Manatees and Broken Arms

I know its been a little while since I've last blogged and I promise to do better in the future but in all fairness my reasons for not posting are pretty legit. I am currently a one armed, bus riding, sling wearing member of society, all because of a little incident with black ice. Yes thats right, I was jogging to my apartments workout facility (because it was just too dangerously slippery to run outside) when I slipped on that tricky black ice and went down harder than a rotten sack of potatoes. Just like that Canadian Alanis Morisette said,

'isn't it ironic?"

Anyways, my point is that typing one handed is no easy feat and add that to the string of bad luck I've had in the short time that has been 2010 and it's easy to see why I've been distracted. You see, my broken arm isn't the first bad thing thats happened, its just one thing in a long run of incidents that I at first attributed to bad karma. With the amount of unlucky circumstances I've had (my apartment flooded, I got my first speeding ticket, my dog died, and i got the flu) I figured I just really made the karma gods mad somehow. Then I got to thinking- I'm a good person! I make poverty wages voluntarily! I volunteer! This cant be a case of bad karma. So i made the only other logical connection. My bad luck must be a result of the manatee necklace my boyfriend got me for Christmas. Yes you heard me right, I own a manatee necklace.

Let me explain, if you know me you understand I have an illogical but great love of the gentle sea cows of North America (who also seem to have bad luck). So for Christmas this past year my amazing boyfriend bought me a silver manatee necklace online. I immediately put it on and decided with great relish that I was never taking it off. Now some people may have become annoyed at the constant inquires as to why I was wearing a furry dolphin around my neck but no, I just found my silver mammal to be an excellent conversation starter among both friends and strangers. Until bad things started happening and continuing to happen until one day the necklace fell off (and because I am one armed right now -stayed off). Once I quit wearing the necklace my good luck returned. I found out I didn't need surgery, my work presentation went well and I stopped getting sick!

But why you ask would a simple manatee necklace be cursed? The answer is simple, my boyfriend bought it online, we don't know where it came from. Perhaps it was stolen from a grave on a cursed Native American burial ground (this seems to be the likely explanation) or perhaps a tragic story of a zoo-keeper and her favorite pet manatee is attached. Likely we will never find out and its also likely my manatee necklace will need to be exorcised before I can wear it in good conscience again. But I will say this- not many girls can say they have been given a cursed manatee necklace for Christmas so Mike, you win in the categories of originality and excitement. And to my readers, never fear my crazy childhood stories will be back shortly-right after I'm done Googling "how to de-curse your beloved manatee necklace." I am sure Apple has an App for that.

Sell that Yogurt!

I spent alot of my childhood in the kitchen (which oddly isn't really reflected in my cooking skills today). My mom, growing up in a large family with lots of mouths to feed thought it was very important that my sister and I acquire competent cooking skills so that later in life we would be able to not only eat real meals but also cook for others. (Sorry mom) I suppose somewhere in the many hours we spent "helping" her in the kitchen these values were ingrained but to be honest I was too busy to notice at the time. Time spent in the kitchen for ME was more about whipping up disgusting and unrecognizable concoctions and stroking my ego by pretending to 1. be the star of a cooking show or 2. be the star in a commercial (notice the theme here?).
Yes, instead of focusing on making healthy, delicious food for my family I chose to instead practice my fake smile at an imaginary camera and tone my "adult superstar presenter" voice. I practiced stirring while looking at my imaginary audience and telling funny stories. I didn't care so much about how even my batter was so long as I looked good. Lest you think I am the conceited one in the family, my sister did the same thing. Sometimes we would even make guest appearances on each other's "shows" (the kitchen was less noisy that way). Did my mom notice this was going on? Of course. Did she ignore it? Without a doubt. She had much more important things to worry about- like making sure the family wasn't going to be poisoned by my sister and my lack of attention.

Occasionally (if my mom kicked us out of the kitchen in utter exasperation-which is impressive as she is the most patient person I know) we would resort to the less glamorous but still fulfilling, commercial acting. Instead of trying to give our audience helpful tips about cooking or baking we would try to sell household items or food products. Our favorite thing to sell (by far) was yogurt. Carefully we would open the carton by pulling the lid back, every so gently filling our spoon with creamy yogurt-y goodness and murmur a delighted "mmm" . There was NO ONE in that fake audience that didn't want to try our brand of yogurt when we were done. NO ONE. Not only did I learn about brand loyalty but these play commercials were a wonderful opportunity to practice my accents (which would come in handy as a fun way to entertain myself at the bar).

The best days though, were not as famous superstars on a critically acclaimed cooking show (because of course the imaginary critics loved us) no, the best days were "concoction days". A concoction day was a day when my mother decided to forgo teaching us the logistics behind baking brownies or chocolate chip cookies and let us come up with our own (in)edible dishes. We would go crazy on these days. No longer bound by the strict regulations of a recipe we would pull spices and sauces and baking ingredients from the kitchen cabinets and create a bigger melting pot than all of America. Somehow these mixtures, despite the fact that we used different ingredients every time, always ended up looking the same. Rachel and I were, in fact, the world's foremost chefs in making inedible brown mush. To this day I don't understand why the FoodNetwork never approached us as shining examples in the cooking world. It sounds easy but its harder than one thinks to create a mixture that looks and tastes like death. At the end of our concoction session it was our parent's duty to taste-test the salve and give us a raving review (thats positive parenting right there) and they always did.

Despite my mother's best intentions my sister and I still rely way too heavily on that wonderful modern invention, the microwave. If I've learned anything though from my time under those bright kitchen lights it is this- perfect that smile, learn to wink and find someone (anyone) who will cook for you. Because like the wall hanging Rachel and I have up in our kitchen says, we definitely kiss better than we cook.

This is what you do when you don’t own video games

I am not a gamer. I have never owned any type of video consul in my life. No Nintendo 64, no Game Cube, X-Box or any of the other various types of electronic devices that allows you to live out your dreams of being a small Italian racecar driver or a fanatical killing machine. For some unknown reason, these things never held my interest when I was young. Not growing up in a world of Tetris and Halo, however, has had a number of interesting effects on my life. One is that I have without a doubt THE WORST hand-eye coordination of any moderately intelligent, competent human being. I wish I were exaggerating but this is sadly, not the case. If only I had spent more time testing my reflexes with the soft touch that is required to blow the head off of an alien or round a curve in a high functioning car. Alas, I am forever destined to be the girl everyone is afraid to get in a (real) car with.

The second effect this has had is that I REFUSE; absolutely refuse to participate in any type of party, group gathering or family function that requires me to play one of said video games for fear of jilting embarrassment. Unfortunately this has led to a lifetime of sitting on the sidelines, drinking heavily (tragic I know) while my friends/significant others battle each other in the ultimate showdown of dominance. Instead of relying on a common ground in the world of gaming to get to know my peers I instead had to rely on that other social lubricant we all know and love-alcohol (but only after I was 21 of course).

I digress. One positive thing that HAS come from a lifetime of deprivation in the world of electronics is that it forced my sister and me to creatively come up with interesting alternatives. So instead of mindlessly staring at the TV for hours on end, Rachel and I would make up stories. And believe me, our stories were better than any make believe video game world (SO LAME). Our stories were based on magazines.

That’s right, you heard me. Magazines. And not interesting magazines, like Time or People or even BusinessMoney (oookay maybe that’s not so interesting). Our stories were based upon the khaki and pastel clad men and women of L. L. Bean. Yes, it may have been a clothing magazine to you. But to my sister and me it was a wonderful world full of people showing off their rugged but all-American look just waiting to jump from the glossy pages of the magazine and come to life in the middle of our living room. There were pictures upon pictures of men, women and children climbing and hiking and running and playing till their hearts content. Through them, even in the darkest of winter, we could live in a wonderful outdoor adventureland. We would sit for hours making up classy stories full of mysteries and intrigue. Like the story of the mother and her daughter trapped on the mountainside (snappily dressed of course-there were ample descriptive words used in these stories) waiting for rescue, hoping to outsmart the ravenous mountain lion waiting in the shadows. Or, if it was a Christmas catalog (those were the best gosh darn it!) we would weave splendid tales of family drama and occasionally (If they were advertising pet supplies) stories about regal looking golden retrievers. Believe me, you haven’t really lived until you’ve felt the steady increase of your heart as you wait in anticipation for the mail to arrive, and with it your beloved quarterly magazine. Take that gamers.

So while I may not have had the opportunity and the luxury of practicing my hand-eye coordination and while I don’t have quite the thumb dexterity that my peers have achieved over a lifetime of video game dominance I do have a vocabulary ripe with detailed words and I will never mistake calling an L.L. Bean shirt PINK when it is so clearly Magenta.