40 is not 50

I am still trying to find the positive side of being 40. As I mentioned earlier, with a bit over two months to go till the dreaded day I am trying to convince myself that there must be a lengthy list of things I should love about reaching this milestone.

Trying to find some stimulation from those who’ve "been there - done that", I bumped into something Victor Hugo (yes, the French poet) wrote once upon a time:

“Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age”

I have a bit of a problem with this quote. First, he mentions the phrase "old age" not once but TWICE in a sentence of only 13 words. OK, to be fair, he also mentions the word "youth" twice, but that’s not the point: by the time you read that forty has something to do with "old age" everything else becomes a blur!

Then, he does not give me anything to look forward to. Being the oldest of the young is pretty much the same as telling me I am the thinnest of the fat or the smartest of the dumb and that I will eventually become the fattest of the thin and the dumbest of the smart!

Even worse, it makes me start thinking that turning 50 is only a decade away! And 10 years is nothing – I know it, believe me, I am still recovering from the hangover of the big bash I threw when I turned 30.

Fifty is the “youth of old age”. That’s it. You reach 50 and you are doomed. Even a poet with all the inspiration that Victor Hugo obviously had, could not come with a better way to put it.

So the only positive thought I have from all this is that: I should love being 40 because I am NOT 50 yet!

And 40 is not 30 either ... more on that coming soon.

80 to 40

The final countdown started yesterday. Eighty days left until I finally turn 40. And NO, I am not taking it that well … in fact; the thought has been bothering me a lot since my last birthday.

You know, when you are 38 you are still a 30-something (and I've enjoyed my 30s so much!). When you turn 39 you are nowhere - too close to 40 and so far away from 30! It’s like living in limbo for 12 months …

Since moaning about it is not going to change anything (other than possibly adding a few more crow's feet to the collection), I’ve decided to dedicate a few of my future blog posts to the reasons why I should LOVE being in my 40s. Maybe I will manage to convince myself that it is not so bad after all and will hopefully end up self-brainwashed and hoping that I stay a 40something forever.

I should love being 40 because they say that life begins at 40.

It was some guy called Walter B. Pitkin who claimed this on a book he published back in 1932. The guy was 54 at the time, so I assume that 14 years of experience on being 40+ qualifies him as a guru on the subject.

I have not read the book, but if Mr. Pitkin was still alive, which he is not, I would love to ask him in a very Mafaldesque way:

If life really begins at 40, then why are we brought to this world so early?

In essence

Back in the 80s I read a book that made quite an impression on me. It has now been adapted into a movie which I watched for the first time a couple of nights ago and, although I believe that a good book can never be matched by the film, this particular one was exceptionally good: “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”. The book is by German writer Patrick Suskind.

Because this is a book (and a movie) I like to recommend, I am not going to spoil it by writing here about the plot. I just want to focus on one part of the story which I like very much.

In the beginning of the story, the hero – a young boy called Jean-Baptiste - approaches a Perfumer to work with him making perfumes (what else?!). The Perfumer is a true alchemist, a perfectionist of the profession. He measures every essence with precision before mixing it and the way he approaches perfume-making is closer to art than to trade. Jean-Baptiste is incredibly gifted and can produce the most amazing perfumes by simply throwing all the scents together in a flask, without measuring anything at all and without even knowing the names of any of the ingredients he uses.

The Perfumer is an academic. Jean-Baptiste is street-smart -- the type of guy who follows his instincts and his nose (literally!) to accomplish much better things than the Master. The Master even ends up asking Jean-Baptiste for his recipes!

And what I like about this part of the story is that it reminds us that whatever we do in our lives -- from work to relationships to hobbies to everything else -- theory might make things work, but what we can add to it from our own character and experience is what makes the real difference between achieving ordinary and an extraordinary results.
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Vegetable cruelty

It is amazing how much the advertising industry has changed over the last 30 years - or has it? In Mexico, we grew up watching a man with the largest nose I've ever seen saying "Chaca-chaca con Ariel" while announcing the latest craze in washing powder; a duckling (which happened to look a lot like a chicken) asking us to always remember it and the "Gansito" it promoted; and a cartoon character called "Pancho Pantera" telling us that chocolate milk is good for you if you want to score a lot of goals at football.

There is one TV commercial in particular that I am positive has stayed in the collective mind of most Mexicans my age throughout the years. But it is extremely cruel -- even if it is only about tomato puree! The poor little tomatoes are the victims of a mean executioner who wants to make them puree. Literally. And they are actually happy about it.

I have the feeling that this ad would not make it to the TV screens these days. I bet there must be some vegetable anti-cruelty society that would organize a few demonstrations downtown Mexico City to protest against so deplorable behavior!

To date, the song on this commercial always pops into my head when I hear someone saying the word "tomatito" (small tomato) and I've always wondered if the salespitch voiceover at the end is the nasty executioner himself.

Mixing fashion and politics

I’m having some fun reading the reviews in the international press about Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe makeover.

Interesting - the woman makes $125,000 a year as governor of Alaska and her party splurges more than that on clothing, hairstyling and makeup so that she can look vice-presidential.

Editors right and left are writing all sorts of colorful comments asking how is it possible that she can spend $75k on GFF and Ann Klein’s suits at Neiman Marcus and almost $50k at Saks Fifth Avenue on a one-day shopping spree in the middle of a worldwide financial crisis (I certainly would if I had that kind of money!)

Her beautifying budget adds up to more than double the average gringo’s household yearly income – ouch!

But what nobody is paying attention to is the comment made by McCain’s spokeswoman on the subject:

"It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."

Does this mean that if the McCain-Palin combo wins the ticket to the White House (God help us!) she will go back to wearing her pre-campaigning Wal-Mart’s clothes? Unlikely.

Maybe it’s just that the McCain camp already unconsciously accepted defeat and know that she won’t be needing her new fancy wardrobe after November 4 as she will be heading back to goodol’ Alaska.

Anybody knows how to go about registering myself as a charity?
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Of tall men

There are quite a few tall men that have played some role or the other in my life. The first and probably most influential has to be my father. At 1.93m tall, my friends used to (and still do) refer to him as "Little Johnny", though I cannot really remember if they ever called him that to his face!

My maternal grandfather, a Clark Gable look-alike, was also a very tall (and good-looking) man. There have been a couple of other tall men, but I won't write about them today because I am totally focused on the one that is patiently sitting on the side of my bed waiting for me since he arrived to my place last Monday.

Truth is (there you go), what is waiting for me is not the real guy, but his most recent book. He is tall and handsome in an ugly sort of way (or is it the other way around?), totally rude, and the owner of the crudest British humor. But truth is (there you go again) that I am totally infatuated with him. I am talking about Jeremy Clarkson, of course - who else?

Pause to allow those who hate him to leave the blog -- probably for good!

For those who don't know who he is, Clarkson is the 'love me' or 'hate me' type of personality. I obviously belong to the first group. I won't go into what I believe he does well or not on his BBC show; but his writing is witty to the point of managing to keep my unconditional interest from cover to cover even when he publishes a book about cars and nothing else. And that is what I call VERY sexy.

So at the moment I am keeping the latest "The World According to Clarkson" installment waiting for me while I finish a really interesting novel by some Indian author.

But that's OK; I read somewhere that it's good to keep the 'bad boys' waiting a bit before a big date.
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The scary 80s

So after seeing some old photos I sent to my friends in Mexico, my daughter decides that she wants to dress up as an "80s girl" for Halloween.

Without thinking it twice I go to eBay and search for an "80s fancy dress". Not much to be found, other than a 'sexy Ghostbusters' outfit (not really suitable for a 10 year old) and a couple of Madonna-like wigs. It's like no fancy dress supplier on Earth has realized yet that the combo of big hair + shoulder pads + leg warmers and plastic earrings deserves its very own Halloween-80s outfit!

So I put the outfit together myself. Sadly enough, I got rid of my ENTIRE drawer of shoulder pads, and do not own one single leg warmer or at least one t-shirt with neon wording on it.

I e-buy a FRANKIE SAYS RELAX bright pink t-shirt to which I will attach some shoulder pads I still need to find; a black polka dot ra-ra skirt; neon green leg warmers and matching perforated gloves (never wore any of those but they are so kitsch I had to buy them); yellow plastic belt and of course very large plastic earrings on lemon yellow color.

It seems that the only 80s thing that survived all my moving around the world was a pair of bright blue aerobics leggins and some hideous blue eyeliner & eyeshadow and white lipstick (don't ask!!)... so it's all been thrown into the outfit.

She wants to wear vampire teeth on the day, but I think that once she sees herself on the mirror after the make over she will realize that she looks scary enough!

Pics in due time...
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I don't work for Coke

This post is mainly for those of you who don't speak Spanish and wonder what's with the You Tube video on the sidebar of the blog and on my first post (same song, two different versions)...

First of all, no, I don't work for Coke. Never have. Most probably never will. But I have to confess that I have recently become addicted to Coke Zero. I was a big time Diet Coke drinker when I was at college ... the one thing that would keep me awake other than coffee! and managed to get rid of the bad habit until a few months ago ... that is until I started working late nights again.

OK, back to the subject... The reason for posting these videos is that the words in Spanish go something on the line of "you've gotta share (hay que compartir).... the happy moment (el momento feliz) ...." and that's where the name of my blog came from "Hay que compartir" or roughly "Gotta share..."

There you go ... no Coke employee, just a Coke drinker that likes a song that played a zillion times on TV when I was a kid.

And you will hear more about that in coming posts!
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Hay que compartir!

De la nada me acorde de la cancion que cantaba Topo Gigio y que va algo asi como "en el Estado de Mexico naci ... yo soy de Zacazonapan donde creci..." y me puse de buenas.

Es increible como en el año (pausa de 2 minutos para ingeniarmelas para poner una ñ) antes de cumplir los 40 la nostalgia o el no se que ma ha acercado de nuevo a amigos del pasado. Nostalgia (para los mayores de 30) es el otro nombre de Facebook.

Y sin mas ni mas se me ocurrio compartir. Compartir todo (bueno casi) lo que vivo y vivi en los ultimos 20+ que he estado fuera y todo lo demas que se me ocurra.

Las ideas me van y me vienen. Generalmente en ingles, asi que no me sorprendera que esto salga como una super spanglish ensalada a la que no le faltara el Fetta y Halloumi de vez en cuando. Que raro no? Mi asociacion de palabras con Grecia y Chipre tienen ambas que ver con queso.

Asi que como decia Coca Cola en lo que yo siempre crei fue un comercial de los 80s y ahora que encontre el video en You Tube me di cuenta con horror que fue en los 70s!!! HAY QUE COMPARTIR... con quien se deje!!



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