While I was a perfectly well-adjusted teenager, I desperately acted like I wasn't.
Anything to do with popular name brands was on my shit list, Nike and Abercrombie at the top.
(I also think this season's insanity regarding the new re-release of the 90's Air Jordan's sort of shows that I wasn't that far off in my hatred...).
Looking back I realize that my friends and I defined ourselves just as much by these brands as those who actually wore them. Maybe we thought we were the rebellious youth going to the beat of our own drums, but instead we wound up following a different drum, but someone else's drum just the same.
*sigh* The one part that's equally fun and disappointing about looking back from the lofty heights of your older years is how incredibly silly you were at that age. Now I understand that drive adults have to tell you about growing up, because hindsight even as little as a decade later is so much clearer than what you see with in the midst of your teenage angst.
I'm trying to keep my mouth shut around my nieces, who are at the tender ages of 9, 12 and 17. The 17 year old especially, since like many girls that age, she is having a difficult time figuring out who she is, who she wants to be, and how to deal with the hordes of other girls in the same boat that will gladly shove her off if it helps them figure it out first.
Great thing about the internet? Whenever you have to keep your mouth shut in real life, you can immediately go and blabber online and get it off your chest.
So my rant today is against Abercrombie and it's apparent cousin, Hollister.
Two stores that I still find myself glaring at whenever I happen to be in the mall.
And not even their shirtless, glistening and heavily muscled men with their chiseled abs could stop my glare at first.
Really? These poor men have to stand outside the storefront shirtless for hours on end, smiling their pretty-boy smiles at all the harried shoppers frantically dashing around the mall looking for little Susie's $50 t-shirt?
I came thisclose to snapping a picture of one fake-tanned boy and telling him, "You'll be on my blog come next week..." in an effort to shame him.
...but then I realized, Hey! He's just trying to earn money with the gifts god gave him, and the pain of having his chest waxed was probably punishment enough.
Plus the sheepish grin he gave me as I walked by, pointedly staring (NOT drooling! Okay, maybe a little drooling...) at him seemed to be an indication that he fully realized how ridiculous the job was.
Plus what's Christmas without a little cheer & forgiveness? And who knows, maybe next year while you bring your kids to visit Santa and sit on his lap, you can hunt down the shirtless prep boys and ask to sit on their laps and tell 'em what you want for Christmas.
Extra points if you get the boys to blush redder than their faux-lifeguard shorts with your wish list.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
By the Skin of My Teeth
I survived Christmas weekend. All three days of it, including the one where 15 of my dad's side of the family invaded our little home for Christmas Eve (that was the only one where "survive" was an apt term since the others were enjoyable and relaxed affairs. More to come on this later).
Even better?
While I did as miserably on that final as I thought I did, apparently so did a bunch of other people in my class. I wasn't the only one crying "Noooo!!!!" when the instructor told us "Time's up!" and desperately scribbling nonsense answers on that last question in a last ditch effort to nab one more point towards my total test score.
While I try to avoid schadenfreude (if my willpower allows, that is), when it comes to things like the curve saving my ass, I am gleefully happy that others were struggling just as hard as I was.
Frankly, I'm sure there were some who were just as happy as I was for the curve.
Regardless, the holiday weekend is over, school's out for another 3 weeks and I can rest easy knowing I did better than squeak by in my class.
To be relatively stress-free for almost a month will be pure bliss. Too bad I'll need at least half of that to recover.
Even better?
While I did as miserably on that final as I thought I did, apparently so did a bunch of other people in my class. I wasn't the only one crying "Noooo!!!!" when the instructor told us "Time's up!" and desperately scribbling nonsense answers on that last question in a last ditch effort to nab one more point towards my total test score.
While I try to avoid schadenfreude (if my willpower allows, that is), when it comes to things like the curve saving my ass, I am gleefully happy that others were struggling just as hard as I was.
Frankly, I'm sure there were some who were just as happy as I was for the curve.
Regardless, the holiday weekend is over, school's out for another 3 weeks and I can rest easy knowing I did better than squeak by in my class.
To be relatively stress-free for almost a month will be pure bliss. Too bad I'll need at least half of that to recover.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Why Do I Love This Line So Much?
More music musings....Mmmmmmmmmm
Maroon 5's song "Harder to Breathe" has a line in it that I really enjoy every time I hear it.
"Clutching your pillow and writhing in a naked sweat / hoping somebody someday will do you like I did"
Probably says something about the composition of my nature--vengeful and sexiful.
Okay, so sexiful isn't word, but maybe it should be.
Sexiful--To be full of sexy confidence, to think sexy thoughts and about sex often, the ability to find sexual innuendo in almost every phrase uttered, to believe oneself to be the epitomy of sexiness.
Hmmm....it appears I'm on a confidence roll currently.
Shortlived though this confidence in my charms and wiles may be, I'm going to make the most of it. Watch out Big B! There may be touching involved.
And let's hope this confidence translates in the classroom (ewww! Not that way you dirty birds!) because I have a final in an hour. Wish me luck!
Maroon 5's song "Harder to Breathe" has a line in it that I really enjoy every time I hear it.
"Clutching your pillow and writhing in a naked sweat / hoping somebody someday will do you like I did"
Probably says something about the composition of my nature--vengeful and sexiful.
Okay, so sexiful isn't word, but maybe it should be.
Sexiful--To be full of sexy confidence, to think sexy thoughts and about sex often, the ability to find sexual innuendo in almost every phrase uttered, to believe oneself to be the epitomy of sexiness.
Hmmm....it appears I'm on a confidence roll currently.
Shortlived though this confidence in my charms and wiles may be, I'm going to make the most of it. Watch out Big B! There may be touching involved.
And let's hope this confidence translates in the classroom (ewww! Not that way you dirty birds!) because I have a final in an hour. Wish me luck!
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
It Just Makes You Want to Fist Pump
I love music.
No, I LOVE music. I must have it on at work and in the car, and prefer to have it on whenever I am not reading or watching something.
My immediate family are all big music lovers. From an early age I can recall my mom dancing and singing in the kitchen and in the car, pounding on the steering wheel in time with the beat. My dad had a very nice receiver with a couple of sets of large, furntiture-in-its-own-right speakers to go with it. Weekends were cleaning days and many a Saturday was spent doing chores while Madonna's Immaculate collection blared throughout the house, each of the women in my family bellering along to "Like A Prayer", "Vogue" or "Holiday". We may not have always agreed on what to listen to as time went on, but we always agreed that music was magic.
I've met some people who aren't that passionate about music (once I even met someone who professed to not like music at all, which I found incomprehensible) but could never understand it. When the melody is beautiful, the beat is moving, the lyrics are touching, the singing exquisite, how can you not be moved in turn?
I like that music is shared between people, and how much you want to share it when you find a song you really like. Learning about new music from other people is my primary way of finding new artists to add to my playlist. The biggest contributors are, strangely enough, the Big B's best man and my sister. Despite their outward differences, I've found that my sister and B's best friend share a very similar musical taste.
Each week I go grocery shopping with my sister and I can picture many a night where she plugs in her iPod to my car stereo to have me listen to a new artist.
"Just listen! You'll love this song, I know it!" Her face lights up in earnestness and she closes her eyes and wiggles around in the car seat, arms and hands gesticulating gracefully in time with the music.
Maybe it's just me, but if someone introduces me to a new song/artist, I will forever associate them with that piece of music.
The guy in IT who I became friends with during a project for my department that introduced me to Hinder and Lacuna Coil? When I try to imagine the lead singer of Hinder, I picture his face instead.
I will forevermore see my high school boyfriend's face who bade me listen to Tool's "Aenima" in his black Dodge Neon one night, his long hair swinging around his ears as he banged his head in time to the ocean wave-like rhythms of that incredible song.
I cannot listen to Pearl Jam's "This Is Not for You" without seeing my mother's hands banging the steering wheel of her green Jeep Wrangler (and this is most certainly where I learned to "car dance").
Whenever I hear Atmosphere on the Current (yay MN public radio!) I inevitably hear the clinking of poker chips and see the face of B's best man, since his poker playlist is something I steal from regularily and was where I first heard "You" by Atmosphere and decided I must have it.
Isn't that the beauty of music? Feeling something inside yourself touched by a particular lyric or rhythm and it mutiplies inside somehow until it cannot be contained anymore and you burst into movement and you want to throw your arms wide and share this wonderfulness with someone, anyone, the world at large?
This must be how dancing starts. Even my rhythmically-challenged hubby taps his feet and moves his head when "Eye of the Tiger" is played.
Once on a long car trip to the family reunion in Iowa, my sister played LCD Soundsystems's "Dance Yourself Clean" in the car and admonished me to "just listen, just listen, it gets better, I promise!"
And it did. Once the beat kicked in she squealed, "Doesn't it just make you want to fist pump?!?" which she promptly began doing.
No, I LOVE music. I must have it on at work and in the car, and prefer to have it on whenever I am not reading or watching something.
My immediate family are all big music lovers. From an early age I can recall my mom dancing and singing in the kitchen and in the car, pounding on the steering wheel in time with the beat. My dad had a very nice receiver with a couple of sets of large, furntiture-in-its-own-right speakers to go with it. Weekends were cleaning days and many a Saturday was spent doing chores while Madonna's Immaculate collection blared throughout the house, each of the women in my family bellering along to "Like A Prayer", "Vogue" or "Holiday". We may not have always agreed on what to listen to as time went on, but we always agreed that music was magic.
I've met some people who aren't that passionate about music (once I even met someone who professed to not like music at all, which I found incomprehensible) but could never understand it. When the melody is beautiful, the beat is moving, the lyrics are touching, the singing exquisite, how can you not be moved in turn?
I like that music is shared between people, and how much you want to share it when you find a song you really like. Learning about new music from other people is my primary way of finding new artists to add to my playlist. The biggest contributors are, strangely enough, the Big B's best man and my sister. Despite their outward differences, I've found that my sister and B's best friend share a very similar musical taste.
Each week I go grocery shopping with my sister and I can picture many a night where she plugs in her iPod to my car stereo to have me listen to a new artist.
"Just listen! You'll love this song, I know it!" Her face lights up in earnestness and she closes her eyes and wiggles around in the car seat, arms and hands gesticulating gracefully in time with the music.
Maybe it's just me, but if someone introduces me to a new song/artist, I will forever associate them with that piece of music.
The guy in IT who I became friends with during a project for my department that introduced me to Hinder and Lacuna Coil? When I try to imagine the lead singer of Hinder, I picture his face instead.
I will forevermore see my high school boyfriend's face who bade me listen to Tool's "Aenima" in his black Dodge Neon one night, his long hair swinging around his ears as he banged his head in time to the ocean wave-like rhythms of that incredible song.
I cannot listen to Pearl Jam's "This Is Not for You" without seeing my mother's hands banging the steering wheel of her green Jeep Wrangler (and this is most certainly where I learned to "car dance").
Whenever I hear Atmosphere on the Current (yay MN public radio!) I inevitably hear the clinking of poker chips and see the face of B's best man, since his poker playlist is something I steal from regularily and was where I first heard "You" by Atmosphere and decided I must have it.
Isn't that the beauty of music? Feeling something inside yourself touched by a particular lyric or rhythm and it mutiplies inside somehow until it cannot be contained anymore and you burst into movement and you want to throw your arms wide and share this wonderfulness with someone, anyone, the world at large?
This must be how dancing starts. Even my rhythmically-challenged hubby taps his feet and moves his head when "Eye of the Tiger" is played.
Once on a long car trip to the family reunion in Iowa, my sister played LCD Soundsystems's "Dance Yourself Clean" in the car and admonished me to "just listen, just listen, it gets better, I promise!"
Boy can Miss Piggy headbang!
And it did. Once the beat kicked in she squealed, "Doesn't it just make you want to fist pump?!?" which she promptly began doing.
And we fist-pumped our way down the lonely highway, enjoying every second. And now I can't imagine listening to this song without a little fist-pumping.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Gack! Attack of the Programmers
Aren't visions of sugarplums supposed to be dancing in my head right now?
Why then, do I have lines of code running amock in my head instead ?
Tell me, dear followers...
When you go to sleep at night, do you find yourself thinking,
"ControlChars.CrLF!"
"MessageBox.Show ("You're an idiot!", "Idiotic Warning Message")
"Parent, child, class, object, method, function...zzzz"
and lest we forget
"Instantiate! Instantiate! You must instantiate your object before you can use it!"
I can literally see these rampant lines of code behind my eyelids when I try to unsuccessfully fall asleep after attempting to tackle my programming homework for hours upon hours...
Things like this:
Public Class DVDBurnerForm
Dim dvdObject As DVD
Dim materials() As Bonus
Dim lastAdded As Integer = -1
Dim title, titleMin, bonus1, bonus2, bonus3, min1, min2, min3 As String
'Create an array of Bonus objects to store bonus materials
lastAdded += 1
materials(lastAdded) = New Bonus
materials(lastAdded).Description = bonus1 & "," & bonus2 & "," & bonus3
materials(lastAdded).Length = CInt(min1 & "," & min2 & "," & min3)
End Sub
Pretty, don't you think?
EXCEPT IT DOESN'T FRAKKIN' WORK, DAMMIT!
All the pretty colors to help you realize the different parts of code are doing/referencing/being different things.
You'd think I'd like that aspect, but all it does is serve to remind me that somehow my
materials(lastAdded) = New Bonus
is coming up with a NULL REFERENCE.
That's akin to the blue screen of death.
Okay, not really. But just as frustrating.
Programming is an art form. One I'm not good at. As was proved to me quite easily during my group project. My school is BIG on group projects & presentations. Apparently some of the big midwest company recruiters have told them that college grads are not coming to the workforce with the necessary public speaking and teamwork skills needed for a truly successful career in business.
In the spirit of the season...BAH! Humbug. I speak plenty good.
I shouldn't jest...I actually did have a coworker recently compliment me on my public speaking skills, saying I was good at it. Okay, fine, here's a begrudging Thank You to Carlson School of Management for forcing me to work with a bunch of AA-personality types who were overachievers their whole lives. You think it's tough being the quiet one in the group? Try being in a group entirely comprised of people who are all "natural leaders". Everyone's claws are out trying to grab as much glory/work as they can (not me, the only thing I over-achieve at presently is procrastination).
Anyways...group programming project. Amongst amatuers, basically. Nightmare on 34th Street!
Luckily for me, I got lumped in with three actual, honest-to-god Computer Science majors. Not psuedo-IT majors like mine (I'll manage the crap out of your Info Systems...someday) but people who will actually be doing the work that I'll hopefully manage someday.
So our programmed game of memory is done (complete with pics of My Little Ponies turned into Boba Fett, Leia, the Alien from the Alien movies, MacGyver and Chuck Norris...hmmm, can you guess who was in charge of grabbing images from Google for our game?) and it's pretty freakin' awesome.
No thanks to me!
I think I wrote 5 lines of code and my only other contributions were finding said pics and setting up the initial GUI (pronounced gooey, and means Graphical User Interface for those newbs out there. Who am I kidding? You could care less).
Also luckily, however, these guys are my peeps. Maybe not exactly my brand of peeps (my "Do you play Magic?" question got some stares that said "Uh...in high school!") but my kind of nerd herd distantly related. So in the spirit of group work (where 20% of the people do 80% of the work) they came up with a plan, implemented it, coded it, and tested it.
And Voila! Our very own 4x4 board of Memory (notice how I still say "our" even after admitting to doing hardly anything on it? Tell me I'm not ready for the real-world of business!).
Complete with Chuck Norris' baleful glare over his crossed forearms.
Once next Thursday comes & goes, I'll happily leave behind the world of programming.
Almost.
It WAS kind of neat to make an annoying program called "Catch That Button!". Still trying to figure out how to bypass my employer's firewalls & safety features to install that baby on my SVP's computer as payback for the "You're attractive too, Sarah!" comment the other day....
That'd keep him busier than a hamster with a wheel.
Why then, do I have lines of code running amock in my head instead ?
Tell me, dear followers...
When you go to sleep at night, do you find yourself thinking,
"ControlChars.CrLF!"
"MessageBox.Show ("You're an idiot!", "Idiotic Warning Message")
"Parent, child, class, object, method, function...zzzz"
and lest we forget
"Instantiate! Instantiate! You must instantiate your object before you can use it!"
I can literally see these rampant lines of code behind my eyelids when I try to unsuccessfully fall asleep after attempting to tackle my programming homework for hours upon hours...
Things like this:
Public Class DVDBurnerForm
Dim dvdObject As DVD
Dim materials() As Bonus
Dim lastAdded As Integer = -1
Dim title, titleMin, bonus1, bonus2, bonus3, min1, min2, min3 As String
'Create an array of Bonus objects to store bonus materials
lastAdded += 1
materials(lastAdded) = New Bonus
materials(lastAdded).Description = bonus1 & "," & bonus2 & "," & bonus3
materials(lastAdded).Length = CInt(min1 & "," & min2 & "," & min3)
End Sub
Pretty, don't you think?
EXCEPT IT DOESN'T FRAKKIN' WORK, DAMMIT!
All the pretty colors to help you realize the different parts of code are doing/referencing/being different things.
You'd think I'd like that aspect, but all it does is serve to remind me that somehow my
materials(lastAdded) = New Bonus
is coming up with a NULL REFERENCE.
That's akin to the blue screen of death.
Okay, not really. But just as frustrating.
Programming is an art form. One I'm not good at. As was proved to me quite easily during my group project. My school is BIG on group projects & presentations. Apparently some of the big midwest company recruiters have told them that college grads are not coming to the workforce with the necessary public speaking and teamwork skills needed for a truly successful career in business.
In the spirit of the season...BAH! Humbug. I speak plenty good.
I shouldn't jest...I actually did have a coworker recently compliment me on my public speaking skills, saying I was good at it. Okay, fine, here's a begrudging Thank You to Carlson School of Management for forcing me to work with a bunch of AA-personality types who were overachievers their whole lives. You think it's tough being the quiet one in the group? Try being in a group entirely comprised of people who are all "natural leaders". Everyone's claws are out trying to grab as much glory/work as they can (not me, the only thing I over-achieve at presently is procrastination).
Anyways...group programming project. Amongst amatuers, basically. Nightmare on 34th Street!
Luckily for me, I got lumped in with three actual, honest-to-god Computer Science majors. Not psuedo-IT majors like mine (I'll manage the crap out of your Info Systems...someday) but people who will actually be doing the work that I'll hopefully manage someday.
So our programmed game of memory is done (complete with pics of My Little Ponies turned into Boba Fett, Leia, the Alien from the Alien movies, MacGyver and Chuck Norris...hmmm, can you guess who was in charge of grabbing images from Google for our game?) and it's pretty freakin' awesome.
No thanks to me!
I think I wrote 5 lines of code and my only other contributions were finding said pics and setting up the initial GUI (pronounced gooey, and means Graphical User Interface for those newbs out there. Who am I kidding? You could care less).
Also luckily, however, these guys are my peeps. Maybe not exactly my brand of peeps (my "Do you play Magic?" question got some stares that said "Uh...in high school!") but my kind of nerd herd distantly related. So in the spirit of group work (where 20% of the people do 80% of the work) they came up with a plan, implemented it, coded it, and tested it.
And Voila! Our very own 4x4 board of Memory (notice how I still say "our" even after admitting to doing hardly anything on it? Tell me I'm not ready for the real-world of business!).
Complete with Chuck Norris' baleful glare over his crossed forearms.
Once next Thursday comes & goes, I'll happily leave behind the world of programming.
Almost.
It WAS kind of neat to make an annoying program called "Catch That Button!". Still trying to figure out how to bypass my employer's firewalls & safety features to install that baby on my SVP's computer as payback for the "You're attractive too, Sarah!" comment the other day....
That'd keep him busier than a hamster with a wheel.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
She does it too!
I'm relieved to find out that I'm not the only one who wants to torture her (future) kids. I once said that to friends of the Big B's and the wife gave me such a look of horror that to this day, I think she thought I was serious.
My good friend Sarwa* came over the other day with her two children in tow.
Now Sarwa is not anyone I'd have pictured as a mom in high school. She moved to my hometown in 8th grade and was always a bit wild. You couldn't hold this girl still. She could burp louder than anyone I'd ever heard, I mean loud enough to rattle-windowpanes-loud. She was always making strange jokes or doing little dances or making up songs spur of the moment.
Our freshman & sophmore years in high school consisted of us mainly walking around town in our ridiculously huge pants while Sarwa would beat box and make up impromptu love songs and sing them to me.
We had the same names and same last initial, and we reveled in the confusion this caused. Whenever anyone would say our name we'd both scream "WHICH ONE?!?"
We worked at Subway together and our manager hated the fact that he had to write out our entire names to differentiate between us.
I NEVER get nicknames (not counting ones from family) so of course when our little duo was nicknamed it was Sarah & Scary Sarah.
I wasn't scary. At all. She was! We wore the huge pants of the rebellious youth of the time, with pantleg circumferences going as high as 5' around for one pantleg.
(If you're curious as to what pants that large around look like, it's so similar to a skirt you'd barely notice except if one walked with very long strides).
Because of these over-large pants, they often trailed behind us like the train of a gown. In the ever-crowded hallways of our rural school, they would often be stepped on. If someone stepped on Sarwa's pantleg, she would turn around and give them a glare scary enough to make them swallow their gum inadvertently and decide they should take another route to class.
Sarwa has 5 brothers and they love to wrestle, and as a result she is freakishly strong.
Motherly is not a word I would ever use to describe her. She would half-jokingly say all the time that she wasn't going to live to see 21, much less have kids, but we were too close for me to allow her to take that seriously.
If someone put a child in her hands, she would hold it out from her body awkwardly and give a look that would say very eloquently "What am I supposed to do with this?"
So when her first child was born, a lovely boy she referred to in the womb as her "parasite", I was highly interested to see how motherhood would take her.
The first time I saw her giving her son a raspberry on his belly I about fell over.
Sarwa just doesn't DO that!
Cut to a few years later and Sarwa had a baby girl this spring. I hadn't seen much of her since she lives up north a ways and schedules are hard to coincide, but we make an effort to hang out at least every couple of months.
So she comes over with 3-yr old son and 6 month old daughter in tow. She is a sweet, sweet child who allows me to hold her without fuss. Sarwa's son is another matter...in order to get a hug from him, I have to fake-cry which always makes me feel guilty, like I'm causing the need for future therapy (*sob* "...and my mom would have this strange lady come over who talked too loudly and would cry until I hugged her, but I didn't really want to hug her...)
I'm a pillow freak (inherited from my mom I think) and so our sectional couch (also inherited from mom) has about a gagillion pillows on it. Her son is having a grand old time burying himself underneath them and exploding out of them periodically while Sarwa & I chat and catch up.
Then she does something that makes me realize that wild and crazy Sarwa is still there, somewhere underneath the diaper changing pad and breast pump.
She grabs her son's ankles, yanking them out from under him so he falls flat on his back on the couch. She puts her hand over his mouth and begins tickling him mercilessly, while he squeals in obvious delight, his heels pounding away on the cushion.
At my shocked expression, she calmly tells me, "He shrieks so loudly I have to cover his mouth or the neighbors think I'm murdering him."
YES!
SHE won't judge me when I playfully torture my kids. She'll join right in!
And to the parents that don't understand that "torture" is an expression of love?
I feel sorry for you. You've never had the joy of embarrassing your kids or tickling them while they squeal in delight. Try it sometime...it's good for the soul. At least I always enjoyed some loving torture growing up.
*Names have been changed...slightly. But I'm not fooling anyone, am I?
My good friend Sarwa* came over the other day with her two children in tow.
Now Sarwa is not anyone I'd have pictured as a mom in high school. She moved to my hometown in 8th grade and was always a bit wild. You couldn't hold this girl still. She could burp louder than anyone I'd ever heard, I mean loud enough to rattle-windowpanes-loud. She was always making strange jokes or doing little dances or making up songs spur of the moment.
Our freshman & sophmore years in high school consisted of us mainly walking around town in our ridiculously huge pants while Sarwa would beat box and make up impromptu love songs and sing them to me.
We had the same names and same last initial, and we reveled in the confusion this caused. Whenever anyone would say our name we'd both scream "WHICH ONE?!?"
We worked at Subway together and our manager hated the fact that he had to write out our entire names to differentiate between us.
I NEVER get nicknames (not counting ones from family) so of course when our little duo was nicknamed it was Sarah & Scary Sarah.
I wasn't scary. At all. She was! We wore the huge pants of the rebellious youth of the time, with pantleg circumferences going as high as 5' around for one pantleg.
(If you're curious as to what pants that large around look like, it's so similar to a skirt you'd barely notice except if one walked with very long strides).
Because of these over-large pants, they often trailed behind us like the train of a gown. In the ever-crowded hallways of our rural school, they would often be stepped on. If someone stepped on Sarwa's pantleg, she would turn around and give them a glare scary enough to make them swallow their gum inadvertently and decide they should take another route to class.
Sarwa has 5 brothers and they love to wrestle, and as a result she is freakishly strong.
Motherly is not a word I would ever use to describe her. She would half-jokingly say all the time that she wasn't going to live to see 21, much less have kids, but we were too close for me to allow her to take that seriously.
If someone put a child in her hands, she would hold it out from her body awkwardly and give a look that would say very eloquently "What am I supposed to do with this?"
So when her first child was born, a lovely boy she referred to in the womb as her "parasite", I was highly interested to see how motherhood would take her.
The first time I saw her giving her son a raspberry on his belly I about fell over.
Sarwa just doesn't DO that!
Cut to a few years later and Sarwa had a baby girl this spring. I hadn't seen much of her since she lives up north a ways and schedules are hard to coincide, but we make an effort to hang out at least every couple of months.
So she comes over with 3-yr old son and 6 month old daughter in tow. She is a sweet, sweet child who allows me to hold her without fuss. Sarwa's son is another matter...in order to get a hug from him, I have to fake-cry which always makes me feel guilty, like I'm causing the need for future therapy (*sob* "...and my mom would have this strange lady come over who talked too loudly and would cry until I hugged her, but I didn't really want to hug her...)
I'm a pillow freak (inherited from my mom I think) and so our sectional couch (also inherited from mom) has about a gagillion pillows on it. Her son is having a grand old time burying himself underneath them and exploding out of them periodically while Sarwa & I chat and catch up.
Then she does something that makes me realize that wild and crazy Sarwa is still there, somewhere underneath the diaper changing pad and breast pump.
She grabs her son's ankles, yanking them out from under him so he falls flat on his back on the couch. She puts her hand over his mouth and begins tickling him mercilessly, while he squeals in obvious delight, his heels pounding away on the cushion.
At my shocked expression, she calmly tells me, "He shrieks so loudly I have to cover his mouth or the neighbors think I'm murdering him."
YES!
SHE won't judge me when I playfully torture my kids. She'll join right in!
And to the parents that don't understand that "torture" is an expression of love?
I feel sorry for you. You've never had the joy of embarrassing your kids or tickling them while they squeal in delight. Try it sometime...it's good for the soul. At least I always enjoyed some loving torture growing up.
*Names have been changed...slightly. But I'm not fooling anyone, am I?
Friday, December 9, 2011
The Women in My Family Are Comfortable With Touching
This is something I've discovered when comparing my immediate family with others. Everyone has boundaries to some extent, with the only difference being in size and application.
For the most part, we have no issue touching other people in social settings. Just met you? No problem, we'll be back-patting, arm squeezing and shoulder-punching you like we were lifelong friends quicker than you can say "bad touch".
Like the time my mom chest-patted my high school boyfriend Parrot Boy (so named for his blue hair, prominent nose, and various pierced body parts. What? I fancied myself a rebel youth). He looked so startled we both laughed about it later on when my mom apologized to me for doing it. Hilarious, because despite Parrot Boy's best efforts to be angst-y and scary, very little deters the women in my family from being touchy-feely.
This sometimes creates problems, like when you marry someone who isn't touchy-feely. Or someone who avoids unnecessary tactile contact like the plague, as the Big B does. I try to be good about not touching him too much, but every once in awhile I can't hold it back any more and I go into "leech mode", whereupon I latch onto him like he's the last floating piece of debris in the ocean after a shipwreck and squeeze with all my might. If he struggles, I've been known to wrap a leg around his hip and be dragged around the house until I've had my fill of hugging.
Coupled with this, I was raised to be comfortable in my own skin and to have no problems discussing bodies and natural functions.
So it was no surprise when my mom, sister and I found ourselves in a compromising situation on a road trip to see Dave Matthews Band one summer.
As a present for my mom, we bought tickets to one of her favorite musical artists and decided to make a girl's trip out of it since the concert was in Wisconsin. We loaded up in the car, booked a hotel room at the Rainbow Inn (eh? eh!) and proceeded to drive across Wisconsin.
We pulled off at a trucker stop/gas station/middle-of-nowhere place to stretch our legs and walk around a bit midway through our drive. We parked in a non-busy part of the large lot and somehow, the conversation turned to our breasts and went something like this:
Me: Your girls look HUGE! (staring at my sister)
Sister: What? Yours are just as big!
Mom: (laughing)
Me: Yours are way bigger! Mom's don't look exactly small, either.
Sister: I think Mom's are bigger.
Mom: (Surprised) Really? I think Sarah's are the biggest.
Me: No way. (Feeling my breasts and looking at the others) Yours are definitely the largest.
Sister: C'mon! We're all pretty similar in size, I think. (Feeling herself up at this point)
Mom: (Feels her own and reaches out to feel ours) I think she's right, Sarah.
Me: (Reaching out to feel my mom's, then my sister's, then my own again) I think you both are crazy!
Mom & Sister: (Feels their own and then everyone else's)
Meanwhile, I happened to look around and realize we had an audience...
Me: *hissing* Omigod don't look now, but I think we just gave that trucker over there something to put in the spank bank...
Sister & Mom: Ewwwww! (All breast fondling stops and we start giggling)
*Disclaimer
And with that, we decided we'd stretched our legs enough and hopped back in the car and speedily made our exit from the scene of our unintentional lewdness.
In honor of that trip, I made us take this photo together on my wedding day.
We're crazy, and neither of them could refuse me on that day.
HA!
*This conversation is not accurate as far as who started touching who first, what exactly was said, or who even brought up the subject of breast size, although I have a strong suspicion it was me. But it is accurate as far as the tone and such. Plus there really was a trucker leaning on his vehicle watching us.
For the most part, we have no issue touching other people in social settings. Just met you? No problem, we'll be back-patting, arm squeezing and shoulder-punching you like we were lifelong friends quicker than you can say "bad touch".
Like the time my mom chest-patted my high school boyfriend Parrot Boy (so named for his blue hair, prominent nose, and various pierced body parts. What? I fancied myself a rebel youth). He looked so startled we both laughed about it later on when my mom apologized to me for doing it. Hilarious, because despite Parrot Boy's best efforts to be angst-y and scary, very little deters the women in my family from being touchy-feely.
This sometimes creates problems, like when you marry someone who isn't touchy-feely. Or someone who avoids unnecessary tactile contact like the plague, as the Big B does. I try to be good about not touching him too much, but every once in awhile I can't hold it back any more and I go into "leech mode", whereupon I latch onto him like he's the last floating piece of debris in the ocean after a shipwreck and squeeze with all my might. If he struggles, I've been known to wrap a leg around his hip and be dragged around the house until I've had my fill of hugging.
Coupled with this, I was raised to be comfortable in my own skin and to have no problems discussing bodies and natural functions.
So it was no surprise when my mom, sister and I found ourselves in a compromising situation on a road trip to see Dave Matthews Band one summer.
As a present for my mom, we bought tickets to one of her favorite musical artists and decided to make a girl's trip out of it since the concert was in Wisconsin. We loaded up in the car, booked a hotel room at the Rainbow Inn (eh? eh!) and proceeded to drive across Wisconsin.
We pulled off at a trucker stop/gas station/middle-of-nowhere place to stretch our legs and walk around a bit midway through our drive. We parked in a non-busy part of the large lot and somehow, the conversation turned to our breasts and went something like this:
Me: Your girls look HUGE! (staring at my sister)
Sister: What? Yours are just as big!
Mom: (laughing)
Me: Yours are way bigger! Mom's don't look exactly small, either.
Sister: I think Mom's are bigger.
Mom: (Surprised) Really? I think Sarah's are the biggest.
Me: No way. (Feeling my breasts and looking at the others) Yours are definitely the largest.
Sister: C'mon! We're all pretty similar in size, I think. (Feeling herself up at this point)
Mom: (Feels her own and reaches out to feel ours) I think she's right, Sarah.
Me: (Reaching out to feel my mom's, then my sister's, then my own again) I think you both are crazy!
Mom & Sister: (Feels their own and then everyone else's)
Meanwhile, I happened to look around and realize we had an audience...
Me: *hissing* Omigod don't look now, but I think we just gave that trucker over there something to put in the spank bank...
Sister & Mom: Ewwwww! (All breast fondling stops and we start giggling)
*Disclaimer
And with that, we decided we'd stretched our legs enough and hopped back in the car and speedily made our exit from the scene of our unintentional lewdness.
In honor of that trip, I made us take this photo together on my wedding day.
We're crazy, and neither of them could refuse me on that day.
HA!
*This conversation is not accurate as far as who started touching who first, what exactly was said, or who even brought up the subject of breast size, although I have a strong suspicion it was me. But it is accurate as far as the tone and such. Plus there really was a trucker leaning on his vehicle watching us.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Fun Holiday Moment
I wish I had caught this live but it's great to see my school doing something fun like this.
Isn't it a gorgeous atrium? The globe in the middle is so shiny & glistening--after all, iridescence is a cousin to rainbow!
I've always wanted to participate in a flash mob...the concept is neat to me.
Happy Holidays!
It starts getting really good around 2:15 when the security guard shows up.
Isn't it a gorgeous atrium? The globe in the middle is so shiny & glistening--after all, iridescence is a cousin to rainbow!
I've always wanted to participate in a flash mob...the concept is neat to me.
Happy Holidays!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
My Little Thanksgiving
My first Thanksgiving as hostess very nearly could have been a turkey-less disaster, but instead was probably the best holiday I could ever wish for.
We had turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean hotdish, stuffing, corn pudding, cranberries from the can, rolls, pumpkin & lemon meringue pie.
Oh, and homemade, delicious, made-from-all-the-drippings gravy (see them whisking away using Momma's guaranteed-yummy technique?).
It wouldn't seem right to have a Thanksgiving at my place without playing with our food a little.
We had turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean hotdish, stuffing, corn pudding, cranberries from the can, rolls, pumpkin & lemon meringue pie.
Oh, and homemade, delicious, made-from-all-the-drippings gravy (see them whisking away using Momma's guaranteed-yummy technique?).
It wouldn't seem right to have a Thanksgiving at my place without playing with our food a little.
Who would have ever suspected that at 10:00 am that morning, this turkey was frozen solid? Between that and the temperature fork/Celsius-Fahrenheit conversion argument of 2011, Wii Jeopardy, and platefuls of excellent food, we all had a great time.
I'm thankful for my family, who can have a frozen turkey on Thanksgiving morning and panic in a bubbling laughter kind of way instead of psycho freaking, who turns taking the bird's temp into an argumentative giggle-fest.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Mushroom Mondays
Fall is my favorite time of year.
Of course, seeing as how we just had our first snowfall that stuck around, this pic is a bit more appropriate.
Of course, seeing as how we just had our first snowfall that stuck around, this pic is a bit more appropriate.
Was That the Glass Ceiling? (Sort of)
I may just be making a big deal.
The signs are subtle. It's the little things that add up.
Take my workplace, for example.
I am mid-level management at the company I work for. My peer, boss, his boss and another manager are all male. We work together frequently, getting together for at least one meeting weekly.
In a recent meeting, we were discussing an employee my coworker was going to have to let go because she was using company email to solicit & conduct her Craigslist escort service (hmmm, maybe that's our problem right there!). The SVP was asking my peer who this woman was and after she was described, he says:
"Oh that dark-haired girl? The fairly attractive one?"
then he looks at me over his glasses and quickly adds, "Not that you're not attractive, too, Sarah!"
WTF?
What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?!?
Why would I be upset that you called another woman attractive? Maybe it was to forstall any HR complaints by throwing a weird compliment my way. Maybe it was just to be polite? Maybe to say that I, too, could have an escort service on Craigslist, if I wanted?
Maybe it's just that these "good ol' boys" have a harder time figuring out where they stand in this age of political correctness.
I get that it's difficult terrain to balance on. As a boss myself, I understand the paranoia surrounding the possibilty of sexual harrassment suits. Once, I winked at a male employee while we were making bantering small talk and then obsessed for days over whether he took it as a lewd wink, rather than just a joking wink, as I meant it to be. (Why oh why did I have to wink? Why did I think it was a good idea? Why, oh why!)
Perhaps it's simply a matter of comfort, or familiarity. But somehow, I can't see the same SVP telling my peer he is handsome, too, if they had been talking about a male.
I'm not really complaining, truly. I haven't been held back for promotions on anything other than my own merits and those of the competing candidates, I get the same consideration for raises as everyone and have received plenty of recognition for my efforts by my boss and the SVP.
It's more about the intangibles--I want to be a member of the "good ol' boys" club regardless of my gender.
I must be needier than I thought! It hurts to know that in the meetings where I don't attend, they are making lewd hand gestures and bawdy jokes that they don't feel free doing in the presence of a female.
I want to shout and say, "I'm just as stuck in the gutter as you are! I want to make jerking-off motions when someone on the conference call says something ridiculous, like you do! I want to be able to laugh at the dirty jokes without seeing you glance my way to see if I'm getting upset. I want to participate, just like you!"
My peer knows that you have to be pretty extreme to offend me when it comes to that sort of thing. In my personal life, I often feel I'm the one to bring it to the gutter first (or at least the first to speak it aloud) and love to play on unintentional sexual innuendos and dirty phrases. He doesn't hold back around me, but it's harder convicing our mutual bosses that I'm down with the bawdiness.
I understand the terror they may feel at the mere thought of exposing themselves (hee hee) to potential harrassment suits, since they don't know me all that well, really.
Perhaps I just need to bust out (I can't stop) my own brand of lechery to show them that my 'tude about lewd is on a par with theirs.
But then I'd have to worry about going too far and dealing with potential harrassment backlash of my own.
Thinking on it, I may just need more patience. As they continue to open up a bit more around me and I don't react negatively, perhaps more filthy jokes will be forthcoming.
Or I could just start with a couple of dirty gestures, to get the ball rolling.
The signs are subtle. It's the little things that add up.
Take my workplace, for example.
I am mid-level management at the company I work for. My peer, boss, his boss and another manager are all male. We work together frequently, getting together for at least one meeting weekly.
In a recent meeting, we were discussing an employee my coworker was going to have to let go because she was using company email to solicit & conduct her Craigslist escort service (hmmm, maybe that's our problem right there!). The SVP was asking my peer who this woman was and after she was described, he says:
"Oh that dark-haired girl? The fairly attractive one?"
then he looks at me over his glasses and quickly adds, "Not that you're not attractive, too, Sarah!"
WTF?
What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?!?
Why would I be upset that you called another woman attractive? Maybe it was to forstall any HR complaints by throwing a weird compliment my way. Maybe it was just to be polite? Maybe to say that I, too, could have an escort service on Craigslist, if I wanted?
Maybe it's just that these "good ol' boys" have a harder time figuring out where they stand in this age of political correctness.
I get that it's difficult terrain to balance on. As a boss myself, I understand the paranoia surrounding the possibilty of sexual harrassment suits. Once, I winked at a male employee while we were making bantering small talk and then obsessed for days over whether he took it as a lewd wink, rather than just a joking wink, as I meant it to be. (Why oh why did I have to wink? Why did I think it was a good idea? Why, oh why!)
Perhaps it's simply a matter of comfort, or familiarity. But somehow, I can't see the same SVP telling my peer he is handsome, too, if they had been talking about a male.
I'm not really complaining, truly. I haven't been held back for promotions on anything other than my own merits and those of the competing candidates, I get the same consideration for raises as everyone and have received plenty of recognition for my efforts by my boss and the SVP.
It's more about the intangibles--I want to be a member of the "good ol' boys" club regardless of my gender.
I must be needier than I thought! It hurts to know that in the meetings where I don't attend, they are making lewd hand gestures and bawdy jokes that they don't feel free doing in the presence of a female.
I want to shout and say, "I'm just as stuck in the gutter as you are! I want to make jerking-off motions when someone on the conference call says something ridiculous, like you do! I want to be able to laugh at the dirty jokes without seeing you glance my way to see if I'm getting upset. I want to participate, just like you!"
My peer knows that you have to be pretty extreme to offend me when it comes to that sort of thing. In my personal life, I often feel I'm the one to bring it to the gutter first (or at least the first to speak it aloud) and love to play on unintentional sexual innuendos and dirty phrases. He doesn't hold back around me, but it's harder convicing our mutual bosses that I'm down with the bawdiness.
I understand the terror they may feel at the mere thought of exposing themselves (hee hee) to potential harrassment suits, since they don't know me all that well, really.
Perhaps I just need to bust out (I can't stop) my own brand of lechery to show them that my 'tude about lewd is on a par with theirs.
But then I'd have to worry about going too far and dealing with potential harrassment backlash of my own.
Thinking on it, I may just need more patience. As they continue to open up a bit more around me and I don't react negatively, perhaps more filthy jokes will be forthcoming.
Or I could just start with a couple of dirty gestures, to get the ball rolling.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
I Need a Quarterstaff
People watching downtown Minneapolis never ceases to amaze & inspire me.
Sometimes the inspiration is to run fast & far away, but thankfully this particular instance did not send me fast-walking away in horror.
Just as I was walking in the doors, I noticed someone walking briskly down the sidewalk going pat, pat, TICK, pat, pat, TICK, pat, pat, TICK...
No, she wasn't drumming as she walked or hitting herself on her flank as if she was riding a pretend cowhorse or even impersonating an analog clock.
That's my approximation of what her walk sounded like as she approached.
The TICK was coming from the tall walking staff she was using to move down the sidewalk. Not just any walking stick, either, but a real God's-honest staff, complete with a funky-cool knob on top and possibly some runic designs carved into its length.
For all appearances, this staff was not needed to help her walk in any way. True, it is winter in Minnesota, but we've yet to have any snow stick *knock on wood* so using a staff isn't required, just yet, to navigate the snow-piles that tend to accumulate on the sidewalks as winter wears on and the MN dept of transportation is running out of places to put the damn stuff.
Immediately I started thinking....
Does she carry this staff to make an artsy-fartsy statement of some kind?
Is she carrying this staff to go to a class on staff-carving?
Does she carry the staff to get attention?
Is she carrying the staff to fend off unwanted men hitting on her?
Eventually I decide that this must not be a neat-o walking staff, but instead is an actual quarterstaff!
This seems much more fun than thinking she's just a bit odd.
Quarterstaffs were my favorite go-to weapon when I first started playing D&D. You have two ends to hit with and as it's a simple weapon almost any character can use one, plus having to obtain a new one is easy if you lose or break your old one. Just find any likely tree, cut it down, scrape off the bark & extra branches and do some smoothing and...VOILA! Brand new goblin-thumping weapon at your service.
My favorite old-school D&D character, a ranger by the name of Tail-Kinker, even got hers modified with blades on the end to deal extra damage when in combat. (I had a very tolerant DM at the time, who not only allowed me to play a made-up race of my own that was basically a humanoid kitty-cat, but also indulged me in letting her turn into any type or size feline if she took a full round action to "meow" and transform. Of course whenever she changed, her gear didn't change with her, so my adventuring PC friends were forced to grab my stuff frequently, seeing as how in feline form I had no opposable thumbs...and there was the tricky aspect that I would be naked when I transformed back....but I digress).
For some reason the thought that this lady was walking around with a deadly weapon hidden in plain sight as she strolled around downtown in the middle of the day tickled my funnybone. Would she get flack for having it on the bus? Would the police that regularly patrol certain areas of downtown tell her she has to peace-holster her stick?
And most of all, does she know how to use that thing properly?
I'll fully admit that while Tail-Kinker knew which end of the stick was what, I personally have no knowledge other than that you whap them with the hard end.
But I'm guessing that if I decided to start carrying a quarterstaff to protect my innocence on the mysterious and sometimes dangerous bus through the bad part of town, it would come in handy, no matter how little I know about actually wielding it effectively.
After all, can you see a random thug/drug dealer/miscreant on the 22 bus through N.Mpls being able to react quickly to a twirling staff? The delay as they pause to figure out what the heck I'm doing as I jump around and swing my quarterstaff should give me enough of a head start to get the hell away.
And if that doesn't work, I'll thump them with the stiff end. Either that, or use it to pole-vault myself ahead to get a lead on them.
Sometimes the inspiration is to run fast & far away, but thankfully this particular instance did not send me fast-walking away in horror.
Just as I was walking in the doors, I noticed someone walking briskly down the sidewalk going pat, pat, TICK, pat, pat, TICK, pat, pat, TICK...
No, she wasn't drumming as she walked or hitting herself on her flank as if she was riding a pretend cowhorse or even impersonating an analog clock.
That's my approximation of what her walk sounded like as she approached.
The TICK was coming from the tall walking staff she was using to move down the sidewalk. Not just any walking stick, either, but a real God's-honest staff, complete with a funky-cool knob on top and possibly some runic designs carved into its length.
For all appearances, this staff was not needed to help her walk in any way. True, it is winter in Minnesota, but we've yet to have any snow stick *knock on wood* so using a staff isn't required, just yet, to navigate the snow-piles that tend to accumulate on the sidewalks as winter wears on and the MN dept of transportation is running out of places to put the damn stuff.
Immediately I started thinking....
Does she carry this staff to make an artsy-fartsy statement of some kind?
Is she carrying this staff to go to a class on staff-carving?
Does she carry the staff to get attention?
Is she carrying the staff to fend off unwanted men hitting on her?
Eventually I decide that this must not be a neat-o walking staff, but instead is an actual quarterstaff!
This seems much more fun than thinking she's just a bit odd.
Quarterstaffs were my favorite go-to weapon when I first started playing D&D. You have two ends to hit with and as it's a simple weapon almost any character can use one, plus having to obtain a new one is easy if you lose or break your old one. Just find any likely tree, cut it down, scrape off the bark & extra branches and do some smoothing and...VOILA! Brand new goblin-thumping weapon at your service.
My favorite old-school D&D character, a ranger by the name of Tail-Kinker, even got hers modified with blades on the end to deal extra damage when in combat. (I had a very tolerant DM at the time, who not only allowed me to play a made-up race of my own that was basically a humanoid kitty-cat, but also indulged me in letting her turn into any type or size feline if she took a full round action to "meow" and transform. Of course whenever she changed, her gear didn't change with her, so my adventuring PC friends were forced to grab my stuff frequently, seeing as how in feline form I had no opposable thumbs...and there was the tricky aspect that I would be naked when I transformed back....but I digress).
For some reason the thought that this lady was walking around with a deadly weapon hidden in plain sight as she strolled around downtown in the middle of the day tickled my funnybone. Would she get flack for having it on the bus? Would the police that regularly patrol certain areas of downtown tell her she has to peace-holster her stick?
And most of all, does she know how to use that thing properly?
I'll fully admit that while Tail-Kinker knew which end of the stick was what, I personally have no knowledge other than that you whap them with the hard end.
But I'm guessing that if I decided to start carrying a quarterstaff to protect my innocence on the mysterious and sometimes dangerous bus through the bad part of town, it would come in handy, no matter how little I know about actually wielding it effectively.
After all, can you see a random thug/drug dealer/miscreant on the 22 bus through N.Mpls being able to react quickly to a twirling staff? The delay as they pause to figure out what the heck I'm doing as I jump around and swing my quarterstaff should give me enough of a head start to get the hell away.
And if that doesn't work, I'll thump them with the stiff end. Either that, or use it to pole-vault myself ahead to get a lead on them.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
What is This Phenomenon They Call "Bronies"?
Looking for My Little Pony stuff on the web the other day, I came across something called "Bronies".
WTF?
Have you heard of this before?
Apparently, it's men (and women) who love the new My Little Pony cartoon.
And when I say love, it's like the kind of strangely fantastic love that inspires a legion of fan art, forums, videos and communities. The phenomenon is an apparently growing epidemic online and I can't believe I'm just stumbling onto it now.
I try to be open minded, I really do.
But, uh, Bronies? Just FYI, the BEST My Little Ponies are and always will be the FIRST GENERATION.
From the 80's baby, with realistic pony bodies and the best names, like Moondancer, Melody, Windwhistler and Firefly (yes there is a MLP named Firefly and she IS a Browncoat!).
Not that I can't get down with a name like Rainbow Dash, of course. Especially since according to Wikipedia, Rainbow Dash is based upon the original Firefly's personality, who was basically THE star of the original My Little Ponies.
Herds of Bronies online may disagree with the above statements. I'm not sure if they have watched the older cartoon since they were kids or if they would even want to, since the impetus of their devotion seems to be wrapped up in the show itself and is inexplicable, even to themselves.
However, after babysitting two little girls recently who think the best part of coming over is the gigantor bag of old school My Little Ponies they get to play with, I got the opportunity to watch one of the new episodes.
All too soon, the show was over.
At first, the animation style threw me off but gradually the surprising depth of plot for a children's show and the great voice acting sucked me in.
In a move that spoke to my fierce nostalgic heart while at the same time creating a bit of disappointment, the little girls said they wanted to watch my DVD of the original 80's TV show instead of another of the new My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episodes.
I have a feeling I won't be waiting for the excuse of babysitting little girls before I watch the other episodes. And if I grow restless for more MLP magic, there's plenty of fan content on the web to keep a geek like me happy.
Enjoy! And if you become a Brony, be sure to tell me. I'm fascinated!
WTF?
Have you heard of this before?
Apparently, it's men (and women) who love the new My Little Pony cartoon.
And when I say love, it's like the kind of strangely fantastic love that inspires a legion of fan art, forums, videos and communities. The phenomenon is an apparently growing epidemic online and I can't believe I'm just stumbling onto it now.
I try to be open minded, I really do.
But, uh, Bronies? Just FYI, the BEST My Little Ponies are and always will be the FIRST GENERATION.
From the 80's baby, with realistic pony bodies and the best names, like Moondancer, Melody, Windwhistler and Firefly (yes there is a MLP named Firefly and she IS a Browncoat!).
Not that I can't get down with a name like Rainbow Dash, of course. Especially since according to Wikipedia, Rainbow Dash is based upon the original Firefly's personality, who was basically THE star of the original My Little Ponies.
Herds of Bronies online may disagree with the above statements. I'm not sure if they have watched the older cartoon since they were kids or if they would even want to, since the impetus of their devotion seems to be wrapped up in the show itself and is inexplicable, even to themselves.
However, after babysitting two little girls recently who think the best part of coming over is the gigantor bag of old school My Little Ponies they get to play with, I got the opportunity to watch one of the new episodes.
All too soon, the show was over.
At first, the animation style threw me off but gradually the surprising depth of plot for a children's show and the great voice acting sucked me in.
In a move that spoke to my fierce nostalgic heart while at the same time creating a bit of disappointment, the little girls said they wanted to watch my DVD of the original 80's TV show instead of another of the new My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episodes.
I have a feeling I won't be waiting for the excuse of babysitting little girls before I watch the other episodes. And if I grow restless for more MLP magic, there's plenty of fan content on the web to keep a geek like me happy.
As I FINALLY watched Firefly and became a Browncoat,
I thought this would be appropriate.
Enjoy! And if you become a Brony, be sure to tell me. I'm fascinated!
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Thankful for Good Deeds
It is here, the time of year when people are simultaneously at their most cheerful and most cranky.
The holidays can alternately inspire cheer, dread, anxiety, happiness, depression...and often all to the same person in the same day.
I love the gathering together of loved ones, the generousity the season inspires and all the good food.
I dread the crowds, the cranky people having to deal with those crowds & the worries of the season, and the inescapable financial concerns the holidays bring with them.
But I'm hopeful this year, because my first encounter with holiday crowds last night, albeit very brief, was a positive one.
If doing a good deed, even a minor one, makes you feel this good, why aren't we doing them all the time? Why do we do mean things at all, when doing the opposite has such great consequences? Why, oh why, is it easier to be naughty then nice in the spur of the moment? Why is it harder to reign in the negative things and harder to do positive stuff?
For me personally, I am a procrastinator, so I am queen at justifying why I won't be doing something good just yet. There's always the "I'll donate when I have more money" "I'll do that tomorrow when I'm not so busy with my life" etc etc ad nauseum.
But every once in awhile, I can trick my brain into doing something good before my evil half can rationalize my way out of it.
Last night I had to make a brief stop at the grocery store for pop (aka carbonated beverages for all you non-Minnesotans). God forbid the Big B should run out of Mountain Dew!
Okay, okay, or myself for that matter.
As I whip into a parking spot, I immediately notice the concern on the faces of the people surrounding the car parked opposite from me. It's apparent that something is wrong with their silver Grand Am. I see two ladies and some smaller heads in the backseat, indicating there are probably children in there somewhere.
Before my brain can get time to think about how much stuff I have to do at home and how I just want to run this errand & be done with it, my mouth opens as I open my car door and asks "Do you need a jump?"
They sure did. I open my hood and the trunk, take out the nice set of jumper cables my dad insisted I always keep in my car since I first began driving, and prepared to Do Good.
A young man, seeing a group of ladies around a pair of open engines, also offers to help, which I accept gratefully because I can never remember what order you're supposed to place the cables & whether the car should be running first or not.
In less than 5 minutes, their Pontiac is started and I'm on my way inside the store to complete my errand.
"Happy Thanksgiving!"
"Bless you, we didn't know how we were going to work this out if our friend's car couldn't get to us in the lot."
"Thank you!"
Their relief is palpable and the goodwill is almost visible. The surprise that a stranger, no, two strangers, would jump in & help without being asked has left their voices, and instead you can hear the warmth.
I can't keep the grin from my face the entire time I'm in the store, and when I run into the young man inside who helped out, I thank him for his help and we share a brief smile.
If all it takes is something this small, this simple, this easy, to feel so good, why aren't I doing this all the time?
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May you find yourself Doing Good when the opportunity presents itself, whether by fortune or because you seek it out.
The holidays can alternately inspire cheer, dread, anxiety, happiness, depression...and often all to the same person in the same day.
I love the gathering together of loved ones, the generousity the season inspires and all the good food.
I dread the crowds, the cranky people having to deal with those crowds & the worries of the season, and the inescapable financial concerns the holidays bring with them.
But I'm hopeful this year, because my first encounter with holiday crowds last night, albeit very brief, was a positive one.
If doing a good deed, even a minor one, makes you feel this good, why aren't we doing them all the time? Why do we do mean things at all, when doing the opposite has such great consequences? Why, oh why, is it easier to be naughty then nice in the spur of the moment? Why is it harder to reign in the negative things and harder to do positive stuff?
For me personally, I am a procrastinator, so I am queen at justifying why I won't be doing something good just yet. There's always the "I'll donate when I have more money" "I'll do that tomorrow when I'm not so busy with my life" etc etc ad nauseum.
But every once in awhile, I can trick my brain into doing something good before my evil half can rationalize my way out of it.
Last night I had to make a brief stop at the grocery store for pop (aka carbonated beverages for all you non-Minnesotans). God forbid the Big B should run out of Mountain Dew!
Okay, okay, or myself for that matter.
As I whip into a parking spot, I immediately notice the concern on the faces of the people surrounding the car parked opposite from me. It's apparent that something is wrong with their silver Grand Am. I see two ladies and some smaller heads in the backseat, indicating there are probably children in there somewhere.
Before my brain can get time to think about how much stuff I have to do at home and how I just want to run this errand & be done with it, my mouth opens as I open my car door and asks "Do you need a jump?"
They sure did. I open my hood and the trunk, take out the nice set of jumper cables my dad insisted I always keep in my car since I first began driving, and prepared to Do Good.
A young man, seeing a group of ladies around a pair of open engines, also offers to help, which I accept gratefully because I can never remember what order you're supposed to place the cables & whether the car should be running first or not.
In less than 5 minutes, their Pontiac is started and I'm on my way inside the store to complete my errand.
"Happy Thanksgiving!"
"Bless you, we didn't know how we were going to work this out if our friend's car couldn't get to us in the lot."
"Thank you!"
Their relief is palpable and the goodwill is almost visible. The surprise that a stranger, no, two strangers, would jump in & help without being asked has left their voices, and instead you can hear the warmth.
I can't keep the grin from my face the entire time I'm in the store, and when I run into the young man inside who helped out, I thank him for his help and we share a brief smile.
If all it takes is something this small, this simple, this easy, to feel so good, why aren't I doing this all the time?
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. May you find yourself Doing Good when the opportunity presents itself, whether by fortune or because you seek it out.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Wicked Fun with My Little Ponies
I don't know why I never thought of getting a My Little Pony as a tattoo. Seeing it in the flesh, so to speak, makes me consider it more seriously.
And if I wanted to be naughty I'd get one provocative like this:
If I wanted to be sweet, I'd get one like the seapony below.
If I wanted to be badass, I'd get one like this:
And if I wanted to be naughty I'd get one provocative like this:
This image is thanks to my Game Whore friend who found it
somewhere & sent it to my phone, where it has stayed
as its wallpaper ever since. And that was MONTHS ago!
Technically, the one & only tiny tattoo I already have is in the spot where my picture would be if I were a pony. So in a way, I kinda do already have pony-themed ink.
Octo Mushroom Monday
These last two are especially evocative, aren't they?
This one's for you Cal. Go bonzo.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Too Naive for My Own Good
Despite all my wishes to the contrary, I am still naive.
To prove my point, witness my stupidity the other day whilst outside on my break.
I push open the doors, heading towards my usual spot by the air exchanger for the building where occasional warmth can be blown over me by the constant wind downtown.
"Nice shoes," says the man on the bus stop bench.
I have seen him before...he wears shorts even in 40 degree weather, has an Aussie-style cowboy hat with chin-strap, and a large salt and pepper beard. Almost infallibly he compliments me on my shoes, whenever I see him.
The past couple of times I've entertained the thought that maybe I know this man. He looks sorta like a fellow Minnesota blogger I follow and I've thought about asking him to confirm this.
Who knows? Maybe he IS that blogger and compliments my shoes because he knows I follow him? Although I do wear kick ass shoes...
For whatever reason, I decide that today is a good day to gain confirmation (or denial) of my supposition.
I approach him cautiously.
"Are you so-and-so? You look just like a blogger I follow..."
He shakes his head and says no.
"Oh okay, you look a lot like him!" and I start to walk away, which in hindsight was very smart, however dumb I was just a minute ago to approach him in the first place.
"Nope, but would you like a foot massage?" he says in return.
ACK!
When will I learn?
No matter how kickass my shoes are, the only men who are going to compliment me constantly on my footwear are gay men and people with a foot fetish.
And so I shut my mouth, shook my head vigorously, and proceeded to walk away in my kick-ass black zipper ankle booties as fast as the high heels would allow.
To prove my point, witness my stupidity the other day whilst outside on my break.
I push open the doors, heading towards my usual spot by the air exchanger for the building where occasional warmth can be blown over me by the constant wind downtown.
"Nice shoes," says the man on the bus stop bench.
I have seen him before...he wears shorts even in 40 degree weather, has an Aussie-style cowboy hat with chin-strap, and a large salt and pepper beard. Almost infallibly he compliments me on my shoes, whenever I see him.
The past couple of times I've entertained the thought that maybe I know this man. He looks sorta like a fellow Minnesota blogger I follow and I've thought about asking him to confirm this.
Who knows? Maybe he IS that blogger and compliments my shoes because he knows I follow him? Although I do wear kick ass shoes...
For whatever reason, I decide that today is a good day to gain confirmation (or denial) of my supposition.
I approach him cautiously.
"Are you so-and-so? You look just like a blogger I follow..."
He shakes his head and says no.
"Oh okay, you look a lot like him!" and I start to walk away, which in hindsight was very smart, however dumb I was just a minute ago to approach him in the first place.
"Nope, but would you like a foot massage?" he says in return.
ACK!
When will I learn?
No matter how kickass my shoes are, the only men who are going to compliment me constantly on my footwear are gay men and people with a foot fetish.
And so I shut my mouth, shook my head vigorously, and proceeded to walk away in my kick-ass black zipper ankle booties as fast as the high heels would allow.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Look What My Son Caught for Me
He was so frakkin proud.
I knew something was up when I got out of the shower and instead of being in his customary spot on the rug just outside the tub, he was laying underneath the toilet.
Luckily, I am a habitual looker-down-before-I-step kind of person, so I managed to spot the "gift" before stepping on it (let me just say "eeeeeewwwww").
You guessed right.
My furry, four-legged "son" caught a mouse sometime between my alarm going off (where he was curled up in the nook of my bent legs) and me getting out of the shower last Friday morning.
And he's declawed!
This is the 2nd animal he's caught in the house. The first time he caught a little black shrew. We think it was him but really can't be sure since we do have two hunters in the house (Alabama Mae caught a shrew outside during a Father's Day BBQ and promptly brought it to my dad as a present).
This one I could be sure was his, just because of his odd behavior. When I stepped out of the shower, he looked at me, then at the mouse, and then back at me as if to say "Momma! Aren't you going to praise me?"
Of course I couldn't deal with the dead critter just then...I was still naked for cryin' out loud!
So I used some toilet paper to move it away from immediate danger of being stepped on in our 1' square bathroom and proceeded to get to the point where I was dressed enough to toss the carcass outside.
I considered flushing it, but thought it would be a bad idea. Gizmo is an extremely smart kitten, and he would try to "rescue" his prize if he saw me put it in the toilet.
But when it came time to dispose of the corpse, IT WAS GONE!!
OMIGOD. Not good.
Now I had to find this damn thing because there's no way I'm letting a potential mini-mouse zombie reanimate within the confines of my home.
I checked the usual spots...his food & water dish, his little hidey-hole cat castle, the spare bed...
Nada.
But then I remembered one truly important fact about my son....he's a HUGE daddy's boy, so I knew that he would have to show off his hunting skills to his father upstairs.
Nevermind that the Big B is sleeping away, Gizmo is a quiet understated kind of kitty but he would wait patiently until B acknowledged his feat.
And that's right where I found him and the mouse, hanging out on the carpet upstairs, waiting patiently for the accolades that are justly due him.
I knew something was up when I got out of the shower and instead of being in his customary spot on the rug just outside the tub, he was laying underneath the toilet.
Luckily, I am a habitual looker-down-before-I-step kind of person, so I managed to spot the "gift" before stepping on it (let me just say "eeeeeewwwww").
You guessed right.
My furry, four-legged "son" caught a mouse sometime between my alarm going off (where he was curled up in the nook of my bent legs) and me getting out of the shower last Friday morning.
And he's declawed!
This is the 2nd animal he's caught in the house. The first time he caught a little black shrew. We think it was him but really can't be sure since we do have two hunters in the house (Alabama Mae caught a shrew outside during a Father's Day BBQ and promptly brought it to my dad as a present).
This one I could be sure was his, just because of his odd behavior. When I stepped out of the shower, he looked at me, then at the mouse, and then back at me as if to say "Momma! Aren't you going to praise me?"
Of course I couldn't deal with the dead critter just then...I was still naked for cryin' out loud!
So I used some toilet paper to move it away from immediate danger of being stepped on in our 1' square bathroom and proceeded to get to the point where I was dressed enough to toss the carcass outside.
I considered flushing it, but thought it would be a bad idea. Gizmo is an extremely smart kitten, and he would try to "rescue" his prize if he saw me put it in the toilet.
But when it came time to dispose of the corpse, IT WAS GONE!!
OMIGOD. Not good.
Now I had to find this damn thing because there's no way I'm letting a potential mini-mouse zombie reanimate within the confines of my home.
I checked the usual spots...his food & water dish, his little hidey-hole cat castle, the spare bed...
Nada.
But then I remembered one truly important fact about my son....he's a HUGE daddy's boy, so I knew that he would have to show off his hunting skills to his father upstairs.
Nevermind that the Big B is sleeping away, Gizmo is a quiet understated kind of kitty but he would wait patiently until B acknowledged his feat.
And that's right where I found him and the mouse, hanging out on the carpet upstairs, waiting patiently for the accolades that are justly due him.
Oh he looks so very proud, doesn't he?
Okay so you can barely see the thing...but it was definitely a live mouse at one point!
I guess all that practice with the fake mousies last night really gave Gizmo an edge this morning when it came time for the real thing.
My son, the mighty fluffy hunter.
*I tried to delay-post this 3 FRAKKIN times...Blogger hates me, because it's now a week later than I meant to post it. *sigh*
*I tried to delay-post this 3 FRAKKIN times...Blogger hates me, because it's now a week later than I meant to post it. *sigh*
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
DIY Halloween 2011: Success!
This year, as a result of yet more procrastination (not all me! this time) my friends didn't get zombified up for the Minneapolis Zombie pub crawl like we wanted.
Granted, we decided to do it a week before the event, which is never a good idea. But one good thing did come out of not getting bit...we made a pact to have a party to make our own costumes for Halloween.
My friend the Game Whore (self proclaimed and well-earned; the man is currently in a dozen different tabletop RPG adventures as well as playing Magic & board games here and there, and somehow getting sleep & going to work) was very upset that he had "half assed Convergence & now the zombie crawl" and made us promise to have a costume-making party to get our asses in gear for Halloween.
I too wanted to bring a dream I had half assed thought about last year but again was too slow to undertake it in time for Halloween. So I harrassed with the emails and four of us got together to make costumes one night.
My friend who when first introduced to me promptly said "It's spelled with one T" who forever earned the moniker 1T decided to make his own Sith costume. I had some nice darker blue fabric left over from Demona that worked nicely with some materials he had already.
A new gamer-geek-girl to the group (yay!) went with Lady CawCaw, after already having the idea to go as a blackbird and Game Whore blurted out the perfect name for her costume.
Game Whore himself was told by his 9 year old daughter what he was to be for Halloween...because it made her costume! She wanted to be the killer bunny from Monty Python & the Holy Grail. How can you not love this geekling I ask you? So of course my friend went as King Arthur.
Moi? I was destined to be Wonder Woman, but I was determined to do it right.
Armed with our ideas, we hit up a fabric store, found the perfect materials, and set to work.
Iiiieeeyee! Labor intensive does not describe.
King Arthur could settle for no less than real, hand-made chainmail for his coif. I was fascinated by his technique...with the use of a wooden spoon, wire coiled tightly around it, he cut many dozens of rings from the wire and painstakingly put them all together. The end result was so incredibly nice! I hadn't expected it to feel so heavy or move so nicely when it was all done. I shouldn't have doubted!
Lady CawCaw had her work cut out for her too--sewing feathers onto nylon fairy wings she had cut down & re-worked to fit on her arms. I teased her the day following my party as I swept up dozens of "molted" feathers.
I did not find stretchy blue material with stars already on it, so I was regulated to sewing over 2 dozen hand-cut white stars onto my homemade shiny blue granny panties. For three weeks all I felt like I did was sit and sew white stars. Doing the entire thing by hand sewing certainly didn't help! But I knew my sewing machine skills weren't up to all those tiny finicky corners. Plus I was doubtful as to my abilities to create a supportive bustier, so I planned on sewing directly onto a strapless bustier I already owned.
I was on a budget, but even with buying all the fabric and other supplies I kept it below $40, easily cheaper than buying a store costume and infinitely more satisfying because I could control getting every detail right.
Even better, it turned out pretty well so with a few modifications for Convergence I'll be able to wear it again for next year's theme of Wonder Women. The one thing I'll have to invest in will be a pair of boots however--the bootcovers I got from my future stepmom who snatched them up at her work and I painted red leave a little to be desired for a truly good cosplay outfit.
We all think they turned out great, but I'll let you be the judge as well!
Granted, we decided to do it a week before the event, which is never a good idea. But one good thing did come out of not getting bit...we made a pact to have a party to make our own costumes for Halloween.
My friend the Game Whore (self proclaimed and well-earned; the man is currently in a dozen different tabletop RPG adventures as well as playing Magic & board games here and there, and somehow getting sleep & going to work) was very upset that he had "half assed Convergence & now the zombie crawl" and made us promise to have a costume-making party to get our asses in gear for Halloween.
I too wanted to bring a dream I had half assed thought about last year but again was too slow to undertake it in time for Halloween. So I harrassed with the emails and four of us got together to make costumes one night.
My friend who when first introduced to me promptly said "It's spelled with one T" who forever earned the moniker 1T decided to make his own Sith costume. I had some nice darker blue fabric left over from Demona that worked nicely with some materials he had already.
A new gamer-geek-girl to the group (yay!) went with Lady CawCaw, after already having the idea to go as a blackbird and Game Whore blurted out the perfect name for her costume.
Game Whore himself was told by his 9 year old daughter what he was to be for Halloween...because it made her costume! She wanted to be the killer bunny from Monty Python & the Holy Grail. How can you not love this geekling I ask you? So of course my friend went as King Arthur.
Moi? I was destined to be Wonder Woman, but I was determined to do it right.
Armed with our ideas, we hit up a fabric store, found the perfect materials, and set to work.
Iiiieeeyee! Labor intensive does not describe.
King Arthur could settle for no less than real, hand-made chainmail for his coif. I was fascinated by his technique...with the use of a wooden spoon, wire coiled tightly around it, he cut many dozens of rings from the wire and painstakingly put them all together. The end result was so incredibly nice! I hadn't expected it to feel so heavy or move so nicely when it was all done. I shouldn't have doubted!
Lady CawCaw had her work cut out for her too--sewing feathers onto nylon fairy wings she had cut down & re-worked to fit on her arms. I teased her the day following my party as I swept up dozens of "molted" feathers.
I did not find stretchy blue material with stars already on it, so I was regulated to sewing over 2 dozen hand-cut white stars onto my homemade shiny blue granny panties. For three weeks all I felt like I did was sit and sew white stars. Doing the entire thing by hand sewing certainly didn't help! But I knew my sewing machine skills weren't up to all those tiny finicky corners. Plus I was doubtful as to my abilities to create a supportive bustier, so I planned on sewing directly onto a strapless bustier I already owned.
The crown, belt & cuffs were the easiest!
Even better, it turned out pretty well so with a few modifications for Convergence I'll be able to wear it again for next year's theme of Wonder Women. The one thing I'll have to invest in will be a pair of boots however--the bootcovers I got from my future stepmom who snatched them up at her work and I painted red leave a little to be desired for a truly good cosplay outfit.
We all think they turned out great, but I'll let you be the judge as well!
He had a shield as well but it intimidates potential conversationalists
The beak is even better in profile!
Okay I couldn't resist playing with King Arthur's real bastard sword
Darth 1T can't resist the lasso of truth!
The hubby and I--appropriate costume for him since he's moving
like an old man from another recent back surgery.
Lady CawCaw was not ready for this one
Yay! My BFF + ∞
Some more fun costumes from the night...even if they were store bought, they were cool!
He-Man would not approve
You better believe She-Ra will be at Convergence this year!
Eastbound & Down is hilarious...and my friend's
Kenny Powers impersonation was eerily spot on
Ah, Jack & Sally--maybe we'll see them again at Christmastime!
Of course no party at my house would be complete without a bit of silliness...
Don't ask what's going on here...it's my most random pic of the night
Excalibur is no match for Wonder Woman's lasso!
Epic battle! Medieval against futuristic!
All in all we were happy with our results and the party was a success. Far from whetting my appetite for DIY costumes, I find that already I am dreaming of more cosplay and am already haranguing my friends to get thinking about what to do for our next adventure.
Monday, November 7, 2011
The Return of Mushroom Monday
Okay so they're either fanciful or not fungi per se but I liked these.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
I Knew It Would Happen...
...and honestly, I'm only surprised at the length of time I made it before it did.
My apologies for my long absence.
When I took my vacation, with the best of intentions, I meant to take a mini-break from the blogger world just long enough to refresh, get some stuff done and prepare for classes to start again in the fall.
Of course, when you're a tremendous procrastinator and world-class justifier like I am, a little mini-break can become a rather large break.
A (large) part of me wants to whine & give forth all my excuses...
...but if I am to be honest, there really isn't any.
Sure, I've been busy. But I was busy the first nine months I blogged faithfully, so that holds no water here.
So I'll just leave it that I was gone, but now I'm back!
And I'll keep the excuse-giver locked inside where she belongs, the dirty creature, and just be glad instead that I'm starting again.
And for the fact that this made it much, much longer than any of my diaries or journaling attempts did in the past.
If it's any consolation, there's a large part of me freaking out over all I've missed while I was MIA.
And there she peeks her head up again, blinking in the daylight, that darkness-dwelling creature named Someday Tomorrow who says "Someday I'll catch up on all that I missed..."
My apologies for my long absence.
When I took my vacation, with the best of intentions, I meant to take a mini-break from the blogger world just long enough to refresh, get some stuff done and prepare for classes to start again in the fall.
Of course, when you're a tremendous procrastinator and world-class justifier like I am, a little mini-break can become a rather large break.
A (large) part of me wants to whine & give forth all my excuses...
...but if I am to be honest, there really isn't any.
Sure, I've been busy. But I was busy the first nine months I blogged faithfully, so that holds no water here.
So I'll just leave it that I was gone, but now I'm back!
And I'll keep the excuse-giver locked inside where she belongs, the dirty creature, and just be glad instead that I'm starting again.
And for the fact that this made it much, much longer than any of my diaries or journaling attempts did in the past.
If it's any consolation, there's a large part of me freaking out over all I've missed while I was MIA.
And there she peeks her head up again, blinking in the daylight, that darkness-dwelling creature named Someday Tomorrow who says "Someday I'll catch up on all that I missed..."
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