Monday, September 30, 2013

Happy Blogiversary!



This week marks the one year anniversary of me consistently posting nonsense on the Internet. Hooray.

To celebrate my first blogiversary, I'm going to re-post some of my favorite and most read posts from the past year. Yeah, it's a pretty lazy celebration, but I'll use any excuse to not do stuff.

Today it will be the very first post I ever wrote: Curiosity Made the Cat Flash her Boobs to the Class. Enjoy.







Curiosity Made the Cat Flash her Boobs to the Class


When I was a senior in college, I took a class called Wilderness Survival Skills with my roommate, John. The first day of class was held at a lake outside of town where we spent the day tipping over canoes to practice rescues. After class I needed to change out of my soaking wet clothes, but the only bathroom was a cinder block shack with no door and no roof. I decided not to set foot inside for fear of tripping over a dead hooker and falling onto a pile of used syringes. Instead, I waited for everyone else to leave so I could just change outside of John's truck, where I was far less likely to contract hepatitis.

I got my jeans changed and everything was going according to plan as I peeled off my wet shirt and bra. And then it happened. John, standing watch at the back of his truck, shouted "Oh, shit!" Naturally, I turned around to see just what John was "oh shitting" about. The shuttle van that was carrying about 70% of the class was pulling back into the parking lot.

For a second or two, I stood frozen like a deer in headlights. A deer who was butt-ass naked from the waist up. I finally snapped out of it and scrambled to cover myself. I grabbed my dry t-shirt from the truck and threw it over my head. But because I was both wet and stupid with panic, I got stuck. In my t-shirt. So there I was bending and lurching as I tried to wriggle my shirt over my face. It was not at all graceful, and I'm sure my boobs were flopping around in the least attractive flesh ballet of all time.

On the drive back to town, I tried to convince myself that this was not grounds for suicide. "There's a chance they didn't even notice me, right?"

John, who is always terribly honest, told me the truth. "No, they stopped to watch."

Moral of the story? Flashing a large group of people won't always make you as popular as you might expect.


Sunday, September 29, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 12






source
This weekend I... watched The Bling Ring. It's that movie by Sofia Coppola about those kids in LA who broke into a bunch of celebrities' houses a few years ago. 

It was a really good movie. But it made me feel kind of sad about the pervasiveness of consumerism, entitlement, and status in our culture. And also a little bit like I want a Birkin handbag. 






This weekend I... tried to go camping, but it rained all day long on Saturday so we had to call it quits. Every (real) camping trip I have planned this year ended up getting rained out. Sad face. 



Gordy's first canoe ride
This weekend I... learned that skinny jeans are not a good choice for canoeing. I needed to get my outdoorsy fix since my camping trip got rained out, so I met up with my parents on Sunday to do some hiking and canoeing. 

While we were cutting across the river we got hung up on a sandbar, so I had to get out and drag the canoe about fifty yards. And since skinny jeans can't be rolled up very far, that left me hiking around for the rest of the day in soaking wet pants. 

Super comfortable. And obviously super hot for anyone who had to look at me.




Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Fear, Much Less Fun Sans Marky Mark


The world is a scary place. Disease, terrorism, Mexican drug cartels. Terrifying things are happening all around us, all the time. Here are some of the things that keep me up almost every night:


  • Birds. I never drive with my windows open more than a couple of inches because I'm afraid a bird will fly into my car, and we'll both panic, and it will end in flames and carnage and bloody feathers all over my car.
  • Choking. I'm horrified at the idea of choking at a restaurant someday. It's not so much the asphyxiation itself that scares me, but making a scene in front of so many people. Everyone would stare and tell their friends about it later. Some d-bag might even bust out his phone to record my puffy, contorted face. Tosh.0 would love that shit.
  • Jaywalking. I hardly ever jaywalk. This is mostly due to the message boards on news sites. Do you ever read those things? Those people are f-ing vicious. As soon as the article mentions jaywalking, those posters would instantly jump to debating whether I was crossing the street to pick up a welfare check or buy some crack.
  • Sinkholes. Am I the only one freaked out by the fact that we can't trust sidewalks anymore? What a world.


How about you? Anything that keeps you up at night?

Monday, September 23, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 11



I know, this is late. It is due to drunkenness and a hangover.





This weekend I... went to my first ever Vikings game. Which is surprising, I know, considering what a huge sports fan I am. (Sarcasm is difficult to convey in print. That was it.)

I had lots of fun with my friends at the bar before the game. And also at the bar after the game. But the game itself, not really.

I gave it about twenty minutes before I asked a guy at one of the concession stands if there was anywhere in the stadium I could get a newspaper. He just laughed and then called over the girl by the register to tell her what I asked. I think that meant "no." So my sister and I spent the rest of the game watching and critiquing the cheerleaders.





Thursday, September 19, 2013

My Old Dog's New Trick


My family had a pomeranian named Tiki for like fifteen years (you can read more about him here and here if you'd like), and he was awesome. I especially liked him because he was cunning, and manipulative, and a little bit of a bitch. Example:

He hurt his hand pretty badly one time. (Hand/paw, whatever. Shut up.) I think he tore his dew claw or something, so he limped around for about a week. And everyone was super nice to him the whole time. We all gave him lots of attention and extra treats, and generally just babied the crap out of him.

Then, for the rest of his life, whenever he got in trouble and we yelled at him, he would get a really pitiful look on his face and slowly lift up his hand like it was hurt again. Like he could distract us from being mad and trick us into feeling bad for him instead.


Conniving little bastard. Much respect.


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

It's La-a, and the Dash Ain't Silent


At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old lady, I think the baby naming situation in this country has gotten out of hand. Like, seriously ridiculous. Here are a few reasons:


  • Last year 7,000 baby girls were named Brooklyn. I'd be willing to bet that 6,500 of those mothers have never been to Brooklyn and probably know nothing about the city.
  • The 75th most popular boy's name so far this year is Kaden. The 76th is Cayden. I am not shitting you.
  • Neveah, which is heaven spelled backwards as well as the world's most notorious stripper name, has cracked the top 50 list seven years in a row.
  • So far this year, the 34th most popular boy's name is Jaxson. That's right; not Jackson, not Jason, not even Jaxon. Jaxson. With a totally superfluous s. God help you, do not forget that fucking s.


Personally, I think it's probably best to follow the advice of Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock, "Stick to kings and queens of England. There will never be a President Ashton or a Dr. Katniss."

I don't think there's anything wrong with learning lessons from fictional characters.


Sunday, September 15, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 10






This weekend I... watched the new Evil Dead because I wanted to watch a scary movie in honor of Friday the 13th. It was a lot less campy and a lot more gruesome than the original. I think I prefer the delightful romp that was Bruce Campbell's 1981 version.


This weekend I... drove down to Lake City with the boyfriend to visit a very good friend of mine. We took the dogs for a walk, checked out the marina, went to an apple orchard, got daytime drunk, and went out for a fancy dinner. Good day.


Checking out Lake Pepin, the birthplace of water skiing (for real, I guess)


Thursday, September 12, 2013

The Food Chain: Deal with It


This spring my boss's wife, who is very sweet and tenderhearted, found some duck eggs in the decorative pond they have in their driveway. She was very worried about them, taking measures to protect the nest and keep their dogs away. I can understand this, taking on a warm fuzzy project. But when I found out about her mission, I just couldn't resist telling her this story:

My sister, Amy, and her husband, Adam, used to live on a farm a few miles north of our home town. One night a couple of years ago, I went out with them and few of our friends. After bar close, a bunch of us decided to go back to their house with them to have another drink or two and then pass out.

When we got to their place (instead of while we were still at the bar), we all realized we were hungry. But Amy and Adam had pretty much no food in their house. And when you live outside a town of a couple thousand people, pizza delivery is out the question at 2 am. Besides, we were all hungry for breakfast food.

That's when Adam got a genius idea. He had a few ducks living on the farm and had recently seen some eggs in their nests. So he and the rest of the guys did some quick grocery shopping out near the barn, and we ended up having some (surprisingly decent) scrambled duck eggs. Luckily, Adam knew how to check each of them, so nothing quacked when we cracked them into the pan.


Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Poor Pluto


Remember this post about Pluto? I found the perfect illustration for it:


source


P.S. Did you know now that it's officially no longer a planet, Pluto is technically a "dwarf planet?" That poor little guy just breaks my heart.


Sunday, September 8, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 9






This weekend I... went out to dinner with a bunch of people to celebrate a husband-wife duo's birthdays, which are ten days apart. We went to Chino Latino. As you know, that's my favsies, so it was awesome. But God, we are so old. I remember when my nights out didn't even start until 10:00. Now we're all yawning and thinking about sweatpants by then.


This weekend I... kind of wanted to go to the Kielbasa Festival in Northeast Minneapolis, but I didn't. That's okay. I mostly just wanted to go in the hopes that I'd walk by some guy on the phone with his buddy saying, "I don't know, man. It's a total sausage fest."


This weekend I... started watching Orange is the New Black on Netflix. Overall, it's a pretty good show; I like it so far. But man alive are there a lot of lesbian sex scenes. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just...whoa.

Also, watching this show has made me think a lot about how I would fare in prison. And I find myself vacillating between two extremes. On the one hand, I could see myself just crumpling up into a ball and willing death upon myself within the first couple of days. But then sometimes I think I could run that shit. Seriously. 

I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?



Thursday, September 5, 2013

I Thought That's Why I'm Giving You Money


I went out for brunch last weekend, and naturally, I ordered a bloody mary. And that's when things went downhill. The waitress told me that they had a bloody mary bar available during brunch. And then she totally gave me the stink eye when I asked if I could just have one made and brought out to me.

Now, I'm not the most worldly girl around, so maybe that's considered an uncouth move in the world of food service, but I thought it was a totally legit request. I don't expect to be treated like a princess or anything, but I didn't go to a restaurant to make my own drinks. I could have done that at home. Trust me, I have the vodka.

The same goes for wedge salads. Every time I'm served one of those and have to cut it up, I think, "Oh, I guess I'll just do this part for you."


Tuesday, September 3, 2013

CSI: Fairy Tale Edition


I was walking down the street the other day and saw this:




I think it's obvious that something terrible has happened to Mary Poppins. Don't tell the children.


Monday, September 2, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 8







This weekend I... spent a lot of time taking care of my very sick dog. Gordy started throwing
up on Wednesday night and stopped eating and drinking water. By Friday, the boyfriend and I were both pretty tired of cleaning up puke, plus two people at work used a really stern voice and told me to take him to the vet, so I brought him in. 

The veterinarian wasn't really sure what's wrong with him, but he was very dehydrated, so they put him on an IV for a few hours. That seemed to help some, but he still didn't seem to feel very well on Saturday and Sunday. We had to worry and fawn over him all the way until Monday.

Poor little guy. But also, poor little me and the boyfriend, because Gordy cost us five hundred dollars for that trip to the doctor. He's lucky we're childless and therefore treat him like our baby.






This weekend I... had a fish fry with my family. My adorable, 88 year old grandpa recently went fishing and caught a bunch of crappies. So my uncle and and his girlfriend brought over their fryer while my parents and I rolled my grandma down the hill from the nursing home. A couple of my little cousins came over too, but I think mostly to show off the grasshopper they caught earlier that morning.

It was beautiful out, and we all ate too much, and it was a great day. I love spending time with my family.



This weekend I... went to the Renaissance Festival. I was eight the last time I was there, so I was afraid it was going to be a little lame. But it was a surprisingly good time. There was beer and wine everywhere, which was nice, plus the people watching was unbeatable. But it was hard to tell who was working at the festival and who was just really into Game of Thrones.

Also, the boyfriend bought me lots of stuff, so I felt like a drunk princess.