Gung Hey Fat Choy!

Bodie and I are hanging out right now. For some reason he really likes to hang out when everyone else is trying to sleep. To be fair, he doesn't really make much noise and he usually brings up valid points during our conversations. For example, tonight he mentioned that we really haven't done much to embrace Black History Month. I apologize for the delay. A week has already gone by, but there is still time to celebrate.

If you happen to be a Black Chinese person, yesterday was probably the highlight of your year. It was Chinese New Year! I celebrated by eating some of the cookies and candy brought in by my Chinese co-worker. It is the year of the rat. I told my co-worker that they need to get a cooler animal to celebrate. I'm all for the year of the dragon and the tiger, but I really think they should replace the rat with the Yeti. I made this shirt for Jed's birthday to help him celebrate Chinese New Year.

I used to think that February was a bad month to celebrate Black History. You already have Valentine's Day, President's Day, Chinese New Year and Ground Hog Day to celebrate. Plus, it is the shortest month of the year. But this year I realized that February is perfect. It is the month that determines a leap year, and Black people are good at leaping. It has Ash Wednesday, and I can only recall Black friends saying that their skin was "ashy". Plus, it has Phat Tuesday and we all know that Black people put the Ph in Phat(O.K. this last one seems like a bit of a stretch, but the others make sense).

About this time last year, I blogged about how to learn more about Black history. I will repeat some of that information. You can learn more at Blackhistory.com, The History Channel website and Biography.com. You can also send a Black History email greeting card. Biography.com has created a new widget this year that I added to the top of the blog. It gives you some new Black History info each day. PBS, which I think is one of the best channels on T.V., has a whole month of programming dedicated to Black History Month. I have plans to go down to the local library and check out the mini-series Roots. This would require me to obtain a library card and to dedicate the many hours to viewing. I'm not promising anything, but we will see how it goes. I remember watching it in high school and I liked it. I would like to make watching it a family tradition each year, but the kids are still too young for some of the words that are used. I will probably wait until they reach their teens. I also changed my music player to reflect Black musicians. I can't imagine what Rock and Roll would be like without Jimmy Hendrix, Sam Cooke, or B.B. King. Pop would never be the same without the Motown years, and Jazz wouldn't even exist without African-American musicians. And of course we have them to thank for Rap and Hip Hop. If it wasn't for African-American musicians, us white people wouldn't have anything to be off rhythm to.

Bodie is trying to get at my nipples, so I guess that is all for this post. Gaylord Focker was definitely wrong when he said you can milk anything that has nipples. It sure would make life a lot easier on Sara. I hope you enjoy Black History Month.

Word Up!

p.s. Don't forget that Mr. Sasquatch starts in one week! Submit your desire to compete a.s.a.p.