Pumpkins Don’t Have Ankles

An email conversation with me and my apartment-mate after I returned from the dentist.

AMY

hey, em, how did it go? any cavities? Did they say, “oh, do you mind smiling? we need to take your picture for the files …” I hate that. They always take my picture when I look terrible. *sigh* They really need to warm people.

ME

They really need to warm people??

AMY

AHHH! I mean warN. yeah, warn …

ME

I’m having somewhat odd mental images of giant people-warmers

AMY

SNUGGIES!!

ME

I can handle the drills, x-rays, and dental hygienists. But as soon as they bring out giant Snuggies, I’ll be screaming and running out of the room.

AMY

Kind of like one of those scary sci-fi movies.

Well, we’re barely surviving here in frigid Greenville, S.C. We have a few inches of …

… sleet. Yep, not even snow. Either way, the State of South Carolina has been cancelled until further notice.

We’re doing OK. We’ve lit a few candles just in case the power goes out.

But wait ... oh, no! We're out of milk! It’s snowing outside and we don’t have any milk!! All we have is a small jug of half-and-half. How will we make it?

An even if we could brave the roads, there’s no milk to be had. This is what the milk section looked like yesterday at Wal-Mart (photo compliments of David Lovegrove).

It’s a good thing we don’t need bread (photo from the same Wally World).

Things are looking bad. We’re down to the last of our rations … we’re eating canned cranberry sauce just to survive.

We’ve been forced to break into the gingerbread house, for just a little extra sustenance.

Oh, the desolation! Winter, you are so cruel! The official winter storm warning lasts until 6 this evening … will we make it?

Feeling blue because you haven’t kept your New Year’s Resolution to bench press six times your weight, cut out all carbohydrates from your diet or read through all of the writings of James Boswell*??

No worries! In a recent email, my friend Judith explained to me why this isn’t a problem:

ME:

I hear from a marginally reliable source that you have NOT kept your  New Year’s Resolution to be nicer to your brother. Consider yourself sternly reprimanded.

JUDITH:

here’s the thing with the resolution. You know how you can return stuff to a store? Well, January is the time of modifying and  changing resolutions–at least the first half of the month.  Therefore, I have not necessarily broken any such resolution. Ha!

It may not be the BEST excuse, but it is an excuse nonetheless. Thanks, Judith! I’m going to go eat some pie now and not even feel bad.

*Please note that all of the above examples are humorous yet extremely hazardous. Do NOT attempt.

Another lunchtime email–this one from last week when there was talk of snow.

Subject Line: Impending doom*

EMILY

Anyone luncheoning on this day of impending doom*?
Noon at the DC if you are brave enough.
*please note that in the Southern context, “doom” is pretty synonymous
with “any chance of snow.”

BRIAN:

I brought lunch with me since I could not bring myself to brave the dangerous streets of Greenville. Not that I would need to drive anywhere since everything is CLOSED whenever there is a chance of snow.

EMILY

you’re having bread and milk for lunch, aren’t you?

L:

Lol! It might snow – quick, buy bread & milk! So true.

BRIAN:

the milk was sold out this morning. What will we do?

EMILY:

Panic. Or buy eggs.

I’ve seen this Facebook app that will collect all of your statuses for the year and put them together. That got me thinking …

Here are some (definitely not all) of my Facebook status updates for 2009, with a few funny comments included too. I learned some things about myself in the process of putting them together. Like that I have a strange fascination with Turkish Delight and Mongolian Throat Singing. Oh, well.

Enjoy!

JANUARY

Emily …

• helps Molly and Moses plan their wedding … they really liked the idea of incorporating ninjas …
• The diagnosis from the IT guy regarding my poor Macbook is grim. Well, pretty grim. Grim-ish?
• is glad Sebastian the Mac has returned to her. Except he’s had his memory wiped, so he won’t even recognize her. sniff sniff.

FEBRUARY

• listening to Patrick Cassidy’s “Deirdre of the Sorrows.” Good music based on a bizarre medieval Celtic tale of woe and destruction–what can beat that?
• spent an evening Brailling and arpeggiating.
• just came back from an awesome murder mystery dinner held in a castle. Yes, be jealous
• loves her family and wants to keep them forever and ever.

MARCH

• Lo, it snoweth
• went gorging in Georgia with Tallulah. Wait, I mean I went to Tallulah Gorge in Georgia. I need sleep
• I’m cooler online

APRIL

• oh, the pollen … *sneeze hack die*
• is about to give herself a pedicure. I’ve never done it before, so hopefully I’ll come out of it with all of my toes.
• seems to have a magnetic attraction to tossed bridal bouquets … I didn’t even try last night–it fell into my hand. Third time’s the charm??
  • Dawn K:  Oh, my! Do you mean third time could bring prince “charm” ing
  • Me: he just better not be wearing tights like in the Disney movies …
• lo, I writeth. And baketh a pieth.
• The oak pollen is finally going away! *Emily comes out of hiding*

MAY

• my gerbils keep burying their exercise wheel instead of running on it … I’m going to have some obese rodents on my hands!
  • Kristen A: I think they’re trying to make a point. :0) Perhaps cardio isn’t their thing. Have you thought about signing them up for yogilates?
  • Me: I shall purchase little yoga mats for them and see how they do.
• needs new shoes, but just isn’t motivated to go buy them. Maybe I should just throw all my old shoes away. That way I’ll be forced to go replace them … or go to the office barefoot.
• We’re having quite the storm here! I hope that huge crash was another clap of thunder and not a tree falling or something exploding. (the likelihood of something exploding is pretty slim, but as long as it’s not my car it would be cool)
• spent the morning at 1,600 feet in a hot air balloon! And I wasn’t scared at all! (no, wait, that’s a lie. But it wasn’t too scary, as long as I looked OUT at the scenery and not DOWN)

JUNE

• reads Smithsonian magazine and eats Vegan chocolate-banana cupcakes while waiting for her fever to go away.
• “Why is it…while other people are thinking about all kinds of important things…I am thinking about what it would be like to jump barefoot into an open box of jelly doughnuts?” -James Stevenson

JULY

• Day off from work + upcoming vacation + trip to Dunkin’ Donuts = THE BEST DAY EVER!!
• went to the beach, saw a wild alligator, bought a rock, got a book of Celtic verse, ate at the Grumpy Grouper Grille, and got sand in my pants. not a bad trip!
  • Becky: long live the sand in your pants!
  • Megan C: as long as you didn’t see a wild rock and buy an alligator.
• Molly, you have me thinking … what WOULD it be like to be set in orange Jell-O?
• honestly, Becky, everyone knows that slugs don’t have noses!
• was kind of insulted today when her roommate and roommate’s twin watched her eat her ethnic food like it was a freak show or something … I ask you, what’s so weird about eating baked beans on toast??
• has been thinking about how He says “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” (psalm 81:10). That implies a more gutsy faith that’s not afraid to ask hard questions …
• watching Ratatouille after making ratatouille and eating ratatouille.
• I used to have really long hair, but then when I got into all those swashbuckling sword fights it kept blowing in my face. That’s why I cut it. Just in case anyone was wondering.

AUGUST

• I just watched “I want tomorrow,” an old music video in which Enya lights a car on fire. Um … 1986 was a strange year.
• sat down to do some writing. Somehow I ended up watching YouTube videos of Mongolian Throat Singing. Oh well.
• had a great time talking with a great friend … and subjecting said friend to videos of Mongolian Throat Singing. (Now if that isn’t a real friend, who is??)
• is reading Ray Blackston’s “Last Mango in Texas”
• “If you want to know the moral of this song: 50 million little monkeys can’t be wrong!”
• and her apartment-mate set a world record for fastest shoe shopping, and then celebrated by eating Turkish Delight.

SEPTEMBER

• had an odd dream. Me versus Darth Vader … except he was wearing polka-dotted boxer shorts over his black costume. Though everyone in the room assured me that he was just as menacing as ever, it was kind of hard to take him seriously …
• After trying to name the seven dwarfs, we finally got it figured out: Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, Creepy, Slurpy and Doc

OCTOBER

• There’s a pumpkin in my living room. His name is Pablo.
• The Internet is a great thing. I can go Christmas shopping while in my fuzzy robe, eating Turkish Delight.
• Though sleeping in my car in 40-degree weather was pretty fabulous, I’m kind of excited about a real bed tonight. Other than that, the Creative Serives camping trip was a blast.

NOVEMBER

• Tonight’s conversation discussed the possibility of the Brave Little Toaster moonlighting as a hitman.
• One day, I am going to be the Crazy Cat Lady that lives at the end of your street. I will have 26 cats and I will dye them mauve. Just you watch.
• Becky and I have hit upon the screenplay that will make our fortune: Pilgrim Zombies. Vampire Banshees. Undying Love. Zac Effron stars in this completely original idea for a film: *DUSK* Coming in 2012! Don’t miss it!
  • Brian B: don’t forget to make the main girl hate everyone around her in her new town…that’ll be completely original!!!
  • Sarah N: To make it really original I think you should throw in a couple of musical dance numbers. They’d fit right in.
  • Me: these are both great points and will be taken into consideration
  • Amy M: i have it…the sequal should be called “old sun.”
• found some Christmas lights with a tag that said August 1984 on them. And we’d been using them, too …
• drew a picture of the Ark of the Covenant on the marker board while teaching Children’s Church. After class, the kids all took turns touching the “ark” and pretending to fall down dead. Not quite the take-away value I had in mind, but as long as they’re learning, I guess …

DECEMBER

• wonders if perhaps there is a badger under her bed. Her sister’s dog certainly seems to think so.
• is sitting in her living room with a fleece jacket on, still cold. I just realized someone switched the heat to “off” … that might explain it! Problem solved.
  • Kristen A: By way of deductive reasoning. Just like Sherlock Holmes!
  • Mike D: I think you should probably have just built a small fire in the middle of your living room on some bricks. That would have solved the problem too.
  • Me: Great idea! I should have taken the Boswell book off the rodent cage and used it as kindling.
  • Bethany L: You must have read all the Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown books when you were a kid.
  • Me: But if I were Nancy Drew, I would have realized too late the heat had been switched off, but I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it because the villain would have locked me up in a box, but one with a small air hole that I could conveniently peek out of. Then Ned the No-Personality-Boyfriend would save the day, handing me the key to the box’s … padlock. Before we would jump in my fancy car and race to the mansion to reveal the villain’s identity to the generous heiress, we would sit by the blazing Boswell fire to warm up.
• Had a dream that Al Gore was having a secret meeting with one of the Copenhagen people in my apartment bathroom. Same old, same old.
• I want a Stegosaurus for Christmas.
  • Mike D: I’m glad you’re not one of those people who are so hard to buy for.
  • Judith D: what did you do with the one you got last year, huh? You broke it. Face it, you just don’t know how to relate to the prehistoric types.
  • Me: did you have to bring that up??
• And then, in between opening presents, drawing faces on oranges and hiding them, doing a jigsaw puzzle, petting the poodles and eating Christmas dinner, they all took NAPS. It was the best Christmas ever. The end. (OK, it doesn’t make for an interesting story, but it was nice

So … my sister Becky and I should not spend too much time together. Especially if we’re both procrastinating and in a particularly sarcastic mood. Here’s just a sampling of some of the conversations we’ve had today:

SNIPPET 1:
BECKY
Are you frying an egg?

EMILY
No, I just got out the pan, the carton of eggs and started heating up the butter for fun.

BECKY
Oh, right.

(a few minutes later)

BECKY
Did you eat the egg?

EMILY
No, I took it off the pan, opened the window, and threw it at passer-bys.

BECKY
I believe the correct plural for that word is passerS-by.

EMILY
Whatever.

SNIPPET 2:
EMILY
Who’s Monday named after? Mars?

BECKY
Mars isn’t a Norse god.

EMILY
Yeah … I know Wednesday is named after Woden, Thursday is named after Thor … wait, didn’t you decide you liked Vidar better than Thor? So we’ll call it Vidarsday instead of Thursday.

BECKY
And then calendar abbreviations would be better because you wouldn’t have two days that begin with T.

EMILY
Brilliant!

SNIPPET 3
EMILY
I’m sorry, I just don’t think there’s such thing as a good demise.

BECKY
No, really, there is. You see, being assassinated quickly would be a good demise. Being cast into a fiery pit of lava death would be a bad demise.

EMILY
You definitely have a point there.

SNIPPET 4
(This one was regarding my little Pilgrim decoration I have in the living room.)

BECKY
I’m going to feed your little Pilgrim to some wild banshees!

EMILY
Why would banshees eat my Pilgrim?

BECKY
They just would! Have you ever conducted an experiment to prove that banshees, if given the chance, wouldn’t eat a Pilgrim?

EMILY
Do you have any proof they would?

BECKY
It’s just logical. Banshees eat stuff. Pilgrims are stuff. Therefore, banshees eat Pilgrims.

EMILY
Since when do Banshees eat stuff? I thought they just wailed.

BECKY
Wait, what?

EMILY
You DO know what a banshee is, right?

BECKY
It’s like … a hyena?

EMILY
Umm …

Once educating Becky on the history and personality traits of banshees, and their important role in Irish ghost stories, we began to see that it was quite unlikely that a banshee would eat a Pilgrim. Unless it were a Vampire Banshee.

And just like that, we had created a new genre of teen horror/romance/chick lit.

We brainstormed some more, and this is what we came up with.

Official artwork:

Trailer script:

Pilgrim Zombies. … Vampire Banshees. … Undying Love.

Zac Effron stars in a film that is nothing like anything you’ve seen before, no, like for real, it’s totally original:

****DUSK****

Coming in 2012! Don’t miss it!

Another chat between me and my friend Mike. Somehow while we were complaining about a particular genre of popular lit, we spontaneously created one. (It was surprisingly easy!)

me
I do NOT like sentimental books about people living on the prairie, which is like 94.3% of Women’s Christian fiction

Mike
94.35% since my new book “Cyclone of Romance”
about Debra, who is hiding her past

me
from Jedidiah

Mike
until the rich, handsome, young cowboy Roger rides into town
then Jed will have to stand up and take notice.
it all ends up ok
Roger ends up with Pauline

me
the sun sets
someone makes a pie

Mike
guns are drawn

me
a quilt is made

Mike
saloons are ambled into
ladies gossip
iced tea is served

me
the heroine talks down the crazed shooter

Mike
church socials are had

me
all her problems disappear when she melts into Jed’s arms

Mike
Oh Jed
Oh Debra

me
(he smells like chickens)

Mike:
Oh Roger
Oh Pauline

me
Oh look at that cyclone

Mike
Oh Cyclone
Oh Disaster
Oh Triumph
Oh Wedding Bells

me
Oh my quilts are soiled
(pesky cyclone)

Mike
The bell was blown out of the steeple
How about a Wedding Train Whistle?

me
They have to use cowbells for the wedding

Mike
Honey, we’re goin’ back East

My friend Mike D (of Ticket Poetry fame) and I were discussing some of our old Gmail chats, and I thought this one was funny enough to post.

(please keep in mind that it was pretty late in the evening when we wrote this)

me
call out the st. bernards. tell them it’s a code mauve

Mike
we may have to awaken the Great Orangatan

me
oh great. I hope he’s had his shots this time

Mike
yes. all forty two of them

me
wow. so he must be grumpy. I know I am when I’ve had my 42 shots

Mike: yeah
I’m listening to Horowitz play Prokofiev. and the marmosets are dancing

me
I had killer hiccups earlier today and I was stranded in my car because of a lightning storm and I couldn’t get to any water and I had like 20 minutes of straight hiccupping and now I’m exhausted.

Mike
wow. you could probably be in a Reader’s Digest Drama in Real Life: “Hiccups on the Highway”

me
I’m sure people would be inspired

Mike
with like this scary picture of a lone car with lightening all around it and a picture of you emerging from your car after the storm looking pale and wan
we can do the pale and wan in makeup
we can’t do the storm in makeup though

me
and the horror of getting to my destination and not being able to find a water fountain and thus having to pay a dollar for a bottle of water because I was desperate! But the cashier was nice. I think he took pity on my hiccupping self. we can do horror makeup for that part

Mike
I’ll interview him. he’ll get a thumbnail picture

Mike
and you could tell them about my hit new musical
Les Miserables II: The Inexplicable Return of Javert

me
Hamlet II: All the Main Characters Are Still Dead

Mike
and The Sound of Music II: The Hills Are Still Alive

me
La Boheme II: Everyone is Still Depressed, and Still Very French

Mike
Much Ado about Nothing II: Still More Ado About Less Than Nothing

me
Titus Andronicus II: Don’t Even Go There

Mike
Rigoletto II: Never Mind–Just When You Thought it Couldn’t Get More Depressing

me
Turandot II: Turns Out She’s Still Mean, Plus Obnoxious to Live With

Mike
Great Expectations II: Realistic Expectations

me
Cats II: More People Dressed Up Like Cats

Ever find yourself behaving just the slightest bit oddly, but aren’t exactly sure why? For example, when I go to Publix (which is my favorite supermarket, by the way), I find myself taking a long and convoluted route through aisles. I have to stop myself and ask why exactly I’m doing that. And the answer is—to my surprise—I’m avoiding the Free-Sample People.

The friendly Free-Sample People are going to talk to me. Exchange pleasantries. And maybe give me some free food. And for some reason, no matter how good their chicken-salad-in-a-cup looks, I am terrified of the prospect of this.

OK, so maybe terrified is a strong word. But it is interesting to stop and analyze some of these mild, irrational—and often downright hilarious—fears.

A few other hidden fears I’ve recently identified include, but are not limited to:

Opening my trunk and finding a dead body inside. Not that I have any idea of how it’s going to get in there. But some nights I have seriously considered opening it just to make sure … and then I chicken out and don’t even look.

Running over furniture in the road. This actually happened to me once!

Sponges. You know, the damp sponge that’s been sitting in the sink for two weeks, growing bacterial colonies—yea, bacterial empires—as we speak? The one we rub all over our dishes to “clean” them? I’m afraid to even touch the thing.

A rabid fox jumping from out of a hedge and biting my ankles. Oddly enough, at one point this was actually a possibility, since there was such a fox running loose near where I worked. But the animal control people later said the fox died. Or did it??

Stuff in unmarked Tupperware in the back of the fridge. OK, this is a rational fear. You ever open one of those??

Going out shopping and then looking down to find I have forgotten to wear pants. (OK, surely I’m not the only one who’s afraid of this!)

So … what are you afraid of?

On the last night of our family vacation in Hilton Head, we ate at the Grumpy Grouper Grille. We wanted to go just because it was called the Grumpy Grouper Grille. The food was good, too, though in my opinion the mascot wasn’t nearly grumpy enough.

This has gotten me to thinking about other cleverly named restaurants. These include:

• Crazy Crab
• Catch 22  (they serve seafood)
• Dairy Godmother
• Mellow Mushroom (a totally groovy pizza place)
• Brew and Ewe (A personal favorite. It sells coffee and wool products. Get it? Brew and Ewe … like sheep? because they have wool? Well, anyway, I like it a lot.)
• China (a little Chinese take-out place on Wade Hampton Blvd. Actually, the name lacks cleverness, but it’s really fun to say you’re going to China for lunch.)
• Pho’ Noodleville (I thought my friend was pulling my leg when she suggested we go here. I was convinced that couldn’t actually be a real place. But it was, and it was my first taste of Vietnamese food. It was great!)
• FiggyWhigs Cupcakes
• Thai Sky
• West End Chicken & Waffles (they served fried chicken on top of waffles. We tried to go. I was going to write all about it on this very blog! But WEC&W was MIA. Apparently it closed down and left its sign up. Or maybe it never existed in the first place …)

My sisters and my friends and I have had some pretty sweet ideas for restaurant chains ourselves. These include:

The Blue Noodle
This is Amy’s idea for an Italian restaurant. And yes, it would serve blue noodles. With red sauce. And white Parmesan on top. Yum … patriotic!

The Onion Garden
My friend Cajun Mike and I thought of this one. Menu items include:

• Dij’onions (onion rings with Dijon mustard sauce)
• Caj’unions (onion rings with cayenne pepper and other Louisiana spices)
• Cinnam’unions (use your imagination)
• And the ever-popular Onion Milkshake—OK, you can turn your imagination off for this one.

The brilliant secret to the Onion Garden is that the restaurant itself is not the main source of income. All profits are made through the breath mint stand on the way out.

The Tastee Taco
Just imagine that it’s about 2 a.m. in the middle of nowhere. You pull up to a little taco shack with faded yellow stucco and a peeling stripe of aqua paint. The neon “Tastee Taco” sign is flickering, and as you pull your car into park, a small creature—perhaps a possum or an armadillo—runs out of the kitchen. This is the ideal ambiance for the Tastee Taco.

This brings me to the crème de la crème of our restaurant ideas:

Steak & Crackers
Steak & Crackers has been the subject of much discussion between me and my sister Becky. There is much to say about it. Here are some of the highlights:

• It plays only elevator music, performed by a live Elevator Music Orchestra. It’s conducted by a bellhop, and the stage rises several stories and then comes back down as the band plays.
• It will be the only place you can order a porterhouse with a side of Ritz or a filet mignon with graham crackers.

Other menu items include:

• Death By Vanilla, a tastee dessert
• Trucha En La Ducha (literally, “Trout in the Shower”)
• Chicken Chalupa
• Chicken Chalupa with Cheese
• Chicken Chalupa with Cheese and Chocolate
• Chunky Chicken Chalupa with Cheese and Chocolate, and so forth

I know, I know, we really are brilliant. One day we’re going to make a ton of money in the restaurant business, you’ll see. If only we knew how to cook.