Randomness

I spent the afternoon yesterday up at Cedar Circle Farm hanging out with my family and enjoying their strawberry festival. Yes, it’s an event geared towards the younger set (hay rides! clowns! face painting!) but, hey, I’m a child at heart. Witness for the prosecution: one of my coworkers brought his kids into work today and they have been supplied with an endless stream of entertainment in the form of toys from my office. Plus, any excuse to see my sisters. 

I neglected to bring my camera, which is a real shame. Especially since my three-year-old nephew took a turn wearing my giant cat costume. You haven’t seen cute until you’ve seen a little guy wearing a giant foam cat head that comes down past his shoulders. He and I danced around being giant kitties (he was a baby giant kitty). And then we were steam rollers. And then he was a baby and I was his twin baby. And then we were kitties again.

And then I took a little nap.

No, actually Kristian was the one napping. Apparently the mere act of watching me goofing around with my nephew was enough to put him out like a light. The fact that he was sacked out in my brother-in-law’s lazy boy may or may not have been a contributing factor. The grownups decided that it was time to go outside and enjoy the day star for a bit, but my nephew was content to hang out and continue being a baby giant kitty cat. So, I said, “Let’s put on our farmer hats and go ride the tractors!” (Aside to my sister, Christina: thanks for letting the little guy wear your hat. I think I managed to keep him from mangling it too badly).

This became the rallying cry and my nephew gleefully sang out , “Let’s go to the tracTOR! Let’s go to the tracTOR!” Over and over. And over. And over again. Luckily, I think that he poops out rainbows and, thusly, can do no wrong by me. So I was endlessly amused by the tractor song. Especially when it was punctuated with a “hee haw!” See: Hope, extended childhood of. Of course, it was more like “Let’s go the tracTEUR! Let’s go to the tracTEUR!” Apparently, my nephew has some hidden frenchy tendencies that he’s not telling us about. Or one of the tractors is french. My money is not on the John Deere one.

We “drove” around on the tractors (I kept a look out for pirates) and then we harvested strawberries. Kristian and I gave my nephew the little berries that we found (”the little guy” strawberries) and he gave me the medium sized ones. Kristian, being the closest thing to a big guy around, got all of the “big guy” strawberries. This was a pretty good deal for us. We also brought some strawberries back for my sister and her husband. Although I had to pick and hold onto them. My nephew was very happy to announce that we had brought back “four whole strawberries” for them. Not so happy when he realized that he didn’t get to eat any of those strawberries, but he was still very good about sharing.

We hung out for about 5 hours altogether, but it really seemed to just fly right by. One moment we were arriving and the next minute it was time to go home. The time that we spent with my family was made all the more precious by the fact that we almost didn’t make the drive up. I was up from 2-6am that morning with some lady problems (sorry if that was TMI) and we seriously debated about wether or not we should go. My overwhelming and constant desire to spend as much time as humanly possible with my sisters won out in the end. The fact that we had promised my step-dad a ride home certainly helped. The moment I set eyes on everyone, I realized just how worth it the trip was.

And now I am le tired.

I got a mention on Miss Conduct’s blog entry today!

Go me!

The first rule of book club: show up for book club. 

Tonight? It was just me and the host. Oh, and the guy who showed up 2 hours later.

I blame Michael Jackson and the fact that everyone else was probably just as glued to CNN as we were. That and the fact that the book kindof sucked.

Anyways, instead of discussing the crappy book, we ended up talking about Michael Jackson while the news played quietly in the background. It was a surreal moment, to say the least. Breaking News! Michael Jackson has died. Breaking News! We have Randy Jackson (no relation, that I know of) on the phone. Breaking News! Michael Jackson’s body in a helicopter. Breaking News! Michael Jackson’s body in a van (not in a van down by the river, that I know of). Breaking News! We have no idea what to talk about, so we’re just going to show the same 12 clips from our archive.

What is it about the death of Michael Jackson that resonates so strongly with so many people? Well, you don’t sell 50 million copies of an album without picking up a few fans along the way. And the man was a living train wreck. That’s bound to garner a few gawkers.

For me, the fascination is in watching someone who had so much talent and potential literally disintegrate over the years. It’s a sad sort of fascination. A melancholy sort of fascination. A bit of a voyeuristic sort of fascination. The man was undeniably talented. He was reportedly extremely smart. And he was robbed of his childhood and spent the rest of his life trying (completely unsuccessfully and disastrously so) to make up for it. He became a caricature of himself. He may or may not have done some truly horrible things to some vulnerable boys.

I don’t know where I stand on Michael Jackson. It’s not my job to judge him. But I feel for a boy who was horrifically abused by his father. For a man who went from the King of Pop to becoming a freak show. Who tried so hard to make people love him again and who only made them angrier. Who built up the playland that he never had as a child and then lost it all.  Who was so uncomfortable in his own skin that he felt the need to transform himself into… well, I don’t know what he transformed himself into. But it wasn’t pretty.

RIP, MJ, RIP.

I just sent a complaint letter email to a local ice cream place. Over a four dollar ice cream.

To say that I feel somewhat petty about this would be like saying that ice cream is mildly delicious.

And yet, at the same time, they did mess up. We ordered peanut butter cup and we got almond joy instead. And the almond joy had large chunks in it. Ice cream is supposed to be a treat and this was decidedly not a treat. This was an exercise in frustration in frozen dessert format. We were left with a general feeling of this place that was distinctly lacking in positive emotions.

And yet… it’s just ice cream.

And yet… if I was the ice cream store owner or manager, I would want to know. We go to this ice cream stand fairly often. We know that they’re normally delicious. We know that they don’t usually screw up the flavors. Someone else might not have a past history of deliciosity to keep them coming back. If I went to an ice cream place and was given the wrong flavor and then discovered that said wrong flavor was full of ice?

I would probably take my ice cream business elsewhere.

So, yeah, I felt that it would sortof be a courtesy to let the ice cream powers that be know that we were less than satisfied with their service and with their product. It was a decidedly difficult email to write. It’s hard to get emotionally invested in ice cream. I felt petty. But I also felt like that it was something that I should have been writing. So I kept writing. And I sent it. Maybe we’ll get some free ice cream out of it. Maybe they’ll let their staff know that they need to be more careful. Maybe I’ll get filtered into their spam box. Maybe they’ll dismiss me as an ice-cream loving crank.

I still mostly feel like I did the right thing.

Would you have sent a letter?

… I lost the blog off.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have something in my eye.