Shake your bootie!

My sister had a kid last month. I'd usually be gushing all over the place about how perfect this kid is and how he's the sweetest lil' thing to come out of the East Coast since Boston Cream Pie and all but I haven't actually met the guy yet. Who knows? He might actually be kind of a jerk. I'll be all, "Hi, Baby," and he'll be like, "Dude, whatever. Talk to the slobber 'cause the face won't bother," or something like that. Then I'd have to give a redaction on my pre-meeting gushes and that would be embarrassing. I'd hate to have misrepresented something here because, as we all know, this blog is about the truth, plain and simple.

So that's why I've played it safe and kept mum on the whole thing, but now I just can't hold this in any more. I'm heading to Baltimore to visit the fam and see the baby [insert obligatory Seinfeld reference here] in like nine hours (I should probably be packing, huh?) so tonight I stitched up a little giftie for the little guy.

Are you ready for this??

Shut. Up.

Did your heart not melt into a little puddle of goo just then? Are you clutching your ovaries and weeping right now? Seriously. If you are not physically ill from the cuteness overload here, you clearly have no soul.

I'll let you know how the baby takes to them when I see him. If he says, "Why the crap did you make me shoes? I'm a freaking baby. Meaning I can't walk," I'll be pretty ticked.





Hey, look! The missing Seinfeld reference!

Buffalo!

There is nothing like an adventure, is there? Unless it's an adventure with good friends.

Andrea "A-Slice", Robin and I headed out to Antelope Island over the weekend. Can you believe I've lived in Utah for 5 years and I'd never been there? Crazy.

On the way, we stopped at Burger Bar in Roy. Robin was much pleased.




Once we were in, we got all excited about the buffalo. Seriously, is there anything cooler than a buffalo? If you said yes you are a liar.




Hey, let's take a picture of the sun! It's way arty and I bet no one else has ever thought of it!

Sweet.

"Hello up there, tall Robin!"

A besotted couple was having a romantic evening. Until we showed up, that is.




Hey, Kim. Why don't you try to take a self-portrait as you balance precariously on a large boulder while the wind is whipping you to and fro? O-kay!

Sunset or forest fire?


Seriously! Buffalo!

It's a circle of life type thing.

When I was a kid, my mom blamed her gray hair on me.


Now I blame mine on her.








Thanks, Mom.

Friday Mystery

I was just doing my end of the work-week desk-clearing when I came across this:

An index card, blank except the word "gerome" written in my handwriting.

What does that mean?

*sniff sniff* I've taught them well.

"Okay, kiddos," I called to my class the other day. "Time to pick up the room! T---, please put away the chess sets. P---, you do the markers." I turned away and braced myself for the inevitable.

"BUT I DIDN'T GET IT OOOOUUUUUUUTTTTT*!"

"I know, I know," I sighed, "But you're going to put it away. Because why class?"

In unison they responded, "Because we love our teacher and we don't want her to have an aneurysm before she's thirty."

"Exactly, loves. Exactly."




*Stretched to a minimum of three syllables.

Church Pew Whisperings, part 1

During the opening hymn:

Jeff: Hey, are you ever sitting in church and all of a sudden you think something really, really blasphemous and you're all, 'Wow. I shouldn't think blasphemous things in church!'

Me: ****

Jeff: Yeah, you should probably repent for that.



Later, while the sacrament is being passed:

Jeff: Are you sure you're worthy to take that?

Me: Shut-up.

Jeff: Heretic.

Here's some shameless guilt-tripping for you.

Happy Patriot Day! Are you supposed to wish others a Happy Patriot Day? I don't know the rules.

Donny was on my mind this morning. My hilarious, sweet, wacky brother Donny. Donny, who wears a uniform and gets on a big ship and sails far, far away from his lovely wife and darling daughter because that's his job. Non sibi sed patriae, right? Donny, who doesn't seem scared even if we are.

Donny was deployed a few years back. Came back, safe and sound. His unit was called up again. Back to Iraq he goes.

After he called to tell me he was going back, our conversation run thusly:

Me: Well, geez Donny, I sure hope you don't die or anything.

Donny: Yeah. You know what, Pickles*? If I'm killed out there by some crazy terrorist, I'm gonna be pretty ticked.

Me: Totally.


So here's where you come in, my dear Internet friends. Send some good vibes Donny's way. If you're the praying type, slip him in there somewhere. If not, just wish good karma for this kid. (Although, he was kind of a rascal in his younger days . . . I distinctly remember someone blowing up something in an empty field in the middle of the night. Yeah, maybe we should forget about karma.) Just send some good vibrations out there. Because, no matter all the screwy politics, he's a good kid and there are a lot of people who need him to come home safely. A little girl needs her daddy. A mom needs her husband. And a big crazy family needs their goofball back.




*Old family nickname. Don't mock.

The people at Sunflower Market are judging me.

Do you think it was because I showed up to buy my market-fresh organic produce in the gas-guzzling Rhino while chugging bottled water? Or was it my "Legalize Seal Clubbing" t-shirt? My "Who Cares About Tibet?" bumper sticker? The forest fire I started on my way in?

At least she knows herself well.

Recent conversation with everyone's favorite roommate while discussing a guy we know:

Karen: I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole 'cause I know I'm not in his league. I'm not vain enough for him.

Me: ***

Karen: I mean, I'm vain but I'm not that vain.

Me: That's more like it.

Man, I feel like a woman!

Sunday nights are naughty nights at our house. We all wander around the house after church, restless until we find an occupation. The activity we often land on to the pass the evening is baking. (We are such chicks.)

We have a bushel of freshly picked peaches which I decided to house in a pie while Karen crafted devilishly rich brownies. As I peeled peaches, I announced to Karen that we needn't feel guilty for this pie as it didn't have added sugar. I looked over to see her sitting cross-legged on the counter, slurping brownie batter right out of the bowl. "Um, yeah I'm not exactly concerned with sugar intake at this very moment," she informed me.

I filled the pastry . . .

and wanted to make a lattice-top crust. Only problem was I didn't actually know how to make a lattice-top. I was slightly concerned . . .

but it turned out beautifully! (After I squealed in exasperation several times and sighed, "I don't know what I'm doing!" several more.)

Going in the oven:
In the oven:
All done!

Yeah, I was a titch proud of the little guy. The roommates threatened to pummel me if I didn't stop gushing, "Oh, it's so darling! C'mere! Look at how cute it is!!" I was forced to call my mother to fulfill my gush requirement for the day. (No, I don't at all have an insatiable need for attention.)

I think my first lattice-top pie has secured my induction into true womanhood; I own and frequently use a crock-pot, I've canned food, knit a baby blanket and watched An Affair to Remember at least a dozen times. With this pie, I'm pretty sure it's official.


P.S. If you're ever bored/hungry on Sunday evenings, please come over and eat our food. Please. Like right now. SOMEONE COME EAT THIS PIE!

A Serial Offense

At a party a few weekends ago, a friend came to me with a grammar question which I was, regrettably, unable to answer. Be assured that evening upon returning home, I plunged into my shelf of style guides to procure a correct answer.

Sigh. I love style guides.

They make me feel that all is right with the world, for there are rules for everything. My favorite is Strunk & White's, of course, because I was educated in the public school system in the United States where The Elements of Style is king. I do, however, see a few things in this handbook--rules that have been drilled into my head for years (remember where I was educated?)--which I now take exception to and declare, "You, sir, are unnecessary. You are redundant! You are not welcome here!"

The rule I feel most passionately about is the serial (Oxford) comma.

*insert disdainful eye roll*

I dislike the Oxford comma immensely in direct opposition to standard American English. I know sometimes, for clarity, the additional punctuation is needed but I generally omit the little buggers when possible. This is strange because I love commas and am constantly resisting the urge to sprinkle more and more into my writing until the paragraph is nothing but a list of words separated by commas. My second draft of a document is typically shorter than the rough draft because I've taken out the superfluous punctuation. (This does not apply to blogging where I, more often than not, post unrefined writing chock-full of redundancies and horrifying mistakes. Yeah, please do not go through my old posts looking to see where I've used a serial comma and then email me and be all like, "You are a liar!" Let's just not today, k?)

If you're like me, you subscribe to several writing-style blogs, read articles regarding grammar issues, read style guides in your spare time and would offer to have Martha Brockenbrough's babies if, you know, she wasn't a woman and perfectly capable of producing her own offspring thank you very much. And you're probably thinking, "We are so over this whole Oxford comma thing!"

But chances are you aren't like me and you actually have friends and are kind of normal. And all I can say to you is count your freakin' blessings.

Cannibalism

Shut up. I know you wonder about it too. How can you not wonder what it tastes like? I mean, come on.

I was thinking aloud to my roommate the other day, “Do people from different cultures taste differently? Like because we eat different foods and have different lifestyles and, you know, we’re different . . . so . . . what do you think?”

Roommate, after a pause, “Probably,” then excitedly, “You know what we should do? We should have people from all over the world line up and then we’ll go down the row and lick them! On the arm! Cause we don’t want to bite them; that’d be gross. Then we’ll know for sure.”

“Oh my gosh, that is such a good idea.”

“Or, or, or,” she practically shouts, “We could ask a vampire!”

“Sure,” our friend Jeff pipes in, sardonically, “Because those are real.”

I look at him for a minute. “Yeah, except I don’t actually believe we were talking to you,” I mutter.

So, Internet, what do you think? Do people taste differently? Am I the only person who ever wonders this? Isn’t Jeff kind of a jerk?

(Just kidding, Jeff. You are actually not a jerk.)

Nope. No jerks here.