The Jackie Blog

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Yesterday I ventured over to my local grocery store to partake of the fine conveniences of being an American: that is, having other people gather food in a central location so I can just pay them for it instead of getting it myself.

It’s awesome.

I immediately found myself sucked into the beauty that is the “10 for 10” deal.  That’s right: 10 items for 10 dollars.  That’s only one perfectly rounded dollar each.

This time it was on mangoes.

I’ll be honest: I don’t really care for mangoes.  I’m not against them, necessarily, but I don’t go to the store expecting to come home with a mango. But let’s face it – if you slap a $1 dollar deal on a pile of milarchy, I’ll walk out of the store with it.

So I’m over in the mango section, admiring the beautiful roundness of their hides, when I realized I have absolutely no idea how to tell if a mango is ripe.  As I eyed them over suspiciously, I was interrupted by a middle-aged woman who had no interest in nonsense.  She asked if I knew how to tell if a mango was ripe.  I told her it was a funny thing to ask because I was just there thinking I didn’t have the slightest clue myself.  And that’s when she said it:

“Oh.  You looked like you would know.”

I looked like I would know?  Let me paint a picture for you.  I typically head to the store looking like a hobo.  If I have to go do something adult-like and responsible, I’m sure as heck not about to do it all dressed up like it.    On this particular day, I was sporting a pair of sweatpants from high school that I cut half the legs off of.  I paired it with a very old, very much Dave’s, black hooded sweatshirt with little holes worn in the sleeves for my thumbs, which I put my thumbs through thank-you-very-much.  I topped it all off with a pair of sneakers I’ve had since freshman year of college.

This lady had low standards for melon experts.

I don’t have a good working knowledge of produce.  Up until a few months ago, I didn’t even know what a real, genuine green bean looked like.

I struggle.

But inspired by the idea that I look like the kind of person who might know about these things, I continued about the produce section, pretending to be an expert of various sorts.  I made up ways to tell whether or not things were prime for picking, and made ridiculous conjectures.  I looked  bok choy in the face and pretended I knew what it was.   I also ended up buying a lot of produce.  I probably spent twenty minutes just browsing around in character and it was glorious.

And then I remembered: this is why I don’t shop without Dave. ♣

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

I’ve been lied to.

I remember distinctly the day I learned weather patterns and how they corresponded with the months of the year.  It was very straightforward.  December-February is Winter, March-May is Spring, June-August is Summer, September to November is Autumn.

What a load of crap.

Honestly, I can’t remember the last time winter was over in February.  Or when it waited until December to start.  In fact, winter is launching an all-out attack on every other season.  It starts snowing in October, ruining Halloween for everyone and making it much hard for all the slutty sluts to dress like slutty sluts for their Halloween costumes for fear of frost bite.

Alice in Wonderland was much more modestly dressed than contemporary costumes would have us believe.

Somehow, winter manages to start its terror way back in October, ruin all the beautiful changing trees, and then goes full-force until March.  MARCH!  What a ripoff.    The same lying grade school teacher taught us all that March “comes in like a lion and out like a lamb”.   We had to draw pictures to match what we learned – we all set to coloring up a storm of tragedy to symbolize the beginning of March and a world of peace with no hunger and poverty to symbolize the end.

Or maybe I just took the lesson too literally.

Either way, it was a load of bull.  Not even a week ago, there was a hailstorm in my town so enormous that people’s cars were dented.  The weather was so freaky-deaky that a tornado managed to touch down right outside the city, flatten 9 houses, and rip the roof of a high school.

I’ve never seen a lamb do that.

Not only do I feel cheated by my grade school education, but I’m just generally angry that I believed the lies for so long.  This year, I’m putting the falsehoods away.  Let’s be honest: winter is a terrible, raging villain that has consumed 6 months of our year.  From October to March we are grumpy, frigid human beings.    We like to pretend that it’s reserved for Christmas time and the little bump of months surrounding the holiday, but we’re all lying to ourselves.  If we just admit that half our year is blanketed with cold and misery, maybe someday we can learn to accept it.   Or move to Florida, where all the people go who figured this out years ago.

I just had Raisin Bran for breakfast and I totally liked it.  I’m only a few old-person stages away from heading south myself. ♣

Old Man Winter: What a jerkface. Image by designer Edgar R. McHerly. Click the image to head to tilteed.com, where you can snag his stuff on cool tees.

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

Get excited; it’s Lollipop Tuesday.

After last week’s Rock Climbing “Adventure”, I thought it appropriate to go a little more hands-off.  So this week, I went to my first opera.

I’m kind of surprised that I’ve been in theater for so long and never managed to encounter an opera.  Well, there was this one time when I was a teacher at a performing arts camp, but it was this absolutely terrible show about Ruth and Naomi and it was all sung poorly and in English.   And quite frankly, if there aren’t Viking hats or different languages, it just doesn’t qualify in my book.

So I ventured over to the theater having no idea what to expect.  I had kind of accepted that I would probably hate it.  I tend to make those decisions sometimes without really knowing anything about the subject.  But luckily thanks to this Lollipop Tuesday series, I’m slowly and painfully working on that flaw.  I’m finding that a lot of experiences are not at all what I make them out to be inside my head.

The opera was Puccini’s Turandot and as it turned out, there were no Vikings of any kind.  Just incredibly sweet sets, super awesome costumes, and subtitles.

I don’t know why, but for some reason I thought opera wouldn’t have subtitles.  I imagined something like the scene from Moonstruck where Cher and Nicolas Cage stare at the stage and just know what’s happening.  But I’m actually really glad there was a translation.  Reading the program guide can only explain so much when the lead begins a 15 minute long song, you’re staring at a cloak with 20 human heads hanging inside, and the whole village is weeping and gnashing teeth.

It was intense.

The thing that really surprised me was how extravagant the set was and how each costume was so intricate in detail and over-the-top in spectacle.   But I suppose that when you go see a show in a foreign language that has no upbeat dance numbers, you’ve gotta have something to look at.

I really need to get cast in theater companies with bigger budgets.

The only unfortunate part of the evening was the couple sitting to the far left of me, one row ahead.  Apparently they had a lot to say about, well, everything.  They didn’t even try to whisper, which is the real kicker.  And since I’ve been known to walk up to people who are rude in the theater and have civil, logical conversations with them about how they’re the reason people stay inside to watch movies, I was a little concerned about the little baby hellfire flame that was lit in the pit of my stomach when I heard them start to talk.

Luckily, their cacophony of disrespect was overshadowed by a woman who “snuck” in a bag of chips in her purse.  I’d argue that someone who isn’t a moron might try sneaking in something just slightly more discreet next time, but she seemed genuinely convinced that adjusting the packaging ever so slowly was an effective means of concealing her sin.

And she, like all others who make that assumption, was drowning in a thick, infested pool of denial between her loud crunches.

My thin, fickle patience aside, it was a lovely experience.  Dare I say I enjoyed it.

Man, I can’t believe I just said I enjoyed opera. ♣

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

It’s stinkbug time.

ew ew ew ew ew ew.

I hate stinkbugs.  I love the spring and look forward to it all year long until I remember that it comes with bugs.  Specifically, bugs that tend to cluster.

I can’t even describe to you in words how absolutely disgusted I am by swarms of anything.  If both my cats are in the same room at the same time, I make one of them clear out so it doesn’t look like I’m getting an infestation.  Even just the words “swarm” and “infestation” give me the willies.  The thought of attempting to find a picture to attach to this blog post absolutely scared the bejeezus out of me.

I’m not “afraid” of stinkbugs or lady bugs.  I’m afraid of the omen they bring.

When I was in college, I lived in a crappy 5-room house with a bundle of roommates.    Rent was low and bugs were rampant.    I could walk around the house and easily count into the double digits how many stinkbugs I saw hanging out along the way.  Everywhere I went, I felt in constant anxiety of my next sighting.

Ladybugs pull ahead in the attractiveness factor, but when I remember what it looks like to see them all huddled on top of each other in the corners and cracks of houses, I go flailing about the house like a frightened little girl.

I think my problem is a fear of collections in general.  I am incredibly careful to not make any mention that I “collect” something.   I know far too many family members who are buried and unable to move under the mounds of snowmen, angels, Santas, roses, or cat figurines.  All it takes is one careless mention or gesture and suddenly everyone who knows you gets you a variation of a penguin for Christmas.

Once, a couple of friends and I decided to decorate the bathroom in our place with an assortment of ridiculous plastic ducks.  It wasn’t so much that we cared for the ducks as it was a result of a free giveaway at school.    Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized that anyone visiting the house could look at the window ledge in the bathroom, see the variety, and insist upon us having a duck collection.

There are many things I would like to be thought of in this life, but a collector of ducks is not one of them.

I’m absolutely terrified of what this stinkbug means for the apartment.  Are there more? Are they lurking somewhere?  What if I see a ladybug too? Maybe I need to just make sure the cats are on their A-game so they can help with pest control.  Maybe I should get another cat.

…No… 2 cats is reasonable. 3 cats is a collection. ♣

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