“Dirty Santa. Yankee Swap. Well, I think it sounds like fun!” said Michael Scott.
In offices and families, this gift exchange is becoming one popular affair. This Christmas, I played it with my mom’s family and with my dad’s family. My sister went one step further and played it at work.
Having played it several years, this is a list I have compiled of good and bad gifts to give at YANKEE SWAP!
The Good
1. Beer (this goes over good with just about any in attendance. Make sure its Bud, Coors or Miller, the three biggest names around)
2. Gift Card to a sex shop
3. Alcohol (This would be hard alcohol or imported beer)
4. Gift card to a discount or large retail store
5. Decorative glasses to hold alcohol (the females love this stuff)
The Bad
1. A Christmas CD
2. Anything the weird family members come up with
3. Coffee mugs
4. Christmas Ornaments
5. Cheap alcohol
The Ugly
1. A sock hat
2. Nonalcoholic Beer
3. Stocking hangers
4. Piggy Bank w/ boxers in it
5. Donation to a charity
Watching a good game of Yankee Swap unfold tells a lot about the people in it. For instance, to see a Gift Card to a sex shop change hands several times before it finally ends with your uncle can be a little unnerving when you’re 27-years-old and your uncle is a generation or two older.
When there isn’t a lot of alcohol around, it’s interesting to see the alliances formed so parties can get their alcohol. If the beer doesn’t interest you all that much, that doesn’t mean anything, the alcohol will be a bargaining a chip and maybe you can walk away with a gift to a large retailer like Target or Walmart or even one of those pretty decorated martini glasses.
Likewise, a lot can be said about a person who donates things like a sock hat or a Christmas themed item. This screams, I was too lazy to get a gift or that I got this last year and had absolutely no use for it, so I’m regifting it to you knowing full well you will regift it at some point.
A person who brings nonalcoholic beer…well, they probably do not have a soul.
Now, the person who gives you a certificate bearing a charity donation, they can be one of two things: 1. They are one of those do-gooders who are secretly the devil incarnate; or 2. They are the most Supreme Being. How can they be so good they are evil or positively so head of the curve? Well, if they have no sense of humor, they are probably the devil incarnate. But if they are sarcastic, witty, and have watched many episodes of Seinfeld, this probably isn’t so much a chance to make a statement that somewhere people are starving while we “steal” alcohol and sex whips from each other, this is an attempt at humor that is in a class of its own.
Also, the Supreme Being understands that their “gift” is total shit, and is a mask, a beard if you will, for the truly awesome gift they have hidden for the brave soul ready to take their chance on a seemingly empty box.
Yankee Swap.
Can you name a better game? A more “telling” game?
Also, any suggestions for the lists, any “telling” traits of those gifts, will be appreciated!
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
My Murderous Rage and the Stolen Ipod
During my years, I have catalogued several ways that make for a bad morning waking up. One is when my mom is in the kitchen banging and clanging pots and pans around as if she’s Emeril Lagasse. Two is if my mom decides to scream at me – when you’re suddenly brought to consciousness by screaming, you automatically panic and go on the defensive and are quite sure that you have done nothing wrong.
But both of those have nothing on someone, no matter how sweet and fluffy their voice is, slipping into your room and saying, “Erin, the garage has been broken into.”
My brother would probably disagree. He would probably say that someone flying into his room in a near-murderous rage and saying, “Kevin, you got my fucking Ipod stolen (This is the third Ipod stolen compliment of Kevin),” is even worse.
Yes, my Ipod was stolen. Call it women’s intuition, but as soon as I heard the garage was broken into, I knew my beloved Ipod that accompanies me to the gym at least six days a week was gone. I threw on my robe (and managed to pull it close), rushed through the house, and pulled open my car door to find my Ipod…gone. I can’t begin to tell you how pissed I was.
I was/am so pissed, that if I caught the person, I would beat them. Yes, it seems severe, to beat someone for an Ipod, but this I my Ipod that I bought with my money, and I’m nowhere close to being a millionaire, even a thousandaire. I work for a non-profit organization and live with my mother.
Had it been an Ipod from Circuit City or Best Buy that got stolen, hey, that’s a thief’s prerogative, but do not steal from a person who drives a 2001 GOLD Saturn. I may not be the religious type, but you can guarantee that IF YOU STOLE MY IPOD I AM PRAYING FOR THE ETERNAL DAMNATION OF YOUR SOUL!
Anyway, I am FUMING, Kevin is shaking his head apologizing because this is really looking like it was his fault, and Andrea is laughing all this up. She can laugh; all she has is a busted Discman, not an Ipod she paid $272.00 for when it came time to add taxes.
Well, she didn’t laugh for long. Kevin went out and checked his car, then came in and told her that her car was unlocked. It was her chance to now berate Kevin until my mom pointed out that her car was left outside and the garage door open or closed would have had no bearing on it.
She quickly changes to blame Hans, her Danish fiancé who is visiting for a few days, then flies out the front door to check her car. Thankfully she has so much shit it in, that the thieves thought it was a lost cause. You see, when you open Andrea’s door, gossip magazines, random shoes, CD cases (the CDs themselves are not inside of them), and other various items fall out onto the ground.
My mother obviously called the cops and we’re thankful for a little thing called Home Owners Insurance which will hopefully get me a brand-spanking new Ipod touch (which could possibly be the silver-lining). Kevin leaves as we’re making the crime report because no one broke into his car. A few minutes later, we receive a call. Kevin has a missing textbook.
“Who steals a textbook?” I wonder aloud.
We’re pondering this because even when I paid $200-300 for a textbook, I was lucky to get $20-25 back from the bookstore when I turned the book in. Wait! Turned the book in…for money…a plan begins to form in my mind and I am suddenly happy that I can fulfill this rage inside of me and possibly beat the criminal to a bloody pulp. All I have to do is stake out the text rental places. We have enough man-power here that we should be able to cover multiple locations, and that little fucker would have no choice but to hand my Ipod over or let me beat him with whatever weapon is handiest (I bet I can find a beer bottle in Andrea’s car…THAT would be great).
Kevin then tells me that the book is something about racism in the media. My heart falls because sitting on a table in the living room is a book titled Racism, Sexism, and the Media the Rise of Class Communication in Multicultural Areas. I ask him if this is the book, and he’s quiet before he admits that yes, it is the book in question. He brought it in Saturday night in a drunken haze to read to Andrea. Apparently he was so drunk he forgot he brought it in. He even forgot the dog tried to hump him…three times. And there go my perfectly laid plans.
My mom suggests shopping after the officer leaves, and I agree. We get on the road and despite the 9-degree temperature, the sun is brutal and I pull out my Yves Saint Laurent sunglasses. And I flip. I had a pair of Versace glasses in my car. If my Ipod AND my Versace’s are gone SOMEONE is dead. I don’t care if I have to attack the paperboy, someone knows something and I am going to beat someone to get my now $400 worth of merchandise back.
All throughout the mall, the organic pet store, Sam’s, and the best little chocolate store, I am worrying about my sunglasses – the small amount of luxury I can afford to indulge myself with - that someone has now relieved me of. I find it hard to be sympathetic to the unemployed’s plight when I held two and at a time three jobs simultaneously. Yeah, it sucked to work so much, but I did it so I could afford to buy myself an Ipod and Versace and YSL sunglasses and not resort to stealing them from poor unsuspecting people who drive gold Saturns.
That is what really gets me. You can tell from my car that I don’t have a lot of money because what person would choose to drive a gold Saturn if they had the money for something better? And why can’t you just prey on those people with their big gas-guzzling SUVs? If they can afford to pump premium into a car that gets 12 mpg on the highway, they can afford to replace their Ipods and Versace sunglasses.
After we’ve wrapped our shopping, I am anxious to get home and check out my car. Of course, people are driving like a bunch of idiots and I suddenly yell at someone who pulls out in front of my mom and then proceeds to drive his monstrous SUV as if there were 2 feet of snow on the ground.
“I hope someone steals your Ipod!” I yell at him from within the car.
My mom looks at me as if I’m crazy and I explain the mania, the murderous rage that is boiling in marrow of my bones because even if I get a new Ipod, I now have to reload all the songs onto it and then redo all of my playlists. And I need certain music at six in the morning to get me through my workout. Sonsabitches!
With frayed nerves, we arrive home. I move the Dick’s Sporting Goods boxes that were in the floorboard and see the little white case sitting under the boxes saying “Versace.” I open them and they are there. So are the cheap ALDO sunglasses in the Valentino box (A faux pair I bought in Chinatown and then broke three months later).
OH MY GOD! Thank god!
And then I remember my blue jacket chilling in the backseat. I wore it when I went Christmas shopping on Saturday and bought stuff for my Nana. She gave me a $100 bill to repay me. I flip now as I grab the jacket and reach into the pocket I was sure it was in. Only…the pocket is empty. My heart dives into my stomach. That was the money I was going to use to buy Rachelle’s present. MOTHER FUCK! In a fit of desperation, I plunge my hand into the other pocket and pull out a ONE-HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL!
I nearly collapse out of jubilation. They may have ripped off my Ipod, but they apparently thought my gold Saturn was too much of a piece of shit to yield any more treasure. Little did they know that under the boxes and down comforter (which was chilling in the backseat as well) there were designer sunglasses and $100 in cash.
Later that day, Kevin and I were driving somewhere and I once again hurled the Ipod insult. He looked at me like I was crazy until I yelled, “Why don’t you go screw your balls,” long dramatic pause, “ON! Because they’re clearly not attached!”
“Wow,” he said.
I gave him a dirty look. “You don’t understand, but this Ipod gone is an insult to me. My workouts are going to be hell now.”
“Don’t you read when you’re on the treadmill?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“So…you do…three things? Run, read, and listen to music?”
“Yes,” is my reply.
“Wow,” he says.
Wow is right.
But both of those have nothing on someone, no matter how sweet and fluffy their voice is, slipping into your room and saying, “Erin, the garage has been broken into.”
My brother would probably disagree. He would probably say that someone flying into his room in a near-murderous rage and saying, “Kevin, you got my fucking Ipod stolen (This is the third Ipod stolen compliment of Kevin),” is even worse.
Yes, my Ipod was stolen. Call it women’s intuition, but as soon as I heard the garage was broken into, I knew my beloved Ipod that accompanies me to the gym at least six days a week was gone. I threw on my robe (and managed to pull it close), rushed through the house, and pulled open my car door to find my Ipod…gone. I can’t begin to tell you how pissed I was.
I was/am so pissed, that if I caught the person, I would beat them. Yes, it seems severe, to beat someone for an Ipod, but this I my Ipod that I bought with my money, and I’m nowhere close to being a millionaire, even a thousandaire. I work for a non-profit organization and live with my mother.
Had it been an Ipod from Circuit City or Best Buy that got stolen, hey, that’s a thief’s prerogative, but do not steal from a person who drives a 2001 GOLD Saturn. I may not be the religious type, but you can guarantee that IF YOU STOLE MY IPOD I AM PRAYING FOR THE ETERNAL DAMNATION OF YOUR SOUL!
Anyway, I am FUMING, Kevin is shaking his head apologizing because this is really looking like it was his fault, and Andrea is laughing all this up. She can laugh; all she has is a busted Discman, not an Ipod she paid $272.00 for when it came time to add taxes.
Well, she didn’t laugh for long. Kevin went out and checked his car, then came in and told her that her car was unlocked. It was her chance to now berate Kevin until my mom pointed out that her car was left outside and the garage door open or closed would have had no bearing on it.
She quickly changes to blame Hans, her Danish fiancé who is visiting for a few days, then flies out the front door to check her car. Thankfully she has so much shit it in, that the thieves thought it was a lost cause. You see, when you open Andrea’s door, gossip magazines, random shoes, CD cases (the CDs themselves are not inside of them), and other various items fall out onto the ground.
My mother obviously called the cops and we’re thankful for a little thing called Home Owners Insurance which will hopefully get me a brand-spanking new Ipod touch (which could possibly be the silver-lining). Kevin leaves as we’re making the crime report because no one broke into his car. A few minutes later, we receive a call. Kevin has a missing textbook.
“Who steals a textbook?” I wonder aloud.
We’re pondering this because even when I paid $200-300 for a textbook, I was lucky to get $20-25 back from the bookstore when I turned the book in. Wait! Turned the book in…for money…a plan begins to form in my mind and I am suddenly happy that I can fulfill this rage inside of me and possibly beat the criminal to a bloody pulp. All I have to do is stake out the text rental places. We have enough man-power here that we should be able to cover multiple locations, and that little fucker would have no choice but to hand my Ipod over or let me beat him with whatever weapon is handiest (I bet I can find a beer bottle in Andrea’s car…THAT would be great).
Kevin then tells me that the book is something about racism in the media. My heart falls because sitting on a table in the living room is a book titled Racism, Sexism, and the Media the Rise of Class Communication in Multicultural Areas. I ask him if this is the book, and he’s quiet before he admits that yes, it is the book in question. He brought it in Saturday night in a drunken haze to read to Andrea. Apparently he was so drunk he forgot he brought it in. He even forgot the dog tried to hump him…three times. And there go my perfectly laid plans.
My mom suggests shopping after the officer leaves, and I agree. We get on the road and despite the 9-degree temperature, the sun is brutal and I pull out my Yves Saint Laurent sunglasses. And I flip. I had a pair of Versace glasses in my car. If my Ipod AND my Versace’s are gone SOMEONE is dead. I don’t care if I have to attack the paperboy, someone knows something and I am going to beat someone to get my now $400 worth of merchandise back.
All throughout the mall, the organic pet store, Sam’s, and the best little chocolate store, I am worrying about my sunglasses – the small amount of luxury I can afford to indulge myself with - that someone has now relieved me of. I find it hard to be sympathetic to the unemployed’s plight when I held two and at a time three jobs simultaneously. Yeah, it sucked to work so much, but I did it so I could afford to buy myself an Ipod and Versace and YSL sunglasses and not resort to stealing them from poor unsuspecting people who drive gold Saturns.
That is what really gets me. You can tell from my car that I don’t have a lot of money because what person would choose to drive a gold Saturn if they had the money for something better? And why can’t you just prey on those people with their big gas-guzzling SUVs? If they can afford to pump premium into a car that gets 12 mpg on the highway, they can afford to replace their Ipods and Versace sunglasses.
After we’ve wrapped our shopping, I am anxious to get home and check out my car. Of course, people are driving like a bunch of idiots and I suddenly yell at someone who pulls out in front of my mom and then proceeds to drive his monstrous SUV as if there were 2 feet of snow on the ground.
“I hope someone steals your Ipod!” I yell at him from within the car.
My mom looks at me as if I’m crazy and I explain the mania, the murderous rage that is boiling in marrow of my bones because even if I get a new Ipod, I now have to reload all the songs onto it and then redo all of my playlists. And I need certain music at six in the morning to get me through my workout. Sonsabitches!
With frayed nerves, we arrive home. I move the Dick’s Sporting Goods boxes that were in the floorboard and see the little white case sitting under the boxes saying “Versace.” I open them and they are there. So are the cheap ALDO sunglasses in the Valentino box (A faux pair I bought in Chinatown and then broke three months later).
OH MY GOD! Thank god!
And then I remember my blue jacket chilling in the backseat. I wore it when I went Christmas shopping on Saturday and bought stuff for my Nana. She gave me a $100 bill to repay me. I flip now as I grab the jacket and reach into the pocket I was sure it was in. Only…the pocket is empty. My heart dives into my stomach. That was the money I was going to use to buy Rachelle’s present. MOTHER FUCK! In a fit of desperation, I plunge my hand into the other pocket and pull out a ONE-HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL!
I nearly collapse out of jubilation. They may have ripped off my Ipod, but they apparently thought my gold Saturn was too much of a piece of shit to yield any more treasure. Little did they know that under the boxes and down comforter (which was chilling in the backseat as well) there were designer sunglasses and $100 in cash.
Later that day, Kevin and I were driving somewhere and I once again hurled the Ipod insult. He looked at me like I was crazy until I yelled, “Why don’t you go screw your balls,” long dramatic pause, “ON! Because they’re clearly not attached!”
“Wow,” he said.
I gave him a dirty look. “You don’t understand, but this Ipod gone is an insult to me. My workouts are going to be hell now.”
“Don’t you read when you’re on the treadmill?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“So…you do…three things? Run, read, and listen to music?”
“Yes,” is my reply.
“Wow,” he says.
Wow is right.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Pointless Poignancy
Really, there is nothing here to report but complete and utter randomness.
First off, this morning, I had a great idea for Andrea's Christmas. In effort to get maximum enjoyment out of this surprise, I'm not going to spill any of the details, but there will be footage recorded.
So, she goes off to her Christmas party, Kevin goes off to a bachelor party and I stayed home recover from babysitting the monsters over night. We had a Christmas party - watching Home Alone, ELF, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, and finally Christmas Vacation. Yeah, long night. And Emily, my 4-year-old cousin...she LOVES Heat Miser and Cold Miser! And I had to sing their songs over and over again that night, then in the morning, and then again when Chris and Melody got home. But anyway, I was recovering and that included watching Charlie's Angels and baking cookies.
So, Andrea comes home and decides she wants to watch Overboard with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. CLASSIC! And then there's the whole "Roy," quote that conjures up memory of Fancy Pants, one of the opposing pitchers who played softball with Kevin.
Then, Kevin calls to be picked up and dropped off at a local bar that is his favorite Saturday haunt. I go and get, unlock the doors and despite all the shit that I haven't had a chance to clear from my car (including the BRAND NEW book stand I bought to take to the gym to read on treadmills with) he sits down on all the shit. I'm flipping just imagine my new stand getting broke. Thankfully, it didn't.
Anyway, Kevin and I are cutting it up, talking about the Christmas "gift" for Andrea and how we can improve it. He then criticizes my music and tells my CDs are stupid and asks me why I bought some for Andrea. Whatever, Kevin, she'll like them. Anyway, we're driving and there's no place to park in front of the bar, so I'm in the process of driving around the block. Kevin flips because he thinks I'm going to make him walk.
Then he stops bitching. Because we turn the corner and see...a...DELOREAN! I remember I have a camera in my purse, so we drive around the block, go past the bar again, and then stop. Kevin takes the camera out and is photographing the car. It is even complete with a front plate that says "McFly." GREATNESS right there. Anyway, we quote a few "Back to the Future" lines and then pull in front of the bar and drop him off, telling him to look for the driver of the car because how awesome would it be ride in a Delorean at 88 mph before you die?!
So I'm driving home and then I see all of these flashing lights ahead. I'm pretty pissed b/c I'm on the highway and I'm thinking this a sobriety check and wondering how fucking long it is going to take to get through this. It wasn't! Five city police cars and one sheriff were pulled over to the side of the road. A man was bent over the back end of one of the cars w/ a gun to his neck! CRAZINESS! And exciting. Like, we have people in this town who the cops pull guns on. LOVE IT!
First off, this morning, I had a great idea for Andrea's Christmas. In effort to get maximum enjoyment out of this surprise, I'm not going to spill any of the details, but there will be footage recorded.
So, she goes off to her Christmas party, Kevin goes off to a bachelor party and I stayed home recover from babysitting the monsters over night. We had a Christmas party - watching Home Alone, ELF, The Year Without a Santa Claus, Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, and finally Christmas Vacation. Yeah, long night. And Emily, my 4-year-old cousin...she LOVES Heat Miser and Cold Miser! And I had to sing their songs over and over again that night, then in the morning, and then again when Chris and Melody got home. But anyway, I was recovering and that included watching Charlie's Angels and baking cookies.
So, Andrea comes home and decides she wants to watch Overboard with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. CLASSIC! And then there's the whole "Roy," quote that conjures up memory of Fancy Pants, one of the opposing pitchers who played softball with Kevin.
Then, Kevin calls to be picked up and dropped off at a local bar that is his favorite Saturday haunt. I go and get, unlock the doors and despite all the shit that I haven't had a chance to clear from my car (including the BRAND NEW book stand I bought to take to the gym to read on treadmills with) he sits down on all the shit. I'm flipping just imagine my new stand getting broke. Thankfully, it didn't.
Anyway, Kevin and I are cutting it up, talking about the Christmas "gift" for Andrea and how we can improve it. He then criticizes my music and tells my CDs are stupid and asks me why I bought some for Andrea. Whatever, Kevin, she'll like them. Anyway, we're driving and there's no place to park in front of the bar, so I'm in the process of driving around the block. Kevin flips because he thinks I'm going to make him walk.
Then he stops bitching. Because we turn the corner and see...a...DELOREAN! I remember I have a camera in my purse, so we drive around the block, go past the bar again, and then stop. Kevin takes the camera out and is photographing the car. It is even complete with a front plate that says "McFly." GREATNESS right there. Anyway, we quote a few "Back to the Future" lines and then pull in front of the bar and drop him off, telling him to look for the driver of the car because how awesome would it be ride in a Delorean at 88 mph before you die?!
So I'm driving home and then I see all of these flashing lights ahead. I'm pretty pissed b/c I'm on the highway and I'm thinking this a sobriety check and wondering how fucking long it is going to take to get through this. It wasn't! Five city police cars and one sheriff were pulled over to the side of the road. A man was bent over the back end of one of the cars w/ a gun to his neck! CRAZINESS! And exciting. Like, we have people in this town who the cops pull guns on. LOVE IT!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Plans for My Funeral - Not that I Plan on Dying Soon, but I Believe in Being Prepared.
Last night we watched the Two and a Half Men. The episode was about a person’s morality and Charlie fantasized about his funeral and how he would like James Earl Jones to eulogize at the service. Of course, this led to Andrea and me discussing our own funerals. She would like an open bar at hers and for people to be as drunk as possible. No one gets away sober. I should’ve asked if the limo would be taxiing drunk party guests to their residences, but I was multitasking and thinking of my own funeral.
So during the multitasking of listening to my sister and watching TV, I was IMing my friend Henry and lamenting on my desire for a life as mystic, a life that would be lived in a yurt (I am still nursing my middle school crush on Ghengis Khan) in Wyoming under the name of Soleil Borealis. I would live off the grid, and Erin would be a lost number in a sea of social (in)security.
Henry’s comment was to tell me I was insane and to stay away from the peyote.
Anyway, Andrea asked me about my funeral and that’s when I told her about my plans, or what I now come to think of as Plan A, or the rough draft.
Plan A: It will be in a yurt. She will “eugoogalize,” then grab my urn and say “Oh my god, it’s empty!” Of course, people will start whispering then and turning and looking, wonder what in the hell is going on. Andrea will say, “Pysche! (And yes, she will say “psyche’) I scattered the bitch’s ashes this morning,” a pause as she gets mysterious and then says, “Or did I?” More whispering and curious looks from those in attendance and then she says, “I’m just kidding, she’s still in here. We’re nowhere to close to the ocean and I can’t have her estate until I dump her over the Dry Tortugas .”
But then came another glorious idea…an idea that is known as Plan B.
Plan B: We’re still in the yurt. My remains are encased in an unknown urn underneath a red fabric. Andrea starts talking and refers to me only once as Erin. I will from then on be referred to as Soleil Borealis, my inner mystic. She says all the necessary words said during a eulogy, she just calls me Soleil. So, picks up the urn. Now this is where it gets trick, so I’m going to script it.
Andrea: (Pulls the red fabric off revealing a hideously ugly Patriots urn). Oh my god! My sister…in a…Patriots urn! (Andrea in a fit of rage picks up the urn to smash it into piece on the floor of the yurt. She lifts it over her head, then gets a curious look on her face). Oh my god, I don’t think she’s in here. (She shakes it around) She is not in here. Oh my god, where is my sister.
(The crowd begins to murmur).
Andrea calls for the undertaker. A person emerges. This person will be Person A.
Person A: There seems to be a mix-up with your sister’s remains.
Andrea: A mix-up?
Person A: She is at another funeral. The urns…there was a problem.
Andrea: Where is my sister?! (The people in the crowd are quiet, pretending not to hear while secretly trying to hear all)
Person A: We’re not sure.
Andrea: (Pissed off) What!
Person A: We’re looking.
Andrea: Find my sister!
Another person emerges into the yurt. They are holding a different urn, a very tasteful urn, an urn that is looks like it could’ve been designed by Karl Lagerfield himself. People are admiring the pretty urn. Andrea grabs it and clutches the crimson and cream colored urn to her chest.
Person A: (Handing her the urn and laughing) PSYCHE! It was the ‘ole switcheroo, the what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Person B: (A random person in the audience) What is a gander?
Person A: A goose that’s had the ‘ole switcheroo pulled on them.
Andrea: (More upset over the current exchange and the fact that she had the “switcheroo” pull on her, her face is flaming and she stomps her foot). PSYCHE! PSYCHE? Seriously? PSYCHE!
Person A: It was all a joke.
Andrea: A joke! This is a joke (Andrea then a pulls a beer bottle out from somewhere and bashes it over the person’s head. Now she can finally die in piece having bashed someone over the head with a beer bottle. With that done, she proceeds to dance a “jig.”)
The funeral then proceeds and at the end, everyone adjourns and goes to the bar which is only serving Stoli’s vodka and extremely strong Long Islands . Everyone will do at least one shot of red-headed slut before heading home and contemplating life as a mystic.
Of course, this is still a work in progress, but it’s the start of a plan, nonetheless! And I really like this theme of “my body not there but it is there because its all a joke.” I mean seriously! THAT is funny! If I was at that funeral, I would LAUGH, laugh, laugh! And then tell all my friends about it! Which is kind of what I’m going for. I mean, if I’m leaving this world, I want people to talk! I want people to see each other in the streets and say “Man, that was some funeral. When can we do that again!”
P.S. I know funerals are not laughing matters, that death is a serious thing, but I would like my final moment on earth to be done as I have lived my life – a very random act that is worthy of retelling.
So during the multitasking of listening to my sister and watching TV, I was IMing my friend Henry and lamenting on my desire for a life as mystic, a life that would be lived in a yurt (I am still nursing my middle school crush on Ghengis Khan) in Wyoming under the name of Soleil Borealis. I would live off the grid, and Erin would be a lost number in a sea of social (in)security.
Henry’s comment was to tell me I was insane and to stay away from the peyote.
Anyway, Andrea asked me about my funeral and that’s when I told her about my plans, or what I now come to think of as Plan A, or the rough draft.
Plan A: It will be in a yurt. She will “eugoogalize,” then grab my urn and say “Oh my god, it’s empty!” Of course, people will start whispering then and turning and looking, wonder what in the hell is going on. Andrea will say, “Pysche! (And yes, she will say “psyche’) I scattered the bitch’s ashes this morning,” a pause as she gets mysterious and then says, “Or did I?” More whispering and curious looks from those in attendance and then she says, “I’m just kidding, she’s still in here. We’re nowhere to close to the ocean and I can’t have her estate until I dump her over the Dry Tortugas .”
But then came another glorious idea…an idea that is known as Plan B.
Plan B: We’re still in the yurt. My remains are encased in an unknown urn underneath a red fabric. Andrea starts talking and refers to me only once as Erin. I will from then on be referred to as Soleil Borealis, my inner mystic. She says all the necessary words said during a eulogy, she just calls me Soleil. So, picks up the urn. Now this is where it gets trick, so I’m going to script it.
Andrea: (Pulls the red fabric off revealing a hideously ugly Patriots urn). Oh my god! My sister…in a…Patriots urn! (Andrea in a fit of rage picks up the urn to smash it into piece on the floor of the yurt. She lifts it over her head, then gets a curious look on her face). Oh my god, I don’t think she’s in here. (She shakes it around) She is not in here. Oh my god, where is my sister.
(The crowd begins to murmur).
Andrea calls for the undertaker. A person emerges. This person will be Person A.
Person A: There seems to be a mix-up with your sister’s remains.
Andrea: A mix-up?
Person A: She is at another funeral. The urns…there was a problem.
Andrea: Where is my sister?! (The people in the crowd are quiet, pretending not to hear while secretly trying to hear all)
Person A: We’re not sure.
Andrea: (Pissed off) What!
Person A: We’re looking.
Andrea: Find my sister!
Another person emerges into the yurt. They are holding a different urn, a very tasteful urn, an urn that is looks like it could’ve been designed by Karl Lagerfield himself. People are admiring the pretty urn. Andrea grabs it and clutches the crimson and cream colored urn to her chest.
Person A: (Handing her the urn and laughing) PSYCHE! It was the ‘ole switcheroo, the what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Person B: (A random person in the audience) What is a gander?
Person A: A goose that’s had the ‘ole switcheroo pulled on them.
Andrea: (More upset over the current exchange and the fact that she had the “switcheroo” pull on her, her face is flaming and she stomps her foot). PSYCHE! PSYCHE? Seriously? PSYCHE!
Person A: It was all a joke.
Andrea: A joke! This is a joke (Andrea then a pulls a beer bottle out from somewhere and bashes it over the person’s head. Now she can finally die in piece having bashed someone over the head with a beer bottle. With that done, she proceeds to dance a “jig.”)
The funeral then proceeds and at the end, everyone adjourns and goes to the bar which is only serving Stoli’s vodka and extremely strong Long Islands . Everyone will do at least one shot of red-headed slut before heading home and contemplating life as a mystic.
Of course, this is still a work in progress, but it’s the start of a plan, nonetheless! And I really like this theme of “my body not there but it is there because its all a joke.” I mean seriously! THAT is funny! If I was at that funeral, I would LAUGH, laugh, laugh! And then tell all my friends about it! Which is kind of what I’m going for. I mean, if I’m leaving this world, I want people to talk! I want people to see each other in the streets and say “Man, that was some funeral. When can we do that again!”
P.S. I know funerals are not laughing matters, that death is a serious thing, but I would like my final moment on earth to be done as I have lived my life – a very random act that is worthy of retelling.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Things I Don't Understand Part 2: Super Glueing Your Hands
Now, with that little rant out of the way, I have another situation that is beyond my range of comprehension and it all starts with the weather.
I understand that not even the weatherman truly understand the weather. As much as I’d like to think Jim Cantori is a just a weather-telling machine, I do realize he is wrong every now and then…especially when I see him standing outside on a beach when 80 mph hurricane winds are whipping the Florida coast and suddenly a tree branch barrels into him. Knowing that Super Weather-Forecasting Man Cantori can’t accurately predict or understand the weather makes me completely lose hope in ever predicting the weather for myself. I simply try to prepare.
Take today for example. We were supposed to get a half an inch in ice by noon. Knowing my sister was leaving after me and that the temperature was under freezing, I took the initiative and pulled my sister’s car in the garage. Any ice that had formed or was forming on her windshield then melted before she left for work! Preparation!
I like to be prepared. And if you know me, you’re not surprised because I’m one of those planner-types. I carry 3 different calendars with me for work appointments, personal appointments (family, gymnastics, friends), and one that shows me what I’m doing every day (personal and work). So, being prepared isn’t anything new for me. But let’s get back on track….
I woke up today knowing I had a Holiday recruitment party for work. I had previously made flyers that were distributed at three elementary schools before I took a week long vacation. I knew that today I had to go buy supplies for an activity, a video to watch, and snacks.
I came into the office with this game plan ready and answered emails and phone calls, set in on our weekly Monday meeting and did all that jazz then got my things together and went shopping at Michael’s and Walmart for crafts and food.
I get lunch and then come back and sit at my desk to see what these crafts are all about (Ok, maybe to make one for myself) and break out the brand new tube of super glue I just bought. I use the end to pierce the metal stopper and you would’ve thought I’d have just squeezed a huge, giant-sized pimple because all of a sudden, super glue was everywhere! It even dripped onto the ‘T’ and ‘G’ keys.
There is super glue all over my fingers. Seriously, there is super glue on 100% of my digits! Yes, that’s right. ALL of my fingers! So, I go into the kitchen at work, get the dish scrubby and SCRUB, literal SCRUB the fuck out of my fingers. Most of the glue is gone from my thumbs and my pointer fingers, the digits that really did not do well encrusted with super glue. So, while one person can’t allot me .0012% of his time, I have to dedicate like an entire hour (4.1%) of my time to SCRUBBING and picking, and peeling my fingers, 100% of which are covered in some minute way with super glue. So, as I’m picking and peeling, I get a telephone call.
“Oh, Hello,” I said meanwhile picking at my glue-smothered fingers.
“Hi, this is Mrs. Brown from the elementary.” The school were I am supposed to have my party at tonight.
“Hi, Mrs. Brown,” I say and keep picking. I am pretty much 100% focused on picking the glue off my hands and not paying any attention to what she has to say.
“We are canceling the program for tonight,” she tells me.
Canceling. That’s a very halting word and I suddenly stop picking at my fingers. “No, we haven’t decided to cancel it,” I said thinking that surely I have heard wrong and that I did not just brave Michael’s and Walmart, YES Walmart a mere TEN DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, for a program to be canceled and then get super glue on fingers.
“We’re going to cancel it,” she says.
Some other words are exchanged, but they are pretty much inconsequential to the fact that I went shopping and smeared my hands with super glue for no apparent reason. So, it is now official. I hate my life. Oh! And my ‘T’ and ‘G’ keys are way too disgusting for words.
I understand that not even the weatherman truly understand the weather. As much as I’d like to think Jim Cantori is a just a weather-telling machine, I do realize he is wrong every now and then…especially when I see him standing outside on a beach when 80 mph hurricane winds are whipping the Florida coast and suddenly a tree branch barrels into him. Knowing that Super Weather-Forecasting Man Cantori can’t accurately predict or understand the weather makes me completely lose hope in ever predicting the weather for myself. I simply try to prepare.
Take today for example. We were supposed to get a half an inch in ice by noon. Knowing my sister was leaving after me and that the temperature was under freezing, I took the initiative and pulled my sister’s car in the garage. Any ice that had formed or was forming on her windshield then melted before she left for work! Preparation!
I like to be prepared. And if you know me, you’re not surprised because I’m one of those planner-types. I carry 3 different calendars with me for work appointments, personal appointments (family, gymnastics, friends), and one that shows me what I’m doing every day (personal and work). So, being prepared isn’t anything new for me. But let’s get back on track….
I woke up today knowing I had a Holiday recruitment party for work. I had previously made flyers that were distributed at three elementary schools before I took a week long vacation. I knew that today I had to go buy supplies for an activity, a video to watch, and snacks.
I came into the office with this game plan ready and answered emails and phone calls, set in on our weekly Monday meeting and did all that jazz then got my things together and went shopping at Michael’s and Walmart for crafts and food.
I get lunch and then come back and sit at my desk to see what these crafts are all about (Ok, maybe to make one for myself) and break out the brand new tube of super glue I just bought. I use the end to pierce the metal stopper and you would’ve thought I’d have just squeezed a huge, giant-sized pimple because all of a sudden, super glue was everywhere! It even dripped onto the ‘T’ and ‘G’ keys.
There is super glue all over my fingers. Seriously, there is super glue on 100% of my digits! Yes, that’s right. ALL of my fingers! So, I go into the kitchen at work, get the dish scrubby and SCRUB, literal SCRUB the fuck out of my fingers. Most of the glue is gone from my thumbs and my pointer fingers, the digits that really did not do well encrusted with super glue. So, while one person can’t allot me .0012% of his time, I have to dedicate like an entire hour (4.1%) of my time to SCRUBBING and picking, and peeling my fingers, 100% of which are covered in some minute way with super glue. So, as I’m picking and peeling, I get a telephone call.
“Oh, Hello,” I said meanwhile picking at my glue-smothered fingers.
“Hi, this is Mrs. Brown from the elementary.” The school were I am supposed to have my party at tonight.
“Hi, Mrs. Brown,” I say and keep picking. I am pretty much 100% focused on picking the glue off my hands and not paying any attention to what she has to say.
“We are canceling the program for tonight,” she tells me.
Canceling. That’s a very halting word and I suddenly stop picking at my fingers. “No, we haven’t decided to cancel it,” I said thinking that surely I have heard wrong and that I did not just brave Michael’s and Walmart, YES Walmart a mere TEN DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, for a program to be canceled and then get super glue on fingers.
“We’re going to cancel it,” she says.
Some other words are exchanged, but they are pretty much inconsequential to the fact that I went shopping and smeared my hands with super glue for no apparent reason. So, it is now official. I hate my life. Oh! And my ‘T’ and ‘G’ keys are way too disgusting for words.
Things I Don't Understand: .0012% of Your Time
This Holiday season, I am thankful for things I comprehend. People like my sister. Though her motivations don’t always parallel mine, I can count on her. Christmas deer I comprehend. They are easy for people to display and even easier for me to rearrange. And come on, children are going to learn about the birds and bees somehow, might as well start telling them early so they can be properly prepared and SAFE! Teenage pregnancy is a very selfish thing and I’m not even going to get started on that.
Shopping is easily comprehended. I pick out something for my friends and family (or me), hand over the plastic to the store clerk who scans the card and the credit card company then sends me pieces of paper in the mail that is called a bill. Something I can choose to pay all at once or in increments. Sales are even easier to comprehend and if I think I’m getting a bargain (and moving the decimal one place to the right equals ten percent, then you multiply as need be for twenty, thirty, and forty percent) I will shop the hell out of that sale!
My dogs, nothing is easier for me to understand than my dogs whose number one motivation in life is food. My dog is severely loyal to me until food comes into the picture. Then his loyalty lies with whoever has the food. The one thing about the dog that I cannot understand is his constant obsession with food. He’s never been starved! He eats twice a day, a nice meaty organic dog food that was free from the Chinese tainted dog food crisis, and gets treats, again organic, from whomever he can con at the time. The only other thing to understand is his constant need for attention which can easily be helped by petting, cooing and making sure he understands that he is beautiful, smart, an angel, mommy’s baby, precious, and the best thing that has ever happened to me. Yes, he is high maintenance, but I understand it and I give it to him.
I understand sports. I understand that Chicago will not win the World Series no matter how good their season, that Tony Romo will ultimately choke because of his current girlfriend, that T.O. will run his mouth, that some countries will knowingly cheat to get Olympic gold, that no one can touch Michael Phelps in the butterfly events, that Madonna has a penchant for young athletes, that steroids will never fully be out of sports, that the BCS stands of Bunch of Crap and Shit because no one understands it, that Cubans’ birth certificates are never right, that IU will be terrible this year at both football (same story) and basketball (thanks Sampson), but we can hope that next year the basketball team will start to turn around. I understand this stuff.
I understand that work is not fun. That if it was fun, it would not be called work. I understand that there are some people who will never see things your way no matter how you try to change their minds. It’s called an opinion, and an opinion is like an asshole…everyone is one…I mean, everyone has one.
But what I do not understand are some people!
I consider myself a fairly low-maintenance kind of chick.
Anyway, I’m busy and have been the target of a couple of speeches that have placed me in the position of being way too busy. So, when I start hanging out with people busier than me, I try to cut a little slack. And I don’t ask for 100% of a person’s time. I’d never get any work done, never have any time for me, and probably end up killing them which would lead to life in jail and then the positive of having quite a bit of time for me but the negative of being around either butch women or addicts. What I’m trying to say is that you don’t have to call me everyday, you don’t have to text me every day, or email me everyday, but it would be nice to know that every now and then I’m being thought.
As long as I know I’m being thought about, I’m good. We don’t need to go out on the weekend. You can have fun with your friends; I’ll have fun with my friends. Maybe we’ll mount some deer, maybe we’ll see some movies, maybe we’ll get drunk and pretend we’re reality TV stars with my camera. Who knows! All I ask for is one text message every now and then! And I’ve done the math. If someone spent ten seconds out of the 86,400 seconds in a day sending me a text message asking me how I was that would use up .0012% of their time during the course of a day! That is one-point-two ONE THOUSANDTHS of time during the day! That is what it takes for me to stay happy! I then would know that someone had thought about me because they spent one ONE THOUSANDTH of their day to ask how I was! That it may have been fleetingly, but someone had cared enough to check.
Seriously, I get that a person is busy. I’m busy! I have weeks where I work over 60 hours and still get paid like I’m working 40 hours and I still don’t have health benefits! I work Saturdays, Sundays sometimes, I know about being busy. I know that when I’m swamped and trying to get things out, the last thing I think about doing is getting in touch with one of my friends. However, if friends e-mail my work address, I will get back with them. It’s not that I’m trying to keep out of touch, I’m just busy.
So in someone’s down time, when a person knows my cell, knows my e-mail, and can message me on Facebook, what would hold a person back from saying “Hi, how are you today?” Probably because they think I’m a dork. And they would be correct. But, tell me what it is. Is it my curly hair? Well, that’s the perils of hanging out with me. It’s not like I can hide the fact that my hair is big enough to house a Volkswagon. Is it because I’m a dork? Well, then good riddance! Can I quote too many movies? Sorry, but that’s apart of me and my randomness. But had I known these things, I probably could’ve guessed things weren’t going to work out and just would have let them disintegrate on their own.
Anyway, I’m now done trying to make things work. I don’t care anymore. I’ll be a bitch like everyone else, and say “Screw the World,” while disregarding well-meaning texts from people I deem less than worthy and only reply to those texts that are inside jokes like when Andrea sends me one that says “…Missing,” or when Jada sends one that says “Four for you Glen Cocoa! You go Glen Cocoa!” Only those people will get the replies back.
*Oh yes, Rachie, I’m not forgetting you because I’ll know you’ll have a BF! “A what? A bitch fit!”
*Kevin, you’re also on the list too. Especially if you quote Silence of the Lambs.
Now, can someone please tell me if I’m being unreasonable. Am I unknowingly a high-maintenance person? I’d like to know. Any remarks? Anyone?
Shopping is easily comprehended. I pick out something for my friends and family (or me), hand over the plastic to the store clerk who scans the card and the credit card company then sends me pieces of paper in the mail that is called a bill. Something I can choose to pay all at once or in increments. Sales are even easier to comprehend and if I think I’m getting a bargain (and moving the decimal one place to the right equals ten percent, then you multiply as need be for twenty, thirty, and forty percent) I will shop the hell out of that sale!
My dogs, nothing is easier for me to understand than my dogs whose number one motivation in life is food. My dog is severely loyal to me until food comes into the picture. Then his loyalty lies with whoever has the food. The one thing about the dog that I cannot understand is his constant obsession with food. He’s never been starved! He eats twice a day, a nice meaty organic dog food that was free from the Chinese tainted dog food crisis, and gets treats, again organic, from whomever he can con at the time. The only other thing to understand is his constant need for attention which can easily be helped by petting, cooing and making sure he understands that he is beautiful, smart, an angel, mommy’s baby, precious, and the best thing that has ever happened to me. Yes, he is high maintenance, but I understand it and I give it to him.
I understand sports. I understand that Chicago will not win the World Series no matter how good their season, that Tony Romo will ultimately choke because of his current girlfriend, that T.O. will run his mouth, that some countries will knowingly cheat to get Olympic gold, that no one can touch Michael Phelps in the butterfly events, that Madonna has a penchant for young athletes, that steroids will never fully be out of sports, that the BCS stands of Bunch of Crap and Shit because no one understands it, that Cubans’ birth certificates are never right, that IU will be terrible this year at both football (same story) and basketball (thanks Sampson), but we can hope that next year the basketball team will start to turn around. I understand this stuff.
I understand that work is not fun. That if it was fun, it would not be called work. I understand that there are some people who will never see things your way no matter how you try to change their minds. It’s called an opinion, and an opinion is like an asshole…everyone is one…I mean, everyone has one.
But what I do not understand are some people!
I consider myself a fairly low-maintenance kind of chick.
Anyway, I’m busy and have been the target of a couple of speeches that have placed me in the position of being way too busy. So, when I start hanging out with people busier than me, I try to cut a little slack. And I don’t ask for 100% of a person’s time. I’d never get any work done, never have any time for me, and probably end up killing them which would lead to life in jail and then the positive of having quite a bit of time for me but the negative of being around either butch women or addicts. What I’m trying to say is that you don’t have to call me everyday, you don’t have to text me every day, or email me everyday, but it would be nice to know that every now and then I’m being thought.
As long as I know I’m being thought about, I’m good. We don’t need to go out on the weekend. You can have fun with your friends; I’ll have fun with my friends. Maybe we’ll mount some deer, maybe we’ll see some movies, maybe we’ll get drunk and pretend we’re reality TV stars with my camera. Who knows! All I ask for is one text message every now and then! And I’ve done the math. If someone spent ten seconds out of the 86,400 seconds in a day sending me a text message asking me how I was that would use up .0012% of their time during the course of a day! That is one-point-two ONE THOUSANDTHS of time during the day! That is what it takes for me to stay happy! I then would know that someone had thought about me because they spent one ONE THOUSANDTH of their day to ask how I was! That it may have been fleetingly, but someone had cared enough to check.
Seriously, I get that a person is busy. I’m busy! I have weeks where I work over 60 hours and still get paid like I’m working 40 hours and I still don’t have health benefits! I work Saturdays, Sundays sometimes, I know about being busy. I know that when I’m swamped and trying to get things out, the last thing I think about doing is getting in touch with one of my friends. However, if friends e-mail my work address, I will get back with them. It’s not that I’m trying to keep out of touch, I’m just busy.
So in someone’s down time, when a person knows my cell, knows my e-mail, and can message me on Facebook, what would hold a person back from saying “Hi, how are you today?” Probably because they think I’m a dork. And they would be correct. But, tell me what it is. Is it my curly hair? Well, that’s the perils of hanging out with me. It’s not like I can hide the fact that my hair is big enough to house a Volkswagon. Is it because I’m a dork? Well, then good riddance! Can I quote too many movies? Sorry, but that’s apart of me and my randomness. But had I known these things, I probably could’ve guessed things weren’t going to work out and just would have let them disintegrate on their own.
Anyway, I’m now done trying to make things work. I don’t care anymore. I’ll be a bitch like everyone else, and say “Screw the World,” while disregarding well-meaning texts from people I deem less than worthy and only reply to those texts that are inside jokes like when Andrea sends me one that says “…Missing,” or when Jada sends one that says “Four for you Glen Cocoa! You go Glen Cocoa!” Only those people will get the replies back.
*Oh yes, Rachie, I’m not forgetting you because I’ll know you’ll have a BF! “A what? A bitch fit!”
*Kevin, you’re also on the list too. Especially if you quote Silence of the Lambs.
Now, can someone please tell me if I’m being unreasonable. Am I unknowingly a high-maintenance person? I’d like to know. Any remarks? Anyone?
Monday, December 8, 2008
Great Convos
The Dark Knight Commentary Part 1
Erin: So, guess what we’ll get to watch tomorrow night.
Andrea: Not 90210*
Erin: (Dramatic pause) Wanna see a magic trick?
Andrea: Oh! Dark Knight! Hey, guess what. Cory’s boyfriend is going to Wal-Mart at midnight to get The Dark Knight.
Erin: (Pausing as I think this over) Oh! That’s a good idea! I should do that.
Andrea: (Shocked) So…you’re going to Wal-Mart at midnight to buy The Dark Knight?
Erin: Well, why not. What else am I going to do? I’m on vacation this week, I might as well. That way when someone asks me what I did on my vacation, I can say: I went to Wal-Mart at midnight and bought The Dark Knight.
Andrea: Wow. I thought you were going to laugh about it with me. We would laugh at that.
Erin: That’s a good idea though! You can’t tell me that you won’t stay up to watch it as soon as I get home.
Andrea: Well, okay, yeah I’ll watch it.
10 minutes later
Andrea: I can’t believe you thought that was a good idea. I so thought you would laugh at that and we could make fun of it together.
Erin: I don’t think you wanted to make fun of it. I think deep down, you also thought it was good idea, and that you had to tell me to see what I would say, to see if I would agree with you that it was a good idea so you would know that you weren’t ridiculous.
Andrea: That’s probably true.
1 hour later
Andrea: I’ll go with you tonight. If you want me too.
Erin: That’s fine. It’s not a big deal to me.
Andrea: I’m just saying…that…if I’m still awake…I’ll go with you.
Erin: All right then. That sounds good.
*She’s still bitter because it isn’t new until January
Dark Knight Commentary Part 2 (While watching the end of Sarah Chronicles)
Erin: So, all the terminators that come back, they have a mission, but there is an overriding mission - if they find John Conner or Sarah Conner.
Andrea: They're making a Judgment Series movie, right?
Erin: Yeah. Batman will be John Conner.
Andrea: Christian Bale?
Erin: Yep, he's come a long way since his paper selling days (i.e. The Newsies, for those of you NOT in the know)
Andrea: Papes, Erin. He sold "papes."
Erin: So, guess what we’ll get to watch tomorrow night.
Andrea: Not 90210*
Erin: (Dramatic pause) Wanna see a magic trick?
Andrea: Oh! Dark Knight! Hey, guess what. Cory’s boyfriend is going to Wal-Mart at midnight to get The Dark Knight.
Erin: (Pausing as I think this over) Oh! That’s a good idea! I should do that.
Andrea: (Shocked) So…you’re going to Wal-Mart at midnight to buy The Dark Knight?
Erin: Well, why not. What else am I going to do? I’m on vacation this week, I might as well. That way when someone asks me what I did on my vacation, I can say: I went to Wal-Mart at midnight and bought The Dark Knight.
Andrea: Wow. I thought you were going to laugh about it with me. We would laugh at that.
Erin: That’s a good idea though! You can’t tell me that you won’t stay up to watch it as soon as I get home.
Andrea: Well, okay, yeah I’ll watch it.
10 minutes later
Andrea: I can’t believe you thought that was a good idea. I so thought you would laugh at that and we could make fun of it together.
Erin: I don’t think you wanted to make fun of it. I think deep down, you also thought it was good idea, and that you had to tell me to see what I would say, to see if I would agree with you that it was a good idea so you would know that you weren’t ridiculous.
Andrea: That’s probably true.
1 hour later
Andrea: I’ll go with you tonight. If you want me too.
Erin: That’s fine. It’s not a big deal to me.
Andrea: I’m just saying…that…if I’m still awake…I’ll go with you.
Erin: All right then. That sounds good.
*She’s still bitter because it isn’t new until January
Dark Knight Commentary Part 2 (While watching the end of Sarah Chronicles)
Erin: So, all the terminators that come back, they have a mission, but there is an overriding mission - if they find John Conner or Sarah Conner.
Andrea: They're making a Judgment Series movie, right?
Erin: Yeah. Batman will be John Conner.
Andrea: Christian Bale?
Erin: Yep, he's come a long way since his paper selling days (i.e. The Newsies, for those of you NOT in the know)
Andrea: Papes, Erin. He sold "papes."
Friday, October 31, 2008
You got SMOKED by a Dude in a Chick Car
My little brother never fails to disappoint in giving us a good story(1). Whether he’s falling out of the bed, jumping an eight-foot privacy fence, or dancing to Wild Horses, he’s entertaining. But he’s really made it hard to top himself the night of the “Chick Car” slash “Michael Phelps is a Great Olympid” night.
Andrea got a call at 4:00 a.m. in the morning from an inebriate LB. He had parked at a friend’s house and she hadn’t been there, so she came into my room to ask me directions. I sleepily grumbled them to her and went back to sleep. This is a recount of what I heard when in the morning:
“So I go to pick Kevin up, and he all comes up to the car and is like, ‘hey, why don’t you follow me home.’ I’m like ‘No. No, Kevin. Get in the car.’ ‘Ok,” he says. So he gets in. I look at the time and I see it is four, so I say, ‘Hey Kevin, if you would’ve waited an hour, we could have fresh Donut Bank donuts(2).’ ‘Well, let’s go, let’s go then,’ Kevin tells me.
“’I’m like no.’ So we’re driving and we pass a car and the car flashes his lights at me cause because I forgot to dim lights. Kevin starts saying ‘What the fuck man! What the fuck! I’ll fucking get out of this car and smoke you! I may be driving a chick car, but I’ll smoke you in your face. You’ll go home and you’re wife’ll say: Oh, what happened to your face? And he’ll all be like: I got smoke by some dude in a chick car!’
“So, I’m all cracking up about this, and then we pull onto the road and Kevin leans over and starts hitting my sun visor. I say, ‘Hey! Stop that!’ And Kevin says ‘Why are you moving my shit,’ And I’m all like ‘Hello! You’re in my car!”
Anyway, the two of them troupe into the house. Kevin goes into my room, finds me fast asleep and proceeds to jump on me and hunch me(3)
I wake up and I hear “I love the Olympiad. This is the greatest Olympiad. Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympid,” he says and starts going on and on. And somehow he gets sidetracked and starts talking about softball and how he’s a softball machine and people in Denmark cannot match his skill. This leads into his story of Kevin Johnson.
“Kevin Johnson is the greatest softball player that ever lived,” he starts saying.. “Kevin Johnson could beat Denmark by himself!” He keeps on about Kevin Johnson. “People in Denmark are scared of Kevin Johnson.”
“Why?” I ask.
He looks at me and then says, “Because he cuts their bushes…he cuts their bushes into penises! At night when the Danish people go to sleep, he cuts their bushes into penises and then the Danish people come out of their homes and get scared because Kevin Johnson is like Mother-fucking Edward Scissorhands. Kevin Scissorhands, I mean Kevin Johnson is fucking amazing. He cuts all them bushes at night.”
“So, he’s like Santa Claus.”
“He’s mother-fucking better than Santa Claus. Santa Claus only visits Christians and good kids, Kevin Claus(4) cuts everyone’s bushes, everyone in the world.
Of course, this gets a good laugh out of my sister and me and then we decide to bundle Kevin into bed. We escort him into his bedroom across the hall, but before we get him into bed, Andrea goes to laptop and plays a song – Wild Horses. For those of you who don’t know or have forgotten, this is the song that Buffalo Bill listens to in Silence of the Lambs. One morning(5) Kevin got up to find Andrea and me watching the movie. If just so happened that it was the scene where Buffalo Bill is dressing in the skin, dancing and asking who’d “fuck me(6).” Kevin comes through and heads on into the kitchen, then turns and begins dancing like B. Bill to that song. Andrea and I dissolved into laughter and often try to get him to reenact that scene. He responds much better to our goading while under the influence and began dancing around saying “Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me. I’d fuck me hard,” and then he mimics(7) the tuck back. Andrea and Ican’t stop laughing and Kevin starts singing along to the song.
This night is best recalled by my sister who I caught on video talking about Kevin Johnson and scissorhands’ ways. Anyway, she relayed the story onto my Aunt and Uncle, Chris and Melody, who love this kind of drunken debauchery.
So, about two months later at my mother’s 50th Birthday party, Chris approaches my brother.
“It’s damndest thing,” he says. “Well,” he says when Kevin asks what, “I woke up one morning awhile back and someone cut all my damn bushes.”
“Yeah,” Kevin asks a smile creeping into his voice.
“Yeah,” Chris says, “And not only that, but someone cut them all into the shape of penises.”
“Really,” asks Kevin and then he bursts out laughing.
So beware of Kevin Johnson and his hedge trimmers. The penis-shaped bushes might belong to you.
1. Especially if he’s intoxicated.
2. The BEST donuts in the WORLD!
3. Nothing incestual here, I am under an extremely thick down comforter.
4. I can only assume he meant Johnson.
5. After drinking.
6. “I’d fuck me.”
7. Pretends to act like he is doing it while not actually doing it.
Andrea got a call at 4:00 a.m. in the morning from an inebriate LB. He had parked at a friend’s house and she hadn’t been there, so she came into my room to ask me directions. I sleepily grumbled them to her and went back to sleep. This is a recount of what I heard when in the morning:
“So I go to pick Kevin up, and he all comes up to the car and is like, ‘hey, why don’t you follow me home.’ I’m like ‘No. No, Kevin. Get in the car.’ ‘Ok,” he says. So he gets in. I look at the time and I see it is four, so I say, ‘Hey Kevin, if you would’ve waited an hour, we could have fresh Donut Bank donuts(2).’ ‘Well, let’s go, let’s go then,’ Kevin tells me.
“’I’m like no.’ So we’re driving and we pass a car and the car flashes his lights at me cause because I forgot to dim lights. Kevin starts saying ‘What the fuck man! What the fuck! I’ll fucking get out of this car and smoke you! I may be driving a chick car, but I’ll smoke you in your face. You’ll go home and you’re wife’ll say: Oh, what happened to your face? And he’ll all be like: I got smoke by some dude in a chick car!’
“So, I’m all cracking up about this, and then we pull onto the road and Kevin leans over and starts hitting my sun visor. I say, ‘Hey! Stop that!’ And Kevin says ‘Why are you moving my shit,’ And I’m all like ‘Hello! You’re in my car!”
Anyway, the two of them troupe into the house. Kevin goes into my room, finds me fast asleep and proceeds to jump on me and hunch me(3)
I wake up and I hear “I love the Olympiad. This is the greatest Olympiad. Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympid,” he says and starts going on and on. And somehow he gets sidetracked and starts talking about softball and how he’s a softball machine and people in Denmark cannot match his skill. This leads into his story of Kevin Johnson.
“Kevin Johnson is the greatest softball player that ever lived,” he starts saying.. “Kevin Johnson could beat Denmark by himself!” He keeps on about Kevin Johnson. “People in Denmark are scared of Kevin Johnson.”
“Why?” I ask.
He looks at me and then says, “Because he cuts their bushes…he cuts their bushes into penises! At night when the Danish people go to sleep, he cuts their bushes into penises and then the Danish people come out of their homes and get scared because Kevin Johnson is like Mother-fucking Edward Scissorhands. Kevin Scissorhands, I mean Kevin Johnson is fucking amazing. He cuts all them bushes at night.”
“So, he’s like Santa Claus.”
“He’s mother-fucking better than Santa Claus. Santa Claus only visits Christians and good kids, Kevin Claus(4) cuts everyone’s bushes, everyone in the world.
Of course, this gets a good laugh out of my sister and me and then we decide to bundle Kevin into bed. We escort him into his bedroom across the hall, but before we get him into bed, Andrea goes to laptop and plays a song – Wild Horses. For those of you who don’t know or have forgotten, this is the song that Buffalo Bill listens to in Silence of the Lambs. One morning(5) Kevin got up to find Andrea and me watching the movie. If just so happened that it was the scene where Buffalo Bill is dressing in the skin, dancing and asking who’d “fuck me(6).” Kevin comes through and heads on into the kitchen, then turns and begins dancing like B. Bill to that song. Andrea and I dissolved into laughter and often try to get him to reenact that scene. He responds much better to our goading while under the influence and began dancing around saying “Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me. I’d fuck me hard,” and then he mimics(7) the tuck back. Andrea and Ican’t stop laughing and Kevin starts singing along to the song.
This night is best recalled by my sister who I caught on video talking about Kevin Johnson and scissorhands’ ways. Anyway, she relayed the story onto my Aunt and Uncle, Chris and Melody, who love this kind of drunken debauchery.
So, about two months later at my mother’s 50th Birthday party, Chris approaches my brother.
“It’s damndest thing,” he says. “Well,” he says when Kevin asks what, “I woke up one morning awhile back and someone cut all my damn bushes.”
“Yeah,” Kevin asks a smile creeping into his voice.
“Yeah,” Chris says, “And not only that, but someone cut them all into the shape of penises.”
“Really,” asks Kevin and then he bursts out laughing.
So beware of Kevin Johnson and his hedge trimmers. The penis-shaped bushes might belong to you.
1. Especially if he’s intoxicated.
2. The BEST donuts in the WORLD!
3. Nothing incestual here, I am under an extremely thick down comforter.
4. I can only assume he meant Johnson.
5. After drinking.
6. “I’d fuck me.”
7. Pretends to act like he is doing it while not actually doing it.
OH MY GOD, WE'RE GOING TO DIE!
It’s hard to forget those nights when you wake up and automatically know something is wrong. It could be something as simple as wondering if the stove is on or hearing your dog viciously snarl in the middle of night.
The being said, it’s hard to forget being woke up by a 5.8 earthquake during the darkest hours of the morning, especially when you live in the Midwest and an earthquake is as foreign as…well they just don’t happen.
Now, before I describe the extensive shaking, I want you to understand our neighborhood and my room. My room has a nice queen-size bed with a ceiling fan directly above it, two huge bookcases filled with books[1], an armoire that holds my TV and massive Disney snow globes[2], and Madame Alexander Dolls[3]. I have also have a desk complete with hutch that I need to clean off and a nightstand next to my bed.
Now, my neighborhood is less than two miles to the airport[4] and airplanes are routinely seen in the sky. It is also bordered on two sides by train tracks. And let me add that I love when the trains decide to block the tracks whenever I am on my way to work. That is lovely. Fantabulous. Keep up the good work at making me late, CSX!
I’m not exactly sure what caused me to wake up, but I’m going to guess there was a loud booming sound since my first thought was that a plane crashed, followed closely by a train derailing after the shaking continued for a moment, followed close by “Oh my god, it’s an earthquake!” as the house continued to shake and groan in protest.
My mind was clear in a nanosecond and I called for Mac who had made his way over to stand in front of the door[5]. I called to him and patted the bed for him. He jumped up and I cradled him underneath my body as I scanned the room for a suitable place for the both of us to nestle under and pray. The room was completely devoid of any protection. Of course there was always the doorway, but seeing that bookcase caused me to stay put in my bed.
Besides my bed was safely away from all dangerously packed bookshelves. I just had a picture mounted on the wall above my bed and my ceiling fan…OH MY GOD! My Fan! My fan that was turned on at the highest speed[6]! I could so picture the ceiling fan shaking free from the ceiling, falling, the blades slapping me in the head rendering me unconscious or dead. And my dog! I was his only protection! So I held him tighter underneath me[7].
The house continued to shake and creak for an ungodly amount of time. Mac struggled underneath me, and the ceiling fan continued to whir above my head.
It felt like a lifetime had passed once the house finally stopped shaking.
Suddenly seventh-grade science class was flashing in my head. Horrible picture of the New Madrid faultline assaulted my thoughts. For those of you unfamiliar with the New Madrid, it is under the city of Memphis . Back in 1811 it produced an 8.1 quake with aftershocks of 7.0 or greater that continued for three months. It shook so violently that the Mississippi ran backwards, paddleboats sank, and the Liberty Bell housed in Philly even rang.
They say that if the same quake hits us now, it will swallow the city of Memphis , the Mississippi will once again run backwards, and my town, 300 miles north of Memphis will suffer extensive damage.
It was with these thoughts in my head that I ran into a living room in a panic wearing only a robe that I hadn’t thought to tie and a pair of panties to see if my family had gotten out alive. Only, no one else was in the living room, no one else seemed bothered that an earthquake just shook our house like giant was right outside on our street doing a tap dance. It took me a minute to remember where everyone was. Andrea was in Florida with her boyfriend. Mom was in a D.C. on a class trip. Kevin was…home! He had actually stopped by for a weekend.
“Kevin!” I cried and ran into the hall, grabbed his doorknob only find his bedroom door locked! “Kevin!” I began to cry as I beat my fists against his door.
Fifteen seconds later, the door opened to reveal my brother in all his sleepy glory alive and unhurt, but clearly confused.
“Oh my god, we head an earthquake!” I cried and grabbed his arm, began to mumble about the earthquake, pulled him through the house, and out the front door because if the New Madrid was going to shake my house into a pile of rubble, I did not want the two of us in there. I was sure we’d find milling neighbors, but funnily enough, no one was outside.
“Your robe’s open,” my brother said and then averted his eyes. I snatched it closed. “Let’s go back to sleep,” he said and grabbed my hand to pull me into the house.
“But the aftershocks!” I protested.
Kevin hefted me inside. “Let’s turn on the TV.”
Sure enough, coverage began shifting to people calling in to the TV stations to talk about the quake which was felt for about 40 seconds and by people as far away as Chicago .
“I’m going to bed,” Kevin said after about two minutes.
“Ok,” I said and kept my eyes glued to the TV. Like the reporters would really be able to tell me when the next quake was going to begin.
I didn’t think I’d ever get to sleep, but after the same ‘ole coverage, I called Mac and immediately fell asleep in my bed. I awoke in the morning to hear my cell phone ringing and told my mom about the quake. As stated in previous articles, she was sad to miss the drama. However, to feel like she was apart of it, she called my sister and relayed my story to Andrea. Andrea then called me and yelled at me for not calling her[8] and hearing the story from mom. Of course, she could call me just as easily, but that’s neither hear there. Anyway, I lived to fight another day, and with the New Madrid just chillin’ beneath my feet, that’s important.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
q I’m a bibliophile, I admit it.
[2] Collected for appox. 15 years.
[3] Inspired by historical women.
[4] Which makes it really nice if no one can pick you up.
[5] By a bookcase, not exactly an ideal place for a 40-pound dog.
[6] I like to be cold when I sleep.
[7] At least one of us would make it out alive.
[8] Probably because she doesn’t know how to answer her phone when she’s with her boyfriend.
The being said, it’s hard to forget being woke up by a 5.8 earthquake during the darkest hours of the morning, especially when you live in the Midwest and an earthquake is as foreign as…well they just don’t happen.
Now, before I describe the extensive shaking, I want you to understand our neighborhood and my room. My room has a nice queen-size bed with a ceiling fan directly above it, two huge bookcases filled with books[1], an armoire that holds my TV and massive Disney snow globes[2], and Madame Alexander Dolls[3]. I have also have a desk complete with hutch that I need to clean off and a nightstand next to my bed.
Now, my neighborhood is less than two miles to the airport[4] and airplanes are routinely seen in the sky. It is also bordered on two sides by train tracks. And let me add that I love when the trains decide to block the tracks whenever I am on my way to work. That is lovely. Fantabulous. Keep up the good work at making me late, CSX!
I’m not exactly sure what caused me to wake up, but I’m going to guess there was a loud booming sound since my first thought was that a plane crashed, followed closely by a train derailing after the shaking continued for a moment, followed close by “Oh my god, it’s an earthquake!” as the house continued to shake and groan in protest.
My mind was clear in a nanosecond and I called for Mac who had made his way over to stand in front of the door[5]. I called to him and patted the bed for him. He jumped up and I cradled him underneath my body as I scanned the room for a suitable place for the both of us to nestle under and pray. The room was completely devoid of any protection. Of course there was always the doorway, but seeing that bookcase caused me to stay put in my bed.
Besides my bed was safely away from all dangerously packed bookshelves. I just had a picture mounted on the wall above my bed and my ceiling fan…OH MY GOD! My Fan! My fan that was turned on at the highest speed[6]! I could so picture the ceiling fan shaking free from the ceiling, falling, the blades slapping me in the head rendering me unconscious or dead. And my dog! I was his only protection! So I held him tighter underneath me[7].
The house continued to shake and creak for an ungodly amount of time. Mac struggled underneath me, and the ceiling fan continued to whir above my head.
It felt like a lifetime had passed once the house finally stopped shaking.
Suddenly seventh-grade science class was flashing in my head. Horrible picture of the New Madrid faultline assaulted my thoughts. For those of you unfamiliar with the New Madrid, it is under the city of Memphis . Back in 1811 it produced an 8.1 quake with aftershocks of 7.0 or greater that continued for three months. It shook so violently that the Mississippi ran backwards, paddleboats sank, and the Liberty Bell housed in Philly even rang.
They say that if the same quake hits us now, it will swallow the city of Memphis , the Mississippi will once again run backwards, and my town, 300 miles north of Memphis will suffer extensive damage.
It was with these thoughts in my head that I ran into a living room in a panic wearing only a robe that I hadn’t thought to tie and a pair of panties to see if my family had gotten out alive. Only, no one else was in the living room, no one else seemed bothered that an earthquake just shook our house like giant was right outside on our street doing a tap dance. It took me a minute to remember where everyone was. Andrea was in Florida with her boyfriend. Mom was in a D.C. on a class trip. Kevin was…home! He had actually stopped by for a weekend.
“Kevin!” I cried and ran into the hall, grabbed his doorknob only find his bedroom door locked! “Kevin!” I began to cry as I beat my fists against his door.
Fifteen seconds later, the door opened to reveal my brother in all his sleepy glory alive and unhurt, but clearly confused.
“Oh my god, we head an earthquake!” I cried and grabbed his arm, began to mumble about the earthquake, pulled him through the house, and out the front door because if the New Madrid was going to shake my house into a pile of rubble, I did not want the two of us in there. I was sure we’d find milling neighbors, but funnily enough, no one was outside.
“Your robe’s open,” my brother said and then averted his eyes. I snatched it closed. “Let’s go back to sleep,” he said and grabbed my hand to pull me into the house.
“But the aftershocks!” I protested.
Kevin hefted me inside. “Let’s turn on the TV.”
Sure enough, coverage began shifting to people calling in to the TV stations to talk about the quake which was felt for about 40 seconds and by people as far away as Chicago .
“I’m going to bed,” Kevin said after about two minutes.
“Ok,” I said and kept my eyes glued to the TV. Like the reporters would really be able to tell me when the next quake was going to begin.
I didn’t think I’d ever get to sleep, but after the same ‘ole coverage, I called Mac and immediately fell asleep in my bed. I awoke in the morning to hear my cell phone ringing and told my mom about the quake. As stated in previous articles, she was sad to miss the drama. However, to feel like she was apart of it, she called my sister and relayed my story to Andrea. Andrea then called me and yelled at me for not calling her[8] and hearing the story from mom. Of course, she could call me just as easily, but that’s neither hear there. Anyway, I lived to fight another day, and with the New Madrid just chillin’ beneath my feet, that’s important.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
q I’m a bibliophile, I admit it.
[2] Collected for appox. 15 years.
[3] Inspired by historical women.
[4] Which makes it really nice if no one can pick you up.
[5] By a bookcase, not exactly an ideal place for a 40-pound dog.
[6] I like to be cold when I sleep.
[7] At least one of us would make it out alive.
[8] Probably because she doesn’t know how to answer her phone when she’s with her boyfriend.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Never Gnome Alone - Especially if it's Just You and the Gnome
Gnomes are evil. I'm serious. Look at them. With their big red noses, little hands, pointy hats, and boots. Nothing good can come from looking at a gnome. It may be just porcelain, but LOOK at it. I swear, that there's some mind of some kind inside, something implanted in the brain by a suicidal artist who wants to kill mankind that will curse you.
Anyway, my boss decided it would be "nice" to have gnome visit our desks for three to five days. No, this wasn't supposed to be punishment for a misbehaving, it was to acknowledge a job well done. And of course, my walkabout partner, Krista, decided to gift me with this evil creature that someone had enough audacity to nickname Hans. Seriously, the gnome is named Hans.
So I had to sit and stare at Hans for three days. Actually, that's a lie. I was lucky to get Hans when my boss was out of town, so he got scooted to the corner of my desk where my computer tower hid his evil, red, glowing, waiting-to-curse-me eyes.
But, now I have proof of the evilness of gnomes!
Someone was killed with a gnome. Seriously!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,407283,00.html
And yet another scary video of a gnome
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article902014.ece
There you have it.
I'm heading a movement - the abolish all gnomes movement. No, its not persecution. No, gnomes are not misunderstood. We have to get rid of them.
GET RID OF THEM
AS
SOON
AS
POSSIBLE!
Are you with me! You better be!
Or a gnome will curse you and you bits and pieces will shrivel and dry. Seriously.
Anyway, my boss decided it would be "nice" to have gnome visit our desks for three to five days. No, this wasn't supposed to be punishment for a misbehaving, it was to acknowledge a job well done. And of course, my walkabout partner, Krista, decided to gift me with this evil creature that someone had enough audacity to nickname Hans. Seriously, the gnome is named Hans.
So I had to sit and stare at Hans for three days. Actually, that's a lie. I was lucky to get Hans when my boss was out of town, so he got scooted to the corner of my desk where my computer tower hid his evil, red, glowing, waiting-to-curse-me eyes.
But, now I have proof of the evilness of gnomes!
Someone was killed with a gnome. Seriously!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,407283,00.html
And yet another scary video of a gnome
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article902014.ece
There you have it.
I'm heading a movement - the abolish all gnomes movement. No, its not persecution. No, gnomes are not misunderstood. We have to get rid of them.
GET RID OF THEM
AS
SOON
AS
POSSIBLE!
Are you with me! You better be!
Or a gnome will curse you and you bits and pieces will shrivel and dry. Seriously.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Andrea gets a wild hair up her ass.
I can honestly admit that I’m not one of those impulsive people who acts on every whim I get.
I’m a planner. A saver. Take the Key West vacation for example. A hotel was booked in March (after reading an extensive amount of reviews and searching many different websites for the perfect, hotel that was a combination of nice and cheap) for my July vacation. Once that was done, I began researching activities to do. Although…I didn’t have to research any bars…
Rubbing my chin I wonder what this means...Any insight would be helpful.
I have my next big purchases planned – a Macbook in September and a REAL Chloe Paddington in January 2009 (possibly earlier if the cards actually fall my way for a change).
I think it’s obvious that I have impulse control.[1]
However my sister wouldn’t know impulse control if it jumped up slapped her tits and then bit her on the ass.[2]
Need more evidence? See her closet: True Reqligion and Armani jeans, Steve Madden heels, Jessica Simpson heels (I know, I know), and contemporary designer tops that would make ANY fashionista proud (And yet I still find her trawling through my closet…). Thanks goodness she has some sense and knows to refuse to a credit or debit card. I could only imagine the bill.
Anyway…Moving along…
Yesterday the HKs met the father at a local Mexican restaurant in town. And yes the two sisters had margaritas. One for me and two for Andrea. So, we’re driving home and recanting different stories. We talk about Kevin and his altar ego who can jump eight-foot privacy fences when drunk which leads to the earthquake.[3] Mind you, Andrea was more than a little pissed off that she heard the story from our mother who was in Washington D.C. at the time of the quake. I know she’s upset that she missed that rockin’ and rollin’ great time during the middle of the night. These and more are the great stories we’re recanting as we drive past Igleheart ballpark.
“We need to go home and play kickball in the backyard,” she says.
“I’m not playing kickball in the backyard,” Kevin comments.
“Do you have any idea how many pauses in the game there’d be as we went to find the ball?” I ask.
“So kick it easy,” she says.
“Kick it easy?” Kevin chides. “Half the fun of kickball is blasting the ball as hard as you fucking can.”
“Yeah, grounders are only fun playing softball or baseball. Not kickball,” is my response.
“So, let’s go home and hit some grounders.”
“The backyard has been treated for fleas,[4]” I tell her.
“So, the front yard. Yeah,” Andrea says suddenly all child-like innocence. “Kevin, hit me some grounders in the front yard!”
And this is how we wind up at Target as Andrea scours the aisles. She finds a pre-school ball and bat set featuring Dora the Explorer.
Kevin scoffs and says, “I’m not hitting with a Dora bat.”
“Yes you are,” Andrea quips. And she did quip, she didn’t slope (the insides are starting to get the best of me. Apologies.).
“Fine, let’s just get the hell out of here,” he says and his tone clearly implies that hit grounders to his inebriated impulsive older sister with a Dora bat isn’t high on his list of priorities.
“Wait, I need a mitt!” Andrea says pulling her arm out of Kevin’s grasp.
“Not with that ball,” he retorts. “That’s a set for toddlers. It doesn’t hurt their hands, so you’ll be fine.”
“Then I’ll get another set,” she says.
Andrea goes and searches out another aisle, this one in the sporting goods and not pre-school toys section and finds a mitt for $19.99 that is pink and white (v. cute and her size) and a pink and white ball to match. One look at the LB’s face will tell you exactly how thrilled he is with this. Oh well, it’s the shit you have to suffer for when you go out get drunk and rubbed up on at a bar then have to call your sister’s for a ride home.
In total, her purchase is a little over thirty dollars. This is due to the fact that she snuck in another ball, this one white and green and some candy and gossip magazines.
As she hands over her money to pay, I ask her “Is this why you’re always broke?”
“Yes,” she says and then thinks for a second. “It’s also why I offered to pay you back in installments for our car insurance.”
“So, instead of getting the full amount, I’d get a hundred one week, possibly another hundred in two weeks?”
She gives me a dirty look that clearly says I hate you, but doesn’t have much time to remark back because the clerk is counting out her change. We all then pile into the car, stop at the liquor store (perfectly normal to do on a Monday night) and head for home.
It must be noted that as soon as we came home, we picked back up playing Rock Band. Andrea got pissed because if we wanted to earn money, she needed to play on medium. She had no choice but to acquiesce since she likes the cute outfits so much. Thankfully, I saved my specials and was able to “save her” the couple of times she failed getting the hang of the added blue button (her pinkie doesn’t bend like that). With more money in the bank, she bought clothes for her guitarist, Weenis before putting in Eurotrip and watching it before we headed to bed.
Now, question for you. Was the mitt and balls a good buy?
[1] It should be noted that this applies to shopping, planning, and scheduling because I hardly ever pass up the chance to make an ass out of myself, i.e.: Two Morons on a Hot Tin Roof.
[2] I KNOW this must be hard for some of you to swallow.
[3] These stories will come at a later date. Both are so brilliant that I need to properly ponder them before I begin to put together all the aspects of the stories so the reader can get full enjoyability out of them.
[4] And I’m going to pray to god that they’ve been taken care of now.
I’m a planner. A saver. Take the Key West vacation for example. A hotel was booked in March (after reading an extensive amount of reviews and searching many different websites for the perfect, hotel that was a combination of nice and cheap) for my July vacation. Once that was done, I began researching activities to do. Although…I didn’t have to research any bars…
Rubbing my chin I wonder what this means...Any insight would be helpful.
I have my next big purchases planned – a Macbook in September and a REAL Chloe Paddington in January 2009 (possibly earlier if the cards actually fall my way for a change).
I think it’s obvious that I have impulse control.[1]
However my sister wouldn’t know impulse control if it jumped up slapped her tits and then bit her on the ass.[2]
Need more evidence? See her closet: True Reqligion and Armani jeans, Steve Madden heels, Jessica Simpson heels (I know, I know), and contemporary designer tops that would make ANY fashionista proud (And yet I still find her trawling through my closet…). Thanks goodness she has some sense and knows to refuse to a credit or debit card. I could only imagine the bill.
Anyway…Moving along…
Yesterday the HKs met the father at a local Mexican restaurant in town. And yes the two sisters had margaritas. One for me and two for Andrea. So, we’re driving home and recanting different stories. We talk about Kevin and his altar ego who can jump eight-foot privacy fences when drunk which leads to the earthquake.[3] Mind you, Andrea was more than a little pissed off that she heard the story from our mother who was in Washington D.C. at the time of the quake. I know she’s upset that she missed that rockin’ and rollin’ great time during the middle of the night. These and more are the great stories we’re recanting as we drive past Igleheart ballpark.
“We need to go home and play kickball in the backyard,” she says.
“I’m not playing kickball in the backyard,” Kevin comments.
“Do you have any idea how many pauses in the game there’d be as we went to find the ball?” I ask.
“So kick it easy,” she says.
“Kick it easy?” Kevin chides. “Half the fun of kickball is blasting the ball as hard as you fucking can.”
“Yeah, grounders are only fun playing softball or baseball. Not kickball,” is my response.
“So, let’s go home and hit some grounders.”
“The backyard has been treated for fleas,[4]” I tell her.
“So, the front yard. Yeah,” Andrea says suddenly all child-like innocence. “Kevin, hit me some grounders in the front yard!”
And this is how we wind up at Target as Andrea scours the aisles. She finds a pre-school ball and bat set featuring Dora the Explorer.
Kevin scoffs and says, “I’m not hitting with a Dora bat.”
“Yes you are,” Andrea quips. And she did quip, she didn’t slope (the insides are starting to get the best of me. Apologies.).
“Fine, let’s just get the hell out of here,” he says and his tone clearly implies that hit grounders to his inebriated impulsive older sister with a Dora bat isn’t high on his list of priorities.
“Wait, I need a mitt!” Andrea says pulling her arm out of Kevin’s grasp.
“Not with that ball,” he retorts. “That’s a set for toddlers. It doesn’t hurt their hands, so you’ll be fine.”
“Then I’ll get another set,” she says.
Andrea goes and searches out another aisle, this one in the sporting goods and not pre-school toys section and finds a mitt for $19.99 that is pink and white (v. cute and her size) and a pink and white ball to match. One look at the LB’s face will tell you exactly how thrilled he is with this. Oh well, it’s the shit you have to suffer for when you go out get drunk and rubbed up on at a bar then have to call your sister’s for a ride home.
In total, her purchase is a little over thirty dollars. This is due to the fact that she snuck in another ball, this one white and green and some candy and gossip magazines.
As she hands over her money to pay, I ask her “Is this why you’re always broke?”
“Yes,” she says and then thinks for a second. “It’s also why I offered to pay you back in installments for our car insurance.”
“So, instead of getting the full amount, I’d get a hundred one week, possibly another hundred in two weeks?”
She gives me a dirty look that clearly says I hate you, but doesn’t have much time to remark back because the clerk is counting out her change. We all then pile into the car, stop at the liquor store (perfectly normal to do on a Monday night) and head for home.
It must be noted that as soon as we came home, we picked back up playing Rock Band. Andrea got pissed because if we wanted to earn money, she needed to play on medium. She had no choice but to acquiesce since she likes the cute outfits so much. Thankfully, I saved my specials and was able to “save her” the couple of times she failed getting the hang of the added blue button (her pinkie doesn’t bend like that). With more money in the bank, she bought clothes for her guitarist, Weenis before putting in Eurotrip and watching it before we headed to bed.
Now, question for you. Was the mitt and balls a good buy?
[1] It should be noted that this applies to shopping, planning, and scheduling because I hardly ever pass up the chance to make an ass out of myself, i.e.: Two Morons on a Hot Tin Roof.
[2] I KNOW this must be hard for some of you to swallow.
[3] These stories will come at a later date. Both are so brilliant that I need to properly ponder them before I begin to put together all the aspects of the stories so the reader can get full enjoyability out of them.
[4] And I’m going to pray to god that they’ve been taken care of now.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Andrea Does it Doggy-Style
Ironically enough, it was another Sunday (way back in the month of June – I know, I’m behind) and we took the dog’s to the LB’s softball game (Once again). To clarify we have a 13-pound miniature pinscher named Daisy and a 44-pound Brittany Spaniel named Mac. Mac is my baby, and if anyone said anything negative about him, I’d go ape shit on the person. And I have. When my dad said he thought Mac was gaining weight. This dog already has food issues. When I go out of town, he refuses to eat. There are times when my brother’s home, that he refuses to eat if my brother is in bed.[i] Honestly, calling a dog that has refused to eat and loves running as much as a fat kid loves cake overweight is like saying Christina Ricci’s huge head is proportionate to her body. This dog’s eating problems have led to a supplemental nickname (because we still use Tom Cruise) of Macster-Kate Olsen or the Olsen Twin.
But Mac’s eating habits aren’t on trial at the moment. No, we’re discussing coitus and reproduction amongst the canis genus.
And so it happened as we were driving home with the dogs. Daisy, being the commanding female she is, likes to sit in the diver’s seat no matter who is driving. In typical male fashion, Mac is giving the leftovers – the backseat which he hates. So we’re driving home, Daisies in my lap barking at cars and trying to climb on the steering wheel while Andrea keeps swatting Mac to the back of the car (Mac’s like Rosa Parks and doesn’t want to sit in the back.).
Anyway, I’m driving and Andrea looks over at me and Daisy.
“What’s that?” she says.
I have my eyes on the road (not easy to do with two dogs and a moron in the car) and respond with “I don’t know what the hell you’re pointing at since I’m kind of driving.”
“That little hangy-thing between her legs,” Andrea replies. She’s clearly baffled and now I’m intrigued and take my eyes off the road for a fleeting second to check out what I will call Daisy’s feminine bits.
“That’s her pee pee,” I say. Yes, I’m an adult who has two college degrees and I said pee pee. Two college degrees does not a mature adult make.
“I thought…” Andrea says and her voice trails off. I could hear the wheels grinding in my sister’s head putting this information together in a coherent fashion[ii].
“It’s where her pee and the children she might’ve had would’ve come out,” I said to clarify things.
“But…” she begins spluttering. “I thought they came out up here,” Andrea says and points to her butthole.
“That would be her asshole. Where her shit comes out,” I acerbically respond (Like you wouldn’t!).
Andrea’s silent as her eyes gently appraising Daisies feminine bits and then her excretory bits. “So, when the dogs do it doggy style…where does the man’s peep go?” FYI, my sister is twenty-four. Clearly, she’s as mature as me.
“His ‘peep’” I say in mocking tones, “Goes into her pee pee, the hangy-down thing between her legs.”
Andrea’s suddenly quiet which means she’s even more baffled than before.
I spot headlights from over the hill that spark my only little wheels to move in my head. “Don’t tell me you’ve thought that dogs have been blasting each other in the ass all this time,” I say with all the absurdity and crassness I can muster.
“Well, Erin,” she responds trying to defend herself. “I’ve seen how the horses give babies and it looks like they come out of the ass.” We are Indiana girls after all. My grandfather had horses and by the time all of the HKs were five I think we’d seen a horse give birth. Icky, juicy stuff, and yet you can’t move away.
I sigh and begin to give my sister an anatomy lesson, explaining that all mammals (i.e. humans, dogs, and horses) have birth canals separate from their assholes. She sits in the car, slapping Mac back whenever he attempts to vault into the front seat, absorbing all I say. When I’m done, she gets quiet again. I figure she must be lost in deep thought.
“So when people do it doggy style…” she begins and I know exactly where this conversation is going.
“They don’t necessarily blast each other in the ass.” I look at her and see that this information is new to her. “Have you seriously thought that doggy-style for humans meant butt sex?” She’s quiet. “You’re 24 years old!”
“I know that Erin!”
“I mean, you can have doggy-style butt sex, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive,” I continue.
“Just shush,” she responds. “I know I’m a moron.”
So I continue to laugh the rest of the way home where we find our little brother Kevin. I ask the LB about dogs and how they have sex. He looks at me like I’m some weird fetishist. I tell him to humor me, and he responds by saying that dogs would have to have sex which would include a vagina, not an ass.
“I hate you two,” Andrea says. “Anyone up for Rock Band?”
[i] It should be noted that Daisy has no problem eating and routinely eats Mac’s food if we don’t keep an eye on her. This has led to me buying Mac elevated food bowls, but Daisy will still stand and balance on her two hind legs and eat Mac’s food if she can get away with it.
[ii] It should also be noted that coherent thoughts for Andrea are not what most people (or so I hope) would consider coherent. If further proof is needed me, e-mail me. I can tell you about the donut hole story, the Blair Witch story, the blow-hole story, etc., etc.
But Mac’s eating habits aren’t on trial at the moment. No, we’re discussing coitus and reproduction amongst the canis genus.
And so it happened as we were driving home with the dogs. Daisy, being the commanding female she is, likes to sit in the diver’s seat no matter who is driving. In typical male fashion, Mac is giving the leftovers – the backseat which he hates. So we’re driving home, Daisies in my lap barking at cars and trying to climb on the steering wheel while Andrea keeps swatting Mac to the back of the car (Mac’s like Rosa Parks and doesn’t want to sit in the back.).
Anyway, I’m driving and Andrea looks over at me and Daisy.
“What’s that?” she says.
I have my eyes on the road (not easy to do with two dogs and a moron in the car) and respond with “I don’t know what the hell you’re pointing at since I’m kind of driving.”
“That little hangy-thing between her legs,” Andrea replies. She’s clearly baffled and now I’m intrigued and take my eyes off the road for a fleeting second to check out what I will call Daisy’s feminine bits.
“That’s her pee pee,” I say. Yes, I’m an adult who has two college degrees and I said pee pee. Two college degrees does not a mature adult make.
“I thought…” Andrea says and her voice trails off. I could hear the wheels grinding in my sister’s head putting this information together in a coherent fashion[ii].
“It’s where her pee and the children she might’ve had would’ve come out,” I said to clarify things.
“But…” she begins spluttering. “I thought they came out up here,” Andrea says and points to her butthole.
“That would be her asshole. Where her shit comes out,” I acerbically respond (Like you wouldn’t!).
Andrea’s silent as her eyes gently appraising Daisies feminine bits and then her excretory bits. “So, when the dogs do it doggy style…where does the man’s peep go?” FYI, my sister is twenty-four. Clearly, she’s as mature as me.
“His ‘peep’” I say in mocking tones, “Goes into her pee pee, the hangy-down thing between her legs.”
Andrea’s suddenly quiet which means she’s even more baffled than before.
I spot headlights from over the hill that spark my only little wheels to move in my head. “Don’t tell me you’ve thought that dogs have been blasting each other in the ass all this time,” I say with all the absurdity and crassness I can muster.
“Well, Erin,” she responds trying to defend herself. “I’ve seen how the horses give babies and it looks like they come out of the ass.” We are Indiana girls after all. My grandfather had horses and by the time all of the HKs were five I think we’d seen a horse give birth. Icky, juicy stuff, and yet you can’t move away.
I sigh and begin to give my sister an anatomy lesson, explaining that all mammals (i.e. humans, dogs, and horses) have birth canals separate from their assholes. She sits in the car, slapping Mac back whenever he attempts to vault into the front seat, absorbing all I say. When I’m done, she gets quiet again. I figure she must be lost in deep thought.
“So when people do it doggy style…” she begins and I know exactly where this conversation is going.
“They don’t necessarily blast each other in the ass.” I look at her and see that this information is new to her. “Have you seriously thought that doggy-style for humans meant butt sex?” She’s quiet. “You’re 24 years old!”
“I know that Erin!”
“I mean, you can have doggy-style butt sex, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive,” I continue.
“Just shush,” she responds. “I know I’m a moron.”
So I continue to laugh the rest of the way home where we find our little brother Kevin. I ask the LB about dogs and how they have sex. He looks at me like I’m some weird fetishist. I tell him to humor me, and he responds by saying that dogs would have to have sex which would include a vagina, not an ass.
“I hate you two,” Andrea says. “Anyone up for Rock Band?”
[i] It should be noted that Daisy has no problem eating and routinely eats Mac’s food if we don’t keep an eye on her. This has led to me buying Mac elevated food bowls, but Daisy will still stand and balance on her two hind legs and eat Mac’s food if she can get away with it.
[ii] It should also be noted that coherent thoughts for Andrea are not what most people (or so I hope) would consider coherent. If further proof is needed me, e-mail me. I can tell you about the donut hole story, the Blair Witch story, the blow-hole story, etc., etc.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Two Morons on a Hot Tin Roof
Sunday is a great day around the Hobgood Household. A lot of genius ideas have been concocted that revolve around terrorizing the Papa Johns people, Sam’s flowers and cheesecake (must have whip cream and strawberries/tart cherries), the Civic ramping the railroad tracks, and more terrorizing – this time of Best Buy employees. And I’m still sad Backyard Burger is closed. A perfect end to a Sunday of debauchery was a BB Lemonade. However, these things have nothing to do with this particular Sunday in question, I’m just giving you some flavor of what Sundays hold for the Hobgood Kids (HKs).
And the HKs consist of: Me; The sister: Andrea; and the Little Brother (or LB): Kevin. For three months we are all reunited, while the rest of the nine months Kevin leaves The Blind and The Blinder for college. We’re hardly able to get him back…perhaps this next story holds the key as to why…
This past Sunday we were at LBs softball game. We missed half of the game due to Rock Band (*cough* rocking out to Hole and getting “those cute little outfits” *cough* my sister *cough* for our “people.”) and an usually not enforced rule called the Run Rule. This failure to enforce said Run Rule usually means the 8 p.m. game starts at 8:30 p.m. if you’re lucky. So when we left, we thought we had plenty of time to get to his game.
Well, that was wrong. And, we were so keyed up from rocking the fuck out of XBOX, that with ten minutes and one full inning left in the game we came up with a brilliant idea. Kevin had just hit the third out of the inning, by hitting a pop-up that even the most inexperienced kindergartner could’ve caught. He tosses the bat at the dug out, disgusted with himself, then takes his batting glove off and goes to throw it over the fence into the dugout. Well, his bat wasn’t the only thing off at that precise moment. His throw was also off and the glove sailed onto the tin roof of the dugout.
Andrea and I start cracking up and I make the comment, “It’s going to be hilarious to see him climb his ass up there and retrieve his glove.” The laughter suddenly stops. My comment sets the wheels in motion for the moron twin’s next moronic plot. We look each other in the eye, not speaking a word, but just knowing we were on the same page.
“Where are you going?” our dad asks.
“To make asses out of ourselves,” I rightly reply. I say rightly because even I couldn’t begin to imagine the sheer moronicness of what was about to happen.
We walk over to the picnic table stationed behind the dugout and hop up to see the location of Kevin’s glove. It’s toward the front corner (closer to the field than the stands).
“I want on your shoulders,” Andrea replies.
“Well, climb up and stand on them,” I say my mind quickly skipping back to the lost cheerleader days. Shh…it wasn’t a good time for me having just quit gymnastics and not having any other sport to do.
“I want to sit,” she says and proceeds to sit on my shoulders.
I walk her over the place within the closest reach of the gloves and watch as she reaches up, her hands gripping the tin roof. She removes her legs from my shoulder and anchors her toes into the diamonds holes of the metal chain link fence.
“I can’t reach it,” she squeaks. She then proceeds to unhook her feet and kick them back and forth.
The people who had shifted their attention from the game and their sons were laughing at us by now, causing the few still loyal to their college-age sons to turn and watch the show unfolding in front of them.
I pick up Andrea’s shoes and attempt to put them on her kicking feet, successfully planting the left one before she dropped.
“You were supposed to catch my feet and lower me down,” she says while trying to shake the powdery dirt from the right foot.
“I thought you wanted your shoes for protection from the dirt,” I said.
She rolls her eyes and a spectator who went to school with my brother (and both of us know) approaches us with a big, sturdy, twisted limb and recommends we use this.
“Eeww, there’s a pad on it,” I say grossed out.
“It’s not a pad,” he says.
“More like a ped,” Andrea responds (for those of you unfamiliar, peds are those miniature sock thingies. Yeah, really ridiculous things).
“Whatever, you’re not holding that stick while you’re on my shoulders.”
I get another eye roll and we reconvene at the picnic table and take another look at the errant glove.
“I need something to move the glove,” she quietly says. I know immediately where her thoughts are going – to the stick – and try to persuade her to climb the chain-link fence while I stand on the ground and spot her. She doesn’t even take my case seriously and climbs on again.
I walk over to the same spot, passing the trash can and feel my body lurch in the direction of the trash can. My equilibrium is thrown and I do a nice little tap dance routine trying to right myself with my sister wobbling on my shoulder making me top heavy.
“Hold still,” she mutters and reaches her hand out for the pad-encrusted-tree limb that was thrown in the garbage. This is when it dawns on me that I nearly ate the ground because my sister has decided to use the stick, exactly like I knew she would, to retrieve the glove.
With the stick firmly in her grasp, she struggles to get it up (That’s what she said) as I walk back over to the dugout. Once we’re in position, she raises the limb onto the roof of the dugout and I get this mental image in my head of a chimp inserting a stick into an ant hole and pulling out ants to eat. She has no luck, the stick scratching the tin roof, the people laughing even more at the show unfolding, and she tells me to step closer. As I do, Kevin’s team catches the third out and runs back into the dugout.
Red, a lithe, quick, agile, little fucker asks what we’re doing. Andrea tells him, and in less than three seconds, Red climbs the fence, grabs the glove and jumps back down, leaving Andrea with a stick and a pad in hand.
“Well I feel ridiculous now,” Andrea says.
The mission over, I turn away from the dugout, head to the trashcan to deposit the disgusting limb, and dismount my sister. I forgot to take into account the powdery dirt and her shoeless form. She begins running in place saying something about the dirt until I get her shoes on.
But the story is far from over. After making an ass out ourselves, Andrea decides she wants a shaved ice. She gets strawberry lemonade one with three gummy worms (so good!) and shares them with me (the worms). The shaved ice, she doesn’t eat. How strawberry lemonade can taste like Cherry Coke is beyond me, but it does.
“What do I do with this?” Andrea asks because the concoction was way too nasty to eat.
“I don’t know,” I say as we turn onto a certain road. “Throw it at a car…or a mailbox."
“Or the Smiths![1] Great idea!” she quickly tags onto my sentence and then rolls down the window as we roll pass the Smith’s driveway. She hangs her hand out the window and turns the shaved ice over, splattering the messy beverage onto their driveway.
“Nice,” I said.
“I know,” she smirks. “That’s gonna be a sticky mess.” She begins to look around my car. “I cut ya deep,” she says, her eyes skirting over the nonexistent mess in car. “When I get mad at you, you have to watch out, I’ll cut you deep,” she repeats.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“Oh, uh, do you have anything else to throw?” she asks.
[1] Names have been changed. Just know that we don’t like these people or their kids.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
I'm a bad mother...
I have tried, lord knows I've tried, to keep my baby healthy so he can live a long life. I've fed him organic food, watched his weight, bathed him, given him way too much attention, and even taken him running with me for distances of 3 to 4 miles. We start slow.
But
I have turned my baby into a statistic. He has gotten fleas.
I imagine it happened from running at the fair grounds. The grounds cover a lot of acres and I can easily run two miles around the perimeter which is good for me. Counting laps tires me out - I find myself constantly keeping track of things and saying 1 lap down 10 more to go. Mentally, v. exhausting for me. And my mental exhaustion has given my baby fleas.
And cost my wallet around $100. He's needed oral medication, shampoo, sprays, and stuff for the house. Although, the fumigation stuff - Fogger - promises to also kill spiders, cockroaches, ticks, termites and any other pests we might have lurking, waiting for me to fall asleep before sticking their fangs into me and passing on their bug cooties. Yes. I just said cooties. Get over it.
That $100 would've been a nice little amount for me to have had on my trip to Key West too.
But, mother's have to take care of their babies, no matter what kind of Tom Cruise-ian behavior they exhibit.
But
I have turned my baby into a statistic. He has gotten fleas.
I imagine it happened from running at the fair grounds. The grounds cover a lot of acres and I can easily run two miles around the perimeter which is good for me. Counting laps tires me out - I find myself constantly keeping track of things and saying 1 lap down 10 more to go. Mentally, v. exhausting for me. And my mental exhaustion has given my baby fleas.
And cost my wallet around $100. He's needed oral medication, shampoo, sprays, and stuff for the house. Although, the fumigation stuff - Fogger - promises to also kill spiders, cockroaches, ticks, termites and any other pests we might have lurking, waiting for me to fall asleep before sticking their fangs into me and passing on their bug cooties. Yes. I just said cooties. Get over it.
That $100 would've been a nice little amount for me to have had on my trip to Key West too.
But, mother's have to take care of their babies, no matter what kind of Tom Cruise-ian behavior they exhibit.
Monday, February 18, 2008
I love cooking!
I never would've thought I'd like cooking. From a young age I was set upon not cleaning because women were expected to clean, and anyway, how nice it would be for the roles to reverse and have a man cook for me! I survived in college by eating peanut butter sandwiches, garlic toast, ramen, microwave popcorn, and instant mashed potatoes when I decided to stay in. Somehow I had enough money to eat out and get drunk (someone said that was a talent drunks had, to always have enough money to drink).
But now, at my old age of well...not yet over 30, but no longer 25...I am learning to cook. Sauteed potoatoes, lightly breaded diced chicken in olive oil, REAL mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, fruit salads, turkey burgers...after a trying day at work there's some magic in cooking.
Yeah, that sounds weird, but there's something comforting in watching a turkey burger brown up as it's cooked, watching chicken broth soak into rice. And if you clean up while your food has just begun to cook, you won't have to worry about anything burning or a mess for after you've cleaned your plate and just want to sit back and enjoy the digestion from the fruits of your labor after a long hard day at an NPO. Not that I think every job is cake, but work at an NPO and you'd know that you're supposed to be able to do everything because you're constantly understaffed. You sort of become a jack-of-all trades.
But not only is cooking relaxing for me, its healthy. I know that unless I'm buying organic I'm still getting additives and all that junk, but the food is actually fresh. Because I try to cook something nearly every night, my body nearly rejects fast food. I can't eat it without getting a massive headache that stays with me for the day, like a caffeine headache, only a grease headache or something, I don't know. Anyway, cooking doesn't need to be something that's done by the June Cleaver's of the world. It can be done by anyone, and with the help of Rachel Ray, you don't even need that much time!
But now, at my old age of well...not yet over 30, but no longer 25...I am learning to cook. Sauteed potoatoes, lightly breaded diced chicken in olive oil, REAL mashed potatoes, rice pilaf, fruit salads, turkey burgers...after a trying day at work there's some magic in cooking.
Yeah, that sounds weird, but there's something comforting in watching a turkey burger brown up as it's cooked, watching chicken broth soak into rice. And if you clean up while your food has just begun to cook, you won't have to worry about anything burning or a mess for after you've cleaned your plate and just want to sit back and enjoy the digestion from the fruits of your labor after a long hard day at an NPO. Not that I think every job is cake, but work at an NPO and you'd know that you're supposed to be able to do everything because you're constantly understaffed. You sort of become a jack-of-all trades.
But not only is cooking relaxing for me, its healthy. I know that unless I'm buying organic I'm still getting additives and all that junk, but the food is actually fresh. Because I try to cook something nearly every night, my body nearly rejects fast food. I can't eat it without getting a massive headache that stays with me for the day, like a caffeine headache, only a grease headache or something, I don't know. Anyway, cooking doesn't need to be something that's done by the June Cleaver's of the world. It can be done by anyone, and with the help of Rachel Ray, you don't even need that much time!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Ayatollah strikes again
Ever since the whole "irresponsible" debacle went down when the Russian terror learned I wasn't about to cowed into admitting I was wrong when he was clearly on the losing side, Ayatollah has been a complete ass. To me, just the sight of him is like nails on a chalkboard for the eyes. I cringe. So, since the big confrontation, I stay out of his way.
Then comes tonight. I'm earning back the money my parents spent on my gymnastics education by giving private lessons ($50 for one hour, thank you), when the tyrant causes a big ruckus with the parent. Apparently, he wanted to do this particular little girl's private lesson, so they shouldn't have to run to me. Because he pitches such a fit (a womanly fit too, but to call him a woman is just an insult to all females except maybe Britney Spears) the women decides to do thirty minutes with me (Still I'm making $30 for those 30 minutes) so the big crybaby tyrant can do his own thirty minutes with the child (much to her dismay because he's a jerk and the child doesn't like him).
Sorry, I just needed to rant. And yes I know it is $20, but on Friday at Hacienda, that could've bought me two liters of much needed Margarita.
Then comes tonight. I'm earning back the money my parents spent on my gymnastics education by giving private lessons ($50 for one hour, thank you), when the tyrant causes a big ruckus with the parent. Apparently, he wanted to do this particular little girl's private lesson, so they shouldn't have to run to me. Because he pitches such a fit (a womanly fit too, but to call him a woman is just an insult to all females except maybe Britney Spears) the women decides to do thirty minutes with me (Still I'm making $30 for those 30 minutes) so the big crybaby tyrant can do his own thirty minutes with the child (much to her dismay because he's a jerk and the child doesn't like him).
Sorry, I just needed to rant. And yes I know it is $20, but on Friday at Hacienda, that could've bought me two liters of much needed Margarita.
Hopes and Dreams
You know, I had all kinds of grand dreams as a kid. I planned on being an astronaut who cured cancer in between moonwalks, wrote books, and occasionally sat as a Supreme Court judge. That didn't happen, probably won't happen, but I'm still going to hope for one or two of those things to happen at some point.
Instead, I'm a salaried employee at non-profit. Translation: I'm overworked, under paid, and we're way under staffed. In addition, I work as a gymnastics instructor (See Dad, that extra monthly billed wasn't all for nothing).
Despite the hours and pay, my jobs are terrific for me. I tend to have a bleeding heart for innocence and feel that children and animals deserve the best from parents and owners. But that's where the bleeding stops.
The only bad things about these jobs is the lack of men. While finishing a second college degree, I was a full-time student, worked at a bank, and taught gymnastics. There wa barely time to drink, let alone get drunk enough to think I was in love. I figured that once I was mature (am I?) that stuff would happen.
Wrong. Out of my two jobs, the only male I'm in contact with is 40-something Russian tyrant whose name is shockingly similar to Ayatollah. That has to be more than a mere coincidence.
So this is my life now. Work, more work, and when I do get a chance to get home, I cuddle up with my Brittany Spaniel named Mac - the most perfect little angel ever!
So this is my life now. Work, more work, and when I do get a chance to get home, I cuddle up with my Brittany Spaniel named Mac - the most perfect little angel ever!
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