Happy Thanksgiving!

My favorite holiday is here!  Many reasons why I like Thanksgiving:

·         The food:  And it’s not just the food, it’s the feeling in the house before and after the dinner.  It’s the anticipation all day with the sight and smells of the food cooking in the kitchen.  I used to watch American movies where people sat around the fireplace watching some weird game with a wonky looking ball all cozy with a table full of magnificent dishes.  I used to wonder if that was just in the movies.  I don’t care if it’s 90 degrees outside; I always turn on the fireplace now.

·         The traditions:  Yes, we too go around talking about the things we are thankful for.  We always watch the parade on TV while eating a huge breakfast, make sure Spike (the dog) gets to eat the same food as we do, chillax (as my daughter calls it) after the breakfast, and finally play toss-the-wonky looking ball outside with my son.

·         Family:  We have not had the out-laws @ our crib for Thanksgiving in a while.  We’ve been going to other people’s houses for dinner last few years.  This year we’ve decided to do it on our own @ home.  No plans, no rushing, just being lazy all day.

I have some Muslim and Hindu friends who don’t do Thanksgiving.  I don’t get that.  It’s not a Christian holiday like Christmas or Easter.  Being thankful is does not require an exclusive membership.  Yes, it is an American tradition, and if that prevents you from being thankful, I guess there are more fundamental issues in there somewhere.  It’s one of those things that piss me off when I hear it, but then I remind myself, this is the beauty of America.  If you don’t want to celebrate it, you don’t have to.  And no one should force it on you. 

 

I am thankful for my friends and family.  Have a great Thanksgiving!

 

p.s.  My diet is on hold for 48 hours starting tomorrow.  We are invited to a friend’s house on Friday for food and drinks.  So much for my diet.

Dinner conversation.

Daughter – Dad are avocados vegetable or fruit?
Me – They are fruits, baby.
Daughter – They are not vegetables?
Me – Nope.  They grow on trees like apples..
Daughter – Mom, are avocados fruits?
Me – I just answered you baby, don’t you believe me?
Daughter – Mom is smarter.

I am going on a DIEt.

I’ve never said no to food.  Never had to.  If it tasted good and was somewhat kosher for me, I did not think twice about eating it.  I never gained a pound, hell, for most of my life, I tried to gain weight.  Lately, I’ve noticed that my glutinous sins are catching up with me as I approach 40.  I looked in the mirror this weekend and realized I need intervention for the first time in my life.   I don’t want to turn 40 with a gut.  I am already having a hard time with 40.  Shit balls! I am going to have to join the 40+ soccer league next year.  Those are the old farts, not me!  Those guys run and fall and need 3 people to lift them off to their feet.  I am going to be one of them.  What’s next?  AARP membership?

I decided to change things a little.  I am going to try to eat only 3 meals a day.  I am going to try to balance things out a little bit too, my definition of balance “one cookie in each hand” is not going to work anymore.  

I don’t have a terrible daily diet.  I eat at home mostly and our house diet is basically a Turkish diet.  This makes it both good and bad.  It’s good because, the food I eat normally is naturally healthy, but it’s equally hard to resist.  I love food!  I love trying new dishes from all parts of the world as long as it’s something I can easily identify on my own.  Telling myself to limit food intake is a challenge I’ve never faced before.  My wife and I try very hard to be conspicuous about this subject matter too.  It’s bad enough that our kids are constantly flooded with dieting and perfect body images from the media every day, we figure they don’t need to see us making a big deal out of it.  I worry mainly about my daughter; she is already showing signs of being image conscience.

Dieting is frigging hard.  I am hungry all the time.  As I write this, I want to eat my coffee cup.  Normally, I’d be walking to the cafeteria to get a muffin, but after some research, that hunk of sweet soft buttery delicious snack has 500 calories.  I was at the gym doing something I hate the other day.  I was on an elliptical machine sweating and cussing after eating a Chipotle meal (the bowl not the burrito).  After 30 minutes of huffing and puffing, the calorie burner read “350”.  WTF?  That’s it?  I just sweated my ass off for 2/3 of a muffin?  I was sure, I had burned at least 1000 calories, hell; I had the machine set up for 20 minutes only, the last 10 minutes was for the Sonic milk shake I had after my lunch.  I needed something that burns calories by the minutes, not hours.  I asked one of the dudes that work at the gym:  what’s the machine around here that burns the most calories?  I want the hardest, most bad ass machine in this joint I said.  After a 15 minute sales pitch on how they can custom tailor a work-out routine for me, they wanted me to try one of the kick-boxing, Pilates, or Yoga classes.  I tried that once, I was out of commission for 2 days after an aerobics class.  I could not lift my hands up to wash my hair the next day.  Hell, I broke the toilet paper holder trying to stand up in the men’s room at work 2 days after the class.  I realized I have to stop eating.  No more milk shakes or muffins.  No more starbucks lattes with chocolate.    We are buying an elliptical for the house this weekend.  My age is finally catching up with my belly.  I have until March 22^nd to get back into shape.

 

Cheap thrills

This is my kind of fun.  Who needs a DS, XBOX, or Wii.  All you need is a flat surface with a slope and a mechanics creeper.  It entertained the kids for an hour, in the rain!

PG13?

My son took me to see this movie on father’s day as a present so I could not say no.  I preface this review with that statement so that you would not judge me for going to a movie theater and paying $$ for it.  It’s a PG13 rated movie so I did not think much of it before we entered the theater.   I somewhat trust the rating system, and I don’t think I will do that again.  This movie starts with Adam Sandler in a Speedo and goes downhill after that.  In the first 5 minutes of the movie, my son and I looked at each other and realized that “mom” would not have approved this movie at all.  I told Aydin, “son, do not tell your mom!” and he giggled.  The movie is about 3 things:  Adam Sandler’s penis, insulting Arabs, and insulting Jews (both done equally so no one side can complain).  It’s juvenile humor mixed with “Naked Gun” like scenes, like Zohan catching a bullet in his mouth.  I think Adam Sandler is an acquired taste, and I like him.  There are a lot of references to Mid-Eastern Arab-Jewish relations and they are funny as hell.  What made it very uncomfortable for me was one sexual innuendo after another.  It’s so full of sex that half the time my 11 year old was cracking up and he did not even know why.  He just knew it was naughty and he was not supposed to see what he just saw.  And all that time, I was thinking “shit I hope my wife does not see this movie, she is going to kill me”.

As soon as the movie was over, I told Aydin, thanks for taking me to see this movie (he paid for it with his own money) and don’t tell your mom about the bad parts.  I was sure we had an agreement and he’d understand.

As soon as we walked into the house, wife asks “How was the movie Aydin?”

-      Mom it was sooooo inappropriate!  The guy caught a fish with his butt and he talked about his penis the whole time.  They showed his butt and they showed an old woman’s butt too! Naked!

So much for my wing man.

Now that it’s out on DVD, we are going to rent it this weekend so that she can see how much damage was done.

 

Book review

This book caught my interest because of Alan Turing.  I figured if Alan Touring or anything that relates to him would make a good fictional story.  He is considered to be the father of modern computer science.  But mostly I liked his life story when he helped break German ciphers in WWII (The Enigma machine).

This book did not live up to my expectations of computer science or complicated ciphers.  I would have enjoyed the book if it had more of Alan Turing in it.  The book starts with the murder of a man named Monk Turing, a relative of Alan Turing (fiction of course).  This was my first Baldacci book so the main characters were new to me.  There are 2 stories going on in this book, the first one is the inspection of a series of murders in a super-secret town called Babbage Town where super-intelligent mathematicians are trying to … well do something secret.  These scientists are working on top secret discovery.  This book has CIA, FBI, DEA, drugs, secret codes, illegal detainments, buried treasure, an 11 year genius, a parallel story that has nothing to do with anything and more.  It gets convoluted, and at the end things sort of come together.

I wanted more technical jargon from this book.  It had good potentials.  I completed this book in a week simply because I listened to it in the car and read it at home at the same time.  If I did not have the CDs for my car, I think I would have given up on it.

Bumper sticker of the day.

I saw this on a car at the gym today.

While on the topic of one liners… My son came home rather pissed off from school the other day.  Apparently one of his friends had been saying “let’s keep the White House white”.    We live in a mostly republican town.  His immediate logic was that this kid must be republican.  I told him it’s probably true that his parents would vote for McCain/Palin, that does not mean all republicans are bigots.  Some people just can’t see beyond the color barrier I told him.  And when you are raised in a house like that, you’ll spew one liners like that.  Everyone has different values I told him.  You are going to hear more and more of this at least for 4 more years so you better get used to it and don’t let it boil your blood.  Just ignore it.  I told him that this is no different from when people don’t like McCain because he is an old white man.  Bigotry runs both ways.

Veterans day.

I was born and raised in a country where the government can pretty much ban anything it does not like.  I grew up with laws that forbid me to voice my opinion.  Anything that remotely insulted our military service men and women put you in jail without a trial.  Surprisingly though the one thing that was not forbidden was the freedom the media had for picturing the fallen soldiers coming home.  When a Turkish soldier died, it was a big deal.  The country knew about it.  We saw pictures of his sister, mom, kids crying on the news and in the newspapers.  These Turkish soldiers did not have a choice in their duty.  They were required to serve.  The moms and dads of these kids did not have a choice.

I now live in a country where my kid will have a choice to serve his country in the military or not.  I will leave that up to him.  What bothers me is that, event though our American soldiers volunteer to serve their country, we in the public are not allowed to witness their return home sometimes.  The Bush administration has put a ban on the fallen soldiers’ returning images in the media.  This is to respect the families privacy.

We are left with just the numbers.   I watch CNN and all I see is the ticker on the bottom.  USA 21 – Terrorists  34 as if it’s  football score.  We do not get to see the flag covered coffin coming home being pulled out of an airplane.  It’s not a gross image of a dead soldier.  It’s a poignant and honorable image.  It’s the picture of a soldier who chose to give up his life, he was not required. 

Not long ago, 15 Turkish soldiers were taking a bus from their base to come home for a visit with their families.  Their bus was pulled over by Kurdish terrorists and all 15 of them were executed.  The often censured media in Turkey showed images of each soldier coming home in flag covered coffins with their relatives wailing and crying.  There were images of the soldiers in their backyard playing with their kids.  These images were powerful.  The public was outraged, they demanded action.  And action was taken.  I won’t go into the details of what happened, that is not my point.

My point is simple.  Our American soldiers are volunteers.  They want to serve their country, they don’t have to.  They know the sacrifice they are making.  I think we should start honoring them better by not hiding their loss in a simple news blur we’ve become accustomed to on CNN.    We may have the best military in the world.  Let’s start showing the best military men and women the respect they deserve.

Images are more powerful.

 

 

 

 

 

My kind of Eagle Scouts

 

There are not enough scouts like these 2 fine young men.  It takes sacrifice and dedication.  Most of all it takes support from your family and friends.  I have to say it brought tears to my eyes.

An American Injustice!

Conversation between my wife and son:
“Mom, you are breaking the law!”
“How is that Aydin?”
“I have constitutional rights you know”
“No you don’t”
“This is America, everyone is equal”
“No,  go clean your room and don’t come out until it’s clean”

It’s a Lie!

We have a sign in the kitches that says “always open”.  Not so!  I’ve been kicked out of the kitchen many times.

There is a new sheriff in town!

It was a good day in the Zanagar household.  Beylem would not go to bed until I assured her that Palin was not going to be the next vice president.  Beylem has been worried that Palin would ban some of her favorite books in the library.  Aydin stayed up until the declaration and made sure Obama was our next president.
And although my vote did not count towards his election, I was never more proud to be an American citizen and to have participated in this election.  Yes it’s a Liberal government in charge for the next 4 years and this scares some people.
But what does it mean to be the scary Liberal person?

 Liberals believe individuals should be tolerant and respectful of difference.  I am a card carrying member of ACLU.  Since when civil liberties have become a bad thing.

 Liberals always defend the freedom of press and challenge the government.  It is OK to say we are not the greatest nation on earth if we work towards making it the greatest nation (more on that later).

 Liberals believe government has a fundamental responsibility to help the less fortunate.  I believe this is a cornerstone of most religions too.  Helping others is not bad.  Jesus would have been considered a huge flaming Liberal!

 Liberals believe governments should never act on the basis of sectarian faith.  Isn’t that what the founding fathers fought for?

I can go on for a while but the dictionary does a good job explaining a Liberal:

1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2. (often initial capital letter ) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.

I was playing in the front yard with Beylem and Aydin last weekend when a car pulled up.  It was a republican representative handing out pamphlets for Tan Parker a republican running for Senate.  The guy introduced himself and dove right into his canned speech about the conservative Tan Parker.  He told me how Parker will fight for me and to lower my property taxes (which by the way has ALWAYS gone up) and how he is a family man and he has family values.  He kept repeating the conservative approach.  I finally told him that I am as Liberal as they come (I love doing that to Jehovah’s witnesses too).  You should have seen his face.  I think I insulted him.  He asked me about family values.  And this is the part that pisses me off the most.   Why would I not have good family values?  Because I teach my kids to be tolerant of others?  Because it’s OK to believe that God loves everyone not just conservatives?  I told him my family values are probably similar to his except we are probably more tolerant.  I think he got the point and gave up on my vote.
Liberal does not mean godless although it’s O.K. to be an atheist.  That’s what makes America great.  You don’t have to believe in god of any sort.  It will boil your blood to listen to an Atheist.  And yes they are Liberals.  It boils my blood that Jehovah’s witnesses do not solute the American flag or vote.  I consider them Liberals too.  And that’s OK.  It’s their religion and it does not hurt anyone (except themselves since they have absolutely no say in their own government).   Gays and lesbians?  They are entitled to their civil liberties too.  Mormons and under age girls?  Well, that’s hurting someone against their will and that’s not OK especially with Liberals.

I am ready for change.