Tag Archives: 365 Project

The Domestic Twitter War

5 Oct

In a startling act of technological prowess, David has joined Twitter.

I’m not really sure why.  He didn’t even tell me about it.  He just, you know, tweeted one day to no one but himself and then casually texted me later to ask me if I saw it.

Of course I didn’t see it; I didn’t know he was on Twitter.

Nonetheless, I was excited to see him join another network I’m on (even getting him to maintain his musician page on Facebook is quite a daunting task) and was hoping it would be something he could get into.  But once I arrived, I saw his profile picture was an egg (the default for a Twitter newb) and that he had tweeted once…and only once…for two weeks. 

Today he excitedly asked me if I saw his Tweet again.  Of course, he didn’t really call it a tweet.  He called it a twitter.   And as much as I’d love to mock that somehow, I adore David and am choosing to take the stance that it’s all a bunch of made up mumbo jumbo anyway so who cares if he uses the term we’ve all agreed to use?

I still snickered at him.

Today’s tweet was something about how he was going to reverse his memory loss by devouring our almost-dead rosemary bush.

Some of you may remember that quite a few Lollipop Tuesdays ago, I attempted to fashion an herb garden in my dining room window.  I ended up sending Dave for the trappings I needed and in the excitement of the herbal additions in the house, he bought an enormous rosemary bush.

It was completely useless for the purposes of my Tuesday experiment, but hey: the man loves his rosemary.

Anyway they’re all dead now.  The whole lot of them.  By week one my mint dried up and died so completely that it simply fell to the carpet in defeat. By week 1.5, the parsley had turned completely brown and tired of life.  Week two brought no firm hope for the cilantro, which reached and reached for sunlight and happiness but simply couldn’t seem to get enough.  The basil clings for life still, in spite of his dead friends hanging by sad, dark threads beside him.

The rosemary bush, 5 times the size of the other herbs and not even a victim of my experiment, was dead by the second day.  Cause: overzealous felines.

So today David was sitting around, apparently worrying over his failing memory, looked up ways to fix it, and resolved to devour the plant.  Or what the cats had left behind of it anyway.  And using the new form of social media at his fingertips, tweeted this desire.

To me: his only follower.

I find this oddly charming.  He has created an account, isn’t following anyone, and hasn’t told anyone he’s on so no one is following him.  For now it’s like he’s shouting out to me from a corner of the Internet that anyone can hear but only I know to listen to.   I informed him of this today and he is highly amused by the idea of tweeting only to me. 

I suspect he’ll start to use it for fun household games, like telling me the trash needs to be taken out or asking me what’s for dinner each night.  Of course, he could do the same thing via text but it’s slightly more harassing and hilarious when it’s high profile.

I have a variety of retaliations in store for such an occurrence.  I’m not above creating another Twitter account just for nagging. This could be the beginning of a beautiful and entertaining war.  

I’ll be taking Twitter name suggestions all day. ♣    

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Lab Rats for Light Bulbs

4 Oct

Sure, I could have picked a cute little rat. There are plenty of them. But these wrinkles and red eyes were just irresistible. Look at that nekkid pink back. Like an old man's buttocks.

Hey, I’m feeling bolder and slightly more enlightened.  It must be Tuesday.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday folks.

I seem to have some fresh faces (where do you all keep coming from!?) so allow me to direct you to the top of the page where there’s a link labeled “What’s Lollipop Tuesday?”  That should help soothe your pounding cerebrum.  In the meantime, I will regale everyone else with my venture into a white, unmarked van.

Okay, it wasn’t really a van, and it certainly wasn’t unmarked, but I’ve always felt just as creepy about it nonetheless.

You see, there’s this Research-Mobile thing that is sometimes parked in random places around the city that has Carnegie Mellon University splattered all over the sides of it.  It’s a lot like an RV but instead of a family, it’s carrying students.  And instead of a home inside, there’s a sort of research lab.  And instead of traversing the country it really just goes somewhere, squats, and returns to the University.   So I guess it isn’t really anything like an RV except that it looks like one.  It has none of the traditionally assumed properties and thus cannot be defined by the Robin Williams movie title.

I’m just full of all sorts of falsehoods today.

Anyway I never knew any of those things because I’m a big ol’ chicken.   Once in a while I would see the mobile parked around town and I’d wonder what it was all about but I never had the nerve to approach it.  To be frank, it scared the bejeezus out of me.  You can’t see in side, you don’t know what will happen to you once you get in there, and you have no idea what the people will be like who are undoubtedly in their participating in something or other.

It sounded like torture, to be honest.

But let’s get real here: I have twelve Lollipop Tuesdays to go until I can be done forever.  So when a stranger asked me this weekend if I’d hop on her research RV and get experimented on, I was totally up for it.

As it turns out, the research-mobile wasn’t so scary.  I would still argue that windows might help it not seem so creepy.  And there’s a certain sense of claustrophobia that takes over about halfway through the testing, but aside from that it wasn’t too bad.  They happened to be doing a research on light bulbs.  They were attempting to assess how educated the typical consumer is on light bulb choices and the impact of certain bulbs on the environment.  They factored in price, color, lumens, wattage… I know more about light bulb terminology right now than I ever wanted to.  We answered some questions on the computer, we stared at some light bulbs, and we went back out into the great wide open.

And as a fun bonus, we were all reimbursed with light bulbs.  Not lame light bulbs, but super awesome, coily, long-lasting daylight-recreating light bulbs.  

When I was wrapping up the computer testing portion inside I was given a big blank box of text and asked if I had any feedback for their study.  I began to type away, thinking nothing of leaving a few thoughts behind about the process.  A few moments later, one of the dudes running the gig came over and made a comment about how I “had a lot of feedback”.   I thought that would be a good thing seeing as how these folks are probably going into research for the rest of their lives and might want to consider a few fine details of their setup.  But then I looked at the screen and saw a huge block of text and realized that helpful or not, I sure was writing a lot.  Just like the dude said.

It appears writing a post a day has its side effects. ♣

Tags: , , , , ,

How Do You Feel About Blogger Chain Awards?

3 Oct

I’ve been trying to ignore this for quite some time, but now it’s getting awkward.

It’s time for me to address the infamous “Versatile Blogger Award”.

I’ve been avoiding this moment mostly because I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about this whole “give each other awards all willy-nilly”.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m totally flattered to have any award whatsoever.  Someone could send me an envelope in the mail with nothing but glitter inside and a note that says “I think you’re special” and I’d still be 100% grateful.  Mostly because it’s an excuse to use my super awesome new Dyson vacuum, but also because it’s totally awesome for anyone to bestow upon anyone else a token of their adoration no matter how small.

Or how few regulations there are on it.

But at the same time, I’m a woman who appreciates process and efficiency.   And it seems a little, I don’t know – excessive? Let’s discuss the ground rules here, as determined by whomever decided to fashion this super groovy square of pixels and see if it caught on like chain mail.  Which, it did.  Well done, creator of the Versatile Blogger Award.

So here’s the image: 

How it works (for the non-blog readers, as I’m sure 90% of my blogging fan base have received this wildfire award at some point, given the rate at which it spreads) is that someone “nominates” someone else and notifies them on their blog.  In order for that person to accept it, they have to list 7 things about themselves, and then pass it on to 15 other bloggers.

Did you hear that? 15 other bloggers.

I don’t even read 15 blogs.  I don’t.  I have a few well-managed subscriptions and that’s where it ends.  I couldn’t possibly recommend 15 blogs because of all the pressure.  Plus, since the passing on of this award is purely subjective, I could nominate a bunch of crap blogs and it wouldn’t matter if they were crap because they’ll just write 7 things about themselves, and pass on the poo pile to 15 other people.  And I get the idea that it’s supposed to drive traffic for people, but I don’t think that folks are really going to click on 15 links.  They might click on one or two if that’s all that were suggested, but 15 just makes them skip over all of them.

Do you see what kind of monster we’ve created here?

The beauty in this award is that you can’t actually “accept” it unless you pass it along.  And you kind of feel like a big fat jerk not at least mentioning that you’ve received it, even if you don’t really want to take part in passing along a jpg file that has absolutely no regulations whatsoever on the kind of person/writing/website that it ends up on.

I’m not exactly offering up the idea of a committee or voting system – those awards exist and I assume the folks who get them are bathing in blogger fame and fortune.  Or maybe they’re just stoked to put another picture in their sidebar along their Versatile Blogger Award.  I don’t know. 

Anyway, I’ve been blessed by this lovely and apparently controversial-for-me award by no less than four different bloggers.  Four.  Think about that.  Isn’t that crazy?  Shouldn’t there be some system that we can avoid the same person being given more than one of these?  I suppose that system would be to display it on my site, but then I’d be buckling under the pressure, and that’s exactly how chain mail lives on, my friends.

Think about it.

Nonetheless, I’m grateful for this jpg the way I’d be grateful for an envelope of glitter: 100%.  And because these super fantastic folks took time out of their day to bestow it upon me (and in some cases share a few words of kindness about my corner of the Internet), I’d be pleased as pie if you’d pay them a visit.  Because I’m not going to pass this award on to 15 people, most of whom will be willy-nilly. But I can recommend the below blogs because I subscribe to at least one of them. 

I won’t tell you which one.  It will be part of the fun.

So a very sincere thanks to those below and to everyone else who is reading: consider giving these folks some clicky love and figuring out which one/s I subscribe to.

I should also note that I was given the Liebster Award, which looks like this: 

by Phrogmom.  I appreciate the idea of this award a little more (I appreciate being given them both the same – I’m referring to appreciating the existence of the award more) because it has rules.   It’s intended to be given to someone with less than 200 followers but whom the giver believes should have more.  It also only asks that you pass it along to 5 people, which is far more reasonable that 15.

Phrogmom stated when she gave this to me that she didn’t know if I met the requirements, and to be honest I don’t and so I don’t think I’m allowed to legally accept it.  I don’t know how that works.  Can we call Liebster?  

Regardless, I’m flattered as butterfly wings to have so much love and adoration sprinkled down upon this humble blog.  And though my desire for process and efficiency is conflicting with my gratefulness, I sure am eager to hear what other bloggers (or even non-bloggers) think about the idea of chain mail awards.

I’m not going to take a poll this time.  You’ve been great about the polls and I treasure that and promise not to trample my power there.  But if you have a thought, please do share it.  I adore your thoughts oh-so-very-much.

Don’t worry; I won’t let all this fame and glory go to my head and ignore your comments.

I’m all ears.  Sock it to me. ♣

Tags: , , , , ,

100.

2 Oct

I’m going to do it.

I’m going to do it because I have so very few chances to bank on knowing what a post will be about before I write it.  And only a few times in this year of daily blogging have I allowed myself the liberty of posting on the fact that I’m almost done posting. I’ve done a 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, and a 2/3 celebration, which was just last month.  In fact, since it seems so recent ago I was going to forgo a celebratory pause post until I realized this is my last real milestone before the end.

And it doesn’t hurt to post it on Sunday, the day the least amount of people read my blog.  I hope that means you’re all in church.

All.  Day.  Long.

It’s my 3/4 celebration, ya’ll and I’m pretty stoked.  I can’t believe I’ve written 274 posts.  Well, this will make 275.  275 POSTS.  That’s insanity.  I can’t believe I’ve written about two hundred and seventy-five different things.

Actually if you think about it, I only ever really write about office oddities, games, stupid people, and food.  And occasionally I try new things.  That’s pretty much it.  5 categories, 275 rants.  Man, you guys must really wish I’d change it up. 

I have lots of options at this point.   I could list my favorite posts so far (overdone), I could list my least favorite posts so far (absolutely mortifying), or I could just spare you all the recap.  Besides, a lot of you are reading every day.

That blows my mind.  I have pretty consistent numbers.  Aside from my super fantastic subscribers who let me barrage their inbox each and every day with the furies of my mind, I also have a fantastic number of folks who drop in to catch up directly.  And they keep coming back every day.

Except the Lord’s Day.

I know I  mention a lot how my readers are my favorite part of this crazy project, but you really are and I can’t say it enough.  Your comments make me think, crack me up, and lead me to awesome little spots on the Internet that help me learn more.   I’m really still baffled that my reader base has grown so much since the beginning of this all and even if it continues to soar, I will still be grateful for every single one of you who read, comment, or even just drop in on occasion.

I have 100 posts to go before I shut this engine down.  

…or will I?

Thanks for coming along for the ride.  Here’s to the final one hundred. ♣

Tags: , , , , ,

Just Doing My Part for Society

1 Oct

I got someone ejected from the mouth of Starbucks yesterday.

You know, typically I’m not the kind of person to go all “hey get that dirty little hooligan out of this establishment”, but when I pay 4 dollars for a cup of magic sauce, I don’t really expect to be solicited to while I’m in the place that serves it to me.  

I assume that part of my 4 dollars is for hooligan insurance.

As I buckled under the weight of my heavy eyelids yesterday and wandered over to my local branch of caffeine distribution, I noticed a gentleman positioned right at the doorway, handing out flyers as if they were coupon codes for the coffee shop.   I think one of his key mistakes was that he verbally announced the nature of the flyer while handing it to me and my colleague.  Being all “here’s a discount flyer for 50% hot dogs across the street” is totally fine.  In fact, it’s good information and I appreciate it even if I don’t take the flyer.  But unfortunately this guy wasn’t hocking discount hot dogs. 

He was hocking lingerie and sex toys.  And he said so.

When I’m in an afternoon schlump and headed for an injection of magic and sunshine, I’m not looking for sex toys.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say I’m never really looking for sex toys – much less discount sex toys – and much, much less a very shady, somewhat greasy gentleman handing me a flyer and asking me if I want some.

So I politely turned down his tasteful collage of imagery and yellow and orange highlighter and went inside to giggle.  But my going in must have prompted the business-savvy in him because he came in right behind me with his plastic bag of good wishes and proceeded to approach every female in the joint and hand them his sex toy flyer.

I’ll admit, I stood in line and watched it to my great amusement for quite some time.  Especially when he approached really uptight-looking girls and said out loud the words “sex toys”.  It was brilliant theater.  But the poor little baristas were so busy trying to juice everyone up for the afternoon that they didn’t even notice him milling about.

When it was my turn to order, it took me a fair amount of convincing to get the barista to look across the shop and see the man clearly propositioning women of every shape and size.  I was glad that when he finally took a gander, it was time perfectly for an outstretched hand, a flyer, and a look of extreme discomfort.   Shocked that I wasn’t pulling his leg (apparently there’s something about my delivery that makes someone suspicious of my truthiness), he tasked the nearest female with going after the hooligan to give him a piece of her mind.

He was promptly ousted.

It turns out hooligan insurance is included with my cup of magic after all. ♣

My story would be better if the hooligan were dressed as a mascot. I've chosen a panda and recreated it here for your amusement. Because I know my Microsoft Paint reconstructions keep you coming back for more. You're oh-so-welcome.

 

Tags: , , , ,

I’m the Smeagol of the Office

30 Sep

I’ve been the subject of an office scandal for quite some time and I just now figured out what it was.

Office people are strange indeed and the floor I work on is no exception.  It’s almost all women, all huddled in the same little cubicle farm, supporting the same overlapping group of people.

And my office is down the hall.

I’m immediately made the Smeagol of the group just as a matter of geographical fact.  

I moved into my full-time position at work from a temporary assignment.  It was a strange and mysterious ride that wasn’t really ever talked about.  In fact, I wasn’t really every sure what my job was, what was expected of me, or if there was a desire by the higher-ups to keep me beasting about.  

I don’t think beasting is a word.  But I’m sure your brain has come up with something for it already so let’s just keep whatever you’ve got.

Anyway the point is that I was never really introduced, never shown around, and never really explained things in a very thorough manner.  The nature of my job lies in its constant uncertainty.  It’s an interesting and confidence-shaking place to be.  And unfortunately because I am in a support role, there comes a time in my life when I have to do things like place kitchen orders.

There’s an executive kitchen on our floor that’s stocked with coffee, tea, chips, pretzels, and sodas of all kinds.  Sometimes there will be leftovers in there from high-level meetings and the underlings are allowed to spread it amongst themselves.

Amongst is probably also not a word, but it should be.

Once in a long while, the kitchen supplies need restocked.  Having never been walked through the process and wary to ask for assistance because I’m the Smeagol of the floor, I went about doing so with a lone sheet of paper, completed by the person formerly in my role and filed for safekeeping.  There were handy little notes on there about how much of something we should typically have at one time and a firm reminder to inventory.  At the time we were pretty much out of everything so I just decided to order ten cases of every kind of drink to get us back on par.

A week later, the kitchen was still bare.  So I asked the most approachable of the cubicle creatures how I could follow up on the order since I only had a fax number and wasn’t about to scrawl an anonymous note with an angry face asking where my stuff is like a terrorist and fax it over.

She had a funny smirk on her face and said everything was already delivered.  I told her it was my first time ordering so I just wanted to make sure everything was okay and everyone was happy.  As if laughing at me, she assured me everyone was happy and escorted me over to a door, behind which she swore all the items were stashed.

I was confused – mostly because I’d always seen the delivery stocked immediately into the kitchen.  And also because I was fairly certain the “closet” she was referring to was the custodian’s storage room.

But she was done with the conversation so I went back to my cave down the hall, wondering what I did incorrectly.  She casually mentioned that I seemed to order a lot of Pepsi, which I thought strange because I pretty much ordered the same amount of everything.  My mind spun a web of theories, most of which revolved around a secret email everyone was copied on except me regarding someone wanting a certain kind of juice or fruit snack that I failed to get their input on.

Office creatures are menial, but deadly serious folk.

The other day I wandered over to the kitchen to carry out one of the more degrading aspects of my job by heating up my boss’s frozen dinner and I noticed the kitchen closet was stocked with a rather large quantity of soda.  I heard some sort of buzz that the person before me over-ordered Diet Coke and let it go.

But last night while I was milling about my apartment, it hit me: I ordered a massive amount of soda.

You see, the ordering form indicates that all orders are carried out in ‘cases’.   Since I have a small apartment and a rather lax vocabulary, I call 12-pack and 24-packs of soda ‘ cases’.  Since I used to stock third shift in warehouse clubs, I should have known that 12 and 24 do not warrant a case by any means.  Rather, a case is an entire case of 12-pack and 24-packs.

And I had ordered ten cases of every kind of soda.

The kitchen order is in the janitor’s closet because there simply isn’t any room for it anywhere else.  In fact, it’s a wonder they didn’t have to throw everything out of the office supply closet just to make room for the now-enormous selection of Diet Coke we now have. 

I didn’t get the memo about the girl prior ordering a bunch of Diet Coke until after I sent the fax.

I tested my theory like I test most theories – by simply stating it casually in conversation and reading how the other person reacts.  And sure enough when I made an off-the-cuff remark about realizing I ordered entire cases of soda instead of just packs of soda, my fears were confirmed as she nodded and said something like “drink up!”

I’m sure now that there is a secret email that I’m not copied on.  It’s a picture of everyone laughing and partying under a waterfall of soda while they guffaw over my ignorance. ♣

Because I know how much you love my art.

Tags: , , , , ,

Unleashing My Inner Theater Yogi

29 Sep

I’m harboring a private desire to be a singer.

Not like an opera singer – that wouldn’t do anyone any good.  I would probably just spend all my time in my room singing ordinary songs in an operatic voice for my own amusement.  Things like Row Row Row Your Boat and Lady Gaga.

 I would much prefer a singer-songwriter chick voice.  Allow me to clarify: I do not mean the dark, pale, skinny kind.  They’ve got their own bag I suppose but it’s not a bag I’m interested in.  I’m talking about the ones that scurry around without a care in the world and then suddenly get all heavy-burdened and weary-of-this-world on you out of nowhere.  

I want that bag.

Of course, I’ll never get there.  I don’t play guitar, write songs, or really have any desire to do either in front of people.  But it would be cool to be the kind of person that could.  Because they’re so freaking intriguing and seemingly fantastic.  They’re probably a whole mess of crazy under all of it.

No, I should probably just embrace my type.  I am, after all, a theater person.  I will cherish that.  I will relish in my flowy clothes and freaky trinkets and accessories.  

I haven’t really been paying as much mind to my gigantic owl bracelet or enormous jellyfish earrings as I should be. 

Maybe I’ll just go full force and whisk around in all black and sporting yoga pants every day.  I could start wearing pashminas in the summertime too.  That will help.  And I can quote Shakespeare casually and say things that don’t make sense but look very stern while I do it and expect others to nod along.

Actually, maybe just embracing the stereotypical theater persona will be much more fun.  It’s much more natural, for sure.

It would be hard for me to stop walking around and spouting out cartoon voices all the time and I really don’t think that fits the whole “I’ve got deep scars” gig of the heavy-hearted guitar wielder.

I wonder if I can buy black yoga pants and pashminas in bulk. ♣

 

Tags: , , , , ,

Transitioning from Facebook to Google+

28 Sep

Before we begin, let me be clear: I’m not against change.

I’m against rapid change that I can’t get a handle on in my old, crotchety age.  I need time to adjust to something before it goes all snickersnack on me and shakes up again.  Else I feel lost in the ebb and flow of a technological sea that leaves me blubbering at the bottom, wondering why I ever even dipped my toes in.

I use this long, unnecessary sea metaphor to say one thing: I’m going to Google+.

Now I know that some of my readers are in fact old and crotchety and not just pretend old and crotchety like me and may not have any idea what I’m talking about.  So allow me to explain that Google+ is Google’s answer to Facebook.  Basically, Google+ is an attempt at creating a social networking platform where folks can share content with a sense of greater control over whom they share it with.  Google introduced the notion of “circles”, so that instead of simply “friending” someone (like on Facebook), you just add them to circles that you set up yourself.  For example, you might name three circles: family, friends, and coworkers.  Then you drag and drop appropriate folks into appropriate circles and then you have a choice to share your updates and information with one, some, or all every time that you add content.

It’s a great way to avoid that picture of you face-down on the bar with your bra strap showing ending up on the screen of your current boss.

Circles have a variety of fun possibilities.  For example, since no one knows what circle you have them in, you can name them anything at all.  I prefer a Seussical system, wherein coworkers are West Beasts, friends are Glotzes, and family are Zooks.

Anyway I have this whole theory about Facebook leading the way to George Orwell’s 1984 and am finally uncomfortable enough to make the switch to Google+.

I see the irony in how I feel safer with Google, which is clearly taking over the world.  I’m also aware that Dante also put people in circles.  I’m carrying on in full knowledge of the would-be legitimate claims of hypocrisy, and this is how:

Facebook answered Google+’s ideas by allowing people to create lists to sort their friends and share certain information with certain lists.  It also introduced a feature called “subscribe”, which essentially just means I’m electing to have someone’s updates show up in my news feed.  But the beauty of this feature isn’t in subscribing, really.  It’s in unsubscribing, and it will pave my soft, flowery path to the Googlemeister.

Over the past week, I have been slowly unsubscribing from people on Facebook who I don’t really care about.  I’m not trying to be mean – I’m just being honest.  Do I care that this person who I went to elementary school with but haven’t talked to since they bullied me in the tennis courts in third grade is eating a ham sandwich for lunch?

No, I don’t.  And so I shall unsubscribe from their ham-eating updates.

What’s better is that they don’t even know.  They’re friends with me – that’s all they see.  They have know way of knowing if I follow them or not.

So first I will unsubscribe from people I don’t care about.  Then I will unsubscribe from people that don’t ever have interesting updates.  And so on and so forth until I am left with only the cream of the crop in my mini-feed.  I will systematically chop people out of my information IV like a ruthless ruler.  And when I’m left with a very small group that represents those who I am interested in either for entertainment value or for the fact that they really are my friends and I care about them in a virtual sense, I will aggressively campaign for those people to come join me on Google+.

It’s a pretty solid plan and I think more people could make the switch if they slowly weaned themselves in a like manner.

There are a few matters of business to be carried out, of course.  For one, I have every single picture of myself for the last 7 years harbored on Facebook.  I stopped taking pictures when I realized that my friends would take pictures for me, log them, and label them.  So now I have about 600 pictures that I need to get Facebook before the switch or I will have no physical evidence of me being alive for what are supposed to be the most exciting times of my life.

It will be an epic undertaking.  There’s rumor of an app for that.  I shall Google it and relish in the irony.

But the most important thing that must be addressed before I can deactivate my Facebook account is what the appropriate terminology for enjoying something on Google is.  On Facebook you just click a thumbs up and say you “liked” it.  On Google+, there’s a little plus sign (+).  But how does one express that as a verb?  They plus-ed it?

I can’t just go joining  a virtual group of people without knowing the appropriate term.  Heaven forbid I throw out “Plus-ed” in casual conversation and it be wrong.  But once I get that taken care of, it’s off to the Googlemeister for my social networking needs.

That’s it for me and Facebook.  It’s going to be a slow, slightly painful, and definitely awkward transition.  But once I make it to the land of the Google, I can hang out with all my Glotzes, Zooks, and West Beasts. ♣

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Jackie and the Giant Pumpkin

27 Sep

Hey.  Happy Lollipop Tuesday, folks.

You know, I don’t have a whole heck of a lot to say this week.  Mostly because my hands are sad, cramped little things that are wondering why I submitted them to this torture.  And also because I’m kind of in shock that after years and years of wanting to do this, I finally sat down and had the patience to properly carve a pumpkin without hacking it to little bits.

Because up until this year, that’s really all that happened.

But alas, I have a blog now.  And I’m slowly acquiring patience like a disease.  Lest we forget, last week I did a Rubik’s Cube.  A Rubik’s Cube! And so this week I wanted to see if I could hang in there for 4 hours and celebrate fall with a big rearended pumpkin with holes cut in it in celebration of falling leaves.  I even carved little teeth.  TEETH! I carved them and skinned them  and shouted with glee.

But before I celebrate fully, allow me to mock the stupid instruction manual that came with my “carving kit”.  Which, by the way, I got at the grocery store.  Not the best bet for quality squash mutilation.  Indulge me so much as to allow a direct quotation:

Step #1: Choose a favorite Stencil & detach the black perforated areas.
Step #2: Attach Stencil with tape.
Step#3: Outline the Stencil with a black marker, Poker, or Tracer.
Step#4: Carve your pumpkin with the Carving Tools.
Step #5: It was so easy with this Stencil Kit.

I’m sorry, what?!  I’ll go ahead and ignore the fact that I paid $5.99 for a bunch of crappy plastic “tools” that couldn’t be bothered to label what each is and what it’s best used for.  And hey, I’ll even completely overlook the fact that a truly helpful kit (with book attached) might take a little more time spreading out the action in Step #4 with a few tips or tricks for the beginner.  

But what on God’s green and wonderful earth is Step #5?  Not a step.  The answer is that it’s not a step.

STEP NUMBER FIVE IS THAT IT WAS SO EASY WITH THIS STENCIL KIT?!  

That’s a reflection.  That’s an opinion.  That’s a narrative for a little cartoon of a child carving a pumpkin.  It might be a nice final frame without the term Step#5 attached to it.  

I shouldn’t have even bought the kit out of principle.  

Anyway, after I came down off my angry box and got out my tools, I took lots of deep breaths and continued to do so for about 4 hours until I produced this:


 

Which, I have to tell ya, is better than any darn pumpkin I’ve ever attempted in the past.  I’ve always wanted to sit down and take the time to make a cool pumpkin that I see on the Interwebz but I give up after cutting the top off and throw it far away from me so I don’t have to look at its enraging orange skin anymore.    But this year is the year that changed it all and I can finally die knowing that I’ve given a pumpkin a fair chance at being super cool.

As many of you know, Dave shares in my Lollipop Tuesday adventures, and I’d just like to take a moment to give you a juxtaposition of our two artworks:

He’s so much more laid back than me.  Look: his even has a tongue.  It’s adorably happy.  

Any by the way, I know I’m jumping the gun a bit on the Halloween fun, but we’re really given such a short amount of time to embrace such a fantastic holiday that I don’t feel even a tinge of remorse.  In fact, you should carve a pumpkin too.

Happy Fall ya’ll.  ♣

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

The Persistence of Memory

26 Sep

I’m starting to be hindered by the mnemonic devices my teachers passed on to me.

Back when I was taught them, they were fun and no-fail ways to remember pretty much anything – multiplication tables, spelling, the meaning of a word, grammar rules – the fun never ended.  I don’t know if there’s some point in your life where you’re supposed to graduate to just knowing the information instead of singing songs in your head and repeating things quietly under your breath, but I never had that moment.   I feel like other people know their ABC’s just fine without putting them to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  I, however, cannot.  Which is why if you ask me to do the alphabet backwards, I have to sing through it forward, spout out as many letters near the area I can, and then go back to the beginning again.

It’s getting rather irritating.

I’ve worked very hard to get my multiplication tables to the point where I don’t need to sing.  Oh yes, my teachers used singing for everything.  So when going through the multiples of base numbers, I have a song for carrying me through each multiple. Like:

  • 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24… = Old MacDonald Had a Farm
  • 6, 12, 18, 24, 30… = You Are My Sunshine
  • 7, 14, 21, 28, 35… = Happy Birthday 
  • 8, 16, 24, 32, 40… = She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain 

And thanks to these sparkling hits of my elementary education, I still rely on singing through multiples from time to time.  I can, of course, spout of a multiplier without the singing.  But when I need to know the breakdown of it all, I don’t even use division sometimes.  I just sing myself a lovely rendition of Camptown Races.

There are lots more that aren’t even melody-related but still annoying all the same.  Like the fact that I always struggled to spell “aggressive” and so I relied on the cheer team’s spelling cheer: “Be aggressive! B-E Aggressive! B-E  A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E! WOOOOOOOOOO!”  Or how every time I try to spell dessert I have to remind myself it’s two S’s – like two scoops of ice cream.  Or spelling Wednesday, which I always say out loud “WedNESday” to make sure I get that little strange bit in the middle correct.

The most common is the half-song half-poem, terrible excuse for a mnemonic device used for remembering how many days are in a year, which I have to go through every single time I fill out my monthly dry erase board:

Thirty days hath September

April June and November

All the rest have 31

Except February, which blah blah blah 

I never really paid attention to the end of that one, so when it’s February I have to google it.  

So tell me, friends: do you have weird little mechanisms like this rattling around in your head?  Or did everyone graduate to just remembering without the songs, tricks, riddles, and repetition?  

I’m having visions of myself in an old folks home mumbling over and over to myself:

♣

Tags: , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started