Thursday, March 29, 2012

Giraffes and good ol' boys, oh my!

I decided, somewhat last minute, to trek down to Cincinnati this weekend for a trip to King's Island with my brother. He's working on the road for three weeks and seemed a bit bummed out about that so I decided to visit. Originally we were going to visit King's Island on Saturday but the weather was lousy so we found ourselves in need of something to do.

We were right by Traders' World, which is this crazy "palacio del flea," as they call it. I didn't really need any velour Jesus throws for my house but I figured it would be better than sitting around so I agreed to go. Plus, we were trying to figure out just how many life-sized, poorly-executed-in-fiberglass giraffes were present on the property. Seriously, it's freaky, folks; they're on the roof, inside, along the drive, etc. If you have a need to visit fiberglass giraffes, that is THE place to go.

Also, the complex has a recording of animal noises playing. The scary thing is that one of the noises sounds like a person moaning during a certain act. We were horrified by that one, even though it was probably supposed to be a hippo or something.

I am so glad that we visited, in spite of the weird noises because the people watching was absolutely amazing and we found Goonies t-shirts for $2 each. My brother especially enjoyed the shirt inspired by Data, with a patch that read "Booty Trap Specialist" on it.

We ended up spending three hours there, which blows my mind, but the time flew. I even bought two gnome yard ornaments, which is the beginning of my downward spiral (I'm not a yard ornament-owning type of person but apparently now I am a gnome-owner). If you're looking for Jesus-themed inspirational items, bumper stickers of a famous cartoon character relieving himself on various logos, military surplus, or some excellent yard ornaments, then Traders' World is where the action resides.

*I don't care that they don't know how to punctuate it correctly and they don't include the apostrophe; I'm adding it because it would bother me otherwise.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Domesticity fail

I once elicited much laughter from my mother, as well as some aunts, when I complained about a housecleaning problem I was having. When I spent a semester in England, I decided that the outflow of money was high whereas the influx of money was nil. Thus, I picked up two housecleaning gigs for some extra spending money, which worked out perfectly and financed a trip to Paris and a trip to Dublin.

I was often vexed by cleaning the bathtub; in trying to wipe up the random dust bunnies in the tub, all I did was spread them all over. I finally had the brilliant idea to use the vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dust, as long as the tub was dry. Sometimes there were still errant fuzzies, though, and I complained of them to my mom. She asked me to repeat the problem and was laughing when I mentioned the vacuum cleaner. I wanted to know how else one would get the fuzzies. Apparently the story has made its way around to my aunts, too. Again, this is a time where I have learned that it is best to laugh at yourself.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Market Forces

From Oct 4, 2008
My brother: "Hey, is ICP coming into town soon?"
Me: "Um, I have no idea. Why?"
Brother: "Well, Faygo is on sale."
Me: "What does that have to do with anything?"
Brother: "Every time ICP comes into town, Faygo goes on sale. I'm serious! All the stores have it on sale right now!"
Me: Rolling eyes.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Domesticity Fail

From Oct 7, 2008
I have one last "horror" story of failed domesticity. At times, I try to fool myself into thinking I can eat something other than cold food or food that comes in a box. Sometimes I try to cook something or bake treats. Usually the results are quite mixed.

Several weeks ago, I decided that my co-workers needed some cookies for putting up with me (and plus, I had said in my interview that food can often work well as a reward/motivator for staff..unfortunately, I may have crossed theories in management with animal training theory instead). I attempted to bake some oatmeal cookies and misjudged how done they were, as I'd like to think that the oven in the window distorts the true color of the cookies (thus I also must never be allowed in a tanning machine), and burned some of the batch.

I took the good cookies to work and told my colleagues what a failure I am and that I burned the other cookies. They raved about the cookies they had in front of them, which makes me laugh because I just followed the recipe on the label of the oatmeal.

I had thought that they were just being nice. I think it was sincere, though, because the next day a co-worker asked if I had any of the burned cookies left. I had thrown out most of them, but with a remaining cookie, had grated off the burned part and found that it wasn't too bad. I was pretty impressed that she liked the cookies enough to want some burned ones (thought I think that she would have wanted anything with sugar at that point). Sometimes you just have to take the burnt part of your life and scrape off what you can't use and make good with the part that you have left.