PLUGGING

My family is back from San Diego, where we joyfully celebrated Christmas with friends and family. We went to LEGOLAND on Christmas day, totally unaware that on the other side of the world, someone else was being a SCROOGE.

One can only surmise what this person got in her stocking. A lump of coal? A run? An order to report for duty? She certainly wasn't feeling festive when she left me a comment at 87 GENTLE STREET.

Bah, humbug!

FROM MY FAMILY TO YOURS...





STOCKINGS are hung
TRAIN's up and running
TREE's all bedecked
SANTA is coming!




FLAN's in the oven
for my neighbor's NOCHE BUENA
So I leave you with a greeting
from the family SERENO

(...okay, okay, so that was stretching it a bit!
I've always said I was more of a "prose" than a "poetry" kind of person.
Look no further than the this holiday offering for proof.)


May the wonder and joy of the season be with you and yours for always!

LOOK WHO'S TALKING




This is my favorite picture of my two boys.

It was taken when Troy was three and Lance was four. Troy had just raided the orphaned sock drawer. If you're wondering why his socks are uneven, it's because one of them happens to be a glove.

I love Lance's smile in this picture too. I miss my son's open smile. He stopped showing his teeth when he lost two of his lower front ones. They've since grown back, but the toothy smile is gone. Part of growing pains, I guess, (not his but mine).

Now, my older son is six and in first grade. For the past two weeks he has been joining the Second Grade Reading Class. He was reading far too advanced compared to the rest of his classmates that his teacher felt he wasn't being challenged enough.

"Mom," he told me recently, "I know when to go back to my first grade class now. It's when the big hand is on eleven," and he gave me a proud smile.

I love recording these little snippets of conversation with my children. One can almost hear them growing up just by listening to the changes in content and speech pattern. Troy, who's now four, still talks in an endearingly bulol way sometimes, but don't let the baby talk fool you.

A few days after his Kuya Lance's Star Wars birthday party, we were driving when I heard a little voice from the back seat. "Mom", Troy said, "for my next birthday, I want a cake with Anakin and Darth Vader on it too".

"You want a cake with Anakin and Darth Vader in it?" I distractedly asked.

"No, ON it", was the reproving reply.

I never thought I'd see the day when my four-year-old would be correcting my grammar for a change!


Reanna is now a year and a half, and she, too, is discovering the delights of spoken discourse. She loves to tease me by calling me "Daddy". When I correct her by pointing to myself, saying "No, Reanna, Mom-my," she points to herself in turn and says "mom-my", with a mischievous smile. She's quick enough to call me "Mom", however, when she needs something, this time referring to herself as "Na-na". I guess Ree-YA-na is still too much of a mouthful for an eighteen-month-old's palate to form.

When Lance was Reanna's age, he used to call all the animals he saw, "doggies". Well, Reanna is no different, except she thinks all furry creatures on this earth are "kitties".

I now leave you with a memorable conversation my baby girl had with her Daddy. There they were, in the backyard, playing with Spot the Pit Bull...

Reanna: Heeeere tittie (Here kitty)...
Lorenzo: No, Reanna, "doggie".
Reanna: Heeeere tittieee...
Lorenzo: No, Reanna, Spotty is a doggie. Do-ggy.
Reanna: Heeeere tittie-doddieee... (Here kitty-doggy...)

Eighteen months and a mind of her own already.

I like that.

TROLL ALERT

I am starting a new feature in this blog, to alert others of trolls in our midst.

I am not aware of any known Troll Databases out there. Then again, I haven't really run any searches for them. Nevertheless, I am considering starting a entirely new site featuring IP addresses of known trolls, but only if I can get enough entries to feature in it.

If you have been a victim of trolling, and have been able to isolate these people's IP addresses, please e-mail me at pradamama@peoplepc.com. Please include verification, such as copies of the rude comments with identifying IP information from Haloscan, etc.. All correspondence will be kept confidential.

Someone anonymously left me a nasty comment last week. I chose to delete it, but this time, I won't be latting the troll off that easily. I am now sharing this person's personal details with you:

Domain Name: shawcable.net
IP Address: 68.145.108.173
ISP: Shaw Communications
Country: Canada
State/Region: Alberta
City: Calgary
Operating System: Microsoft WinXP
Browser: Internet Explorer 6.0

I have since banned this person from commenting on any of my sites.

I encourage you guys to ban this person's IP address, 68.145.108.173, as well.

Trolls are a scourge among us. These people should be taught a lesson: Unless they mind their manners, they cannot roam freely among our ranks. We should all work together to make them the pariahs they ought to be.

I've always said that trolls were "spineless, gutless people hiding in the dark underbelly of the blogosphere, surfacing in the sunlight when it is safe again, assuming the form of their mild-mannered alter-egos, hiding their rotten identities behind fake smiles."

The time has come to fight back. These people need to be outed. NOW.

I say ZERO TOLERANCE. Enough is enough. Bloggers Unite!


(PLUGGING: For more of my views on trolling, please read MASKED MENACE. And check out NEMESIS, my latest entry at 87 GENTLE STREET.)

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE...




I call this picture above "Creche'd Ice"

Yes, that's frost you see, here in Modesto!
I woke up this morning to find a fine blanket of the stuff all over the place.



I guess my kids can now dream of a White Christmas too!

PLUGGING

Shortly after I got the e-mail below about JULIO DIAZ, my old friend and colleague from Channel 9 News, Cathy Santillan, left a short message on my TagBoard. My past was coming back to haunt me. Before long, familiar scenes started playing out in my mind. I found myself dredging up old memories, some of them nice and others not-so-nice. One of them inspired me to write NEMESIS.

So join me, as I face old foes on "The Long Way Home" to 87 GENTLE STREET. But first, I must warn you. This time, the gloves are off, so don't expect anything even remotely close to gentle.