Embarrassing moments....Part V

I was talking to my friend Sam* the other day, which reminded me of another foot-in-mouth moment.
David and I were living in El Paso, working remedial jobs, Dave at a record store, me at a kitchen-gadget store, barely making ends meet. We were renting a house in Kern Place, the oldest part of El Paso, where the homes are all adobe, wood floors and really, really tiny bathrooms. To help with rent, we had asked our friend Sam* to move in with us. Somedays, we didn't even have money to buy food, so since Dave's parents have a membership to El Paso Country Club, we would sneak in, have huge lunches, then charge it on their account (to this day, they don't know about it, they just paid the bill without questions).
On the day in question, Sam*, Dave and I had just finished an absolutely great meal: queso and chips (for those of you who don't know what queso is, it's a hot cheese sauce), crab served on english muffins and covered in bechamel sauce and pastries for dessert. We had also had a couple of beers each, so the mood was quite jovial. Dave had to go to the little boys room, so Sam* and I were standing outside, watching golfers practice at the driving range. I noticed this lady right away: she probably weighed 350lbs and was having a real hard time swinging the club anywhere, much less trying to hit the tiny little ball (in fact, I'm pretty sure I saw the ball move slightly for fear of being hit by such a big woman) I started laughing and pointed her out to Sam*: "Look at that fat ass! She is huge! She should be a sumo wrestler, not a golfer! How does that pig think she is going to hit the ball!"... and about 5 more minutes of horrible cracks(!) about her girth. I finally realize Sam* is just staring at me with a blank face, so I finally ask him: "What? That's funny! Why aren't you laughing?"
He takes a deep breath and says: "Dude, that's my aunt." "Yeah, right," I say. "No, really, that's my aunt! Watch, I'll call her."
To which he starts screaming her name and waving at her. "Aunt Nellie*! Aunt Nellie*! What's up?" She comes over and says hello to us, I can feel my cheeks and my neck burning with fire and my hands and armpits sweating profusely.
Foot-in-mouth you say? More like both feet, legs and arms.

*all names have been changed to protect privacy

Footnote:
Just found out from Sam* his aunt passed away last weekend. Wanted to extend my most sincere condolences and hope he forgave my insults.

Embarrassing moments.....Part IV

For those of you who didn't believe me when I said I was a band fag, here is the proof: here I am, in full drum major regalia, with my brother David. SO SEXY!
Not all my embarrassing moments involve kissing... Like any other person, my darkest, personal, horrifying memories include every age and every situation possible.
Three of my most memorable blunders happened in front of many people, on stage. One of them I've already mentioned to you, my rock star days. The other two are farther in the past, but not any less cringe-inducing when I think of them...
In sixth grade, the whole class had to go to religion courses. We would be split into groups of 5, then we would have to pick a passage from the bible and play it out, or speak about it. I don't remember what passage my team picked, I just remember we had made Styrofoam bricks with words from the bible on them, then built a wall to symbolize Jesus being our rock...
We had to do our presentation in church, in front of the whole school. Each of us got up with a mic and explained a different part of the wall.... It's finally my turn, I grab the mic from my friend Raphael, attempt to speak and instead burst out laughing as loud as I could, right into the mic. My teacher and teammates give me the dirtiest looks, then my teacher tells me to cut it out. I say, "alright, sorry everyone" and calm myself down. After a couple of deep breaths, I try it again, but unfortunately, as soon as I try to speak, deranged laughter comes out of my mouth. Keep in mind this goes on for a good 5 minutes, until my teacher finally has enough and yanks the mic out of my hands.
My brother was so embarrassed, he didn't speak to me for a week.
My senior year of high school, in addition to being a band fag, I was also a drama geek.(who knew!) I was cast as "La Paloma", a western prostitute, madam of the town whorehouse, in the play "Deadwood Dick". My costume was historically accurate, with the tight bodice, the full skirt a la can-can dancer, feathers in my hair and garter with small handgun hidden in it.
In those days, it was popular to wear pantyhose without panties, especially if you didn't want pantylines wearing your extra-super tight Jordache jeans.
The play begins, I'm pretty much on stage the whole first act, and I have to pee like a racehorse. I'm holding it so long I begin feeling as if I'm going to puke. First act over, I race to the bathroom, lift my skirt, drop my pantyhose and relieve myself. I have just enough time to wipe, take a drink of water, reapply my lipstick, then I'm back on stage.
My friend Steve and I are going through the scene, when I realize the audience is laughing hysterically and it's not even a slightly funny part of the play. I keep saying my lines, getting more and more irritated at the audience, when my friend Steve finally walks up to me and whispers in my ear: "You tucked the back of your dress into your pantyhose and your ass is showing."

Vacation is officially over...Devyn is exhausted.

Just got back from Oceanside, California, on Monday morning. We drove there and back, it was absolutely crazy!!! 18 hours of intense and hot driving...with a crying 2 year old in the back seat. So pleasant!!!! On the way there, we stopped in St. George, Utah, where the temperature at 9 pm was 115 degrees. Yum! Nice and sticky. Got on the road the following morning at 7am, about 20 miles outside of San Bernardino, CA, ran into some major traffic. Took us an hour and a half to drive 17 miles (David and Devyn slept in the back, while I fumed, ranted, cursed and lost my temper in the driver's seat) Finally drove up to the cause of all this traffic, turned out there was a huge wreck between a car and a truck with a horse trailer. Guy with the horse trailer rammed head on into the cement barrier, trailer unhooked, opened and horse went flying on the road, where it was hit by a car, completely trashing the car and literally blowing up the horse into pieces. I drove up just in time to see the horse being hauled into a trailer with a crane. Yeah, picture it. It was probably the goriest thing I have ever seen in my life. Thank God the boys were still asleep in the back, otherwise Dave would have puked.
On the way back, David kinda messed up on mileage, thinking Grand Junction was closer than we thought... 6pm, we think we are only a few miles from GJ, had a hotel reservation there, finally see a sign: "Grand Junction 254 miles". ARGH!!!!! There is no way I was going to drive another 3 hours with Devyn going absolutely bonkers in the car, we had been on the road since 7am!!!! Stopped in Richfield, where we went to 10 different hotels and could not get a room (baseball tournament). Could not get a hotel employee to help us either, they were all too busy or too rude. Finally got one lady to book us a room at the Roadway Inn in Salinas, Utah, literally in the middle of nowhere, and 110 miles from any city or gas station. The city is basically the inn, a Burger King, Subway, gas station and a Dennys. Get into the room, Devyn has to go to the bathroom, ends up taking a poop consisting of two turds as big as my fist (no joke) and plugging up the toilet, flooding the bathroom floor. Dave and I mop up the water with all the towels, to no avail. David has to finally go get a plunger and do the nasty business of unplugging the toilet himself, lest a hotel employee realize my son just gave birth to two coke cans.
Drove home on Sunday, arrived at 5pm, exhausted, needing another vacation to recover from the drive.
Can't wait 'til next year!

Embarrassing moments...Part III

On the topic of first kisses, there are a couple of firsts I would like to share with you.
My first-first kiss was in 1983, my second year in the United States. My parents became friends with a bunch of farmers around Deming, one of them being the family of my secret crush, Jed Paulk (does that sound like a hillbilly name or what?). In the spirit of friendship, his parents forced him to take my brother, my cousins Andy and Sandy and of course, me, to the movies. It was either E.T. or The Last Starfighter, I can't remember. It was at the drive-in, since Deming did not have a movie theatre yet. I was prepared, I was going to be charming, flirty, funny, etc... even though I still spoke English like a French cow (for those of you that are not European, this is a very popular saying).
I sat next to him in the front seat for two hours... and did not say one word to him. Everytime I looked over at him, I thought I was going to vomit from nervousness. My brother and my cousins were in the back seat, laughing their asses off, making vile comments in Italian. At the end of the movie, he drove us home. I still had not said one word to him.
We got out of the car, he came around to open my door, let me out, shook my hand and planted a kiss on my left cheek.
I promptly fainted. Full-on falling straight backwards, hitting my head on the gravel road.
The next thing I remember is my cousin Sandy shaking me awake, asking me if I was alright. Jed and I didn't speak again until my senior year. He must have kept this date to himself, 'cause thankfully no one at school ever made fun of me.
Except my brother and my cousins.
My second-first kiss was in 1986, my senior year in high school, when it finally became necessary for me to have some kind of boyfriend. His name was Bill Beck (what the heck is it with these hick names?), he was about a foot taller than me and probably weighed 120 lbs. He was the star trumpet player in the band (didn't I tell you, I was a band fag!) and all the girls wanted him... but the Italian stallion had her eyes on him, and he just couldn't get away.
After months of flirting and smiling, he finally asked me on a date. He would come pick me up at 6 pm and we would go fishing. At a pond. On a double date with his brother and his girlfriend.
The fishing was actually kinda fun, we caught 5 or 6 catfish, which my dad promptly battered and fried when I got home.
The date is another matter entirely...
We stopped fishing and sat in his brother's car, his brother and chick up front, Bill and I in the back. Music was on, the vibe was right, his brother was making out with his broad like mad and I could feel the tension growing...
Bill finally leaned over and literally shoved his tongue in my mouth. He didn't even have time to pull away before I projectile-vomited all over him. No joke. In those days, I use to eat at school and lunch included a pizza burrito, some Cheetos and probably two or four Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. Use your imagination.
What cracks me up is that even puking on him didn't deter him from dating me. It was a long time before he tried to kiss me again, though. The poor kid should've given up.
The next time he tried to kiss me was on a church trip to El Paso... We were sitting next to each other on the school bus, it was dark... I thought I was prepared this time, but when he stuck his tongue in my mouth, he also tried to cop a feel ( mom, that means he tried to touch my boobs), so I punched him square in the face and made his nose bleed.
We broke up that night.
That's me and Bill in the picture, the night I graduated from high school (he was a junior...)

Here's the real star of the family...

How hot is my mom in this picture? This was taken circa 1963-1965, when my mom was 17 or 18 years old. She was the singer in a band called "the White Brothers" (her name is Bianca, means white in italian) with her brothers Aldo and Franco on guitar. This was right about the same time she met my father, who was in "I Quattro Assi" (the four aces, not the four asses) as a singer. They were huge in Genova, my mom's band won quite a few contests and she was getting a lot of attention from dudes (not action).
How times change! After Bianca and Vito met, it wasn't long before they got married and had us kids, so both their singing careers ended. Aldo went on to play guitar on cruise ships, met and married an American (they still live here in Florida), Franco became a photographer, my dad became an engineer and my mom stayed mom!
Here's where David and Lara's musical talent comes from!

Embarrassing Moments....Part Deux

Too late now, I've already opened up the floodgates, memories of my stupidest moments are bursting forth like a raging river. I must tell all of my past, so they can share in the misery,
Summer 1979. Switzerland. I am 10 years old and have my first crush on a boy. He is the son of one of my father's friends. He is also 13 years old, therefore very experienced in love. Our parents decide it would be a good idea for the adults to go out to dinner together, while us kids stay home and have a sleep-over. In his room is a little loft, right above his bed, where he goes to read and, I hope, daydream about me. It's an easy climb with his help, holding on to him, one foot on the wall, then push myself up until I reach the loft. Once up there, we look at pictures, listen to music, one thing leads to another and we share our first kiss. On the cheek. Mind you, this is 1979, not 1999, therefore our sexual awakening was much, much slower than it is now with typical 10 and 13 year olds.
After a couple of hours, it's time to go to sleep. He jumps out of the loft onto his bed, then waits for me to follow. I'm in my nightgown and suddenly terrified of heights. I am scared to jump off and miss the bed, or fall on top of him and hurt both of us. He keeps telling me to jump and finally, after 15 minutes of trying to convince me, I jump.... only, I'm so scared, that on the way down, I pee. Copiously. A continuous flow. Right on him. Yes, as he is trying to catch me, I urinate on him.
He starts dry-heaving in disgust and I try to convince him it's spit, that it came out of my mouth. Yeah, like he's going to fall for that one. I run out of his room into mine and don't come out until the next morning, when he tells me it really wasn't such a big deal, that he still likes me... but from now on, we will no longer go in his loft.

Flashback...Ugh!!!!

I the deep recesses of my mind, I had hidden this memory, if only to forget one of the most embarrassing moments of my young life...but here it is,brought to the surface by accident, while cleaning my garage and looking through boxes.
Picture this:
The year is 1988. I am barely 19 years old and, obviously looking at the photo, completely dumb as rocks. I've decided I can be a rock star and joined my then-boyfriend Stacy's band, Virtu, as a back-up singer. We thought we were going to be the next big thing out of New Mexico, so we wanted to do a special show for all our fans, family and friends. One of my fathers friends, Mr. Lescombes, owned a winery in Old Mesilla. He had also recently purchased the Fountain Theatre, an old theatre building in the center of town that had not been used for decades. In exchange for letting us perform our show there, Mr. Lescombes wanted us to clean, paint, rebuild the stage...in short give his property a complete overhaul free of charge. We worked on it for about two weeks, cleaning like crazy and even trying to restore a painted mural on one of the walls.
We sent out official invites to everyone we knew, set up tables, even served wine, compliments of Mr. Lescombes.
The picture is taken on the night of the big show. The stars, from left to right, are Mike on guitar, Jeff on bass, Shannon on drums, Stacy on keyboards and Lisa, the other back-up singer. Of course, I am smack in the middle, with my overly-done-frizzy-poodle-what-the-hell-was-I-thinking hairdo.
The lights go down, everyone starts clapping, clamoring for just one look at the giganto stars. We are still upstairs in the "green room" getting ready. The time comes for our grand entrance, we are going to run down the stairs in the dark, so the guests can't see us and surprise them on stage.
Shannon is the first, starts running across the theatre, trips on a step we all forgot was there, goes flying through the air and falls on his face. Like a bunch of dominoes, one after the other, we run and trip on the same step, falling one on top of the other. I, of course, in full show regalia, was wearing 4 inch heels, panty hose and a barely-hiding-my-ass miniskirt. When I fell, both my knees were scraped, along with both my hands. Ended up going on stage, in front of 200 people, with ripped pantyhose, bloodied knees and barely holding back tears. Shannon had bruised his wrist, almost fractured it, and played drums the whole show through blinding pain.
Needless to say, we never made it big. On the other hand, still have matching scars on my knees to remind me of my brush with fame.

A foot, a foot, my kingdom for a foot!

So here is my foot, exactly a year ago... For those of you not aware, I fractured every bone between my foot and leg, including ankle, while carrying my son at the beach. I did drop him square on his head, but he bounced off the cement like a basketball, ended up with just a small bump... On the other hand, I have been in pretty much some kind of pain since...
Finally got all the hardware out of my foot in April, had to cut it up again, it was nasty... Got to keep all the screws and plates though, thinking about building a nice cabinet with them, or maybe making them into a nice necklace.
Going back to the scene of the crime on Friday (Oceanside, California), I will sit in a chair on the beach for a week, trying to avoid breaking any more bones... The first picture is after surgery in April, the second is the x-ray taken last July, the day after I injured myself.

Italy, World Cup Champion 2006!!!!

Oh my God! I thought I was going to have a heart attack watching that game! France played ten times better than Italy in the second half, but thanks to losing Henry and Zidane, they held on through overtime and won in penalty shots!!!
What a relief! David was getting ready to go to work for inventory, but he couldn't leave until the end of the game... he literally saw the last penalty kick, screamed and ran out the door...
He wore his Italy shirt and hat, what a goofball...
Here is a picture of Devyn after the match...

From America With Love

I've been wondering lately if maybe I'm getting too distant from all my friends and relatives, since I moved to Colorado. Everyone I know is either in Arizona or in Europe, making it extremely difficult to keep a friendship. The phone, you say? Yeah, well I talk to all my friends in AZ at least once a week, but not seeing their faces for over a year tends to put a damper on things... Now all I need to do is get everyone on the band wagon, and we can talk to each other on this blog! I will be sending everyone an e-mail with my blog address, hopefully by next week we will be chatting.
Definitely, most definitely going to be watching the game tomorrow, hoping with all my heart Italy beats the frenchies and sends them home crying.