

Big Fish: You did have that life. Right up until you were 18.

That exchange might not be funny to you, but the way my brothers clown on one another makes it fucking hysterical to me.

And that's all that matters.

Overheard in the Family #8

My cousins and their kids came over to see the new baby. While we waited for him and his parents to arrive, we looked at pictures of his first day on my dad's laptop.

During all the oohing and aahing, my cousin Richardo says to me:

R: So are you feeling the pressure to deliver one?
GPG: Hell no. But Big Fish really wants me to have one. He said he wants me to feel the same type of life fulfillment that he's feeling from having children.
R: *deep belly laugh* Oh really?
GPG: Yeah! So I told him I'm not having children just so HE can feel fulfilled. That's bullshit.
R: I think you're going to surprise us all one day.
GPG: Don't hold your breath.
R: Except you'll be coming in saying you don't know who the father is.

My mouth dropped open as the rest of the adults (including both my parents!) cracked up.

That was so not nice.

Short-Yardage Attention Span

I've got a confession to make: I'm not a huge football fan. If it's not UCLA playing, I'm not really engaged in the game.

But two of my favorite men love it, so I try. It's hard when one is a hard core Saints fan. I just cannot root for a team that has a former Trojan like Reggie Bush on it. That's like trading my Bruin card in for half a brain and a gigantic wad of stupid.

Lucky me, today my insurance company sent me a token of appreciation: the entire season's schedule. So now I can make sure that the Giants, Raiders, and Saints are all accounted for.

Don't start shit because of the Raiders. When you grow up in a house with a dedicated Raiders fan, there's nowhere else to go but Raider Nation.

Hello, pirate!

Confidential to the ultimate football junkie: Steve Young, dammit.

Sibling Protection

The New Man met my brothers Friday night. He and my older brother, Big Fish, hit it off immediately. So much so that I was left out of the conversation completely, despite sitting right in between them all night.

They talked football and shit while I tried navigating between them to scoop spinach dip on my plate. It was a little annoying. But I was relieved that they were bonding. That's kind of important, if he's going to be around and all.

As we were getting ready to leave, they said their good-byes and all of a sudden, Big Fish said, "don't fuck with my sister!"

I fell out of my chair laughing. I was expecting that from my baby brother definitely, but the older one has never really taken an interest in my dates. This was a nice exception.

The Man, confident that he is (it's so hot), just laughed and assured him he had no intention of it. But that he'd been expecting some kind of warning eventually.

It was awesomeness squared. I really do love my brothers.