365: Poppies!

California poppies are one of the few flowers I like and appreciate. I don't really care about flowers all that much. I mean, I'm not like DIE FLOWERS DIE, but they're just whatevs. Except for poppies. They make me super happy for some reason. Maybe they are one of the few things I associate with memories from when I was a kid besides my family and the beach. I have a shit memory and can barely remember things that happened last year much less 30 years ago. But I remember being fascinated by poppies when I was little. If you aren't aware, California poppies close up at night into little buds and spread open wide when the sun comes up. That's just so cool.

Today was gray and overcast so this little poppy field in the middle of campus had mostly closed buds. I snapped this right before I had to go in and bust heads with the people trying to ruin our Africa trip. Good thing I saw these first.

365: Last Day!

Today was the last full day of my dad and stepmom's visit with us. We are sad to see them go but know they're ready to go home! We'll see them again in a few months.

On our last day we were busy, busy, busy! We saw lots of sights, had some good food, and enjoyed spending time together. One of my favorite parts of the day was getting Thrifty Ice Cream with them! When I was little my dad worked at Thrifty and when we went to see him at work he'd always give a scoop of ice cream! This was the first time we've ate Thrifty Ice Cream together in over 20 years! Good memories with my pop :)

Old School Style: Fort Building

Ange made plans to go hang out with her bff Prem so I of course made plans to hang out with my bff Leslie. She had to work all day and I didn't so she put me in charge of making plans for the evening. I hate making plans. But since I had all day I decided I could tackle the job. I decided if I made a big list of things we commonly do, then at least I could force Leslie into helping me make decisions. Knowing my sister's fondness for things organized and also goofy I came up with a "Things to do Ballot." I can't lie, it is awesomely nerdy. 

You'll notice near the bottom of the list  I had "Build a cool blanket fort." My sisters and I are pretty much the champions of blanket forts. I think we made approximately 786,570,808,786 forts in our childhood. Leslie and I had been talking about our forts for some time and we had mentioned that we should totally make an adult sized fort soon. BFF night seemed like the perfect idea.

After we did some of the other activities on our list we headed to her house to begin fort building. When we got to her house we decided that we needed some supplies. Namely, pins of some sort to reinforce the blankets and brownie mix. Because duh, what else do you do in a fort?

So we went to Walmart to get some supplies. 

We found some binder clips (which we didn't end up using) and some clothes pins. Both were $1.88. A good investment. We also got our brownie mix and some whip cream, because...yum. We got home and my dorky sister remembered she'd used the last of the eggs the day before. Then I wanted to to kill her. But instead we went back out to get eggs. We didn't want to go to Walmart so we decided to hit the gas station because gas stations often have rations that you would need on a short moment's notice. Well that was a bust. Milk, cream cheese, ice cream...no eggs. Then we drove by the liquor store. Yeah, no luck there either. Then we went to another gas station. GZUS, why doesn't anyone have eggs??? So we went to Meijer. Sigh. We finally got home and mixed the brownies really quick, popped them in the oven and then started fort building. 

She's a maniac with the brownies.

Our starting materials.

I was really worried about ripping the ceiling fan down. It didn't stop me, but I worried. 

Leslie made full use of her clothes pins.

Zoe had no idea what was going on.

Our first peak. 

 

At a certain point you have to maneuver carefully to arrange blankets. 

Lots of giggling ensued throughout the 45 minute building experience. 

The cord to the lamp provided a great storage place for our emergency fix it pins inside the fort.

Unintentionally the fort became more teepee like. We left it because it was funny. 

We decided we needed to do some union inspections in honor of Clint. 

 

One thing we didn't have in the olden days: a ginormous flat screen tv. Funsies.

 

The final view from one side. 

The final view from the other side.

Leslie and Zoe were ready for movie & brownie time. 

And then Clint the ruiner of everything good came home and almost destroyed everything. Luckily we shrieked enough that Godzilla was paralyzed and repairs were quickly made.

Clint joined us in the fort to watch the end of Unstoppable. And then promptly fell asleep. Lame-o. 

Yay for for building!!!

"Strings are your kryptonite"

Tonight Ange and I were driving around town when I noticed this string hanging off my glove. 

I hate strings.

Haaaaaaate.

They drive me nuts. 

NUTS.

So of course, I pulled it. I tried to do it so neatly so it would just come off and stop bothering me and nothing would go wrong. 

DAMN.

Things always go wrong when they involve strings.

I immediately sent the picture to my mom along with a "Whoops. I accidentally pulled a string."

My mom hates when I pull strings. 

When I was little I was always pulling strings. And my mom was always getting mad. Mostly because they ended up like the above picture. 

And then one day? I pulled a string on my tights and to my surprise it ripped all the way around my leg and the lower half of my tight fell down to the ground. Whoops. Mom was way pissed about that one. But also? Secretly feeling all sorts of hysterical laughter. 

Tonight we were texting back and forth about why I shouldn't have pulled the string on my glove. And she said "Strings are your kryptonite." She's totally right. I am weak where strings are concerned. Even though it overwhelmingly ends up like the above I always hope that it won't. That I will pull the string and it will come off and it won't leave a hole and I won't be bothered by the string anymore. That rarely happens. But still I pull. I srsly can't help myself. The string just calls my name. It BEGS me to pull it. I obsess over the string. Obsess until I can't take it anymore. And then I pull it. Most of the time that is a major failure in my plan. Every once in a while it works out. It's kind of like a gambling addiction. I keep thinking I'm going to win. But usually I just end up with a hole in my clothes or perhaps even a cut on my finger (true story: one time I tried to pull a string off the upholstery of my car and it sliced my finger open). My mom always asks me why I don't cut the strings. As if I carry scissors around with me all the time. As if I am patient enough to wait. Or motivated enough to go get the scissors. A quick tug is so much easier. 

Damn strings.

My Sister and I Shared A Bed for About 7 Years

And not because we were some poor kids struggling or anything. It was mostly by choice.

She had her own bed in her own room. We just shared a bed in my room. I know, this sounds weird. And I guess it kind of was, but whatever. That's why we're BFFs now. Sister bond!

So Leslie was a sloppy pig when she was little. She hated to clean her room and it was always, as my parents put it, a "pig sty." One night, when I think I was a sophomore in high school, which would make Leslie a 6th grader, my sister's room was such a disgusting mess she couldn't even get into her bed. She didn't feel like clearing enough space off of her bed to get into it so she asked if she could spend the night in my room. I said fine.

Well, she never left.

Never.

We slept in the same bed for the rest of the time I was in high school. And then when I left for college she moved her crap into my room. And when I came home from school on break, I would sleep in the now her room that was really my room that she took over. But always in the same bed.

We didn't stop sharing a bed until we moved to our new house after our dad got remarried. I don't know why we did, but I guess since we had new bedrooms and Leslie's was clean since she just moved into it she decided to give it a go. That's the only reason I can think of.

Anyway, I know it sounds strange but Leslie and I are not really loners. We like to be with people and don't like to be alone too much. Sometimes, but not really that much. And it was pretty much like having a sleepover every single night. Normally you can only attend sleepovers on the weekends right? Well not when you share a bed with your sister!

I think my dad tried to get her to clean her room and sleep back in her room but that didn't happen. Sadly my dad was overwhelmed with the estrogen in his house and rarely succeeded in getting us to do things we were dead set against.

So there you have it. Rationale (or at least explanation) for why were are BFFs and perhaps why we are so weird.

The Clutcheon

I got my first for real car (yes I had a for fake car for first but that's a different story all together) right after I turned 18 and had decided to go to college 8 hours away from home. My dad was not so happy about this decision but he had long ago realized that his eldest daughter was a strange, strange child who was oh so different from him and that sense could not be talked into me so instead he gave up and bought me a car so he did not have to drive back and forth several times a year fetching me from my very far away from home school. Win! Sometimes it pays to be difficult and random. 

Sidebar: My father is not a good communicator. At all. We once drove 18 hours in a car together and "chatted" for no more than 20 minutes the entire trip. The rest of the communication was:

• "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" 
• "Are you hungry?"
• "We need gas."
• "I love this song."

And I am SO not even kidding. Not even one iota. I almost died on that trip. I also realized on that trip that my dad was way weird. Like not normal "my-dad-is-weird" kind of weird. But like whoa, clinical weird. That's another story for another day. I love my dad and he is way awesome in so many ways, but he is also way weird.

So I got home from school and my dad says "Get in the car. We're going to buy you a car." This was the first I had heard that I was getting a car. For a normal person this might be completely jarring. I however had spent my entire life with this strange non-communicative man so I was not floored. A little surprised yes, but not shocked.

So we go to a used car dealership near our house and my dad inquires about two different cars that he had apparently researched on Consumer Reports (his favorite magazine ever). We took said two cars for a test drive. However these two cars were manual transmissions and I did not know how to drive a manual so my dad test drove them and I rode in the backseat. Yes, again, this is normal. 

My dad settles on the black Geo Prizm. It is cute and it is mine. That's all that matters. Now I can't drive this car so my dad decides to give me a "driving lesson" before we head home. And by driving lesson I mean he sat in the front passenger seat and screamed at me while I drove like a blind lunatic with whiplash. It was not good. We got in the car and he handed me the key. I put it in the ignition and turned the key. Nothing happened. I didn't know why. My dad helpfully says "WELL! You have to push on the clutch to start it!" And I'm like "What's a clutch?" He sighs loudly (cause clearly I am the incompetent one) and says "It's that pedal next to the brake." Luckily this is not my first "figure it out yourself" scenario so I somehow manage to figure out the two footed driving thing. My dad is oh so helpful by again screaming at me while I alternate between pushing the clutch too hard and zooming the engine and pushing it not hard enough and killing the car and/or grinding the gears. I somehow manage to move the car towards the direction of my sister's school where she is in the middle of softball practice. 

We somehow managed to not hit any red lights until we were right in front of the school. When I pull up to the school I kill the car HARD because I did not know I had to keep my foot on the clutch when I stopped. My dad screamed his favorite question in life "WELL WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?" and at this point I was so frazzled I screamed right back "BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT CAR AND YOU ARE NOT HELPING!!!" He sighs again and says I am being dramatic and it is not hard. He is oh so helpful and encouraging sometimes.

So we get to my sister's school and he hops out to watch softball practice and instructs me to drive behind the school to the large parking lot and practice. And try not to kill any track runners I suppose. So I drive behind the school and kill the car about 487 times and worry that I will never be able to drive this car and I will be a failure at life and my dad will be screaming at me forever. 

Finally it's time to leave and I whiplash us back to the dealership to pick up my dad's car all the while my sister is complaining LOUDLY that I'm hurting her neck and that I suck at driving. Hate little sisters sometimes. 

For the next few weeks my sisters delight in my less than awesome driving skills and nickname me and my car "The Clutcheon." I do not really know what this means but it's definitely not a compliment and makes me annoyed every time they scream "THERE GOES THE CLUTCHEON!" every time I leave in my car. 

Eventually I learned to drive a manual transmission car very well. And eventually my sister got a manual transmission car and my dad "taught" her how to drive too. Payback is a bitch. Ahahaha.

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old...

My sister recently wrote about her time in the Girl Scouts and now I have Make New Friends stuck in my head. Which brings me to the subject of friends. I have a couple of things to say about this topic, but in the interest of not writing marathon posts I've decided to break them up.
 

Recently my dearest BIL told my sister she needed to get friends other than me. As if! She had to patiently explain to him that it is just coincidence that two of the awesomest people on the planet happen to be sisters and naturally, when two awesome people find each other they are of course going to be friends. So get over it. We are bffs and always will be. 

There are several good things about having your bff being also your sister. There is nearly a complete lack of formality. My sister doesn't have to clean up her house to have me over, I don't have to worry about wearing dirty sweatpants over to her house, I can call her and say "Hey, I'm around the corner from your school and I need to get some groceries, wanna go to Target with me?" And the list goes on and on.

Another good thing (at least for us) is that you can never really get mad at your sister bff. Even if we are being annoying to each other we get over it in about 5 minutes. Hello, she's my sister. Like I could ever hate her guts. And if we do get annoyed with each other we can just get out of each other's way for a little bit and it's not a big stinking deal. We just call each other later. Not that we really ever get in fights. Like I said before, we're awesome. 

My final point: we have a shared history. We've spent all of our lives together. This allows us to speak almost in code; certain phrases and words that mean nothing to other people bring back memories and context for us (e.g. "Get your own bagel boy!" or "HILLS!!!"). I almost always know where she's coming from and she gets things about me that no one else would. 

I know not everyone has this relationship with their sisters. And I know that I specifically mention my sister Leslie in this post but I also have the same relationship with Hilary. She just lives farther away and is younger so the relationship is slightly different, but still strong. It makes me sad that others don't have the same relationship with their sisters. Most of the best memories and moments of my life include my sisters. So even if I have other friends, and even if I meet new friends, my sisters will always, always be two of my best friends.

Look at Him's Hair!

When I was little we only had one car. My dad drove it to work which left my mom and I (and eventually my sisters) to bee-bop around town on our bikes or on the public buses. We lived in a hippie town in the 80's and this was normal. 

One time when I was about 4 my mom and I were riding the bus. We sat near the front because duh, who wants to wrangle a squirrely little kid more than a few rows of seats? 

We pulled up to the bus stop and since we were so close to the front my mom could see out the front window and at this stop she immediately thought "SHIT" to herself. Why shit? Because getting ready to get on the bus was a larger black man who was wearing a flowy type Jesus robe and carrying a staff. To top it off he also had very thick and pouffy dreadlocks down to his waist. 

Obviously my mom knew me well. She knew I would NOT be able to let this man pass by without comments. Fairly sure they would be LOUD comments. 

Well luckily, I did not fail her. 

When black rasta-Jesus got on the bus I sucked in my breath and my mouth flew open...and my mom tried to squelch my words by pulling my close and whisper threatening that "We can talk about this LATER." 

Um, yeah right. 

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! LOOK AT HIM'S HAIR!"

(Apparently I didn't notice the staff and Jesus robe, just the hair)

"Yes honey, I saw him. Let's talk about what books we're going to get at the library!"

"BUT MOOOOOOOOM! HIM'S HAIR!!!"

"Yes, honey, we can talk about it later."

"BUT..."

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Luckily our new friend just gave us the peace sign and continued on his way to another row far away from the spastic screaming child.

The Troll Haired Somalian

When our baby sister was little, she was subjected to a lot of torture by me and Leslie. Like Leslie says, it's nothing personal, it was just the natural birth order of things. She was little and mousy and we were bigger and meaner and we spent a lot of time together. Sworry sisto. 

One of Hilary's nicknames when she was little was "The Troll Haired Somalian." Troll hair because, well, her hair was always looking like a troll. She has very fine hair that has a tendency to get all fuzzy easily and she was never really a fan of a hairbrush. And she always has been a fan of naps and sleeping. SO she would fall asleep and brush her head up against things like you would do with a balloon if you wanted to make your hair stand straight up. She didn't probably want it to stick straight up, but it did anyway. I've illustrated some examples for you to judge with your own eyes. 

Troll:

Troll haired Hilary for fakesies:

Troll haired Hilary for realsies:

Sidenote: Our dad also let her dress in very unfortunate clothes. I tried, really I did, but to no avail. Hence the monstrosity in this picture.

See the similarities? I think so.

So now that we have that part covered, we can move on to the Somalian part. Even as younger versions of ourselves we were very politically aware. The Somalian civil war broke out in 1991 and that's when we started seeing horrible pictures of starving Somali children all over the news. When Hilary was little she was very thin. Like underweight legitimately. She was the smallest kid in the school in kindergarten I'm pretty sure. So being politically aware but still pretty much jerks we identified our scrawny little sister with the starving Somali children we saw on tv all the time.

Ta-da! Troll haired Somalian!

Makeovers with Dad

Sometimes my dad makes me crazy. We fight like cats and dogs, but deep down, we love each other so much. Even when he's being annoying, I can't forget all the wonderful things about him.

Like makeovers.

My dad used to let us give him makeovers all the time when we were little.

I'm not talking "let's get you out of those old man shorts and into some cool running pants" makeovers. I'm talking about putting bows and clips and pony tails all over his head.

We had this awesome couch (as an aside: that our wicked StepMonster mother got rid of when they moved into their new house. She said it was all junky or something. As if!) that had a really low back. It was a cool retro 80's couch. Anyway, it hit our dad just below his shoulders leaving the back of his head completely exposed and accessible.

My dad is and always has been OBSESSED with watching sports on tv. If dad was watching tv he didn't really care what we were doing besides NOT being loud and screaming in his face. One of our favorite things to do was give him gorgeous makeovers.

My sisters and I would put little pony tails and barrettes and bows all over the back of his head. As long as we didn't giggle too much he could have cared less. It was awesome. I wish I had a picture of him, but sadly, I don't.

This is the best I could do:

You wish your paint skills were as awesome as mine.

Wednesdays with Grannie: Puzzles!

My grannie LOVES puzzles. She is a master puzzler. Every since I can remember she's been known to have several puzzles up per year on a card table in her living room. Anyone can contribute to the puzzle you just sit on down and start looking. When I was little I loved to help her. Somewhere along the way I realized I thought puzzles were kind of boring and I didn't really enjoy them so much. But no matter how I feel about puzzles personally, there's always something nice about sitting down with Gram to work on a puzzle for a little while. She especially likes it when I cheer for myself about how awesome I am at finding pieces. Think full out Super Bowl touchdown victory dance. It cracks her up. For the rest of my life, whenever I see a puzzle, I'll think of my grannie.

Unicorns

When I was younger I was OBSESSED with unicorns. I had the largest porcelain/glass/figurine collection in California I'm pretty sure. At some point I think I was embarrassed by the collection and sold them in a garage sale. Damn pressure to conform during adolescence. I'd kill for it now.

I went looking for pictures of unicorns for this blog and you'd probably be amazed at how many pictures of unicorns and unicorn paraphernalia you can find out on the interwebs.

Cute unicorns:

Unicorn t-shirts (totally would have worn this when I was little):

Unicorn bandaids (I would have KILLED for these):

Lots of media-related to unicorns (including my FAV movie The Last Unicorn):

TONS of unicorn tattoos...sidenote, Ange totally convinced me at one point that she was getting a unicorn tattoo. I was both thrilled and scared all at the same time:

And quite possibly my favorite find, A Last Unicorn dress:

Let's declare this National Unicorn Day! It might be just me celebrating but yay anyway!

Wednesdays with Grannie

My grandma has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. It wasn't really a shock because her mother had dementia and eventually Alzheimer's and for the past year or so my grannie's memory has been in the shitter. It started out with little forgetful things and has charged into repetitive stories and questions that loop over and over and over again. It's both annoying and sad and everyone seems to be dealing with it in different ways. I have a very high tolerance for annoyance so I can hang out with gram and hear the same 3 stories 187 times in a few hours and answer the same 5 questions every 10 minutes and not get too frustrated. Others can't but they do their best. 

In addition to her deteriorating mental state, her little body is getting worn out too. She's been having some back issues that have led to some walking issues and pain but overall she's still sputtering along with the help of a walker for balance. My aunt lives next door and shoulders most of the "burden" of helping care for her. When I got home from Nigeria I realized how much pressure she was under so I volunteered to help her out one day a week for a few hours. So every Wednesday I hang out with grannie from around 2 pm until about 8:30 pm. Sometimes she has doctor's appointments to go to or shopping to do, but most of the time we just hang out at her house and watch tv and chat. 

My family recently decided to talk to her about moving to assisted living. She's on a lot of different medications and with her memory problems they are worried about her overdosing or harming herself in other ways. While they figure all of these things out we continue with our weekly hangouts. I know that things could progress quickly so I wanted to take some time to blog about my gram so I'll have some happy memories to think about when things take a turn for the not so happy. 

I've been thinking about this for a while but just haven't gotten around to posting so I have a few posts in mind from the past few months which will hopefully carry me through even if I don't get any fresh ideas every week. But my gram is hilarious and chatty so I'm sure I won't have too many problems coming up with new material. Looking forward to next Wednesday!

WHY WON'T YOU EAT YOUR SANDWICHES???

My mom & stepdad left to go home to California today. Boo, sad face. While we were driving them to the airport my sister and I were chatting and reminiscing about the good old days and I was reminded of a funny story that would make a great blog post. 

Leslie and I have always been outgoing and social. Hilary on the other hand was always clingy, shy and wimpery and never wanted to let go of our mom's legs. So imagine my mom's surprise when Hilary went off to school and at the first parent-teacher conference and heard that shy little Hilary was actually out-going and even sometimes pesty to other kids! Who knew???

An additional sidenote: both of my sisters were/are the pickiest eaters on the planet. Leslie continues to be picky but Hilary thankfully has grown out of it and is now pretty adventurous. However, during childhood both of my sisters packed lunch Every. Single. Day. Because apparently school food = death.

Hilary's apparent transformation into social butterfly meant that she talked way more than she'd eat when she was at school. Every day when she'd come home from school dad would unpack her lunchbox and would find that she'd eaten less than half of what he'd packed her in the morning. So EVERY day he'd lecture her about eating her lunch and not wasting food. And EVERY day she'd bring home her damn lunchbox with half of the food still inside. Leslie and I would be like HELLO? Throw it away at school and stop bringing it home! But apparently that never occurred to our genius sister while at school. She was probably too busy chatting with friends to remember. When she would remember that dad would be mad she would try and dispose of the evidence but in her again genius-y way she would throw them in the kitchen trash where dad would see it or in her bedroom where it would be eventually found. And then she'd get yelled at again. Sigh. 

Well one day dad had apparently had enough. He was unpacking her lunchbox and discovered her uneaten peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Rather than launching into the same-old lecture he turns around and screeches "WHY WON'T YOU EAT YOUR SANDWICHES???" 

And then...

HE FLINGS THE SANDWICH AT HER.

Srsly. He whipped the sandwich from the lunchbox and into her shoulder where it landed with a soft thud. He was about 10 feet away and it was a PB&J so it wasn't like he was being abusive but she of course starts sobbing her face off and Leslie and I fall over dead with laughter. Of course our peals of laughter anger my dad who sends us to our room while he finishes his eat-your-lunch lecture with Hilary. 

It wasn't one of his best parenting moments, but it was certainly one of the most memorable. To this day we still re-enact the scenario complete with awesome sound effects. THWAP! Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Ahahahaha.