Friday, August 30, 2013

Childish Games


Remember when you were a kid and  everything you did was ridiculous and imagination based? I was thinking about some of the games I used to play when I was little, and I realized most of them were a little bit fucked up.

One game my sister and I used to play was called "poor people." We designated the office as our shack and staged it with candle sticks and a decorative lantern my mom had. We also draped towels over our shoulders like shawls to really get that poverty feeling. Next, we pretended to wander through the woods (the kitchen) to scavenge for scraps of food (think Kraft singles and saltines). Then we returned to our shack where we eat our measly crumbs and complain about how dreadfully tired and hungry we were and wonder if we'd ever survive through the winter. It was all very dramatic.

We also played "orphanage" with our cousins, Mary and Carolyn, which was loosely based on the musical Annie. Mary, being the oldest, acted as the headmistress of the orphanage. She poured juice into a wine glass and sauntered around as a violent drunk. Then Carolyn, Amy, and I tried to escape by sneaking downstairs. If we were caught, we'd be berated and dragged back to the orphanage for more maltreatment. So, I guess it was Annie without any of the happy parts.

Then there was a solo game that I played. This one didn't really have a name, but it was one of my favorites. It was just me climbing around under the dining room chairs pretending to be escaping from the wreckage of a fiery plane crash.

I might have been a weird kid.


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Pup Cup


If you have a dog with you, the girl at the Dairy Queen drive thru window will give you a pup cup. It's just a little cup of plain vanilla ice cream, but it is the best thing that has ever happened to Gordy. As you can see:




It took probably a minute for him to eat the whole thing, and I don't think he blinked once the entire time. Actually, for a while it looked like his eyes were going to bulge out of his head.





But once he had a taste for it, he turned into a maniac beggar for the rest of the drive home. So, thanks for the pup cup, Dairy Queen, but also damn you for ruining my dog.


Sunday, August 25, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 7





This weekend I... attended a Friday night wedding. It was beautiful. The ceremony took place in a church located near the Lake of the Isles, so we had to drive by all the mansions over there on our way over. I was reminded of how badly I want a giant, old house someday that I can decorate to be cold and kind of creepy.


This weekend I... turned into a sloth. I spent a lot of time laying around in my pajamas watching Netflix. I know it was beautiful out and blah blah blah, but it was my first weekend of the summer that wasn't totally booked up, so I decided to take full advantage of it. And in my opinion, a pint of Chunky Monkey ice cream and an entire season of Arrested Development equals mission accomplished. 

But I do feel kind of guilty about it. So I'm also going to blame my allergy medicine for making me drowsy.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Post #101


So I can't think about anything to write a whole post about today. But here's a bunch of random crap. Much like this post. I'm so lazy.



  • One time my sister went on one of those helicopter rides at the county fair, and the pilot died in a helicopter crash like a year later.
  • I know that this not a good trait, but my first instinct is almost always to lie to strangers. Seriously, almost always.
  • The best way to make friends with someone really quickly is to talk about a tv show you both watch.
  • I let the boyfriend register Gordy when we got him; so, according to the city of Minneapolis his name is Gordon Hawkeye.
  • I do not understand the Internet. At all. Especially wifi. Am I swimming in a sea of facebook and youtube when I'm near an access point?
  • Speaking of the Internet, I'm always very careful about what I search online. I'm worried that someday I'll die mysteriously or, more likely, commit a serious crime, and my laptop will be taken in as evidence. I think about those imaginary detectives every time I open google.
  • Honestly, I can only "imagine" like two of the things John Lennon mentions in that song. I mean, no possessions? How could we determine who is better than whom if we don't have cars and handbags?



Sunday, August 18, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 6






This weekend I... went to the horse races with the boyfriend and his parents, and we had a near death experience. For real.

We were standing at the edge of the ring where they parade around the horses before each race. One of them, number seven, seemed really pissy the whole time. It kept jerking its head around and wouldn't walk nicely like the other horses did. Then it started bucking and reared up so high that it tipped over backwards, crashing through the fence.

Then shit got crazy. People were screaming and running all over the place. The horse scrambled back to its feet looking scared and angry. It charged directly toward us. People were still shouting and literally diving out of its path. The boyfriend had to hop over the fence to get out of its way.

And what did I do? I totally froze. I panicked and just stood there like an idiot, while this crazed beast charged by, like thirty inches away from my face. Yeah, I'm clearly an asset in crisis situations.



Here is the culprit moments before he lost his shit.



This weekend I... had to get a new phone because my old one just completely stopped working. It was horrible. Just so you know, the guys at Verizon will laugh at you when you ask for a phone that doesn't have any malarky like touch screens or the Internet. And then they will take a really long time in the back while they look for one.

But whatever. Only God can judge me. 2Pac taught me that.


Thursday, August 15, 2013

Misquoted


I saw this on reddit last week and it officially became my favorite thing in the world:




And then my brain immediately started misappropriating a bunch of other quotes. They're obviously not as good as the original, but here you go:


  • "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." -Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington
  • "There's no crying in baseball." -Alex Rodriguez
  • "Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well." -Falcon Heene (Balloon Boy)
  • "Leadership is unlocking people's potential." -Charles Manson
  • "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." -Mike Lazaridis (Founder of Blackberry)
  • "It's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." -Michele Bachmann
  • "You talking to me?" -Helen Keller



Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The Grossest Thing that Ever Happened to Me


The nice thing about having a dog is you always have someone to mess with. The bad thing about having a dog is that sometimes really gross things happen.

One day Gordy was sitting next to me on the couch, turned slightly away. I poked him and laughed when he made an incredibly half hearted snap in my direction. So I did it again, and again he barely turned his head and lazily bit the air. (There must not have been anything good on TV because I remember finding those lazy reactions absolutely hilarious.)

And then I did it again. But this time Gordy jumped up to pounce at me. And instead of poking him near the hip like I did before, I touched him in the worst place possible. His butt. Like my finger touched his butt hole. It only lasted, like, a tenth of a second, but that was enough to make me wonder if life had any meaning anymore.



P.S. This doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but just for fun, this is what it's like when we give Gordy a bath.








This is my life now. I must live with the choices I've made.



Sunday, August 11, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 5






High in emotionally-charged protein
This weekend I... went to Crayfest at the Smack Shack. It's a lobster restaurant that sponsored a block party with all-you-can-eat crayfish and all-you-can drink beer and hurricanes. Oh, and there were a couple of bands. It was a pretty decent way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

I took full advantage of the booze, but I just could not get into the crayfish. Actually, to be completely honest, I didn't even try a single one. I think it was the faces. And the legs. And the long ass antennae shooting out at you. 

And the eyes. Those little black eyes that still look sort of afraid. 








This weekend I... convinced the boyfriend to get my oil changed for me. I refuse to do it myself. I'm afraid I'll drive in wrong, and my tires will fall in between those tracks, and my car will get stuck, and it will turn into a big disaster, and all the workers will laugh at me. Mortifying.

The boyfriend says this is ridiculous and tries to argue with me about it every five thousand miles. But this time I bargained with him and said that if he just does it for me without arguing, then I won't make him come to my family reunion on Sunday.

It's all about compromise.


Friday, August 9, 2013

The Day I Hated Outside


Back when I was in college, I used to go camping and hiking with my dad fairly often. It's something we both really enjoy and we always had a lot of fun. Except for one trip. One trip was the closest thing to Hell I think my body has ever experienced.

source
It was a stretch of the Superior Hiking Trail that is considered "one of the more challenging sections" of the entire trail. So, honestly, probably a little beyond our abilities. We looked at the map and marked out our trip. We'd do seven miles the first day, camp at a site on Bear Lake, then get up and hike the remaining five or so miles into Silver Bay the next day. Sounded simple enough.

We set out with our packs and the first couple of miles were great. Until we hit a wall. Literally. The trail ran into a rock face and we had to climb about thirty feet. There were easy handholds all the way up making it almost like a ladder, but ladders are f-ing tricky with a forty pound pack on your back. We made it to the top and then the strap on my dad's pack broke. Being the MacGyver type, he managed to rig it back up with a scrap of wire he found so we could continue. But the good moods we started the hike with were definitely dwindling by this point.

We trekked on for the remaining four or five miles to our campsite. The trail was tough. There were lots of steep hills and we found ourselves using our hands and knees as much as our feet. It was exhausting work. At one point, we crossed a small stream and spent nearly forty minutes soaking our hot and tired feet. Neither of us wanted to go on, we weren't having any fun anymore, but we had no choice.

Then we finally, finally, made it to our campsite. And it was total bullshit. The entire ground was covered in chunks of granite and there wasn't a single area of space that even resembled a level surface. No way we could even set up our tent, let alone sleep in it. It was obvious that we couldn't stay there, but I wasn't ready to deal with that news.

"Come on, kiddo. You know we can't sleep here," my dad reasoned. "We're going to have to push through all the way to Silver Bay." But my body ached and I refused to take another step on that trail. I needed serious motivation. "When we get to town, we'll go straight to Dairy Queen," he said.

It was exactly what I needed to hear. Nothing can get you moving in hot, humid weather like the thought of ice cream. So with every blistered step I took I chanted, " Lemon Lime Mister Misty. Lemon Lime Mister Misty."

After four miles we topped a hill and Silver Bay's water tower came into view. Our pace quickened as we hit the edge of town. When I finally saw that Dairy Queen, it shone in the setting sun like a god damn beacon. After eleven miles in one day with forty pounds on my back, I had reached my salvation. We dropped our packs at the door and I nearly collapsed on the counter.

"I need a large Lemon Line Mister Misty," I rasped.

"I'm sorry," said the kid at the register. "Our Mister Misty machine is broken"

I heard the words, but it's like they didn't make sense. Was this little punk seriously denying me the one thing that had kept me moving for the last three hours?! Luckily, we had left our packs outside, so there were no guns within my reach. Because briefly in that moment, I could sort of understand mass shootings.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 4


I know this is late, but:





This weekend I... went to Houston with my sister and her husband, Adam. Adam was there to do some training for a new job. Amy and I were there to go shopping, eat Mexican food, and lay by the pool.



This weekend I... had an annoying, and all too common run in with a stranger. You see, I suffer from what I call NBF, or Naturally Bitchy Face. Apparently, my resting facial expression is totally bitchy, regardless of my mood.

So while I was in line for airport security, an officer came over, patted my shoulder, and asked if I was okay. I told him I was, but he lingered for a while like he didn't believe me. So just for something extra to say, I told him, "I guess I'm just trying to wake up." (Which wasn't true. I had been awake for hours.)

"Oh," he said. "Well I knew there was something wrong."

I don't get it. Do other people just walk around all day with dopey, unfounded smiles on their faces?


Friday, August 2, 2013

Texas State of Mind


So I'm going to Texas tomorrow. Again. I know, right? I spend my whole life avoiding that godforsaken wasteland, and then all of a sudden I make two trips in six weeks. And last time I liked it there.

This feels weird.

Anyway, please forgive my absence as I go get sunburned in Texas.



P.S. I'm not packing it or anything, but since we're talking about the South, would you like to see my cowboy hat? Of course you do. And please note the guns.



I think it says, "Don't fuck with me, y'all!"