All Rileyed Up

Little No Limit made up her own lyrics to the Mexican Hat Dance, inspired by her culinary tastes:

Quesadilla
Potatoes, potatoes
Quesadilla
Potatoes, potatoes
Quesadilla
Potatoes, potatoes
I do not like spicy food.

Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, watch out. There’s a new lyricist in town.

And for those of you who enjoy using your body as an instrument, please enjoy this lovely rendition of The Mexican Hat Dance:

Chris Tucker sings “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” in Rush Hour 2:

Chris Tucker introduces Michael before a show:

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

***

So that’s it. This is the part where I usually reminisce about some St Paddy’s Day memory (like my lucious leprechaun polyester suit or the St Paddy’s Day celebrations in New Orleans), but truth be told, I find myself just staring at the blank screen with an enormous amount of writer’s block. Every morning, it’s the same. Get up, look at the screen, get discouraged, close the screen.

In case you haven’t guessed, I’ve been feeling less inclined towards the personal posts on the blog lately. Interviews, product reviews, random ‘kids say the darndest things’ posts, I feel like they give me something to write about, but I had intended for this blog to be a personal one, and preferably with a sense of humor. Perhaps that’s the problem.

There’s so much going on over in the House of Riley and most/all of it is too personal to broadcast to the world wide web.

There’s also all the work I’ve been doing with my non-blog writing. I’ve been trying to get more paid writing gigs and when you’re writing for work, writing for fun has less fun in it. They warned me this would happen. (They talk a lot, don’t they?)

Then there was the Twilight Saga incident of last week, during which I just HAD to find out what would happen with Edward and his Bella, love. Sigh. I never did read my book club book, but I realized that Husband had invited someone over for dinner the night of book club (tonight), so I won’t be attending anyway.

This past weekend also marked the one year anniversary of the death of my grandmother. It came and went without much ado, but I wonder if it emotionally drained me involuntarily.

I find I just don’t want to think about anything these days. Is that possible? To just turn your brain off for a while – a long while – and stop thinking? I bet there are a number of insults I could throw in at this moment, directed mainly at Mariah Carey and/or fans of Jean Claude Van Damme movies, but even that is too much effort. So you tell me: have any of you ever just wanted to turn your brain off and how did it go? Because I’ve already read the Twilight Saga and watched Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. I clearly need something stronger. Any suggestions? Reality TV? 90210 marathon? Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals? Hmmm. I think I’ll stick with the Monty Python Philosopher’ Song.

It is the early evening and I’m sitting in a lit kitchen while the rest of the house is dark. Everyone is napping. There is little noise except the occasional dog scratch (they’re suffering from a frustrating round of flea bites). This sound of the quiet house unnerves me. I feel restless and unreal, like the part in Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” when he says “And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?”

I’ve taken to walking the dogs at night (because I run into fewer small dogs who bark thereby causing my dogs to yank on the leash – one of these days, I swear they’re going to dislocate my shoulder or something). I always bring along my trusty little SanDisk clip and listen to music while I walk because without music, every little sound startles me on dark corners. This particular Talking Heads song came on the other night and I found myself grooving to it, which is probably why it is popping into my head right now.

I’m thinking of the lines “And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house / And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife” and I feel like calling up David Byrne and saying, “Yeah.”

Did you ever find yourself thinking you live too blessed a life? Some people might look at my life and say, girl, you SO don’t have it too good, because, yeah, we’ve got our share of financial woes going on right now. But there’s also some really exciting things going on (I still can’t bring myself to talk about it), and then there’s the fact that Husband and I have each other, we have amazing, thriving children, we have wonderful [albeit crazy and food-thieving] dogs, and we have friends and family out the wazoo. And to me, that’s having things good. Today being Valentine’s Day and all, I think I’ll just bask in this moment of a quiet empty, house and appreciate everything there is to love about my life.

I hear roller skates in the hallway. The Boy is up. He is in the kitchen now asking for water. Little No Limit just followed him into the kitchen rubbing her eyes. Little No Limit just reached down and bear hugged Her Name is Rio causing a scurrying of paws on the tile. I guess I’d better stop typing. Life in the house of Riley is noisy again, full of life… same as it ever was… same as it ever was…

And an interview with the above comedian:

Perhaps this isn’t something everyone does, but years ago, I was in a debutante ball. The Philippine Medical Society of Jacksonville puts on a debutante ball every year to introduce all the vibrant, smart, and beautiful Pinays of Jacksonville (I didn’t go overboard on those adjectives, did I?). I wore a fancy white dress, learned a fancy ballroom dance, walked around a fancy room and ate a fancy dinner.

Would you like to try some fancy sauce?

And the biggest, most-often given instruction was one word: “Smile!” Show off those pearly whites, beam at the camera, and around the fancy room. Smile, smile, smile.

Sounds simple enough.

I recently talked to one of the women in the Philippine Medical Society and learned about a project of theirs that is so touching I had to share it with everyone. I knew I was a debutante with some good peoples…

In the summer of 2007, the Philippine Medical Society (East Coast Florida chapter) sent a volunteer group of forty-plus doctors and personnel on a Medical Mission to offer medical assistance to people living in rural areas of the Philippines. This is an entirely volunteer mission. These doctors and personnel pay for their entire trip out of their own pockets. Among the 2,613 patients they treated in those four days—including ninety-six surgeries concerning hernias, thyroid issues, and cleft conditions, et al—the Philippine Medical Society met Angelito and Genrev.

This is Angelito:

As you can see, Angelito was born with a severe cleft condition. Genrev has a tumor between his eyes against his forehead. These two boys were in such a serious condition that the facilities in their rural home areas were insufficient to accommodate their needs. It took a year and a half of communications with the US Embassy in Manila to get Angelito and Genrev Visas to come to the US, and they are finally here, living with host families, and currently undergoing surgeries, with free facility use at the Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville and volunteer doctors from the Philippine Medical Society performing the surgeries.

First Coast News in Jacksonville did a piece on Angelito, which you can watch here:

The First Coast News Team did a follow up after the surgery also:

Lastly, here is a three part video series about the Philippine Medical Mission, which documents the whole mission: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

The next Philippine Medical mission takes place at the end of this month. If anyone is interested in donating to them, shoot me an email at nolimitdevoe at gmail dot com, and I’ll put you in touch with the appropriate people.

Now, smile!

Philippine Medical Society Debutante Ball, 1994. Me. Smiling.

This is so awesome: