The Jackie Blog

I’ve gotta say – April has been preeetty unimpressive in the thunderstorm realm.

I hate pathetic thunderstorms.   At the slightest rumble, I grab my emergency glow sticks from beneath the sink and lay them around the apartment, in hopes that the electricity will be zapped and I’ll finally have an excuse to crack them open in their chemical, neon green glory.  I run to the window, pull up the blinds, and anxiously stare out toward the eerie orange sky awaiting an awesome thunderstorm.

But the awesome never comes.

April has been nothing but rain, clouds, and more rain, and I can’t even get a little heat lightning out of the deal.  Just a rumble, a tease, and then – nothing.  

I love a good thunderstorm.  I want lightning that cracks right beside the apartment and makes me wonder if I’m going to die.  I want torrents of rain that put rubble and branches in the streets and make everyone want to stay indoors.  I want my television to BOOP BOOP BOOP on a poorly colored, archaic station that has a robotic voice telling everyone that anything in the open air is unsafe.    I want tips and tricks to flash across the screen for what to do if you find yourself in an open field.  I want several grids to shut down so that people are wary at intersections and I have to whip out some candles and play rudimentary time-passing games in my living room.

But none of that has happened.  Not once.

What kind of a spring goes by without a good T-storm?  It’s bad enough that winter has wiggled its way almost completely to the rise of our May flowers – must I also endure a perk-less spring? 

Lame.  Super lame.

Listen up, mother nature.  I’m sick of this willy-nilly weather.  When you’re winter, you’re winter all the way.  We get bone-chilling cold, blizzards, and frozen car windows.  So when you’re springtime, be springtime.  I want thunderstorms, craziness, and flowers to follow.  I want freshly mowed grass and orange skies that lead to violent lightning cracks.   I don’t want to have to give you a lesson in the properties of the four seasons. 

So get it together, will ya? ♣

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

It has recently come to my attention that there are people in the world who encourage their children to create “Easter Lists”.

I am enraged by this.

It’s difficult enough to explain how Christian holidays got bastardized by Pagan beliefs and how we now have a strange mesh of  secular/Christian holidays wherein we go to church Christmas Eve and sing Christmas carols and then wake up the next morning and thank Santa for giving us all the material things we ever wanted.    And now, as if explaining how a bunny lays eggs and then runs around America hiding them in fields and baskets everywhere wasn’t hard enough, we ‘ve decided to throw an Easter list in there too.  Eventually, the resurrection of Christ will be completely in the background and all children will think about is how it’s okay if Santa doesn’t give them what they want at Christmas because the Easter Bunny will pick up where he left off.

Can you imagine what sort of monsters this will create?  Once every 6 months, children will draft a list of demands, pin it on a holiday, and wait for their materialistic dreams to come true.  

I decided long ago that I wouldn’t put up the Santa facade with my kids (when I have some).  I’ll tell them who he is and about the legend, but I refuse to have him be the focus of the season.  

With this recent “Easter List” discovery, I will now have to kill the Easter Bunny for them as well.  My children will know about it, but they’ll also know how freaking stupid it is to think a bunny lays eggs.  Quite frankly, I don’t understand how children can get their pictures taken with Mall Easter Bunnies and not be deathly afraid.

A 6 foot tall bipedal rabbit that dresses in human clothes is surely something to fear.

Absolutely terrifying.

So listen – I’m sorry if someday your kids run into mine and mine give them a rundown on the facts of life.  I’m pretty sure it will be something or other about no Santa Claus, followed by crying, then something or other about no Easter Bunny, followed by your child telling the teacher about my child.   I’m sorry in advance – you should probably just go ahead and tell your kids now before I decide to have kids, rear them in my ridiculous ways, and then send them to inform yours.

I’ll see you in the principal’s office. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

I think we’re too hard on pigeons.

We treat them like they’re the scum of the earth – flying rats who have come to steal our leftover hamburgers and give us hepatitis.   But the fact is that we invaded their space.  They’re birds: they were flying around our downtown area before we plowed away all the trees, leveled the mountains, and went sprinting after pigeons, screaming obscenities.

Like Seagulls.  Listen – they were there first.  The sea is pretty much their thing, so I don’t know where else we expect them to go.  We come out to the shore and lie in the sun and eat potato chips and then get upset when they do a fly-by and snatch our Ruffles.   What do we expect?! They’d stay within their regular diet, but when faced with that or potato chips, they’d rather have potato chips.  Especially if you’re going to go to the store and bring them back.    We do the same exact thing.  I can’t tell you the last time I passed up an abandoned potato chip bag.

But I have a pretty special spot in my heart for the poor, trampled pigeon.   I find something beautiful about the slight teal and purple glisten in their neck feathers.  I am always amused at how they have to thrust their heads forward to get enough momentum to move about.  It’s a terrible, highly amusing cycle.     

I just don’t understand why we decided pigeons are ugly and gross.   A lot of folks tend to think they’re huge contributors to the spread of disease, but that’s simply just not true.   In fact, the only real worry you should have with pigeons is the slight possibility of bird flu, but that’s, oh, I don’t know – every bird.   And I don’t see you going around kicking white doves in the face.

Do you even know what pigeons are capable of?  There are homing pigeons, carrier pigeons, and war pigeons.  War pigeons!   There are pigeons that have been awarded medals of bravery in wartime.   Yes, that’s kind of ridiculous.  But hey – I don’t see you strutting around downtown with a wartime medal.

Maybe it’s because we call them pigeons.  We should stop that.  It seems to have a negative connotation.  Instead, I propose we call them by their true name: rock doves.

That’s right – rock doves.  It’s almost royal.   And rock star.

I’ll bet you’re so stoked to have this newfound information on pigeons.  I’m sorry – rock doves.    I’ll bet you’re starting to feel bad about how you’ve treated them all these years, huh?  After all the fighting they’ve done for our country and the secret letters they’ve carried away to foreign lands in our name.  I’ll bet you feel silly now that you realize they’re rock doves and not pigeons.

It’s like Aladdin finding out Jasmine’s a princess.  ♣

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

I saw my first 2011 Oompa Loompa yesterday.

I’m not sure what kind of crazy juice these women are on that makes them think being orange is better than being pale, but it must be a delicious and powerful hallucinogen.  

I kind of applaud the chicks who get their orange glow from a bottle instead of a tanning booth.  At least they won’t be cancerous Oompa Loompas (a sad image indeed).  But these ones who go to a tanning booth over and over again until they’re extra crispy and emit an orange radioactive glow confuse me.  It doesn’t look natural, it doesn’t look sunkissed, and quite frankly it doesn’t look human.  Is that seriously considered to be more attractive than being pale?!

Okay, I’m just a little biased.  Not only because I prefer my Oompa Loompas to sing and stay in cult classics, but also because I have haddocks for legs.   I find absolutely nothing unattractive about pale skin.  Honestly.  I think it can be lovely.

When the final snow melted at long last, I did a jump of joy for the fact that I wouldn’t have to see those stupid freaking skinny black leggings anymore.  I’ve seen so many unattractive butts smooshed into a pair of leggings like casings around sausage that I could projectile vomit on cue just thinking about them.  

I remember I saw a girl about a month ago walking down a popular street who didn’t understand the difference between leggings and stockings.  For any of you are still confused, one is opaque and the other is transparent.   So there she was, walking in broad daylight down the sidewalk with a shirt that came just above her butt cheeks, which were glistening in the sun with a slight shade of black cast over them as if only a shadow.

I pointed it out to Dave, who promptly crashed the car.

Almost.

But now that winter has finally released its ugly, wretched claws from around our tired, scraggly necks, I have to exchange one ugly evil for another.   Leggings out, orange skin in.   For the past few nights, I’ve been lying awake in bed, trying to confront my newfound fear:

What if leggings don’t entirely disappear? What if they hang out for the transition of the season?! What if there is someone in my town who will wear leggings just slightly past their time and start orangifying themselves just slightly too early?  Upon such a sighting, the car swerve will not be a near crash.

It will be certain. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011

Yesterday I failed at a variety of rudimentary human skills.

It was one of those really rough days. The kind where you put the milk in the cupboard and the cereal inthe fridge, put your underwear on backwards, and confidently walk out your front door.

It still amazes me that in spite of the fact that I do these things with a high level of frequency, I can still completely foil my attempts at basic higher functions. Later in the afternoon, I failed at chewing. I actually failed to masticate properly. Enjoying a simple lunch at my desk, I bit down fast and hard on the left side of my inner cheek.

There’s nothing like eating yourself from the inside to make you feel like a motor skills master.

My day was littered with these little nuggets of suckery. I reached for the grape jam from the fridge and pulled out grape juice instead. I had difficulty navigating the contents of my purse. At moments in conversation, my brain suffered severe meltdowns wherein I was unable to even communicate anything at all. Instead, I just stared straight ahead catatonic.

The worst part was the communication breakdown. It felt as if everything I said was misinterpreted as offensive or awkward. Basic sentence-forming didn’t come easy, so social graces were out of the question entirely. I ended the day feeling as if everything I came in contact with throughout my day
was tainted by my stupidity. Somehow, I was jaunting through the universe sucking intelligence from every interaction I had.

I was a big, fat, suck-banshee.

But you know what? That’s okay. I mean, I only wished I would have caught on earlier. Little can be done in retrospect, but had I noticed it happening along the way, I might’ve deduced some way to harness this power. I’m not sure how, but there’s gotta be a way to apply that temporary skill set. I
will have to devote my time to discovering practical applications.

Then the next time I find warm milk in the cupboard, I can know that my stupidity will be a force to be reckoned with and I am about to achieve great things. ♣

P90X Update: Super fail.  Didn’t do anything yesterday but eat cookies.  Houseguests have thrown me off my routine and I’m headed to my parents’ this weekend.  I shall find abandoned wagon and hop back on Monday.  And feel like a fat slug until then. 

Tags: 365 Project, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011