tie dying and monkey shit coffee and the brat pack

I learned about monkey shit coffee this weekend, and I took this quiz that amused me.

So the tie dying, long over due I suppose, this being more than a week later. It is remarkable to me to observe how people's personalities reflect in their tie-dying style. The clean freaks, the little preppy perfectly ironed still skinny and fit "bitches" (I like them, I just hate them for not getting fat like me), they do little dots of color, the color never runs off of their shirts and all over every surface within 3 feet of them, they don't get it on their hands, and their shirts have a lot of white once they are untied and washed. In fact their shirts almost look "professional", and somehow I swear, they look ironed. The really hyper people, that bounce around from task to task, never quite finished with anything, they tend to soak their shirts, not a bit of white showing on the tied product (they still get some white when untied though), and use as many colors as they can, but, they are quick so they get it all around their work space, but they don't actually use half a bottle of dye and it isn't running off of the shirt like water. Then there were a couple of girls that really really really soaked their shirts, the dye running off of my driveway was almost comical, and I truly thought that they would end up with a solid shirt of one color... they didn't actually, the shirts turned out great (not white though)... heres the thing, these two girls have vastly different personalities, almost nothing in common. One is a toe head, hyper and bounces off of the walls, does little shitty things to get attention, over reacts to emotional upsets and gets overly angry and blames others when things don't go her way... under that though, she does have a very sweet nature, but she has to feel pretty safe to let it show. The other is a dark skinned, dark haired girl, with deep thoughtful brown eyes, mellow to the point of fading into the wallpaper, couldn't do a shitty thing on a dare, under reacts to anything emotional, so stoic you almost feel challenged by it, takes blame for things that aren't her fault, and wears her very sweet nature on her sleeve for all to see. So the shirts turned out quite cool... many different patterns, many different intensities of color, and yet similar because of the range of colors available to them. I am very excited to see people's reactions to their own creativity.

As to the monkey shit coffee (really you can google that term), a baseball mom told me about it (face it that phrase will be used ALL summer long, as those are the only people I have human contact with), I chose that particular hyperlink, because... the graphic of the civet poopin coffee beans was just delightful... I will tell you this, I might be tempted to try it (if someone else were paying, I'm too big of a tight ass to pay for starbucks, let alone $45/cup... if I pay that much for a beverage it had better have booze in it), but the main thing holding me back is, if the animal were an herbivore, then no problem at all.... but the thought of eating anything that a carnivore passed makes me shiver, and then if you look up palm civet, the little beast has stinky glands on it's rear, so we are talking a meat eating, skunky assed critter with a caffeine addiction ate and shit this stuff in a third world jungle and folks will drink it... this to me seems almost as dumb as trying to eat live octopus, except that according to all I've read it has a lovely taste, whereas octopus apparently tastes like nothing and it's really more the experience that people enjoy (wtf ever). Anyhow, this just goes to show that some things that sound like urban legend are true, and of course some things that sound true are indeed urban legend.

Now... the quiz, so my daughters were watching 'The Breakfast Club' - if you don't remember clearly for some reason (I'm not saying we all spent the 80's in a stupor, but if the shoe fits)... it is really a great movie, actually a couple of the 80's coming of age movies were... I also LOVE 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' - in fact more now that I am an adult. Anyhow, 'The Breakfast Club', btw, on family channel or whatever, Emilio Estevez and Judd whatever his name is get very dubbed, which was also amusing, especially when that geeky kid (Anthony Michael Hall?) tells the other one to watch his language and he just got dubbed to something you could utter from the pulpit of a mormon church... I laughed my ass off. So my daughters were watching the movie, and they asked me about 'the Brat Pack', and I really couldn't remember who was for sure a member and who was maybe a member and therefore which movies actually count as 'Brat Pack' movies, etc. So I googled it (GBG = God Bless Google, or Gotta Be Googled, or... make up your own?). Anyhow, I ran across this quiz, which I initially took as though it were still 1983 (ish), and I turned out to be 'Lisa', from 'Weird Science' - which really, if only I could have had hair like that... she was cool too, especially when she turned the older brother into that green hideous thing... that was 'excellent'. Then I took the quiz as I am today... and that was bad, really bad, I was sad and mortified... it (obviously incorrectly) told me I am 'Claire' from the 'Breakfast Club'... anyone who has seen me in the last 5 years or so knows that though I drive a much better car than ever before... my personal appearance could hardly qualify as anything Claire would ever ever do. I know he wasn't part of the brat pack, but I actually thought I might turn out as Spicoli, boy was I disappointed to be rated as a whiney superficial little pia princess.

I don't sit on public toilets...

And I can't beat this story with anything that I can write today. Be sure to take the survey, which amazed me because 68% of people apparently sit on public toilet seats!!! Now I suppose that there probably have been occasions when in a drunken stupor, and way too drunk to keep my balance or to care for that matter, I have sat down on a public toilet seat - let's just be clear though, that seat was NOT at Walmart in the middle of the day, more likely it was in some crappy dive of a bar and quite possibly even in the men's room (I can be impatient when I'm drinking) at sometime well after most Walmarts close (although there is one near me that stays open til Midnight at Christmastime).

What is a blog?

I was asked the other day what a ‘blog’ is – not wanting to divulge my ‘dirty little secret’ of having a blog, I played half dumb, and explained that it is a sort of online journal to which people can leave comments, similar to a message board. This answer seemed to satisfy the person who asked (I honestly can not remember who that was at the moment) – however, as I heard myself saying the words, I realized that my ‘blog’ is really neither a journal, nor much of a message board. Yes there are other blogs that I read that have more of both of those qualities – but really… don’t you think it’s more of a personal editorial page – perhaps that would have been the better description. Alas, I digress from the point of this post (rofl, like I ever stick to the point), which is to try to bring MY blog into compliance with MY description of a blog (a journal/message board). Okay, so I’m a little handicapped on the whole “message board” portion, unless I make up several aliases (is that the plural of alias? – would it be aliai or some other latinish word?) and begin commenting to myself, which actually might be great for my self-esteem! (or bad depending on my mood and whether or not I beat myself up). As to the ‘Journal’ description, that I have complete control of – not that my life is AT ALL interesting to anyone but my immediate circle – in fact it is really very ordinary – but maybe I can write about the ordinary and make it interesting enough to someone somewhere that they will read it.

So my ordinary life this weekend (I was planning on doing this yesterday but had one of those I cannot get motivated to get up and pee type of days) – Let’s begin with Friday, because Friday was rather out of the ordinary and therefore makes a nice starting place – I had that opportunity to “receive” another volunteer reward from the Avalanche in the form of tickets for pom pom placement (we were cautioned that the seats wouldn’t be quite as nice as the Wed night seats, but really it was game 4 of the playoffs, like seat location was the foremost thing on our minds) – so I allowed two of my children to ditch school – that’s right they ditched, with my blessing, I called them in and everything – and they helped me with the pom poms – three people, 2 tickets each = 6 tickets – oh did I mention that the kids couldn’t go to the game and neither could the husband? – yeah so I planned a girls night out with the sisters-in-law and mother-in-law (she really loves hockey). So I called the MIL (mother-in-law) first and she was quite excited about the whole thing. Then I took the kids back home so they could eat lunch and I could pick up the phone numbers that I had forgotten in my morning haste – one for the tie dye store and one for the HS friend that I had a lunch date with. Then I hit the road again – on the phone nearly the whole time trying to arrange this whole hockey thing, find out where the hippy tie-dye store was, set a firmer time and location for lunch with friend, get back to the MIL re: the tickets a few more times, try to find phone numbers for SILS (sisters-in-law) while in the car, etc – I made it to the hippy store without a problem (good thing I called though, turns out they don’t actually have a sign on their place so you pull into the vacuum store and then keep going to the back of the building). The dye store was kinda fun actually, though I’m not sure I ever met a hippy / fascist before (fascist being loosely translated as dictatorial/belligerent and unhappy) – usually people are fairly happy in my company, I seldom get the impression that I have actually irritated someone – well I got the impression that I irritated him – maybe he didn’t like my “stupid” act – it wasn’t really an act, I really am stupid about tie-dying, because I don’t have to be smart about it, I have a friend who is an expert and I knew she would hold my hand. Actually he seemed to be very take aback by my use of the word ‘groovy’ which is actually my normal vernacular – I think he thought I was a poser – which really I’m not, I don’t pretend to be a hippy at all, I just like the word ‘groovy’ always have, probably always will, well I do have some Birkenstocks, seldom wear much makeup, never do much with my long hair, but I’m not a hippy, nor do I pretend to be. So anyhow, I got my dyes and my chemicals and I was off on my way to lunch with my HS friend. We met at about 1pm, really a little after, and we stayed until like 4pm!! I think I monopolized the conversation, and I was really hyped up for some reason, maybe all the exercise climbing around the Pepsi Center, maybe all the excitement of all the phone calls back and forth trying to put six people together for the game, maybe I breathed in something funny at the dye store… However, I really enjoyed my lunch, discovered that indeed we have an awful lot of the same ideas about kids, marriage, etc. – I learned some about her family, etc. – which now that I’ve had a couple of settled days, I have more questions about, maybe she will be willing to do a lunch again (unless maybe I was just irritating all day and I put her off also?) - well anyhow, I really enjoyed my lunch and it affirmed that some people, no matter how long you go between seeing each other, there is always that basic comfort, we told one another some kinda private stuff – so that trust from Jr. High was still intact, and that was nice to reflect on later. She also got a rare glimpse at my selfish side, that selfishness that didn’t want to stop having lunch to pick up kids, take them to the doctor, or arrange for those hockey tickets much. I managed to get the boy taken to the doctor by dad, the oldest daughter (the one that didn’t ditch) picked up by a friend, and the MIL arranged the 6th ticket. I sat and drank a glass of wine, had a cup of espresso, and thoroughly enjoyed my friend. After lunch, I raced home, got ready for the hockey game, got the girls a ride to their activity, wished the boy and the husband good luck at the baseball game, talked the husband into trading me cars so that all six of us could fit in one vehicle and not pay out the wazoo for parking ($20/car). Got myself to my MIL’s house only a few minutes late, everyone else was there, we had a beer and then we were off to the game. The game sorta sucked, but it was great fun being out with the girls and my MIL really enjoyed herself! HOLY CRAP – Friday took a whole page – and we still have Saturday and Sunday, hmmmph – and I have to get some work done, they are just going to have to wait until well… until whenever. Ciao.