Tag Archives: Humor

The Art of Mixology

15 Nov

Hey, it’s Tuesday.  It’s everyone’s favorite day of the week here on The Jackie Blog.  Because instead of droning on an on about my cats or my preference of bathroom sink water over kitchen sink water or my discontent with adult life, I talk about something new I’ve tried.

If you don’t know the drill, check out the link at the top of this page called “What’s Lollipop Tuesday?”

I’d like to think I have a constant influx of newbies here that need to be told what Lollipop Tuesdays are.  Let me dwell in my self-constructed reality.

Moving on. This past Sunday, I took the plunge and invested in an alcohol mixing class.  Yeah.  Mixing alcohol.  They have classes for that.  It’s called ‘mixology’. Isn’t that wild?

I had structured my entire day around this 3-hour long course, set at one of the hippest bars in the city.  Because I’m incredibly anal and tightly wound, I called the morning of to ensure that the details I had taken down for the day were all still correct.  I tried to talk myself out double checking everything, but sometimes the crazy really takes over and there’s no stopping me.  And hey, wouldn’t you know the location was changed and the time was pushed back by  half an hour and no one bothered to contact me to let me know?

Things like that do nothing to cease the crazy.

Anyway I showed up pretty livid and fully prepared to give the teacher a piece of my mind.  What right does he have to run a class, charge a fortune, and then fail to communicate changes to that class to the attendees? I booked it two months ago! But just as I was all fired up in a mind-driven hailstorm, I was taken aback by how totally cool the thing was.

The thing.  You know, the whole deal.  The setup.

The new choice of venue had a huge wraparound bar, which was preset with mats, a variety of glasses, and all the cool tools one would need to make a killer cocktail.  There were pretzels, chips, glasses of water, huge televisions to watch when you didn’t feel like listening to where the drink “zombie” originated or about the tiki trend of the 70’s.

So. Cool.

It. was. awesome.

We learned three drinks, which we made ourselves all at the same time.  We did things like light oranges on fire and put twelve different ingredients into one single beverage.  We used fresh fruit, we made our own whipped cream – it was glorious.  The teacher had a great story about being a cocktail chef in Atlanta and so on and so forth.  He had drinks that won awards, and he placed well in competitions. And while I was happy to know I didn’t just throw my money at any ol’ fella with a cooler full of liquor and a black shirt, I didn’t really care about all of that.  What I cared about was that he was the kind of guy would come try your drink and tell you how to adjust it.  He would come over and sneak a little extra rum into your glass if you like a stronger kick.  This guy brewed his own coffee and brought it in canisters to be chilled and used for a super fantastic drink that was some sort of divine espresso manna from heaven. He even gave out his cell number to everyone so that if we’re at a party or the bar or even at home and we misplace the recipes he emails us after the class, we can ask him a question on the fly.

It’s always awesome to watch someone who is wrapped up in their passion, and even more awesome when they share it with you. Even if you have to pay.  In fact, for such experiences I will very happily fork over my hard-earned American dollars.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I don’t think I’ll be repeating any of those drinks.  They were delicious and lovely, but it’s all I can muster to keep Frosted Flakes and milk  in the house at the same time.  I sincerely doubt I’m going to be able to keep cherries, pineapple, white rum, aged rum, brown sugar, whipped cream, and an armload of other ingredients stocked for when I feel like whipping up a cocktail.

But it’s still totally cool to know I can do it if I want. 

Things My Cats Do to Upset Me, or, The Case for a Teacup Piglet

14 Nov

Don't let the cute curl-up-and-sleep pose fool you. Look closely: she has one eye open.

  1. Even if I pet them for an hour, they will still ram their heads against my various limbs, knocking cups, books, and handheld electronics to the floor in their fervor.
  2. They always nest on freshly cleaned clothes if I don’t put them away immediately.  
  3. They can’t handle it when I bring things from the outside world.  Each item gets sniffed, snuggled, and batted around. 
  4. I’ve bought a myriad of cat treat brands to finally find one that Cat A will eat and another that Cat B will eat.  Yesterday I went about my usual business and fed each their respective preferences only to find that Cat A cares for neither now and Cat B likes them both. They have no respect for me.
  5. It is impossible to have a basin of water in the house anywhere without one of my cats seeking it out immediately, dipping its grimy litter-laden paws inside, and scooping out little licks worth of water to lap up for fun.  When at the dinner table, great precautions must be taken.
  6. When I’m sleeping at night, I often awake to the gentle gnawing of a cat on a plastic bag and it makes me want to tear my skin off. 
  7. They continually barf up hairballs and clumps of food on things they know I need the following day, thereby forcing me to take immediate emergency cleaning action, which I despise.
  8. Sometimes they’ll lie in the bathroom sink and refuse to move so that I can wash my hands, forcing me to pick them up out of the wet basin, leaving them covered in toothpaste and my hands covered in wet fur.
  9. When I get comfortable at night, they come lie next to a bend in my body so that I have to monitor my movements throughout the night to avoid clobbering their soft bodies with my monstrous limbs.
  10. The way they dig at the plastic on the litter box instead of at the litter. For ten minutes. WHERE DO THEY THINK IT WILL TAKE THEM?
Sometimes when I look at all these things together, I realize I’m living in a prison of my own design.  I also begin to lust heavily for a teacup pig, who would commit none of the above offenses. 
Unfortunately, my cats would annihilate it while exercising habit number three. 

He knows he's a monster. Don't buy in to the face.

>50 Posts: I’m the Little Engine That Could

13 Nov

For some reason, this image disturbs me.

I have less than 50 posts to write.

I’m pretty nervous about it.

Not nervous because I don’t know what to write.  I never really know what to write.  But about three months in, I had to have a long chat with myself about how I needed to relax and just write and not worry so much about the poo that came out when I did.

With 365 posts in a row no-excuses, there’s going to be some poo.

I’m actually just nervous that something will happen that will prevent me from posting one day.  I mean, I waited until pretty late tonight to post this.  What was I thinking?! I could have lost electricity.  My computer could have committed suicide.  My cats could have held me hostage.

I could have fallen into a spontaneous coma.

Every day, I’m threatened by a plethora of possibilities.  All of these things are threatening my almost-complete goal of posting once every day in 2011.

I don’t want to have to start all of this over again.  Can you imagine how awful that would be? Not that I don’t love you all and everything, but oh my good grief would that be just terrible.  I wake up in the middle of the night with my heart racing at the very idea.

What if I get in a car wreck and the nurse the hospital refuses to help me get in touch with someone who can bring me a laptop? What if she doesn’t believe I’m an Internet star and thinks I must have a concussion? What if I die?!

For the record, if I die before I complete these final posts, I don’t want this 2011 goal to be the basis of my funeral or my biography. I don’t want everything hinged on how I almost completed this one thing I set out to do.  

Then again, I can’t really think of any other solid goals I’ve made, so I’m not sure what else the biographer would write.

I’d like to think someone would write a biography.  Or do I have to pay someone to do that prehumous?  I’ll have to look into that.  Great.  There’s something else I have to take care of as this all winds down.

I might just lock myself in my apartment for the remainder of my self-imposed challenge.  That way I can severely reduce the risk of damage to my fingers or my brain.  That’s really all I need to keep going, here. I’m like the little engine that could.  The little nervous engine that could.  The little nervous engine that is huffing and puffing to the finish line.

Yeah.  That last one sounds about right.

Where Cats Come to Die

12 Nov

There was a dead cat in the front lawn of my apartment building the other day.

Its body kind of lined up directly with my window.  I think the power of my crazy cat lady aura has gotten so strong that cats have begun to drag themselves to my apartment to die.  It’s like they know I’ll take care of them.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do when I first saw it.  Mostly because it looked like it was just sleeping in the grass, except for the breathing and what-have-you.  But also because I was pretty certain that if it’d been hit, the side that I couldn’t see was probably going to scar me for life.  So I called the Bureau of Animal Care and Control but it was emergency hours only and they told me to call back in the morning.

I went back in my apartment, wrote a reminder for the AM, and went about my bumming around the place.  But I had my windows open and every time someone passed the cat on the front lawn, it was like a little piece of theater.  They were all such honest, genuine, and varied reactions.  I, like a crazy lady, peeked through the blinds in my living room to watch and to ensure that no one did anything odd to it. 

For some reason, people love to play with carcasses.

Almost everyone who went by it came back to do a double take, kept walking, came back out of guilt, picked up something nearby, and then poked it to see if it was dead.  After assessing that it was, they moved on with a furrowed brow realizing that they hadn’t really thought it through and didn’t know what to do now.

I figured that at the rate at which people pass by my apartment and the number of hours until the Bureau was open, that cat was going to get many more curious pokes than it would have liked (kinky). After all, it came to my apartment to die so that I could stop that sort of thing from happening.  I’m a cat lady; it trusted me.

So I scribbled up a maniacal note that said 

“Yes, unfortunately this cat has passed away.  The Bureau of Animal Care and Control has been called.  They will handle.  

Thank you for your concern.   – A Fellow Animal Lover”

After I stuck it into the soft ground with a pen as a stake, I went back in to watch the people pass and was glad that the scene had changed.  People stopped, felt badly, read the note, smiled crookedly, and moved on.  I had removed the curious poking part altogether.

When I woke in the morning, I called the Bureau and then looked outside to check the scene.

The cat was in a box.

I talked to Dave, who has been working some terribly odd hours lately, and he noted that when he came in during the wee hours of the AM, the cat was in the middle of the sidewalk.

So this is how the story went: someone wanted to play with a carcass, moved it to the sidewalk, played with it, and left it there.  At that point in time, my letter must have looked like an odd half-attempt at caring, since it was being featured beside a cat’s body that had clearly been tampered with. Then someone came along, saw the scene, and decided to put it in a box with some leaves over top so that when the Bureau came they still had a cat to remove but it wasn’t in the middle of the sidewalk all gutted and gross.

That made it look like I found a dead cat, put it in a box with some leaves on top, and then put a note to tell people the problem was being handled.

The next morning, the Bureau removed it. I can’t imagine what they must have assumed of my neighborhood, but I hope that at least the cat knew I tried my best to get it a proper taking care of.

Then again maybe it’s best that word doesn’t get out to the other cats that my front lawn is the place to croak.  Transitioning into a cat lady is bad enough.  Transitioning into a crazy cat lady that dead cats crawl to from near and far in order to get a proper burial?

That’s on a whole other level of nutty. 

For a cat in a box story that is much happier, check out Maru – one of the world’s coolest cats.

Beyonce Makes Me Doubt My Womanhood

11 Nov

I feel like I would be more of a woman if I could gyrate like Beyonce.

We all feel this, right? It’s not just me.

I’ve been watching the Single Ladies video over and over again in awe.  I mean, I’ve seen it before – who hasn’t?  But I saw something or other for a recent video of hers, which inevitably led to Single Ladies sidebar suggestion, which inevitably led to me questioning my womanhood.

Take a moment.  Really, take a moment and just look at this madness.  Remind yourself of your inferiority.  Listen, you don’t have to watch the whole thing.  Watch from 0:51 – 0:58.   7 seconds is really all it takes to start doubting your femininity.  (If you’re a reader of the male equipping, you can just go ahead and enjoy it.)

Honestly, how does she even do that? I’ve seen women who can dance and then I’ve seen this detaching of the pelvis and whipping it around in circles.  It’s amazing.

Dave asked me last night why I was continually watching it and what exactly I was looking for.  Once I spotted the sequence, I shouted excitedly so he could come witness the magic.  He said, “what, the hip thing?”

“David.  That is so much more than ‘a hip thing’.”, I said.   “She’s swinging her pelvis around like it isn’t connected to anything else.  And then she just gets up and keeps whippin’ around.  It’s madness, I say.  MADNESS.”

Perhaps this is the reason he is with me.  He’s unaffected by the pelvic magic. The Beyonces of the world have no hold over him.  Which is a mighty good thing since I’m completely uninclined. In fact, I took a Modern Dance class my sophomore year in college just to challenge myself and smacked my head off the stage floor in the final.

There was an audience.  A fairly large one.

I got an A.  She noted in my final evaluation that I had great stage presence,  which is fantastic because I also had two left feet and an overwhelming inability to sense my surroundings.

I’ll admit that this past week I looked up a few YouTube videos with workouts that mirrored this sort of woman beastiness. I looked pathetic.  Also, the women in the videos are wearing very little so I also did a lot of feeling badly about myself while I jiggled.

So kudos to you, Beyonce – your hips have the power to make women doubt that they’re really women.  That’s a powerful quality indeed.   You keep on keepin’ on.  

I’ve got some weeping and jiggling to do. 

An Attempt at Lucid Dreaming

8 Nov

I’m not sleeping much lately.  In fact, at all. I’m trying really hard but it’s just not working out.  So this week, it’s only appropriate that I attempted to complete my Lollipop Tuesday in my sleep.  Literally.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, you beautiful ladies and gentlemen.

I’m incredibly intrigued by the idea of lucid dreaming.  For those of you unaware, lucid dreaming is basically the state of being aware you are dreaming, which allows you to take control and manipulate the actions in your dreams.  There are a slew of tips and tricks for how to accomplish this, though on occasion it will happen independent of effort.  It usually sparks when you’re in a dream and realize that something defies reality.  For the most part, we accept anything that happens in our dreams.  For example, I’ve played Monopoly underground with grizzly bears and my grandparents and nothing struck me as odd.  However, when I ended up underwater in a dream and finally couldn’t hold my breath any longer, the realization that I can indeed breathe sparked me into lucid dreaming.

There were mermaids.  It was awesome; thanks for asking.

I’ve been reading up on ways to encourage more lucid dreaming and came across this list.  Most suggestions (keep a dream journal, look at your hands and ask yourself if you’re dreaming) are efforts made over a long period of time and maybe when I tire of this world, I’ll dedicate more time in reality to successfully escaping to fantasy.

After all, flying in a lucid dream is pretty much the best thing ever.  

Ever.

But for now, I was content to attempt a short term goal and initiate my own lucid dreaming experience by taking tip numbers 5 and 6 in this WikiHow: How to Lucid Dream.  Basically, it required me to set my alarm for 5 hours into my sleep cycle, wake up, and dedicate time to focusing on my dream, what happened, and the desire to remain in it.  The idea is that when I fall back asleep, I actively attempt to ease back into the dream but with the knowledge now that I am in it.

Doesn’t that sound awesome?  Doesn’t it sound totally killer to be able to wake up in the middle of the night, lasso control of your dream, and lie back down for the remainder of your sleep session flying over walls, talking to animals, and saying and doing anything you want? You can bend spoons with your mind or buy a circus elephant for your backyard.  All your deepest desires can be indulged.

Except last night I didn’t dream.

Or at least if I did, it was nowhere near the 5-hour mark.  All I did was wake up 5 hours into my dream, recognize the fact that I did not, in fact have anything to focus on or remember because my mind was a vapid, white space.  So I fell back asleep unaccomplished.

It’s unfortunate, really.  Perhaps this takes training or time or something special that just didn’t work out for me last night.  I’m not even really upset that I woke myself up in the middle of the night for no good reason.  I’m upset that I’m not writing a post about becoming a mermaid queen or discovering time travel or turning into a three-toed sloth and telling of my lazy adventures in the forest.

Don’t judge me.  There’s no judging on The Jackie Blog.  I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this.

I might try again tonight.  And maybe the following night.  After all, if I’m not sleeping well I might as well use that time to do something productive, like cure cancer or transform into a wallaby.

Plus, ever since I first failed at Lollipop Tuesday (Geocaching, followed by apple pie, followed by lack of lucid dreaming), I’ve been harboring a sort of resentment toward myself that might not be reconciled until I right my wrongs.   Maybe I can use my next lucid dream to successfully geocache and then celebrate with a well done apple pie.

Who knew that sleep could be so very productive and delicious? 

A Calling from the WordPress Wizards

7 Nov

*cue angelic choir*

When I sat in from of my magical screen of wonder last night, I didn’t have anything to write about for today.

It’s been a while since that’s happened.  Usually I can at least write a bad post.  But last night I couldn’t even write a bad one.  I just couldn’t write anything.  So I did what I usually do when I have an issue with words, which is go check the drafts I have in my queue to see what half-written posts I’ve abandoned in the past that might be recharged with a bit of go-get’um-ness.

I had ten in there, but they were all turds.

I decided it was time to trash all the ones that couldn’t be saved (which was all of them).  Something about cats (big surprise), something about tweeting Alec Baldwin (it started out well but went horribly wrong), and other terrible gems that I never wanted to read again or risk anyone else reading were in my virtual storage bin of potential.  But when I attempted to delete them, WordPress told me that “there was an error moving them to the trash”.

I figured it was something or other to do with my wavering connection or my own general stupidity so I refreshed the page and attempted again to weed through the failures of my mind.  Again, WordPress denied me the right to purge my duds.

It must be a sign.  Yes.  It’s a sign from the WordPress Wizards that there is hope in these awful little leftovers.  Somehow, the server refuses to let me part with them for fear I’d be giving up the best post I will have written all year long.  One of them might even be viral gold.  Viral gold!  Once I have viral gold, I can do anything!

The problem is, I don’t know which one WordPress wants me to keep.  I mean, there are nine in there.  And on a scale of 1-10, they’re all zeroes.  So how am I supposed to tell which one is the winner?  How do I weed it from the rest?  Do they seriously expect me to expound on all of those subject and publish them? Because I won’t.  It would be blog suicide.

I guess I’ll just have to dwell on my nine half-written turds until one of them takes on a new and vibrant life that will spawn a large, deeply committed following.

I have heard your call, WordPress Wizards, and I shall not give up until I have dressed one of those pieces of trash into something acceptable. Thank you for your faith in me.

Or your server error.  …I’m going to choose to ignore that possibility. 

The Best Diet Plan Ever

6 Nov

This plan replaces my former plan, which was staring at pictures of the morbidly obese.

I’ve found the best diet trick ever.

Really, like, the best.   I shouldn’t even tell you about it because it’s out-of-control effective and I could market it for millions and live off the money from your soon-to-be-skinny behinds for the rest of my life.

But you read my blog, and I believe that from time to time that should be rewarding for you in some way (speaking of which, yes, I’m still cooking macaroni and cheese from The Great Macaroni and Cheese Adventure; winner is to be announced after my belly is full of about 5 more pounds of pasta).  

I’ve been doing this thing called “watch absolutely disgusting food documentaries”.  For some strange reason I’ve become obsessed with learning more about the state of the food in our country and I’m allowing myself to be subjected to revealing, inside looks at the state of food made in a country based on capitalism, and let me tell ya: it’s totally gross.

Like, totally gross.

Anything that can make me put the cheeseburger I’m cooking as I watch the documentary back in the fridge when I’m done is a powerful potion indeed.

So it goes like this: just eat what you already eat, and do what you already do.  But every few days, sit down and give your undivided attention to a food documentary like Food, Inc. or Fast Food Nation or Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.   Settle in and watch where your food comes from and it will stick with you when you reach for your next meal.  Or when you consider what you had earlier that day.

At least, it’s totally working for me.  Unintentionally, but I’ll take it.  I really was just curious to watch and learn but in the past two weeks, I am finding it incredibly difficult to eat things that I know are super gross now that their super grossness has been revealed to me.

I could probably package this into some sort of viewing plan that best suits itself to the slow, terrifying realization that your food is disgusting and killing you. It’s the perfect plan for America: you can do everything the same, except you have to watch movies.  I could market it so easily; people love weight loss plans that don’t require them to do anything.  Doing that and adding more movie-watching time has got to be an enormous stroke of genius that will have me stockpiling gold bars for my wit.

Or I hope so anyway; I only have about 60 more days for this blog to pay off and that’s not shaping up to be a solid retirement plan anytime soon.

Battling the Mess Monster

5 Nov

The Mess Monster.

Last night I went Monica Geller on my apartment.

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t. stop. cleaning.

I cleaned absolutely everything.  I went through junk drawers, cleaned out closets, scrubbed carpets, wiped down furniture; I was overtaken by a serious disease.  I started at 7pm and didn’t stop until after 1am.  I didn’t even want to clean. I just noticed the next dirty thing while I was working on cleaning something else.  Most of the evening was a blur but I faintly recall a long, yellow, rubber glove.

That means things got seriously, seriously, serious.

I can’t help but think that if I could only get to the root of what overtook me last night, I could replicate the experience in the future.  Perhaps I could extend it to something other than the house.  With that kind of overwhelming dedication to completion of a task, I could do anything.  I could build a tree house.  Or take up upholstery.  Or write a novel.

No, scrap that last one.  I’m writing enough this year.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t take a blood sample during the whirlwind.  I could have sent it to a lab for some tests.  Maybe it would reveal something in my system that led to this awesomeness and I could recreate it in the future.  Maybe I could even have it synthetically engineered and put it on the market for others.  Wouldn’t it be awesome if you spend 6 hours yesterday on something you haven’t wanted to do in a really long time but needed done?  I reorganized my pots and pans.  Do you have any idea how much time and frustration that will save me in the coming months?  Things had escalated to the point where I couldn’t even nudge the cabinet door the mess of metal inside would clamor about and fall out to the floor.  My carpet had a variety of mysterious spots on it that needed some thorough treatment. And the junk drawer that had too much junk in it for me to be able to locate the junk I actually needed? Fixed.  

I know you’re thinking about those areas of your place right now that need some hard love.  I know because yesterday, I was you.  And let me tell you, today feels glorious.  I might just dedicate the rest of my life to attempting to recreate the happening so that I can take blood, test it, synthetically recreate it, and sell it to you.

Listen, I have bills.

So tell me your dirty hiding places.  Really, I’m curious.  Where is the spot in your house that you need to seriously get a handle on but haven’t made the time?  I appear to have had many: junk drawers, closets…but the big winner was the pots and pans cabinet.

Tell me, dearest readers: where’s your mess monster hiding? 

Rental Car Lust

4 Nov

I’m in lust with my rental car.

Like, bad.

For those of you just tuning in, 1) where have you been all my life? and 2) my major form of transportation was totaled not long ago, leaving me a fresh tutor of the public transportation system and a sad, sad girl.  

Apparently the insurance company decided to brighten our lives by giving Dave and I free use of a rental car for five days.  I don’t know why five.  I’m sure there’s some insurance algorithm to it.  Or maybe it’s just a monkey and a prize wheel; I don’t know.  All I know is I haven’t been this excited to be on four wheels in a long time.

To truly understand the complete and total lust I have for this vehicle, you have to understand that I haven’t had a car in my possession ever that’s been from the same decade as the current year.   Or hasn’t had a variety of dents and bangs and difficult personal problems to deal with.  I’ve spent a lot of time smooth-talking my cars and trying to encourage them to carry on with their lives in spite of their troubles. For the most part, I’ve just been thankful to have something that can get me from Point A to Point B, lack of air conditioning, power windows, power locks, a trunk, and two back doors aside.

Last night I sat in the car and blasted the air conditioning just so I could wriggle with excitement at its existence.  I played with the windows.  I admired the quiet, almost indistinguishable hum of the engine.  I bought groceries and when I got to the car, there was a trunk to put them in. Like, a nice sized trunk with a top that didn’t weigh fifty pounds and slam back down on my left arm if my strength failed while loading things inside with the right arm. As I pushed the grocery cart back into its stall, I lusted hard over that beautiful, working, nice-exteriored, unproblematic car like it was a high school crush.  And I have to give it back Monday.

That’s like giving me a puppy and then telling me to murder it.  I absolutely will not murder a puppy.

I’ve thought about a getaway plan.  I want to ride off into the sunset with this reliable, simplistic, capable car.   But they have my information on file and I can’t imagine I’ll get very far before I’m sent to a place that doesn’t require transportation beyond my own two feet back and forth from the mess hall.

I bought a five dollar lottery ticket when I was at the store because it had a  picture of the car on the front and promised to give away 10 to lucky winners.  I got caught up in the idea of a reliable car from the 2000’s.  I thought of how ridiculous it would be but was focusing more on how possible it was.  After all, that car has POWER WINDOWS.  The lotto ticket didn’t even have to offer a brand new car.  It could have just offered one from the last ten years and I would have peed myself if I got a car icon in and of the 12 scratch off squares.  But I scratched and scratched and nothing came but disappointment and the sinking realization that I am a complete and total moron.

I walked back to the car and admired its shiny exterior, its unworn tires, and its promise of reliable transportation and deeply regretted the 5 dollars I had just wasted on a scratch off ticket.

 I needed that money for the bus next week. 

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