Wednesday, July 25, 2007

for once, i'm not talking about me. well sort of

It's no secret that I don't mind talking about myself. But when Jam recently tagged me to tell you eight more things about me, I couldn't come up with much. Well, beyond the fact that some lady on the train had on an almost identical shirt to the one I was wearing. The one with all the beadwork that my cousin had sent me from India. The only difference was color. And she was at my train station, getting on my car and sat down in front of me. Bizarre.

That perplexed me so much that I couldn't come up with anything else for a list.

However, partly to celebrate his gracing us with his presence for a couple of weeks and partly to shut him up for repeatedly telling me my blog sucks because I don't talk about him enough, I'll tell you eight things that have to do with my brother.

1) When we were little, there was a death match nearly every night at dinner about who would get to eat off the cheesy McDonalds plate. I'm talking about screaming, hitting, tears and vows of starvation, all over a stupid plastic plate about how Mayor McCheese was going to get some cold april showers. (It's the one on the bottom right. And no, I have no idea why we only had just the one, or what the hell the appeal was.)

2) This girl, Amy "The Kisser," would smooch my brother every day in kindergarten. But when she started touching him with her tongue, the engagement was off.

3) Every Indian kid has a real name and the pet name for which people will ridicule them for years. At age four, I was in charge of coming up with my brother's and resolutely decided on "Mickey Mouse." Later, because I was so frustrated with his always having to defer to his wishes, I dubbed him "Highness," which became a term of endearment. I've only called him by his real name (and only once in awhile at that) for the last two years, and he's still Highness on my cellphone. However, if anyone else calls him that, I will kick their ass.

4) We watched The Dukes of Hazzard every single summer morning, usually while perched on top of the "car ramp" my brother would build out of the couch cushions.

5) When I went away to college, I forgot to hide the Betamax tape my dad had recorded of Strawberry Shortcake: In Big Apple City off tv in the early '80s. This particular movie was the one tape i secretly treasured beyond belief. Plus it had these badass commercials for Star Wars action figures and the Sit-n-Spin, the toy upon which I built my fame of being fearless at preschool. I must have seen it hundreds of times growing up and sometimes I'd like to put it on when I wanted to forget that I was supposed to be figuring out how to pay for books or what I was going to do with the rest of my life. And, in my parents' house, it was the only videotape earmarked for me. All the rest were designated for the recording of Hindi movie songs or sporting events so my brother could rewatch games he already knew the endings of.

So I was away, and one weekend my mom refused to give him a new videocassette for that Sunday's football match. He couldn't bear to tape over any of his other precious games, so the kid obliterated Strawberry Shortcake and all her fruity friends with some Bears game that they didn't even win. And when I discovered the unforgivable offense, I was beyond irate.

He was sorry, but I didn't realize how much until the Christmas, when I opened my gift from him. This was a big deal, because as a 13-year-old in a pre-Internet household, he managed to figure out what he had destroyed and get an original by using only a telephone and his schmoozing skills. I haven't watched it since that Christmas Day, but I was very touched (I still miss those commercials, though).

6) His obsession with Dave Matthews Band is only eclipsed (as is everything else) by his die-hard devotion to the Chicago Cubs.

7) My brother is notorious for what he says under the influence of surgery-related pain medication. One time after he had come out of an open-heart procedure, his world-renowned surgeon was checking that everything was going according to plan. My brother asked what kind of car the doctor drove and then proceeded to ridicule him beyond belief about his Ford Taurus. The kid has threatened to pulverize men three times his size as well as romance all the ladies in the entire hospital wing (with commentary on varying degrees of hotness to their faces). And I'm sure he has no regrets.

8) He can't grow facial hair to save his life and he barely has any hair on his legs. That last part is particularly annoying.


I have no fear of retribution because he won't see this list until probably next week when they let him out of the hospital. He's having surgery tomorrow morning to move his pacemaker, which they put in his abdomen last summer. Apparently, his body had other ideas all year, as it has refused to completely heal around it all this time. Let's hope it likes the new spot better.

As always, any good vibes are always appreciated. We will be back to our regular programming soon.

19 comments:

mathew said...

hah. i tagged you today too. that's okay, my duty was done! now i've got to forward this letter to 12 of my friends or else my eyes will fall out in 4 weeks...

Lia said...

Your brother? One cool guy. #5 is particularly special. I hope the surgery goes okay.

omar said...

Good vibes sent, I hope all goes well.

"Every Indian kid has a real name and the pet name for which people will ridicule them for years. "

So what's yours?

Librarian Girl said...

Yeah, what is it with our people and the nicknames??? It's like, the LAW or something.

Good wishes to your brother!

Alla said...

i was just going to ask you how your bro is- and there i have it :)

Jon said...

They just don't make shows like the Duke's of Hazzard anymore. It's a damn shame.

Nothing but the best wishes for your brother!!

Bill C said...

I'll echo everyone's encouragement and good wishes for the surgery. And say your brother seems pretty cool, but I hope he has enough sense to fully appreciate his wonderful sister.

(With any luck that will make him feel guilty even if he hasn't done anything wrong)

(Just a little something they taught me in parenting school)

Beenzzz said...

Medication sure has a lovely way of making you do strange things! This was a cute fact/meme/thingy about your bro!

Syar said...

I'm collecting every single scrap of good vibey-ness for your brother. All the best for what sounds like one cool guy. :-)

Anonymous said...

I'm sending good vibes to you, your bro and the entire Cadiz clan. You know you can always hit me up if you need anything.

Anonymous said...

Ah, brothers. I have a double dose of them myself, and know how crazy and happy they can make a person all at the same time. I'm sending some ridiculously good vibes to your brother and your whole fam. Be poised by his side after surgery so you can capture more drug-induced sayings for our enjoyment.

P.S. Strawberry Shortcake! I think I still have my "Strawberry Shortcake's Country Jamboree" record around here someplace...

cadiz12 said...

thanks, everyone, for your good wishes-- the surgery went as well as it could have and they didn't have to cut through the breastbone, so that means shorter recovery time and no ICU, so we're very happy. i'm going to stay there tonight so my mom can get some real rest at home. we'll have a slumber party and i'll tell you guys all about it next week.

unfortunately, the only funny thing he said yesterday was "I'm the one who's supposed to be making smartass comments around here" when his nurse suggested they could knock him out with a hammer when they put in the pickline (IV he can go home with so he can continue to have antibiotics, reportedly extremely painful.) he wasn't looking forward to it, but he got his morphine dosage increased for the pain.

i'm sure he'll be in full form soon enough. especially because he finds one of his nurses extremely attractive and feels the need to announce how HOTT she is to the room every time the door closes behind her.

sometimes indian people can be nuts. there are Bollywood-actress sisters named Kareena and Karishma who are known throughout the industry as "Bebo" and "Lolo." In print, too. Why people do that to their children is beyond me.

as for our nicknames, his has gotten whittled down to "Mick," which is sounds better than mine: Kuku (which is a songbird and pronounced COOK-ooh). Cocoa Puffs jokes aside, i like it just fine. they rarely use it anymore, but my mom still calls me Chidiya (CHID-ee-yah), which just means "bird."

Sphincter said...

Phew. Glad to hear that things are going as well as they can be.

naechstehaltestelle said...

I hope your brother is doing well. He seems like a pretty cool guy.

Syar said...

Kuku is fingernails in Malay. But the bird association is better. :)

jiji said...

a lovely list. and i love the different spin on the "things about me". am definitely sending positive energy your way!!!

Jon said...

ok, how about back to talking about yourself now, eh?

omar said...

Nothing new since the 25th? I hope everything is OK.

And if everything is OK, then I'm going to start referring to this place as "Shuck N Obituaries" unless you start posting soon!

Jon said...

Omar, I'm not going to pretend like that didn't hurt. Mostly because it didn't, so I have nothing to pretend about.

Seriously though Cadiz, I know you want to be like me and I think it's cute, but we love you just the way you are, so you can just be yourself and post a couple times a week again. You've already proven you can hang with me. Let's just agree to be ourselves now, ok?