Dear Prudence

Not a single day of my junior year of high school went by without a long, melodious "Hello, my dahhhhlings!" when my classmates and I walked into third period Pre-AP English. "How are all my kiddlets and bubbleses?" Our teacher, Prudence Hockley, was exactly the kind of engaging, encouraging, challenging, respected, and just downright cool instructor that makes even the greatest teachers feel inadequate. To this day I don't think of Hockley as a mortal. She was a god. She was going to outlast the Apocalypse.

Except that on Christmas Eve she died.

Every day was beautiful with her. I looked forward to every class, even the days on which we were scheduled to write what my friends and I lovingly called "in-classers" - essays written in class and often on a prompt we did not receive until the bell rang. Hockley was otherworldly in everything she did. She was so buff that just the threat of her muscles was enough to inspire us to finish our assigned reading. She was a feminist with short, spiky hair, high heels, a pierced nose, and tattoos. She could kick your ass. She was fabulous.

With her gorgeously exotic Kiwi accent she would teach us about iambic pentameter and wouldn't let us move on to the next lesson until we were saying "slahhhhnt rhyme" instead of "slant rhyme." She taught me the meaning of the word fey (quaint). While we were working quietly in our groups one morning she left the room, darting back in before the door had latched closed to ask us why it was that she had left in the first place. She called on me to explain a quote from Macbeth and after I had stuttered my way through my misreading she asked, "Is that really what he means?" She was no-nonsense but would occasionally stop class to get the low-down on the latest hallway gossip. One day the principal came over the intercom to tell us that we were having a modified lock down but to continue with class and not lock our doors. Hockley locked ours and went back to her lesson with a "that'll teach 'em to f*#$ with me!" twinkle in her eyes.

She made every one of her students feel like the most important person in her life. No question was stupid, no observation too obvious. We were all her children and she nurtured us and celebrated our accomplishments as if we were related by blood.

And she was effing hilarious:

-"She likes to hear herself talk. It's like verbal diarrhea."
-"So don't fall off the horse, the wagon, the donkey, or anything else that moves that you're riding."
-"Mind you, this movie was not set on a stage. It was set in the mud, with blood and chickens and medieval spiky things."
-"I do not want to read some crap like, 'The dreams flowed in a plethora of myriads.' I hate that shit! This isn't a Hallmark card, people, this is analysis!

Prudence Hockley was easily one of the three best teachers I've ever had, and there's no doubt that she has influenced my life more than most people I know and most people I will ever know. She made me love what I couldn't understand because it meant that there would always be something for me to learn. She taught me to think critically, to never accept an answer that was simply given.

I lit a candle tonight for you, Hockley. May you never forget how extraordinary you were and how often you were cited as the reason why your students loved to learn. I carry your lessons with me to this day and I will carry them with me for the rest of my life. I can't fathom how the world is still turning without you. 

I love you.

Thank you.

The Nutcracker

Last night my mom and I attended Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of The Nutcracker for the first time. After years and years of Olympic Ballet's (OB) adaptation, I wasn't quite prepared for the changes that awaited me. Some thoughts:

1. Can someone please explain to me why the nutcracker doll was not actually a nutcracker? (On a similar note, why does tying a handkerchief around the doll's neck fix a series of stab wounds in his plush little sternum? It made much more sense with OB, where his head came off and the handkerchief was meant to keep it on.)

2. I've been going to the show for practically my whole life and only last night learned that it's drunkenness, not elderly fragility, that causes Uncle Drosselmeier to stumble about during the party scene. (This is like finding out when I was a kid that I couldn't marry Aladdin because he was an animated character.) "How come in Olympic Ballet he's staggering before the party even starts?" I asked my mom at intermission as I made my way down my list of first-act talking points. "Was he already drunk? Oh my god, was Drosselmeier pregaming? Did they even have pregaming in Nuremburg in the 1890s?"

3. I found a pair of black tights buried underneath some hats in the back of a bureau drawer. Anticipating how cold I would be in my dress, I pulled them on without conducting a thorough inspection of the rear section. When I got home and found an unseemly rip in the very spot I failed to examine, I was forced to deduce that I hadn't worn the tights since I sang "Colors of the Wind" in my sixth grade musical. (Which must mean that I had enormous legs in elementary school.)

4. My mom and I mourned the absence of Mother Ginger, who in the OB's Nutcracker is played by a man in drag harboring a gaggle of small children in his hoop skirt.

5. For the love of God, do not bring infants to The Nutcracker. There are cannons. They are loud. I almost cried.

6. Can someone with more knowledge of this Nutcracker production please deny or confirm my suspicion that several mice minions in the evil Mouse King's army were dressed to look like Muslims? (If they were, as they so blatantly appeared to be, that's offensive.)

I realize that all this snarkiness probably makes it seem like I found nothing of substance in the production. On the contrary. Despite the above attempts at humor and half-assed complaints, the ballet was beautiful. The sets and costumes were gorgeous, the orchestra was flawless, the dancing was incredible. I did miss the three-year-old Russian boys tripping over their hands and feet while attempting the "coffee grinder," but I gained an elegant peacock woman riding onstage in a golden cage so I count that as a victory.

What is Left Behind

"Come over," he'd said. "Go through her things. She would have wanted you to have them."

His wife's death had left my neighbor with a world that wasn't his. The dogs his wife had trained were now his responsibility, as were the horses. All over the house her absence was almost more of a presence than she had been, a giant pit in the floor that you had to step around.

We rang the doorbell. Never once in the almost twenty years we'd lived next door had I rung the doorbell and not been greeted by a cacophony of barks and howls and yelps so predictable and consistent that it was as if the doorbell itself rang to the tune of the neighborhood dog pack. This time when I rang there was silence. The noise that should have been there was a tangible thing rattling inside my stomach.

Dave opened the door and pointed us toward the kitchen. We rummaged through pots and pans and dishes that he would never use (his wife had always been the warm body in the kitchen), opening cupboards that belonged to a woman who was no longer around to be embarrassed by their disarray. It seemed unfair. A head-start in a race we would have won anyway.

"Dave, do you want this big saucepan?" my mom asked. The ghostly thin image of a man who'd only two months ago received a full set of teeth shook his head. "I only need the smallest one. For my camper." I could picture my quiet neighbor, who eats mostly mashed potatoes and meatloaf, who would never think of asking another soul for help at the risk of intruding, heating himself a can of chicken noodle soup on a trailer stovetop in the middle of Arizona. His daughter had told my mom that she worried he would head out on the road and she'd never hear from him again. Never a burden, to the point of being a burden.

I opened a cupboard door and saw that his daughter, at his behest, had stripped the shelves of everything except three small plates and two cereal bowls. My stomach clenched. 

"Do you want to take a look at this pile here, Dave, and tell us what you might need?" My mom gestured to a stack of dishes and pans we'd balanced on the counter. "No, I won't need that," he answered, not even glancing over from his seat in front of the TV set that I didn't think I'd ever seen turned off. My mom and I each gathered an armload of kitchen necessities that suddenly weren't so necessary anymore and headed toward the door. "Thank you, Dave," I said, hoping he could sense that I meant for his unerring wisdom, his stability, the constant peace of mind that came from knowing he was always next door. I turned to face him, desperate to offer some semblance of generosity to the frame of a man across the room, but his head was down.

In his lap he was twiddling his thumbs.

Things That Saved My November

1. My job. Whose heart wouldn't melt if you were given a picture of a rainbow panda or a Halloween snowflake or your name spelled with one backwards letter? (Interestingly, my job also ranks high on the list of things that almost savagely murdered my November. If you want that list, though, you'll have to wait a few minutes for my good mood to pass.)

2. Children's picture books translated into Spanish - mainly Jorge y Marta, La Hora de Acostarse de Francisca, and Gracias, Sr. Falker. If the employees at the Bothell Public Library are wondering why there has been a recent surge in the number of these books being checked out, that would be me. Sorry. And yes, I am four. And I may or may not have to look up an average of ten words per ten-page story, including words that I apparently needed to look up twice. 

3. Brainstorming how to condense my entire life into a catchy memoir title while maintaining the high level of self-abasement that you've come to expect from me, and on which I pride myself greatly. Titles so far include:

-How to Be a Pushover

-How Not to Be a Pushover (and Other Things I Don't Know)

-It Made Sense in My Head

-Open Your Own Damn String Cheese: A Tale of Dexterity

-Seriously, I Will Hit You in the Face

4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I gasped. I shouted. I squealed with delight. And then I called my friend Casey (or rather, she called me) and I did it all over again. 

5. This one has to do with my Sounders so I'll save you all the drudgery and give you the abridged version: something great happened, something amazing happened, and something spectacular happened (but not necessarily in that order).

6. Casey Lynn Langford and our wonderful two-person interstate book club.

7. The photography of Arturo Torres. 

8. And, of course, my sweet little Taffodil. Mostly I just included this to remind you how adorable she is.

Honorable mentions: my bed, European soccer, literature, Thanksgiving dinner rolls, and my scarf collection.

Destinos

Hello, my name is Olivia and I am addicted to a Spanish soap opera called Destinos.

I don't think I can fully express the magic that is this telenovela. The clothes are outrageous, the hair is gigantic, the plot is forced: everything a soap opera should be. This show is more '80s than M.C. Hammer pants. It's fantastic.

The plot goes like this:
Upon falling gravely ill, elderly Don Fernando Castillo Saavedra receives a letter from a woman in Sevilla, Spain telling him that his former wife did not die in the Spanish Civil War as he had thought. The Castillo family hires Raquel Rodriguez, a lawyer in Los Angeles, to find Don Fernando's wife Rosario and her child. The investigation takes Raquel from Don Fernando's home in Mexico to Spain, Argentina, Puerto Rico, and back to Mexico. Along the way she learns the following: 1) Rosario and her second husband have both died; 2) Rosario had two sons, one of which is a doctor named Arturo who lives in Buenos Aires; 3) Rosario's other son, Angel, broke ties with his family and Arturo knows nothing of his whereabouts; 4) Angel is actually dead but has two children, Angela and Roberto. Angela lives in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Roberto is in college in Mexico City. 

Raquel and Arturo being
extremely awkward. And
don't even get me started
on that outfit, Raquel.

Raquel and Arturo are kind of an item but Raquel is being very angsty about a long-term relationship. The Castillo family is facing bankruptcy. Don Fernando has taken a turn for the worst and is being flown from Mexico City to see a specialist in Guadalajara.

Riveting, right?

If that doesn't just ensnare your attention, allow me to recount for you some of my favorite moments in recent episodes:

1. Raquel's parents have an unexpected visit from her ex-boyfriend Luis, and they decide it would be a brilliant idea to send him to Mexico to meet up with Raquel who is there to see the Castillo family with Arturo. As I'm watching this disaster unfold in front of me, I can't help but shout, "That is a horrible idea!" and "Go back to Nueva York, Luis!"

2. Angela goes to the hospital to visit Roberto who was trapped in a mine during an archaeological excavation. I absolutely understand her desire to sit with her unresponsive brother while he recovers; what I don't understand is why her first inclination once she's there is to balance her checkbook. In the dark.

Raquel Rodriguez, sporting her
trademark patterned blouse.

3. It makes me so very happy when, at the end of each episode, Raquel begins her recap with the phrase, "Well, here I am." Was it touch-and-go there for a while?

4. This show's idea of a cliffhanger is the following:

At the end of one episode: "Will Raquel be enchanted by the framed photograph given to her by Arturo?"
At the start of the next episode: "Yes. She is indeed enchanted."

At the end of one episode: "What has Pedro Castillo said in the mysterious message he left for Raquel at her hotel?"
At the start of the next episode: "You left your wallet at my house last night."

At the end of one episode: "Where is Gloria?"
At the start of the next episode: "In the kitchen, Carlos, making you a sandwich. Relax."

(Oh, the suspense!)

5. Raquel and Arturo just met up for a drink at their hotel, and what did Raquel order? An apple juice. Seriously? Apple juice? You're really going to discuss your romantic future by candlelight with an attractive Argentinian doctor over a cup of apple juice? For shame, Raquel Rodriguez. And, to top it all off, she didn't even drink it. That's just rude.

I'm telling you, this show is magnificent.

So That Happened

Evidently I don't know how to be a person. See for yourself:

1. I was cleaning the house the other morning while reminding my cat, as I do 700 times every hour, that she is the best little calico stringbean on the planet. So intent was I on conveying my love that I absentmindedly vacuumed over the cord to the blinds in the living room window. I cursed, assured my cat that the expletive was not directed at her, and yanked the cord angrily from the maw of the vacuum. When I turned it back on it refused to work. It practically crossed its arms in defiance. "Okay, Taff," I said, clapping my hands and rubbing them together like we were about to formulate an attack plan as the crime-fighting duo I'd always hoped we'd be. "Let's get a screwdriver and open this sucker up!" And I--we--did just that. The vacuum belt had come loose so I looped it back into place, replaced the plastic cover, and turned it on. Success! "Taff!" I shouted. "Did you see that? Your mama's a genius!" And then I promptly vacuumed over my foot.

2. The picture on the box of Trader Joe's cinnamon vanilla tea is a lemur tangled in a strand of Christmas lights. I can't tell you how happy this makes me.

3. I have developed a somewhat persistent eye twitch that has been plaguing me for the past five days. I'd finally had enough this evening and sat down at the computer to find a cure. Of the handfuls of remedies that presented themselves, two in particular seemed keen on being found:

1) Stop drinking coffee.

2) See a psychotherapist. 

These suggestions would be extremely helpful if it weren't for two things:

1) I don't drink coffee, and

2) No

4. I returned home from the library yesterday only to discover, five minutes later, that I'd checked out a book I already owned.

5. There's a possibility--slight, of course--that last week, while cleaning his bowl, I may or may not have accidentally dropped Guildenstern into the dishwasher. He seems fine, if you ignore the fact that his complexion is undeniably pale and his left eye is now gigantic. I submit this as proof that I shouldn't be allowed to raise anything with a lifespan that (normally) exceeds that of a fly.

Goodbye

I dedicate this week's poem to my dear neighbor Ann who passed away this morning. She was light and goodness--more family than a neighbor. She taught me how to ride her horses, how to feed them carrots with my hand held out flat. She gave me my two lambs and didn't judge me when I named the first one Dood. When my family would go away on vacation she fed my cat, coming in the morning with her coffee and keeping Taffy company in the cold house. She painted a cat in a pumpkin costume on my very first trick-or-treat bag. She made everyone in my family an ornament--hand-painted or beaded--every year for Christmas. She and her husband spent a handful of Thanksgivings at our house. Whenever I locked myself out of my house, I had only to walk next door, ring the bell, and shake my head while making the motion of a door knob turning for her to open her hall cabinet and pull out our spare key. Just last week, when I told her I'd gotten a job, she said she couldn't be prouder. That was the last thing she ever said to me.

I loved her with all my heart, and in the twenty years I've known her I don't think I told her that once. A poem dedication hardly makes up for that--I don't know if she even liked poetry--but I've come to learn that every once in a while you need to steal someone else's words when you don't have your own, no matter what form they take. Sometimes that's okay.

So thank you, Ann, for making my life so safe and happy. I love you.  

Those Days 
Mary Oliver

When I think of her I think of the long summer days
   she lay in the sun, how she loved the sun, how we
      spread our blanket, and friends came, and

the dogs played, and then I would get restless and
   get up and go off to the woods
      and the fields, and the afternoon would

soften gradually and finally I would come
   home, through the long shadows, and into the house
      where she would be

my glorious welcoming, tan and hungry and ready to tell
   the hurtless gossips of the day and how I
      listened leisurely while I put

around the room flowers in jars of water--
   daisies, butter-and-eggs, and everlasting--
      until like our lives they trembled and shimmered
         everywhere.

A Modest Suggestion

Dear Snoqualmie Gourmet,

I was enjoying a bowl of your French Vanilla Frozen Custard last night and decided that I was bored enough to read the little blurb on the side of the container. To refresh your memory, here's what it said: "Our tier one vanilla beans are grown in Madagascar from hand pollinated tropical orchids raised in the rainforest by third generation farmers." Etcetera, etcetera.

I couldn't find a big enough
picture of the French Vanilla
Custard container, but since
you made it, you know what
it looks like.

That's a good start, but can you be a bit more specific? Call me crazy, but I would be so much more impressed if, say, the tropical orchids had been bullied in school and had persevered to become the best pollen producers southeast of Africa. Also if those third generation farmers were all missing major extremities due to various flesh-eating diseases and/or freak accidents, or had overcome obstacles such as crossing the US/Mexico border in the middle of the night or finishing three servings of mac and cheese from Old Country Buffet.

May I offer several unsolicited suggestions? Why not change your blurb to read, "Our tier 1.7 vanilla beans are grown in a soil depth of 6 centimeters, hand pollinated by a guy named Bob who, after having been proven to be not the father on The Maury Povich Show, relocated the rainforest of Madagascar to teach illiterate orphaned jungle children how to paint with their feet"? Or how about, "You won't find a more delectable, luxurious custard than ours, which is made from a rare species of self-harvesting vanilla beans who won the lottery but squandered their millions in a series of poorly researched investment decisions"? I don't know about you, but if my vanilla beans weren't harvested by a former Yugoslavian luge team I don't care to partake of any vanilla beans at all.

No complaints, though, about the Caramel Ginger Snap Gelato. That stuff is top-notch.

Sincerely,
Olivia

P.S. The day after I composed this letter was movie day at work. Guess what movie we watched. Madagascar. I had a brief chuckle to myself before realizing that all the kids had turned their attention from watching singing lemurs in headdresses to watching me. (In case you're curious, Snoqualmie Gourmet, that's the ultimate indication that you've got absolutely nothing going for you.) May you never experience such humiliation.

P.P.S. Can someone in your company please explain to me why a Google image search for Snoqualmie Gourmet French Vanilla Custard yields results that include the Melbourne, Australia tourism logo and a plate of cooked asparagus?

So That Happened

I was scanning the Spanish section of the library the other day and stumbled upon a small yellowing paperback copy of Cuentos de Grimm. Perfect, I thought. A book of children's fairytales couldn't be all that impossible to read.  Oh, but it could. In four pages of Blancanieve y Encarnadarosa, a tale about two sisters who encounter a dwarf in the woods who does not like to have his beard cut*, I had to look up three and a half notebook pages' worth of vocab words. And unfortunately, we're talking college-ruled. I won't shame myself further by giving you a number, but I think you're all bright enough to know that that's practically more words than are in the story.

*Some other things happened in this tale that I did not include in my synopsis for the sake of brevity. Many other things happened that I did not include because I have no earthly idea what they were.

Last weekend I babysat my brother's best friend's son--a five-year-old who insisted on carving his pumpkin with a can opener. That went about as well as you might imagine.

Desmodus Vena, my brother's winery, had its annual grape crush last weekend. While cooking enchiladas with my mom, I stepped away from the kitchen for a moment to grab something from my room. I walked in to find my light on and a four-year-old staring at my fishbowl. Of the things you expect to see when you enter your own bedroom, that's generally not high up on the list.

Here are some conversations I had with small children this past week:

Kid: How old are you?
Me: Twenty-three.
Kid: That's old. Are you married?
Me: No I am not. Should I be?
Kid: Duh.

Kid: Are you new here?
Me: Yes.
Kid: I mean to the United States.
Me: Seriously? I don't look like I was born here?
Kid: No.
Me: Where do I look like I was born?
Kid: Russia.

Kids: Can we make an announcement?
Me: Yes.
Kids: Everyone, we have drawings over here that we're selling for free.

I wrote the following in my journal on October 26th: "Michael has spent the evening melting wax in a mug of hot water to make 'sexy devil teeth' for his Halloween costume. My mom has carved four pumpkins in the span of a single episode of Criminal Minds. My dad watched his bagel cook the entire time it was in the toaster oven. And me, I wasted a half-hour of my life voting for MLS Goal of the Year...so I've got that going for me." If I ever ask you to explain to me why I'm alone, I think that last sentence should just about cover it.

I submit this photograph as irrefutable proof that my cat is officially the cutest thing in the entire world.

The Memory Palace

When I left for the store the other day, I purposely left my grocery list at home. Why, you may ask? Well, I was testing my ability to construct my very first memory palace. Duh. In lieu of a list, I had the following images:

1. John Goodman weeping uncontrollably on the back steps. (Kleenex)
2. In the laundry room, bubbles pouring out of the washing machine and across the linoleum floor. (Soap)
3. A white horse grazing next to the stove. (Oats)
4. A field of poppies swaying in the sweet dining room breeze. (Flour)
5. A pair of monkeys engaging in idle chit-chat on the couch in the living room. (Bananas)
6. A river of milk, pumped by a water wheel, cascading down the stairs. (Milk)

Never in my life has grocery shopping been such a snap--or so reliant upon John Goodman--and I have Joshua Foer and his book, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, to thank.

"The general idea with most memory techniques," says Ed Cooke, a grand memory master from England, "is to change whatever boring thing is being inputted into your memory into something that is so colorful, so exciting, and so different from anything you've seen before that you can't possibly forget it." He continues: "The principle of the memory palace is to use one's equisite spatial memory to construct and store information whose order comes less naturally." Choosing a place with which you are intimately familiar will make those images you put inside it that much more concrete and unforgettable.

Though my first attempt at a memory palace wasn't perfect--I had to dart from one end of the store to the other and back again to get everything in the correct order--I'm beyond sold on the concept. I can't wait for another excuse to try it. I encourage everyone to do the same.

Can You Tell I Don't Want to Job Search?

I was watching the music video for "Gonna Get Over You" by Sara Bareilles on YouTube and an ad popped up asking if I needed an artificial hip replacement. If you were to make a Venn diagram of people who need artificial hips and people who listen to Sara Bareilles, I'm fairly certain the overlap would be nonexistent.

I got new running shoes about a week ago. I've always been sensitive about my gigantic feet and my pride took an especially big hit when the Brooks outlet didn't carry the shoes I wanted as big as I wanted them. Much to my dismay, I was forced to purchase men's shoes. This humiliation was quickly erased yesterday morning, however, when I discovered that printed on the tongues of my new shoes, in all caps, are the words "THE BEAST." Best shoes ever.

Remember my stunning display of intelligence the other day when I tried to no avail to locate "tomatillo" in the English section of my Spanish-English dictionary? Well, today I was flipping through and happened upon "sombrero." In the English section. How does that make sense?

You may have noticed that one of my blog post labels is "Stupid Things I Have Done." I thought when I created it that it would help me organize my posts into easily locatable categories, but really all it's done is help me realize that every single thing I do is stupid. I should start tagging posts that showcase all the times I could have done something stupid but didn't. What it must be like to experience such a moment.

I'm currently perusing Craigslist for part-time jobs. Here is a smattering of what I've found so far this morning, in the span of about seven minutes:

1. A job coaching soccer with an organization called Kidz Love Soccer. Their motto is "Where the score is always Fun to Fun!" And it's trademarked. Unfortunately for them, spelling "kids" correctly is, evidently, also trademarked.

2. A part-time cleaner at Yogurtland. That sounds magical.

3. Promo girls for Seattle's newest night club. The first two requirements are that you "know how to PARTY" and "have lots of friends on Twitter and Facebook." Well, my idea of a PARTY is making popcorn and watching While You Were Sleeping four times in a row, I don't have a Twitter account, and the majority of my eight Facebook friends are former professors. So basically, this job was tailor-made for me.

That's it for now. Don't be too disappointed, though - I'm sure as soon as I leave my seat at the computer I'll do something else idiotic on accident.

So That Happened

Well, this is never happening again...

1. The cupboard outside of our bathroom is large and holds many things, most of which hurl themselves onto my head and/or bare feet every time I open the door. About once every decade, when I'm sufficiently convinced that the cupboard couldn't possibly be more of a mess if a bomb exploded inside it, I wipe the shelves clear and begin the Sisyphusean process of organizing. Among the treasures that were lurking in the dark recesses of the cabinet this time around were the following: approximately 9,000 bottles of hotel shampoo and conditioner; a sticky pink bottle of Calamine lotion that is, by my estimate, three years older than me; four twin-sized mattress pads; and my personal favorite, one unopened bottle of Fixodent Denture Adhesive Powder. I do not know what purpose this product might have served in my household, but at this point my regret at having found it far exceeds my curiosity.

I also unearthed several half-empty tubes of ten-year-old sunscreen and a couple crusty bottles containing an unknown clear, congealed substance. As badly as I wanted to dump these straight into the garbage can, the former Woodinville High School Earth Club President in me refused to throw the plastic bottles in with the rest of the trash. I must have spent an hour dumping the contents of these containers into the garbage, rinsing the potent bottles in the sink, and tossing them into the recycling. I don't even want to think about the chemicals I inhaled as I squirted centuries-old bath oil and dental adhesive powder into the trashcan, only to have the powder erupt in my face in great white plumes like a freaking volcano. The kitchen sink now smells like LA Looks Extra Hold Styling Gel and there is a thin layer of white residue on the tiles surrounding the garbage can. (Don't worry, Mom, I'll clean it up.)

2. I've decided to start relearning Spanish. (This seemed like a logical segue in my head.) I deemed myself linguistically hopeless when after four years of studying the language in junior high and high school the most complex sentence I could muster was "Quiero dormir" ("I want to sleep"). But no more! My dreams of being bilingual have been inexplicably renewed. Now, instead of watching rebroadcast soccer games from 2008 and screaming at penalty kick misses that occurred before I could legally drink, I watch rebroadcast soccer games from 2008 and make Spanish vocab flashcards for myself. Lest someone come along and try to outdo my patheticism and dweebishness, let it be known that while making flashcards for vegetables last night I looked up the Spanish word for "tomatillo" and honestly had no idea why it wasn't listed in the English section. I figured it out, had a good laugh, and then promptly did the exact same thing with "chile."

3. My bedroom window doesn't have a screen and I leave it open a lot. I walked into my room the other day and there was a bird perched on my bed. But not just anywhere on my bed. On my pillow! If this does not make you inordinately excited, please immediately watch this clip from Season 1 of Arrested Development twelve or more times.

4. And speaking of things my cat would like to eat...
(Good luck with that one, Taff.)

5. This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me (particularly the videos for Mauro, Roger, Mike, and Jeff).

Who DOES That?

The east side of the soccer fields where I go every afternoon to pretend I'm Pele is bordered by a pathway that separates the turf from a recreation center. There is a retirement home nearby, and I often see elderly couples strolling along on the other side of the fence. I always hold my shots when they pass, as I don't have enough confidence in my ball control to shoot while someone is behind the goal, lest I expertly lob the deadly sphere over the fence and into the head of the poor octogenarian who's just trying to coax his corgi to pee.

Yesterday was no different. A petite elderly woman in too-short jeans and a red cardigan made her way down the path toward my end of the field. I had been staring down an eight-year-old who could juggle the ball better than I can shooting penalty kicks as the woman approached and I stopped to tighten my shoelaces until she passed. She'd made it several yards past the goal (keep in mind that there's a fence separating the field and the path, but it's only a bit higher than the goal's crossbar) when I decided that she was far enough away that I wouldn't hit her. I scooped up the ball with my foot, juggled it off my knee, and kicked it mid-air toward the netting.

There's a reason I shouldn't be confident in my ball control. I realized this as I watched the ball soar over the fence, into the side of the red brick recreation building (pictured left), and hurtle, in gut-wrenchingly slow motion, toward the elderly woman's head. My heart stopped. I opened my mouth to warn her but no sound came out. The ball landed with a dull whack four feet in front of her and, thank God, bounced the opposite direction into the fence. I sprinted to the gate. "Oh my gosh," I gushed, mortified, "I am so sorry. Really. I am so sorry!" The woman bent down, picked up the ball, and held it out to me with both hands. "It's okay!" she said, "You didn't hurt me!" She smiled in that way that only elderly people can smile--that Bless Your Heart, You Poor Thing smile--and continued on her way.

I immediately pulled out my phone. "Holy mother of God," I texted my friend. "I almost just hit an old woman in the head."

Who does that? I should be shot.

So That Happened

I'm at war with a bluejay. Laugh if you want, but this is serious. This vengeful, diabolical bird lives in the tree outside my window and finds it perfectly hilarious to wake me up every morning by standing in my planter box  and chucking clumps of potting soil into my room. I must have done something to offend this particular bluejay, because I was was also the victim of a pine cone aerial attack several days ago while watering plants. I have called in the Brute Squad (my cat) but that feline wouldn't lift a paw to help me if I was being mauled by an army of rabid mice who had just bathed in catnip.

This morning my mom and I drove to the Puyallup Fairgrounds to set up her pottery in the Artists in Action studio. As we were assembling our shelves and unloading pots, the petite middle-aged AiA coordinator stopped by our station to check in. "Have you met my daughter Olivia?" my mom asked her. "Nice to meet you," I said, extending my hand. "Olivia!" she exclaimed, then turning to my mother added, "she's gorgeous!" She must have meant there to be a pause between that statement and the next words to come out of her mouth, which were: "How did that happen? The last time I saw her she was about this tall!" (She approximated my height by lowering her hand to within two feet of the floor. By her estimation we'd last met days after I emerged from my mother's womb.) Yes, she probably intended for those statements to be separated by a brief period of dead air, but what it sounded like to me and my mom was, "She's gorgeous! How did that happen?" My mom and I each half-laughed, half-gasped. I was nanoseconds from scoffing, "What are you talking about? My mom is stunning!" and I could tell my mom was amping up for a punch along the lines of, "Hey, I've looked worse!" And that's not all. As this woman passed by our shelves to go welcome the next artist, she smacked me somewhat forcefully on the rear end and whispered, "Stop growing!" Yes, you read that correctly. I was spanked by a post-menopausal program coordinator at the Puyallup Fair. I can now cross that off my bucket list.

Here is a new segment I'm calling, "Oh it's on, Rhoda Janzen." I have, as of this morning, officially declared a feud between myself and Ms. Janzen, author of the memoir Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. It's no secret that I think hyperbole is the greatest figure of speech on the face of the earth. It's kind of my thing, and I don't recall giving Rhoda Janzen permission to use it. Yet use it she does, as you'll see here as she discusses her ghost-editing assignment: "What I was doing was unusual - unusual, I mean, beyond the fact that there are maybe 16.2 people in the entire world who would like to know more about the sacred dramatic literature of the fifteenth century." Imagine my displeasure when suddenly, from out of nowhere, Rhoda Janzen prances her way onto my hit reading list and yanks hyperbole right out of my hands. If that's not illegal it damn well should be. So I say to you, Rhoda Janzen, it's on. It's so on.

My mom was cleaning out a drawer of her bureau the other day and came across an unopened package of Angel Cards. For those who are unfamiliar with them, Angel Cards are small laminated slips of paper that feature a virtue--kindness, balance, courageousness, etc.--and a coinciding drawing of an angel performing that task. The idea is that you keep them on a dish face-down, flip over a different card every day, and devote that day to patience or friendship, which is portrayed by an angel in a pink floor-length gown hugging a tree. So as my mother was sorting through the contents of her drawer, something caught my eye about her Angel Cards. I'm ashamed to say what this "something" was, mainly because it took me literally 45 seconds to figure it out: they weren't in English. My mom had accidentally bought a package of Angel Cards in German. I alerted her to the situation. "'Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" she said. "No wonder they were on sale!" Having no conceivable use for inspirational cards that she couldn't read, my mom gave them to me to do with as I pleased. Naturally I put them face-down in a bowl on my desk. Every day I turn over a new card, first trying to guess the virtue based on the drawing of the angel, then trying to pronounce the virtue in what I consider to be an eerily authentic German accent, then decoding the virtue through an online German-English translator. Today's virtue, "Eenvoud," shows an angel in a blue dress with her hands clasped together, possibly holding something, possibly not - it's hard to tell, as these aren't the most detailed of drawings. I take that to mean that today's theme is ambiguity. I will therefore spend my day carrying around a nondescript, vaguely visible object in front of my chest and being very proud of myself for doing so. Or not. Who knows. It's ambiguous.

Bless Your Heart, Radiolab

I make no secret of the following two things: 1) I love me a good educational podcast, and 2) if there's a soccer game on, hide the knives. 

If you've ever accompanied me to a Sounders game or watched a match on TV in my presence (from your seat in the corner of the room as far away from me as you can get) you'll know that I really do transform into a raging lunatic once the game clock starts ticking. I scream obscenities at the ref, ring my cowbell in jubilation every time someone on the other team gets carded, insult players who have what I deem ridiculous and/or unnecessary hair/names/insert your own noun here. If we win, I am elated and apologize to those around me for my unpleasant and irrational behavior. If we lose, though, boy howdy do I feel bad for you if you and I cross paths. Each loss is like a diabolically calculated personal attack. Some catapult me straight into the fifth level of Hell where I remain, wallowing in my own misery and anger, for upwards of a week. And I never knew why.

Cue this past week's episode of Radiolab, a science-meets-philosophy program that delves into the most labyrinthine, minute components of human behavior. Last week's podcast, entitled "Games," was marketed with the following preview:

"A good game - whether it's a pro football playoff or a family showdown at the kitchen table - can make you feel, at least for a little while, like your whole life hangs in the balance. This hour of Radiolab, Jad and Robert wonder why we get so invested in something so trivial. What is it about games that make them feel so pivotal?"

In the very first story, a man wonders why a San Jose Sharks hockey game makes him question the very core of humanity. Why do the glittering lights across the San Francisco Bay cease to fill him with wonder on his way home from the rink? Why does the world seem inundated with devil worshipers and rotting flesh the instant his team loses?

To which I say, Hallelujah. Praise the powers that be for Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, who week after week manage to unravel the complex knot of brain matter in my own skull. It's like having two locksmiths on call every time you lose the key to your thoughts. I appreciate this very much, as there ain't a keychain in the world big enough to get me off the stoop and into the dimly lit recesses of my own head.

I encourage you all - all three of you - to visit the Radiolab website and listen to the full hour-long episode here. I promise you won't be disappointed. Plus, you'll be that much closer to learning how my mind works. Heck, you'll probably know more than I do.

The Best of Bama

In honor (or should I say dishonor) of all would-be and could-be and probably-will-be presidential campaign stories in the news lately, I thought I would take a moment to remind American voters, in the least political way possible, exactly why we elected Barack Obama as leader of the free world three years ago. 

1. He looks damn good in a soccer jersey. He also supports women's soccer, which is definitely the #1 thing I look for in a presidential candidate. Too bad I'm not even joking.

2. He's not afraid to get in touch with his feminine side. Plus, he has fantastic taste in aprons.

3. He likes cheese. A lot.

4. No one can pull off rabbit ears quite like he can.

5. He loves America, Roman Candles, and white beards.

6. He is, you may be surprised to learn, a Chinese citizen.

7. He's got a mohawk and a Sounders foam finger. #2 and #3 things I look for in a presidential candidate. In that order.

8. He's an ally of our neighbors to the south: as his predecessor calls them, "Austria."

9. He's got the Haggadah memorized, always knows the perfect place to hide the Afikomen, only drinks from his wine glass when told, and wears his yarmulke at all the appropriate times. Also, he can fit on a Seder plate.

10. He loves wearing origami elf booties that he learned how to fold by watching an instructional video on YouTube.

And there you have it: ten reasons why I'm grateful Barack Obama is holding the reins around here. I for one take great comfort in the fact that my president is so versatile, so tolerant, so comfortable donning a cheese hat, picking up an Easter basket, and conversing with a marshmallow snowman who bears an eerie resemblance to Mr. Peanut.

So That Happened

Please excuse this unintentional blog hiatus. My days are filled with sunshine and soccer, The Biggest Loser and white peaches (which are, after Mauro Rosales and my cat, the greatest things that have ever happened to me). Here are some of the more momentous happenings in my life over the past several weeks: 

1. Mish and I drove to Tacoma this past weekend to help my former professors Bill and Tiffany build raised vegetable beds in their backyard. While digging a hole for one of the posts, Tiffany unearthed (literally!) a wire. Upon inspection, she noticed that the plastic casing was slightly split. When Bill got home and was briefed on the situation, he halted work with the assumption that the wire was live and therefore extremely dangerous. "I probably shouldn't tell him that I touched it without gloves," Tiff whispered when he was out of earshot. Not three minutes later she announced to Bill, "I have something to tell you! I know it's not a live wire because I touched it with my bare hands."

2. All I have to say in defense of this next one is at least we laughed. So here it is: To measure where the posts of the raised bed would sit in the ground, we used a very precise and fool-proof method of measuring on an uneven surface (a giant mound of soil) with a bent tape measure, using pink tennis balls and a fallen branch as our markers. Which worked spectacularly, as you might assume, until Tiffany's dog decided he wanted to play tennis and until Tiffany's 4-year-old daughter "found a stick" protruding from the corner of the dirt Everest. Imagine our surprise when we lowered the bed onto the ground and the holes were...let's just say not ideally placed.

3. While shoveling dirt into a new pile, Mish was explaining to Tiffany that she didn't want to give birth. Her intentions are for me to be her surrogate, or "broodmare." If there's one thing I love more than children, it's being thought of as a horse who's only valued for her uterus. And, because that wasn't flattering enough, the other morning Mish complimented me on my bright future as a mail-order bride. "I would order you," she said over breakfast, "and then set you free. Like a caged animal." Excuse me while I go muck my own stall.

4. Mish's family is German and mine, at least a ways down the line, is Polish. Keep that in mind for this next bit. I spend my mornings reading on the couch with my cup of tea. Often Mish will scooch herself next to me, thereby appropriating the majority of the couch for herself and ousting me to the outer regions by the armrest. Our obsession with all things Holocaust has thus led to the use of "Germany" as a verb--as in, "Stop Germanying the couch, Mish!" It doesn't help that I unwittingly introduced her to "Springtime for Hitler" from The Producers. Now the lines "winter for Poland and France" and "look out, here comes the master race!" follow her around like emaciated Jews strung to a rope in Auschwitz.

Back next week with more stories of things that have happened.

Hilarious Hijinks

A couple weeks ago my parents, Mish and I attended the world premiere of Aladdin at the 5th Avenue Theatre. The 15-second TV promo promised a whirlwind romance and "hilarious hijinks." As the lights dimmed, Mish leaned over to me and whispered "There better be hijinks and they better be fucking hilarious." (After some debate, we concurred that "hijinks" does not end with an "x" as it does in this captivating photograph, but with a "-ks.")

The promo certainly lived up to the hype it tried to create, if by "hilarious hijinks" it meant self-referential humor, tacky puns, sexual innuendos thrown in for the over-seven crowd, and what Mish described as "a boatload of gay erotica." One thing's for certain, though: We were hell-bent on witnessing a solid two hours of rambunctious song and dance, and we did just that. Here are some of the highlights:

-The cast featured a black genie, a white Jafar, and an Aladdin who appeared only vaguely Middle Eastern (see above picture). Jasmine was flat (but not flat north of the equator, if you know what I mean), unengaging, and forgettable. According to Mish's glowing review, "Jasmine's a whore."

-Lately we've been watching a lot of The Biggest Loser. I mean a lot. For those unfamiliar with this television phenomenon (first of all, you're all dead to me), contestants spend three months living and exercising at "the Ranch," an idyllic country location outside of LA. During the musical, Aladdin's friends were narrating Aladdin's actions. "Meanwhile," they said, "there was big trouble brewing back at the ranch." Mish and I looked at each other and exploded with laughter.

-Aladdin's friend Babkak was played by a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Zach Galifianakis. He was always hungry. "Why don't you hum us something?" one of his friends asked. "Hummus?" he asked. "Did someone say hummus?" Every time someone called his name I thought they were trying to say "Babcock" (as in CC Babcock from The Nanny) as the Aflac duck.

-I greatly enjoyed the genie's reference to Deal or No Deal in "Friend Like Me," as well as the aptly titled Dancing with the Scimitars and Mesopotamia's Got Talent. 

-After the show, while Mish and I made our way back to the car, we discussed how inappropriate it probably was for us to snigger and chortle sarcastically, slapping our knees in an exaggerated manner, when the man who got us the tickets--the composer of the musical and the original Aladdin score--was sitting on the other side of my parents.

-We had been invited to the opening night party after the show that was taking place "somewhere," according to my father. I forget where it actually was, but I know it was a nice place, a classy place, an expensive place where, as guests, we would not be expected to pay for what we consumed. Naturally, we declined. "We're the lamest," I said as we made our way down the sidewalk to the parking garage. "Meh," Mish said, "those parties aren't so much fun. I usually just stand around awkwardly eating cheese." 

-As we headed toward the freeway, Mish found it entirely necessary to hum "A Whole New World." I groaned. "It took me 13 years to get those songs out of my head!" I wailed, and Mish smiled and kept humming.

-After we'd arrived back home, I was sitting on my bed brainstorming ideas for this post. Evidently, the face I make while blogging can easily be mistaken for the face of an elderly man who has lost control of his bowel functions. Mish walked in, took one look at me deep in concentration, and cackled. "You look like an old man who wears nappies because he's become incontinent!" Thank you, Michelle. Thank you very much. Related: Stay tuned in the coming days for the official list of reasons why I will die alone.

Literally

First of all, let me say that I'm pissed. What has my panties in a bunch this time, you may ask? Well. There is an epidemic of misusing the word "literally" in this country (particularly among contestants on The Biggest Loser) and Mish and I simply won't stand for it anymore. We are nipping this thing in the bud and we're doing it right this minute. Literally.

According to Dictionary.com, literally means "in the literal or strict sense; word for word; without exaggeration or inaccuracy." It means that what you are saying is exactly what happened. So no, you did not literally die when Golden Girls went off the air. The way you know your heart didn't literally beat out of your chest before a Biggest Loser challenge is that you are still breathing. And if Abby Wambach had literally carried the US Women's World Cup team to victory against Brazil as the commentator claimed, she would have had one hell of a shattered back.

Still confused? Allow us to help. 

Correct: "The fog was so thick I literally couldn't see my hand in front of my face." 
Incorrect: "I'm literally dead on my feet." Really. Is that so? You're one talented corpse if you can speak and stand with no pulse.

Correct: "The tornado literally swept me off my feet." 
Incorrect: "I literally ate the whole fridge." How the hell did you manage that? Every time I try to eat the fridge I wind up choking on the glass shelves and the cheese drawer.

Correct: "I literally jumped for joy." 
Incorrect: "I literally swallowed my words." Congratulations. I didn't think words were even tangible.

So there you have it. Please, for the love of God, f you find yourself saying "literally" to describe any situation that did not actually happen, give yourself a firm smack across the face. And spread the word. 

Driving While Pissed

This makes me cry.

When the US lost the Women's World Cup last weekend (an event Mish and I refer to as "the incident that shall not be mentioned"), I was inconsolable. Whereas the two-time come-from-behind victory against Brazil in the quarterfinals filled my world with rainbows and daffodils and baby bunnies, the loss to Japan in the finals plunged me head-first into a vortex of darkness in which ghouls lurked in the caverns of my mind and an icy gale chilled the farthest reaches of my heart. I was a wreck the entire day. It's just soccer, I told myself over and over again, before remembering the look of utter heartbreak on the face of goalkeeper Hope Solo when the third penalty kick went whirring past her into the net. Screw that. This is the end of the world. The loss felt personal, a meticulously calculated plot carried out by the Japanese team with the malicious intent of ruining everything good in my life.

This makes me want to curl into a ball and die.

Several hours after the incident that shall not be mentioned, Mish and I went on an outing to Trader Joe's. I was still so distraught that I was practically hyperventilating in the store. "I need to do some breathing exercises," I told Mish as we stood in the wine section perusing the shelves for a nice Australian vintage. I sucked in several staccato breaths and exhaled once, long and deep. I was a freaking Lamaze class. After five minutes, I thought I would burst. "I'm in no condition to get back behind the wheel," I announced, fully convinced that the barren, desolate wasteland of my soul would disintegrate before I reached the car. "I'm afraid I'll get pulled over for driving while pissed." I instantly realized what I'd said and let loose a maniacal cackle. "Ha! Get it?!" I asked a mildly agitated Mish, who was attempting to navigate the newly arranged store to find the fizzy water. "Driving while pissed!" In Australia, "pissed" is another word for "intoxicated" or, more colloquially, "wasted out of your mind." "I made a funny!" I shrieked. "Driving while pissed!" Mish nodded her encouragement with a slightly amused expression that I can only assume masked a burning desire to knock me unconscious and wedge me onto the shelf behind the rice crackers. "Did you hear my funny? Did you? Driving while pissed? See, it's funny because I'm mad, but it could also mean that I'm drunk, which is something I would actually get pulled over for. Get it?! That was a good one." Mish nodded and I could tell she was wondering if I was actually drunk. As we headed to the checkout counter, I understood my faux pas. "It's not funny after I explain why it's funny, is it?" I asked. I didn't get a response but I didn't need one.

I managed to finish the day in a state of semi-hysteria, but falling asleep that night was completely out of the question. As soon as I closed my eyes I was inundated with images from the game: dangerous passes in front of the goal, bad positioning during set pieces, the Shannon Boxx penalty kick that soared miles above the top post. The next morning I awoke an hour before my alarm went off. I refused to get out of bed. I refused to greet a world in which we had not just won the Women's World Cup. I still can't stomach news of the loss. Finding these pictures ranked high on the list of worst moments in my life.

Perhaps I should not watch soccer.