First Ladies Skate part the third.

Category: dribblings

I know what you’re thinking, where’s part two? Well, I forgot. We skated two weeks ago and it was horrible and I fell on my face, and Snatchie fell and hurt her shoulder again (in fact, she’s going to the ortho tomorrow). Barbwire fell for the first time and so did Phil. The only one who hasn’t fallen is Shreddy. We think she might be a witch.

So this time NONE OF US FELL. Except we did not have a full roster. Phil and Shreddy were absent. But Mr. Fleegan showed up (he is LBJ, obviously. But you have to pronounce it el-BEE-jay, obviously.) and he skated for the first time in many years and damned if he didn’t outskate us. I’m pretty sure he’s been practicing on his lunch breaks. Or maybe it’s on his nights where he goes to the “gym” for “yoga” or some shit. HE’S TOTALLY SKATING BEHIND OUR BACKS.

He could even turn around while skating. I mean, not very well, but without falling down.

This time I was even more scared to skate than the other two times which makes no sense to me because I know what to expect. I even wore knee pads thinking that if I had a bit of protection it would make me more confident. After my fourth lap around the rink (which probably took 20 minutes) I started to loosen up, but not much. After an hour I noticed that I was able to take larger one legged strides ( I counted two seconds per leg, when I tried for three seconds I was very wobbly, so I stuck with maintaining two seconds) and of course I made my pals watch me do that like a five year old on the diving board, “Mom! Watch me! Watch! Mom! MOM. YOU AREN’T WATCHING. okay now watch!”

Even without falling, my whole body aches. My knees. My right big toe is numb. My left big toe hurts like a sumbitch.

We all agreed that it was more terrifying than ever and that we were so scared and blah blah blah. At the end I was hoping we would all agree to never do this again, because honestly, you could see the fear on our faces, the disbelief that we were there again. So I said, “Is this our last time?”

Barbwire Bush and Snatchie Onassis were all, “No way! We’re coming back.”

And I’m all, “But guys, we just bitched about how scary that was. It was never not scary! The whole time!”

“So? We’re doing it again.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna happen.”

“Ugh, couldn’t we just join a bowling league or something?”

 

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Old Lady

Category: dribblings

I have jury duty this week and as I was walking through the security scanner thing I had to empty my pockets into a tray. Keys, mints, and a pink handkerchief. When I saw that I thought, “Ugh, I have grandma pockets.”

I kept trying to think of other things I could’ve had in my pocket to make me an old lady:

a button stuck to a melted caramel
coupon
expired coupon
Benny Goodman record
cat
unknown pill
Lucky Strikes (would also have accepted Winstons)

 

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Big Squat Dookie

Category: dribblings

At the risk of sounding like an even more immature tool than usual, I’m going to share this with you:

Dad and I have been saying the word dookie to each other. We try to work it into a sentence, but the word itself is enough to crack me up EVERY TIME. I’m not proud of this. I know it makes me a simpleton or an eight year old. Doesn’t matter, I’m going to giggle every time I hear it.

It started something like this:

Popsicle: I said dookie yesterday.

Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

P: When was the last time you heard someone say dookie?

M: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Dookie.

P: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

M: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 And now it just repeats on one of us saying dookie and the other laughing like a lunatic. I know it sounds like I’m celebrating our ridiculousness here, but I’m not, I’m just being honest.

On the afternoons of my days off dad and I go to the park and walk. We often talk about Big Foot and how we’ve not seen him, but that he probably lives in the woods. We shortened Big Foot to ‘Squatch for a while, and now we call it Big Squat.

It gets worse.

We have now dubbed every ant hill, mulch heap, and dirt pile a Big Squat Dookie. If the ant hill is small, we call it a Li’l Squat Dookie.

I’m not proud of this, guys. But things have been bleak over here lately, and if this is the way I can get some laughs then I guess I’ll take it.  Maybe if enough people start saying dookie to me I can get all my dookie giggles out and dookie will lose it’s magical hold over me. But I doubt it, because I just said “dookie giggles” out loud and it cracked me up all over again.

Speaking of dookie, The First Ladies went to see Joyful Noise this weekend. Now, it’s not like I thought this was going to be some kind of life changing, deeply cerebral, thinkin’ movie. But also, it was a lot worse than it should’ve been. SPOILERS, but it’s not like spoilers could ruin this movie. The movie does that on its own.

10. It was too long. I mean, it’s a musical, okay? Why were there 4 plots?

9. Was it just me or did the previews make it look like Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton were in different choirs that would compete against each other?

8. Just how old was Randy?

7. Half of what came out of QL and DP’s mouths were these ridiculous southern-fried figures of speech that were too precious. I wanted to scream, “Stop it! We don’t talk like that, like that.”

6. There is no number six.

5. What was the deal with the pastor? Why was he all, “We can’t afford to compete.” when, obviously, it was possible. And what was the deal with the choir being so important to that town? They never made that clear. It’s not like winning that competition was going to bring industry to the town.

4. The kid with Asperger’s Syndrome showed/felt more emotions than anyone else in the movie. This might be my own ignorance on the subject though.

3. “Man in the Mirror” may have (but I’ll never swear to it) brought a tiny tear to my eye. But that was erased by the time they performed the final number. Also, the choir they compete against at the end, did that kid speak in tongues in the middle of the song?

2. The black kid with the guitar? So first he’s a jerk, then they get in a fist fight, and then at the last minute he’s a go for playing in the church choir? Dammit movie, I said we don’t need that many subplots.

1a. What the hell was Queen Latifah talking about how she’s so pretty she would put mirrors all over her walls except that she has kids and is a nurse and wife? Something was fucked up about that speech, right? I mean, that whole scene was too late in the movie, yeah? Why was the meltdown then? Shouldn’t it have been when Randy (he of the unknown age) kidnapped Olivia? Wouldn’t that had been a better time for the meltdown speech?

1b. This actually happened. I was sitting next to Shreddy Ford and smiling as the opening credits and song and scene was starting. My face burst out in a huge shock smile of bliss when I saw Kris Kristofferson LEADING the church choir. I said to Shreddy excitedly, “Oh my gosh! I didn’t know Kris Kristofferson was in this movie! How cool is… what the fuck, did he just die? What the shit kind of shit is THIS?” He was in the movie for 10 seconds.

 But as far as activities with The First Ladies go, watching this while eating popcorn was certainly easier than roller skating.

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Braggy Braggenstein

Category: dribblings

Last week I downloaded a new game to my iPod Touch. It’s a maze-y, puzzle-y type game that is right up my alley because the rules are simple, there’s not a lot of action/buttons/stress, and only one thing moves at a time. It is called Kunundrum and while I hate when people misspell perfectly good words to make them look “cool” (see: Mortal Kombat) (also see: Cingular), I am really enjoying the hell out of this game.

 

I finally scored over 2,000,000 points on it and decided to see where I ranked on the Game Center thingy. Today, out of over 75,000 players, I am #193.

BECAUSE I’M A GENIUS, YOU TRON-LOOKING MAZE GAME! SUCKIT, GLOW-Y, SPARKY ORBS! IMMA BRINGING MY BRAIN AND GOING TO RAIN DOWN ORBY SHAME ON YOUR WORLD! LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR! PLEADING WON’T SAVE YOU FROM MY BALLOCAUST!

And of course, in no way am I getting any kind of self-worth from a stupid score on a stupid game.

OH YES I AM. I AM AN ORB SLIDING GENIUS.

I mean, there’s no reason to get the big head about this.

EXCEPT THAT I RULE.

And if you have some kind of smartphone/tablet/e-reader doodad with games and apps and shit, I recommend Kunundrum for some puzzle-y time wasting. And I’m not being bribed by the Kunundrum geekoverlords to say that.

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Grands

Category: dribblings

When I  was growing up my grandparents always lived in other states. One set was in Tampa and my mom’s dad lived in Akron. We were kind of in the middle. Because of location we saw our grandparents once a year, sometimes once every two years, and eventually, we didn’t see them that often. So my grandparents, though I loved them, were really more like acquaintances. I knew them but I was never really familiar with them. And when they died I was sad, but to be honest I didn’t feel the loss.

My two best friends, Laura and Liz, both have grandmothers, and over the many years I’ve known them, they’ve been nice enough to let me borrow their grandmas, GJ and MommieAnn. And it’s great because it’s like cheating (lifehack, LBC?). Since I’m not the granddaughter there’s no expectation from me, so when I show up with a milkshake at their house (or hospital room) I’m golden. If I visit and do a couple of chores, I’ve hung the moon. So I go over, let them chat about whatever the hell old ladies chat about, and they feel good cos they’ve had a visit and I feel good because hey, old people appreciate a visit.

These last few months have been bad news for grandmas though. MommieAnn passed away, and now GJ is being moved to Florida to live near her son. Her mind has gone and she can’t take care of herself anymore. All day I thought about going by her house to say goodbye to her, but I chickened out. This evening I was visiting Laura and Kris and Kris was going to GJ’s house to pick up her dog so I tagged along to say goodbye. She recognized me, most of the time, and for that I’m thankful. I got to hug her neck and say goodbye. It was the first time I’ve said goodbye to someone and meant it. I can’t remember another time when I knew I’d never see that person again. It has made me so much sadder than I thought it would.

Laura, Liz, thank you for sharing your grandmas with me.

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Books? I’ve read a few, but then again…

Category: 50 Books

There are several books I’ve read this year but did not write about:

33. Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy
This book is transcripts of some interviews with Jackie and comes with 8 CDs of the interviews as well. Kinda cool. The audio quality isn’t perfect, but you can hear the ice tinkling in their drink glasses and you can hear her smoking as well. Also, listening to this made me really appreciate just how smart she was.

34. Where the Shadows Lie by Michael Ridpath
Such a weird story, I loved it. The majority of the story takes place in Iceland. The murder mystery involves Icelandic sagas. It has a perfect mix of police procedural and a hint of the supernatural. So good, and the metafiction of the ancient saga was excellent.

35 – 38. Greywalker, Poltergeist, Underground, and Vanished by Kat Richardson
This is a series of supernatural thrillers. Harper Blaine is a private investigator who dies for a few minutes and then comes back to life as a greywalker: one who can see ghostie things and walk and talk to them in their world of grey. Greywalker was the origin story, where Harper learns about her new power. Poltergeist was my least favorite. She investigates a college study where people have conjured a poltergeist they made out of their imagination. I liked Underground better because it dealt more with Native American culture and superstitions and since I know nothing about that sort of thing it was a fun story. All of the crazy creatures made it more fun. In Vanished Harper goes to England so solve a case for a vampire, and she finds out a lot about her history. I didn’t like all the vampire stuff mostly because I’m sick of vampires. In fact, the weakest link in all of these books are the vampires. These books are fun, quick, easy reads.

39. First Drop by Zoë Sharp
This is the 4th Charlie Fox thriller. In this one she comes to the United States on a bodyguard gig. Lots of action and violence.

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christmas2011_08

Category: Uncategorized

christmas2011_08 by fleegan.com
christmas2011_08, a photo by fleegan.com on Flickr.

Mister Biscuits surveys the perimeter from his beverage fort.

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The First Ladies Hit the Skates.

Category: dribblings

Well, we did it. The First Ladies finally put their money where there mouth is and went roller skating. There was Snatchie Onassis, Shreddy Ford, and I (Ladyjuggs Johnson), Phil Abustercherry, and Liz (I can’t remember Liz’z nickname, it’s either Yellinwhore Roosevelt or Barbwire Bush.)

I was terrified. I’ve been dreading our skating adventure since it’s inception. And anytime Snatchie or Shreddy would mention it I’d break out in hives and make good excuses for why we shouldn’t go skating. Good excuses such as,

1. we don’t know how to skate.
2. we’re too old.
3. our bones are made of glass, i think.
4. trips to the ER are expensive.

Anytime I tried to make an excuse Shreddy would tell me to stop being a titty baby. That’s what she would call me. Have you ever been called a titty baby? Let me tell you, it sucks. NO ONE wants to be a titty baby.

So we went to the roller rink, rented some real shitty skates, and roller skated.

It had been about 25 years since I last skated. When my parents found out I was going skating they told me not to. “You’re going to break something.”

“I know.”

“Jaimie, you hated skating when you were little.”

“I know.”

“Justin liked it. He did okay. But you… you sucked at skating.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Well, it’s true!”

“I KNOW.”

This skating thing was like a huge fear. I’m not a fan of pain, and I knew there would be falling down. And finally, when I handed over my ticket for the rental skates I realized that I was really going to try to skate, and if I fell down and got hurt, it probably wouldn’t be the end of the world.

We skated!

It was not pretty. It was slow and flail-y, and I know I looked like a mental case the way I was hunched over to try to keep my center of balance low and in front. I have no idea what anyone else looked like while they were making their way around the rink, because I could not look up, I could only look at the floor in front of my skates. It was difficult. But fun. and then? I fell.

I fell hard. I was skating and then I ran over a small tiny, what looked like a broom straw. Well, I didn’t run over it actually, my skate hit it and came to a complete stop and I went down hitting my knee and then next I knew my face was on the floor. I heard a loud smacking sound. which was probably my hand because I have the weirdest bruise ever on my hand. This fall happend right at the front of the rink and some kid’s parent was all, “OH MY GOD ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?!”  and I was all, “Maybe?” and then someone else said, “What are you doing on the ground, Jaimie?” It was Phil. He was late to the party so he was sitting there lacing up his skates.

I got up and my knee was all, “We’re done, right?”

I’m standing there, talking to Phil, and let me repeat, I’m standing, not skating, not moving. I can’t explain what happened next. My legs scooby-dooed backward and I hit the rink again, this time landing on my elbow and side. I skinned my elbow. I basically fell down TWICE in less than 20 seconds. The lady was all, “Honey are you sure you’re okay? Maybe you should take a break?”

“Oh ow. I know. But if I don’t get back out there and skate I’ll lose my nerve.”

I managed to stay up the rest of the time. But oy, the damage is done. I’ve a bruise on my knee, elbow, wrist, and palm. And I jacked my shoulder when I hit my elbow, so it basically hurts to move my arm, and typing this? hurts my wrist. which is why i’m only telling the short version and I won’t get into the nice middle school kid who became my personal cheerleader. He was a really polite kid and would skate over every so often and tell me what a great job I was doing.

Snatchie fell twice as well, but I didn’t see her fall. I think she hurt her shoulder as well.  Shreddy, Phil, and Barb didn’t fall.

One thing I know is that I’m way too old and fragile to be learning how to roller skate. Another thing I know is that I can’t wait to go again.

Now, where is that bottle of Aleve?

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Jacob T. Marley by R. William Bennett

Category: 50 Books

As a general rule I don’t read Christmas fiction. I don’t enjoy obvious plots and feel-good preachiness. When I saw this book cover though, I was intrigued. I read the description and was all, “Is this Dickens fanfic?” Because it’s basically the story of Jacob Marley, Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner, and how he was responsible for turning Scrooge into such a… Scrooge.  I figure anyone willing to take on a Dickens homage must have a lot of guts, and I’d like to read that.

This book is written in a similar style to Dickens’, but I seem to remember more humor and wordplay in A Christmas Carol. Also, in A Christmas Carol, the preachiness is more subtle. In this story, at about the middle of the book when Marley is dying/dies (hardly a spoiler, he’s a ghost in the first book, yeah?) the whole story changes and the reader is bashed over the head with blatant preaching. It was insulting to the reader. If the book had been marked juvenile or YA I would have forgiven the sermonizing a bit (only a bit), but it’s in the adult section so I assume the author meant for adults to read it.

The story, the characters, the length were all well done. The ending, however, seemed rushed, and borrowed heavily from A Christmas Carol, I mean, of course it did, but the author has Marley following on with Scrooge as Scrooge goes along with his three spirits. It seemed kind of lazy to me that the author uses these characters and then uses the same ending. I’m not saying he should have changed the ending of Dickens’ work (of course not), I’m just saying he should have ended his story before Dickens’ story started.

I liked the idea of the book more than I enjoyed reading the book.

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Letters From College

Category: dribblings

Some people donated several boxes of books to the library the other day. My job was to go through them and see if any were worth keeping. Most of the time when people donate books they first call up and ask if we take donations, we tell them yes, as long as the books aren’t moldy, dirty, smelly, gross. If we can’t use them in our collection we sell them in our book sale corner. So people bring up their books and they tell us that they are all good books and they aren’t mildewed and moldy because they’ve been tucked away in the garage for ten years.

Ah, so that’s why I smell gasoline.

I usually throw the books away because:

A. They are gross and smelly.

B. They are old and broken.

C. They are useless text books from the ’80s and ’90s.

Obviously we also get tons of donations that are new, clean books, and we keep as many as we can.

ANYway, people brought in three boxes of what I was told were good, clean books. They were not. I threw half of them out. They were stinky and full of silverfish and I took them to the dumpster immediately. But! It wasn’t a total loss, because sticking out of an old college text book were two letters. Two letters written by a bored undergraduate during math class.
And because I’m keen on sharing, I’m going to share them with you, and type them out in all of their stupid glory. I have changed the names (to the names of characters from the movie Heathers) to protect, well, everyone. Mostly me.

Both letters are written on the back of a mathematics practice exam.

Letter one (this one was printed in handwriting that slants to the left.)

4-30-98

Heather –

Hello! How are you? I am fine. Just watching Mr. Dawson “teach.” We did course evals last week. You can imagine how bad they were. I am glad today is our last day of class this semester for this class.
I met my new roommate for fall ’98 last night. She is really nice. Her name is Betty. I’m glad it’s not Martha! Ha ha!
Heather’s last day of work is tomorrow. Next year she’ll be a senior. I wish I was. She’s a biology major. I think she’s going to be a vet. Or, that’s what she wants to do this week.

Dr. Ram said today that she’d like to reccomend me for a paid internship in Washington D.C. for next summer. I don’t know about that.

I have to go to Bruno’s after class for Heather. Then, they have those cardboard storage boxes at the Dollar Tree, so I need to go get about 5 of them. Tonight is an all new episode of “Seinfeld,” so I have to hurry!
Well, have a nice day. I will call you later. Even though you never call anyone back! 🙂
Bye-bye!

Love,
Veronica

PS- enjoy the math problems on the back!

 

Wasn’t that delightful? Remember writing notes in school? Yeah, me too! Remember writing notes in college? Yeah, me neither. But I’m so glad Veronica did.

On to letter two. This one is written in cursive and is written to a different Heather.

4-30-98/4pm

Heather-

Hey! Don’t you love this stationary? I know that Mrs. Smith would! She’d probably “get down on her knees” and “beg me” to give her this stationary! Too bad, Mary! Ha ha! I am in Math 113 right now and I am bored out of my mind. It’s like a Jane Matlock/Sarah Gish/Mary Smith class w/ none of your friends in there. Mainly b/c Heather has quit coming (since she has a 15 in here!), so I am bored. But, enough about me. How are you? Are you ready for school to be out? I sure am. Me and Heather went shopping last night to relieve our “school stress.” TJMaxx has the cure. I love that store! They have some silver/black DKNY tennis shoes that I want from there. My teacher just said, “If you get up and walk out and don’t come back, you have just made a “serious mistake.” Okay. I am scared now. He’s probably going to herd us all into that little utility closet over there and turn on the gas. Or, him and the 6 TAs will start firing on us! Great day! He’s a freak. I think he watches too many Robert de Niro movies. Or Clint Eastwood. He wants  to “make our day.” Almost everyone in here is sound asleep. I swear. Kind of reminds me of PSC or ANT. Well, tomorrow is our last day of classes! Wish me luck on finals!
Have a good week and call me!

Love,
Veronica
Roll Tide Roll! Go Bama!

My favorite part of the second letter is THE WHOLE THING.

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