My mother and aunt are ardent Barack Obama supporters. This afternoon they came over and asked hubby & me whether we were familiar with a certain gesture they had seen Obama make during a speech last week. Imitating his movement, each of them simultaneously curled their right arms and touched their right shoulders with their hands. They assured us that after Obama did this, the crowd cheered boisterously. However, hubby & I have never seen Obama (or anyone else for that matter) perform this maneuver. Maybe this was some sort of “new” fangled thing the young’ins are doing now a days (when they aren’t busy texting or updating their myspace pages).

Undaunted by our own ignorance, we proceeded to enlist the help of the internets (gotta love those tubes) to help us decipher this new “Generation Y” code. Our first google search was ‘rap shoulder touch’, yielded plenty to results but nothing we were looking for. After about 20 minutes of substituting ‘hip-hop’ and various synonyms for ‘grab’, we were still no closer to understanding Barack’s mysterious shoulder gesture.

Finally, hubby typed in ‘urban shoulder gesture’ and low and behold guess what popped up? This site. Ah-Ha! According to The Root, Barack performed a “shoulder brush” and even provided a link to this Youtube video of the speech my mother and aunt had seen. Upon viewing the video, we quickly realized that Obama had indeed brushed his shoulder and not just touched it as my mother and aunt had indicated: a fact that would have aided our search processes immensely.

Now we could preform a new google search: ’shoulder brush off’, which yielded this definition from the “Urban Dictionary”.

Dirt off Ya Shoulder:

– as in, “get – that – dirt off ya shoulder.” it means that you need to let go of that grudge you got on your shoulders because you are jealous of me.

as in Jay-Z’s song, “Dirt Off Your Shoulder,” …I’m a hustler homey, you a customer crony
Got some, dirt on my shoulder, could you brush it off for me?

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. We now know that the gesture in question originated from a video by Jay-Z. One more google search: ‘Jay-Z Dirt off Your Shoulder’ resulted in this link to Youtube once again (see 1:03 for exact shoulder gesture). As it turns out, this video probably has been seen by everyone in America expect hubby, me, my mom and aunt. Upon viewing the video we quickly realized we had actually heard the song on numerous occasions, we just never realized that’s what Jay-Z was saying (or gesturing).

How white are we?!

PS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MO & GRANDMA!

Two years ago hubby & I said “I do” … seems like longer, honey. Naw, but really … I married the sweetest, funniest, most caring, and intelligent man (not to mention liberal and cute), guy. I love him to bits and I couldn’t imagine my life without him. We always joke that we married the perfect person (except for the walking). I love you honey.

On a non-sappy note, it’s still freaking hot here. Yesterday it was 109. Yes you read that right, it’s not a typo … 1-0-9. For a place that perhaps gets into the mid 70’s as it’s high, everyone along the coast is basically freaking out. I think most of our coastal towns broke records yesterday. Also, most of the citizens of our coastal towns don’t have air conditioning – us included. We have a ceiling fan in our bedroom which we left on all day and all night. We also had my mom bring up some portable fans from the Fresno days. Speaking of the Valley, hubby’s mom called yesterday and said it was actually cooler in Bakersfield than it was here. I keep having summer Valley flash-backs every so often. This is what military folk must get after being in battle, except I have PTSD for all the hot summers I spent in Fresno. I must say that at least the air quality is a heck of a lot better here & that makes a huge difference. Except for the fact that there happens to be a forest fire burning to the north of us, which means each evening for the last few days we’ve had horrible air quality and apocalyptic sunsets.

Well, my dear readers I hope wherever you are it’s a bit cooler. Gah, I might go stick my head in the freezer or at least get a popsicle.

As the title implies, today is hubby’s birthday. The big 32. Not quite as big as 35 or even four oh, but still a day to celebrate. The weather was quite nice today, and we went into San Luis for some “fast food sushi”, a trip to the used book store and a frozen yogurt by the creek. A lovely day. This evening we went out for a nice dinner at Windows on the Water – an upscale restaurant in Morro Bay. The food was good. Let me emphasize the word good here. Not great, good. And for $49.00 for an entree you expect great – possibly even an “orgasmic” level of food consumption. With every bite a party in your mouth, so to speak. You see, just yesterday (yesterday!) they changed the menu and got a new chef. What the heck? We’ve eaten at Windows on the Water many times before and had our meals planned out as we were driving there … “I’ll have the seared Ahi with jasmine rice …” you get the idea. Instead, none of those dishes were on the new and “improved” menu. Gah! I ended up getting seared albacore – a sad replacement for the seared Ahi and hubby got the abalone – which was breaded. No where on the menu did the abalone say breaded. Double gah!  The fish itself was nicely done. Anyway, the wine was good (as if I can tell a good wine for another – hey, it was easy to drink) and the desert was nice. Can’t beat the ambiance, either.

All and all, a great birthday for the hubby.

Usually I could care less who my neighbor is – unless they have a crying baby or a barking dog.  However, down the street a neighbor has moved in that I care a great deal for.  It’s my mom, along with my aunt and my grandma.

It’s nice to have them close.  Last night we all ate dinner together and had a great time chatting and analyzing furniture placement for the house.  Right now they are in my living room trying to assemble a new entertainment unit – Lucy and Ethel watch out – Mary Ann & Jeannie are knee deep in particle board and little screws.  Thank goodness for mechanical engineer hubby to walk them through the complicated instruction booklet.  My grandma is doing well too.

Needless to say, they are all happy to be out of Fresno.  It was 103 yesterday and right now we’re all in jackets and long sleeved shirts.  Also, let’s not forget the clean air and salty sea breezes.  Ahh.  Oh, and liberal people.  Hopefully more of my family will eventually move here as well – we can start a compound – the Kennedy’s will have nothing on us.

July 25th has always been a day for birthday’s in my family.  Not only is it my mom’s birthday but it is also my grandma’s as well.  Two of my cousins are born on this day and another cousin the day before.  You’d think that July 25 would be highlighted or marked with a red sharpie on my calendar, alas no.  So, at lunch today between getting my drink and getting my food, I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday – you gotta love cell phones.

Now, understand my family isn’t for all the pomp and circumstance that usually comes with birthdays.  When I was growing up birthday parties rarely occurred and when they did they were very low key.  Birthday cards stopped around the age of 15, and even then they would only come from my “card sending” aunt Susan.  Thanks for all the 20’s aunt Susan, I really appreciated it as did all the merchants at the local mall.  Ah, to be a kid again.  I wish I still got 20’s in the mail on my birthday.   So, my mom was actually kind of surprised that I called.  She was very happy, however.

So, happy birthday to everyone who has a birthday today.  Sorry I didn’t send you a card, but I think this blog post will suffice.

What a hoot! The City – aka. San Francisco – was really fun. One odd aspect was that just me, hubby and my cousin John where there as family. My aunt’s family (namely my mom and other two aunts didn’t come). I have no idea what’s up with Jim’s family, for all I know he doesn’t have any. This lack of family was the first part of “crazy” this weekend encountered. The second part of “crazy” was that my new uncle Jim dressed like a pirate. Yes, that’s right a pirate – as in Johnny Depp and the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. He had on a pirate hat and a tie with a scull and cross bones – yep kooky. The third part of “crazy” was that the wedding itself had readings from Monty Python. The fourth “crazy” part was that Jim got an earring instead of a wedding ring. And lastly, the fifth “crazy” was that this wedding happened on the street. Well, not exactly the street but darned close. It happened on the steps of the San Francisco Opera house. Homeless people keep walking by, at one point I thought one was going to come right up and stand beside us. Thank goodness that didn’t happen however he might have fit right in with all the crazy that was emitting from our group. Naw, we looked pretty sane compared to the rest of San Francisco. What a city. All and all the wedding was really fun. Seeing San Francisco and eating at great restaurants is never a bad thing. I’m glad my family is kooky with a penchant for Monty Python and apparently pirates.