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.

No, I Haven't Died

Much of this post was written last week; I've just been lazy and unmotivated and haven't felt the need to inform anyone of my whereabouts. Lucky for you, I'm in one of my moods...which generally isn't a good thing.

Here are some things I've been up to lately:

As I write this, my friend Mish, who is visiting for six weeks from Australia, is Googling pictures of Joan of Arc. My cat is swatting my leg in the hopes that such a tender display of affection will convince me to feed her dinner 34 minutes early. The sky has morphed from a beautiful hazy blue to a non-so-beautiful Zoloft grey in the span of approximately four seconds.

Mish arrived at midnight on the 7th and we have been keeping ourselves royally entertained since her plane touched down. Last week we had a picnic and read trash tabloids in the grass at Gas Works Park. The other day we accidentally emptied the entire bag of Scrabble letters onto the deck but are miraculously only missing an E and a Q (at least, those are what we can see through the cracks). Mish is now watching something on Netflix and, upon glancing out the window, shouted "Bunny!" (It should probably be said that there was actually a bunny.) I just pulled a head of cauliflower out of the refrigerator and it is pink--the cauliflower, not the refrigerator.

Updates 
1. We just got back from a hike at Wallace Falls. I managed to pick the ONE day in the past two weeks that didn't even have three minutes' worth of beautiful stored away inside it. There's no putting it mildly: we were pissed on. All. Day. But that turned out to be fine because after we got home, had hot showers and ate dinner, we settled down for what has become our favorite evening routine: watching season 11 of The Biggest Loser and discussing how incalculably devastated we would be if we ever disappointed Jillian Michaels.

2. Yesterday was the Women's World Cup final between the US and Japan. I don't want to talk about it. 

3. We are currently sitting in ye olde Lyons' Den Coffee Shoppe in Bothell. Mish is writing a short story and I am alternating reading a page of Everything is Illuminated and working on my Americorps application. Over in the corner two junior high-aged girls are drinking bubble tea and wearing shorts that look to be painted on, and so short that it's as if they ran out of paint before reaching a decent length. 

4. The first thing Mish said this morning after waking up was, "Is it pathetic if I'm already looking forward to The Biggest Loser tonight?"

5. I received about two hours of sun today and I think I might be dying. Oh, my delicate Seattle skin!

I've been sitting on this post for about 2.5 weeks now, so I should probably post it. Hopefully you'll be able to look past the fact that my most exciting update is that my Scrabble board is now missing its only Q. I live a tough, tough life.

The Pee Room Gets a Makeover!

You may recall last autumn when my cat's staunch opposition to her litter box culminated in the forced removal of a large portion of carpet in our study. You may also recall that I dubbed this corner of the Pee Room the "Death Zone" because its stench was enough to make you want to wage war (on whom was irrelevant).

Well, take a good long look at this picture--the color of the walls, the lack of carpet--and prepare to be amazed. The Pee Room has undergone a major renovation, and I had the foresight to document each step of the process for the four people who will read this. No need to thank me. 

Step 1: Prime

Subheading: Goodbye, "Hypothermic Barney" Green!

 Step 2: Paint - Take One

Subheading: "That's so not 'Yogurt.'"

Sub-subheading: Whoops. 

 Step 3: Paint - Take Two

Subheading: Right paint, wrong trim.

Sub-subheading: "That looks like baby diarrhea." 

 Step 4: Assemble Futon

Subheading: "Can you hand me the instructions? Oh nevermind, I'll read them in French."

Sub-subheading: "F**k this!"

 Step 5: Document Typos in Malaysian-Printed Futon Instructions

Subheading: "Oh, we were supposed to lossen it?"

Sub-subheading: "Ah, yes. 'Matress' with the less common one-tee spelling."

 Step 6: Rage

Subheading: "We might as well actually read this in French."

Sub-subheading: This is, in fact, not where I want to be.

 Step 7: Woman-Assembled, Cat-Approved

Subheading: "Taffy, if you pee in here again we're putting you up for adoption."

 Step 8:  We'll Call it Good for Now

Subheading: My family recommends furnishing a room before touching up the paint. That couldn't possibly end badly.

 

Stay tuned for updates from the newly painted Pee Room! Some things to look forward to: a new desk, artwork, blinds, a lamp that my parents did not steal from me.

Poetry Corner Monday

Would you look at this, I'm actually posting a Monday post on Monday. Good for me.

Today being a national holiday, you lucky readers get two wonderful poems for the price of one. This week's poems come from the God of the Poetic Word, Sir Ted Kooser. (Yes, again. And yes, you're welcome.)  I chose these last night without realizing that they both leave me feeling hollow in a way I can't quite explain. It's a full, content hollowness, if that makes any sense, like an insult you can't help admiring for its searing creativity. That was kind of a weird thing to say. I shouldn't have said that. Notice, though, that I'm not deleting it. Huh. Well, here you go.

North of Alliance

This is an empty house; not a stick
of furniture left, not even
a newspaper sodden with rain
under a broken window; nothing
to tell us the style of the people
who lived here, but that
they took it along. But wait:
here, penciled in inches
up a doorframe, these little marks
mark the growth of a child
impatient to get on with it,
a child stretching his neck
in a hurry to leave nothing here
but an absence grown tall in a doorway.


Depression Glass

It seemed those rose-pink dishes
she kept for special company
were always cold, brought down
from the shelf in jingling stacks,
the plates like the panes of ice
she broke from the water bucket
winter mornings, the flaring cups
like tulips that opened too early
and got bitten by frost. They chilled
the coffee no matter how quickly
you drank, while a heavy
everyday mug would have kept
a splash hot for the better
part of a conversation. It was hard
to hold up your end of the gossip
with your coffee cold, but it was
a special occasion, just the same,
to sit at her kitchen table
and sip the bitter percolation
of the past week's rumors from cups
it had taken a year to collect
at the grocery, with one piece free
for each five pounds of flour.