too good to keep for myself: Muthafucka with Cup-Holders

I woke this morning to hear a moving truck backing into our back driveway, a 4-driveway-wide plot of land on which the 4 tenants each have 1 parking space. We live in the back, upstairs apartment.

“Beep, beep, beep,” made the truck, in reverse – the alarm clock for the partially employed househusband.

Our neighbor – a bald-headed, pot-bellied, always red-in-the face middle-aged man who speaks in rapid fire 20-word long sentences in under 3 seconds per sentence – was driving the truck and a friend/co-worker must have been waving his hands directing him for the back-in. I didn’t get up to check, but I could tell because they were talking to each other as if from outside the vehicle.

Baldy, whom I like very much – don’t get me wrong – the above was just a description, yells over to his friend/co-worker, “For $200, that muthafucka had cup-holders and everything.”

I got up, found my notepad and pen in the closet, and wrote down his quote. Mostly because I wasn’t sure it had really happened.

It made me realize that, on more than one occasion, interesting things on the fringe of reason that you would never expect to hear in real life – might not have actually been the average nonsensical dream fragment – these things might have really happened.

Things like someone actually talking about the above-said muthufucka with cup-holders.

~Courtesy of my favorite California househusband

Rest Area Interview

What better place to be interviewed for a holiday traveling story than the Alabama welcome center in Mobile? Traveling with the future in-laws and loving fiancee, we stop to use the facilities and are welcomed to Alabama with open arms by a local television crew, Fox 10 News. We're the last family to be seen in the following video.

All I Want for Christmas...

...is a cupcake go-cart. Hey, the hat's included...

DDR and Auntie Sarah

"Come over and we'll practice this new dance game I have on the Wii." Is that something you've ever heard come out of the mouth of your beautiful, dazzing, 60-year-old auntie? Well, that's what my afternoon had in store yesterday. Completely awesome.

Afternoon raspberry iced tea and a fulfilling spiritual conversation was followed by a game of nothing else but Dance Dance Revolution, or DDR, a game which I've played maybe twice in my life. In college I photographed a student who had the game memorized and could play with his eyes closed. I walked back to the newsroom that day glad that I had friends.

But now DDR seemed kind of exciting, in that way you get when no one is watching. After about 30 minutes of play we finally figured out how to get out of training mode. My song choice of Young MC's "Bust A Move" was accompanied by the video of girls in jean shorts with large yellow bows in their hair, busting a move in a way that I would never be able to on the DDR dance mat. I felt more white and uncoordinated than I have in a while. I take myself as a fairly good dancer. DDR draws out none of my skill. Is it really for people who can't dance? Or is it for people who just like to click buttons and frolic around like they've got ants in their pants?

The highlight of the day was during LCD Soundsystem's "Tribulations" when lovely Auntie Sarah accidentally clicked the Expert setting. If you could imagine someone standing in place trying to escape an attacking beehive, that's the scene that I saw in her living room. I cried, she had to run to use the potty we were laughing so hard.

Uncle Lloyd sure missed out on DDR.

I Said Yes

Proposal at the Top of the World
Haleakala Volcano
Haleakala National Park
Maui, Hawai'i
September 20, 2009

too good to keep for myself: jeanspants and beanspant

In Bombay, they call blue jeans "jeanspants" -- all one word said quickly, and pronounced like this --- "jinspant".

So, we ate some bad food one day last week, and I had "beanspant" -- or "binspant" as I've been calling it.

I will save the rest of this one for the phone, but "binspant" turned out real bad at the Starbuck's...

(thank God for honest, truthful friendships. I love receiving emails like this.)

Day at the Library

The library system in Oconee County South Carolina isn't exactly state of the art, but I was excited to know that the library finally has wireless internet. The library is only open for three hours on Sunday, so my wonderful fiancee dropped me off at the library to do my homework. We're now sharing a car, which hasn't been trouble at all. In fact, I really enjoy sharing something that is so necessary to our lives now with someone so special. It may sound cheesy, but never has anyone been so deeply involved in my life and my heart that I would ever trust them or be trusted with such a venture. It's good for us and also good for the environment. We are taking steps to make life simpler together rather than so complicated and stressful. It's quite wonderful. The fun part is I get to wait outside the library where apparently all the other teenagers get to wait for their rides. As I was waiting next to the flagpole, I noticed a bunch of scribblings on the flagpole...something I have never noticed before in my life. The photo I took was with my cell phone camera (which I'm just happy to have after dropping the phone in my smoothie recently). I didn't realize kids cared about classic rock stars anymore...does Janis Joplin even have a Facebook page or songs on Guitar Hero? I got a little bit excited and hopeful for the new generations, probably just as people did when went through my classic rock stage in my late teens (although I still think CCR would be my desert island album). I still see their writings on the flagpole as found art, regardless of the amount of profanity. Kids are crying out, searching for a voice. It makes me interested to see what I will find the next time I'm waiting for my ride, especially if he drops me off at the movies to watch the next Twilight movie...by myself.

Southern Land Lord

My job usually isn't very exciting. Most of the time I work alone in a church office in the basement of a building. There are windows so it's not so drab. One of the highlights of two weeks in August was watching a spider kill and eat three crickets in the corner of the women's restroom. But today has to be a highlight for me of exciting events here at the church office. I am working alone today again and the pastor is on vacation. Yesterday I discovered that the power had been shut off to "the scary room" as I call it--the room where all the power cords and phone lines connect into. Well, that means no computers and no phones for the office. An extension cord repaired that problem, but the power had been shut off on a different floor which apparently our kitchen was tied into. The soupy mess I discovered when I went to place my yummy cucumber sandwich in the fridge this morning was horrific. Which led to my journey of tracking down the land lord of the building. An easy task, you would think, but four phone calls go unreturned. I discover the office is just next door, though, but inside an antique shop. I decide to be confrontational and proactive about the nasty mess inside the kitchen and since my phone calls are unreturned, I make an appearance at the antique shop. At 9 a.m. in the morning, the shop was a frightening sight to anyone, especially someone like me who thinks that antique shops/swap meets/flea markets are mostly just big junk shows. The first thing I see when I walk into the warehouse sized building is an entire wall, floor to ceiling, of dead stuffed animal heads. (see photo) The creepiness continues as I walk around the huge warehouse full of junk and dead animals, and no one is there. "Hello? Anyone here? Hello?" So then I start imagining people waiting for me to come around the corner and kidnap me and I decide that my leaky fridge isn't worth risking my life for. As I walk out the door, I notice a vehicle parked at the end of the lot near a fence to an outdoor area. I walk down and peek through the fence and there sits Betty Lou, or that's the name I gave her in my head. A smoker with crop pants on and a raspy voice. She worked there and as I explained my situation, she told me she'd me meet back inside. Oh dread. On the phone to her husband/son/whoever owns the company, she explains that "the little girl from the church is here" (I recently celebrated my 28th birthday). Apparently that phone call finally reached someone to fix my little problem and I got out of that nasty building as soon as I could. Anyway, there's a little taste of how land lords do business in the South.

Sweet 70's Shot

I have no idea where I found this photo. Isn't it amazing, though? Somewhere deep down inside I appreciate really bad, dated photos, boring postcards, especially cheesy wedding photos with vignetting. I'm pretty sure this was my mom's hair-do for her entire high school career.

Squirrel Kung Fu

2008: Turf war?
Two Cape grey squirrels fight for dominance at a campground at Etosha National Park in Namibia on Dec. 5. A colony of the squirrels, which are poor tree climbers so tend to live below ground in burrows, ventured to the surface to forage for food.


David Slater / Zuma Press