Actress and singer, Brina Palencia, raises awareness about Cruelty to Pumpkins

Halloween is not just a time for fun and games.

Every October 31st is a cry for help.

Find out how you can save a pumpkin's life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v4KbuwXljY

Me, Myself and Why

I just realized something. That even though I am alone right this very moment, I am not alone.  I am with me and all that is my self.

    

I'm not talking about multiple personalities, self-esteem, self-awareness or self-love.  I'm talking about the realization that I have this incredible amount of knowledge in me that no one else in the universe can ever fully know or understand because no one has been with me 24/7 except for my self. It'd be like trying to describe how chocolate ice cream tastes.

I'm the only one who knows all my history, experiences, dreams, thoughts, secrets, all the good things I have done and the not-so-good things. How I truly feel when I'm happy, in love, sick, pissed off, or frustrated.  The one who always and truly knows what's in my heart and mind.  This knowledge makes me feel really good. It makes me feel very close to my self.

And no one gets my jokes better than me which could be an occupational hazard
when you're a stand-up comedian.

My self is the one and only who knows what is in my freakin' head all the freakin' time...and right now it's Pharrell's Happy song over and over and OVER...But I am also the one who can change what's in my head, what I think about or feel about.  It's like a super power.

I also realize that there is no one who gets me more than I get my self.  

                                                

So, to anyone reading this that may be upset or unhappy about being alone, you're not. 
You have YOUR SELF. 

Grab your self and go for a walk.  Take your self to a movie.  Sing your favorite song out loud like a rock star even if you're tone deaf like me. Or just sit in your pajamas with your cozy self and watch TV and try and take comfort in knowing you are with the one who knows you better than anyone.

                

Waking Up Like a Water Buffalo

This morning, I woke up and looked in the mirror and saw this.

So I went back to bed.

The Navy Seal in Me

I just went to Whole Foods and feel like a freakin' U.S. Navy SEAL...without the water. 

As I approach the store, I see solicitors and canvassers addressing incoming customers.  I begin to get nervous and a little anxious but then make a decision.

I am going to do something NO ONE has ever done before.  Get into the damn store without making contact with any of them. 

With no espionage training, I will have to rely on my intelligence against impossible odds. I hope that having a teenage son and watching 20 minutes of “Acts of Valor" will be helpful. 

First, I need to figure out where to park my car so I have the least chance of interaction with them. 

It’s not that I am callous or don’t care about their causes, but I look like hell and am in a rush to buy a smoothie.  

Car is parked. Now, I quickly come up with a strategy and figure out how to negotiate getting from my vehicle into the store avoiding the Greenpeace petitioners and another survey signature group. 

SEALs are prepared to operate in "climate extremes of scorching desert and mountainous regions of Afghanistan."  The dangerous terrain of grocery stores in Pasadena should be included.  With no reconnaissance support except for Google Maps, I quickly figure out a plan of attack.

I grab the closest shopping cart, and while talking to myself in a language I just made up, I push it in figure eights.  Every time I complete an “8” I whistle. It’s a little bit of a challenge because one of the wheels is loose. And I can't whistle.




But Navy SEALs must forge ahead and continue their mission even when there is an unexpected occurrence.

I push on and advance into the store! I made it! Unscathed. No engagement with any of them!  If I could click my heels I would.

It’s not until I have smoothie in hand that I realize something absolutely horrible!

I have to leave the store.

Horror Stories from the Gym

I worked out at the gym this morning.  After spending an hour figuring out what to wear, 30 minutes untangling my headphones

                                            

and another 10 minutes disinfecting the treadmill, I'm exhausted but forge on.  Such a trooper. 

I enter my info on the dashboard or whatever the part is called where you put in your weight, amount of time you want to exercise, speed, incline, ATM passcode, how many times a week you have sex and in return the machine tells you in red digital numbers how out of shape you are. I start my playlist on my iphone and begin to walk. 

As I try to keep up a good pace without tripping or falling off the treadmill, I look over at the gal next to me.  She's running like she's in the f*cking Kentucky Derby!

She is perspiring so much that it causes me some concern. Her sweat is gushing out of her big forehead, down her flushed face and onto the machine. She cools down and gets off, leaving beads of body fluid on the treadmill. I turn my head to see if she is going to get the paper towels and disinfectant the gym provides and clean off her sweaty mess.  She doesn't. Instead, she gets on the elliptical machine and sweats all over that, too. 

I am still walking -- now to Third Eye Blind's Semi-Charmed Life -- but feeling disgusted and disappointed in humanity when a guy gets on the treadmill that sweatgirl was using. As I have appointed myself the Head of Hygiene at the gym in the last 30 seconds, I mention to him that he might want to wipe down the treadmill. You know what he did?He chuckled! Chuckled! Like I told him a joke. My brain almost exploded from confusion.

WTF is wrong with these people?  Why doesn't sweatgirl know better than to leave her body secretions splattered all over the treadmill and why doesn't knucklehead chuckleboy care that he is going to touch sweatgirl's slop?

I believe that sweating on exercise equipment and not cleaning it off is the equivalent of peeing all over the toilet and walking away. Actually, it is worse according to an article in Men's Fitness Magazine.  A quarter-sized site on a treadmill or exercise bike in a gym can harbor 132 MILLION bacteria.  Compare that to the same area on a toilet seat -- just 500 bacteria.

Some might argue that the benefits you get at the gym outweigh the risks for disease. That may very well be but it doesn't mean you shouldn't take precautions and use common courtesy along with a good, strong anti-bacterial cleanser.

On that note, looky what I found later at CVS!