Last one Standing

Not all sibling relationships are harmonious. I have gone for years with out uttering a word to my siblings. To some people this would be an ideal relationship, to other people it would be a nightmare. It all depends on the sort of relationship you have with your siblings.

My brother and I have figured this whole sibling relationship out. The goal is to be the last one standing. As far as we know we are the only two left.  The youngest brother passed on a little over a year ago  and the oldest sister is presumed to have passed on.  We are not entirely sure if she was eaten by wild dogs or just went to commune with the nature.  Either way, I am not going camping anytime soon, (I read Wytches,  I know what to expect.)

There are rules to being the last wizard standing.  (Wizard, sibling... Same thing) It is much like the assassins guild, it is going to take a fair amount of planning and elegance.  You can't just up and knife them in the spleen, you have to get away cleanly also with nothing linking you to that life exipiration date.  That is where elegance and planning come into play. 

My brother and I have a birthday in the same month and this latest attempt on both our parts was perfect. Birthday gifts are the gifts that keep on giving.  It was the if I give you the tools, you will do it your self, in a Darwin Awards sort of way plan that both of us had, that left me laughing at our genius. 

For my birthday my brother sent me a grow your own mushroom kit and assured me that they were edible. It could be considered a thoughtful gift, considering my love for cooking and love for mushrooms, or it could be a subtle way of me poisoning myself, because after all, he didn't make me eat the mushroom, just gave me to the tools to grow it.  It would be my fault, because every one knows you just don't eat random mushrooms.  Clever my brother is. 

For his birthday I got him nunchucks and a set of sais. I could be the best sister in the world, because I know that he needs to embrace his inner Ninja Turtle and the only way to do that is to be armed like a Ninja Turtle.  Or I could be devious and have given him instruments of bodily destruction that if he tries to use them, he could hurt himself.  Sneaky I am.  

I feel like it was a stalemate this round, both of us will survive these gifts, but it has given me some new ideas for the next gift giving holiday.  I am hoping this is a long drawn out game of last wizard standing, because the best part is seeing what the next move is. 

No Such Thing as a Bad Card

There is something wonderful about receiving a birthday card in the mail.  It shows that the person was thinking of you and that they took the time to show you in a tangible way.  It shows that you are valued and can turn a bad day into something better. 

There is no such thing as a bad card.  One of my best friends decided to test that theory and send me the exact number of cards to the number of birthday years I was celebrating  over the period of my birthday month. I had no idea what I was in for.

There are a whole lot more cheesy birthday cards than I had ever expected.  I received cards with cats on them, cards with words of flattery and plenty of cake and good wishes.  There was glitter and humor and then really puny stuff.  I am pretty sure the cards all ranged from the good, the bad and the ugly cliche. There came a point that my husband asked if birthday cards were my thing because he was getting tired of finding them tucked in odd areas of the house. 

The best thing about the cards is not in the volume that I received or in the quality of their cheese, but in the fact that my friend took the time to write a personal message in each and every one of the cards that she sent.  Some of the cards had random thoughts that were in her head and other talked about past adventure, but all of the cards received that personal touch. It is that personal touch that made it awesome. It didn't matter if she sent one card or thirty four it was the gift of prose that made me smile from my head to my toes. 

Savoring Conversations

I love having conversations with my father. Having a conversation with my father at times is like waiting for a comedian to deliver a punch line.  I never know where the conversation is going to go, and it always leaves me laughing and sometimes banging my head on a hard surface.

Dad: I wanted pancakes for dinner but I wanted them savory.  More dinner like, less breakfast like,

Me: Did you put bacon or sausage in it?

Dad: Nah, I had pepper jack cheese and put about half a cup in the batter.

Me: Pepper Jack Cheese?

Dad: Yep, I didn't want it too spicy just wanted it savory.

Me: How did that turn out? 

Dad: It wasn't  that bad. The pepper jack was really subtle and you could hardly taste it.

Me: I could see how that would work some what.  I am thinking cheddar bay biscuits.  Pancakes have all the same components. 

Dad: I think that if I do it again I won't use cinnamon pancake mix. 

What's That Word Again?

I had this moment where I was trying to describe something and the word I wanted to use escaped my brain before it left the lips.  I don’t even remember what I was trying to describe, because my brain has begun to obsess over the word that I can’t remember, that I know I know. It is as if my vocabulary that seldom gets used decided to stage a revolt.  Or perhaps my ultra-hip teenage niece is right and big words are beyond me. (I doubt this is the case.)

Looking up what I thought the word was, to see if I was correct proved to be a dead end.  I think the word had something to do with morph in it, or at least it sounded like it had in it, but for all I know I could have been pronouncing it wrong in my brain.  The on line dictionary didn’t help much.

It gave me the following words with a brief definition for my consideration:

Anamorphic: intentional distortion of an image

Pathomorphology: morphology of abnormal conditions

Polymorphic: organism having more than one adult form. 

I tried composing letters to friends to see if my brain would unlock and fill in the blank, but had no luck. I am going to have some very confused friends in the next couple of days as they start getting rambling letters from me testing out vocab words.  My next  course of action is to fall asleep and hope that it comes to me in a dream, because some of my best ideas come to me when my subconscious rules, either that or I am just going to have to accept that surest way drive me to the brink of insanity is to think that I know something that I can’t remember. 

Princess Ugg

I am trying to catch up on my comics. I have a to be read pile next to the bed that if it toppled could hurt the cat. Half of the pile is comics and half books that have peaked my interest. I don't remember if I actually ever finished a post I was going to write about on Princess Ugg.  I remember starting it and perhaps I lost it in an email to myself, or perhaps I put it off until I got the second volume. 

I love Princess  Ugg by Ted Naifeh.  The art by Warren Wucinich  is superb and the story makes me smile and warms some of those dark corners of my heart. I love comics, but when you read some of the female characters, they tend to be a little flat in most areas except for the chest and fall into stereotypes.  Not all comics are this way and the female role in comics in general has evolved a lot over the years. Princess Ugg is another step in that evolution.   

The beauty of Princess Ugg is that despite the fact that it is a story that has to do with a gaggle of princesses and one princess that doesn't quite fit in with the rest of them, it is really a story about the art of diplomacy and how finding the right way to do things is not always the easiest way to do things. I think that is a good lesson to remember no matter what age you attain.  I would highly recommend picking up both volumes of Princess Ugg and adding it to your library. It is a good read for all ages. 

Hot Metal Chicken

Do you ever have one of those moments where you find something funny and you are pretty sure that no one else is going to find it even half as funny as it is to you? Yeah. I seem to have a lot of those moments. 

A Christmas not too long ago my grandmother had gifted me a bottle of perfume.  I don't wear a lot of perfume, because I hate trying to find a scent that I like and going into a perfume store is an instant migraine. I was surprised at the gift (and hoping it was a subtle hint that I stunk).   It was the name of the bottle that caused my mental funny bone to kick in.

I follow The Bloggess.  I read her blog, follower her on Twitter and I have gifted her books more than once. There is a lovely antidote about perspective that involves a six foot tall metal chicken called Beyoncé that is one of my favorite posts and one that has been most shared among my group of friends.  The only reason I bring it up, is that the perfume my grandmother picked up for me was Beyoncé Heat.  All I can think about when I pick up the bottle  and spritz it on my collar line is that I am going to smell like a hot metal chicken and then I start snickering.  I am sure that my grandmother picked it out for it's light citrus scent with a slight honeysuckle  glow, but it doesn't matter to me.  It is my hot metal chicken perfume and I rock that chicken. 

Distance

I wrote and then rewrote a post on distance. I wanted to wax poetically about how grateful I am to be able to look back on things and see how far I have come.  Every time I would sit down to write about it, I would mentally distract myself with something else.  Oh look, my Pinterest board is feeling lonely, or look I have another life in Fruit Ninja was becoming a common place thing.   It is amazing that I could have something plotted out in my head and half convinced that I want to write about it, and then when I sit down to do so, I have utter and complete writers block and just get angry and pessimistic about the words that do come out. 

It wasn’t until I was writing out post cards to my friend Steph, that I figured out how to wrangle myself in, and found the perfect way to approach the subject of distance, by not talking about distance. I have a bad habit of putting myself into a box and not knowing how to get out of it. 

My husband had given me a book of science fiction movie poster postcards, and one of the first post cards was of Bela Lugosi‘s Dracula, which made me think of my friend, Steph.  A long time ago when there were still VHS tapes that could be rented, Steph and I had grabbed two pints of Ben & Jerry’s (Phish Food & Cherry Garcia if memory serves) and rented Dracula 2000.   

I don’t really like horror movies.  Or maybe I just don’t like the suspense and anticipation and possible over the top gore unless it is funny. There is something about the music that sets me on edge and gets me all wound up. Most of my friends have realized this over the years that spooky mood music will make me jittery and horror movies tend to have a plethora of mood music.  Based on the cover, Dracula 2000 looks like a horror movie.  It is dark and broody and has a gothic Gerald Butler on the cover.  

To combat my jitters, Steph had purposed a compromise.  We would fast forward through the parts that had potential to be scary and then rewind and watch them when we knew what would happen, so that they no long held the horror factor. (Writing this out, makes me feel like a VHS player commercial, and a really bad one at that. Do people even know how VHS works now?)  It took about three hours to watch movie and we probably spent half that time laughing and rewinding. 

A week or so ago I was flipping through Netflix and Dracula 2000 came up.  I was feeling nostalgic and put it on.  The shortest distance between years is a good memory and a bad movie. Laughter bubbled out of me as I recalled how ridiculous it was to take three hours to watch the movie, and snorted at some of the stars what recent films they are in now. (Nathan Fillion, I am not sure you were supposed to be making me laugh as hard as you did, but thank you for your enthusiasm in Dracula 2000).