Lumpkin Jennings

I have known Lumpkin Jennings since I was a little kid.  She used to live down the street from me, but we were mortal enemies at the time.  I have a distinct memory of her eating candy at the bus stop in the morning, and my parents have confirmed this.  Laffy Taffy or some sort of chocolate.  Maybe marshmallows.  I also have a weird memory of her standing there at that same bus stop having a daddy-long-legs crawling on her, like on her head, and she didn't know it was there.  I do not know if that memory is real or not.  Either way, she is still eating candy at inappropriate times, and is often infested with insects, so not much has changed in that respect.

Anyway, we were enemies back then.  Or at least that is how I remember it.  I remember stealing Lumpkin's Silly Putty and walking around the neighborhood squishing ants into it, so that it was like a ball of ant corpses. I thought this was the most evil thing you could do to a person.  The sad part was, I brought this up to her years later and she had absolutely no clue what I was talking about. However, she did have a serious fear of ants at some point afterward, so maybe I had a subtle influence.

I don't really know why we were enemies, there was no actual event that I can recall.  It was a neighborhood gang rivals thing, us verse them.  I was friends with a few girls on the street, and then Lumpkin was friends with this other girl.  Once one of the girls in my gang pushed Lumpkin off the monkey bars in someone's backyard, and Lumpkin broke her arm!  The other girls were better at evil doing than I was, apparently. (We are all still friends to this day).

Time passed, we moved away from each other, then close to each other again, then we became reacquainted in Hebrew School! And then we became real friends! I remember thinking Lumpkin had the BEST style.  This is hilarious, because this was like 1995-1996, when bell bottoms and polyester clothing, and peace signs and ying yangs were totally awesome and cool for middle schoolers.  Lumpkin had things from Contempo, and other mall stores, and she was one bad ass mothaa fucka!!  She had a pair of silver platform sneakers.  She was my hero.

She taught me how to get in trouble in Hebrew School. We had middle school dramas, we went to sleep-away camp and had sleepover parties.  At camp, her travel trunk was completely full of snack foods, and midway through the summer, it started to reek with the most disgusting stench.  It ended up sitting outside the bunk house on a giant rock for a week.  Favorite sleepover prank:  Get underwear wet and stick them in the freezer!

At some point, her parents went away on a vacation and she was alone, so she ate nothing but Pez purchased from JoAnn Fabric's for a week.  As a result, she developed some sort of weird growth on the inside of her mouth.  She still appears to subsist on nothing but Pez, Symphony bars, white cheddar popcorn, marshmallows, sardines and samples from Whole Foods.

One time, she got us all in her car and wouldn't tell us where she was taking us.  It was a surprise.  We ended up at her orthodontist's office, where she was getting a new retainer made.  Thanks a lot, Lumpkin!   She had a lot of retainers back then because she would lose them regularly.  I remember one had a teddy bear sticker inside of it, and one was colored like a watermelon with seeds and everything.  

Once she was at my house, cutting her toenails. She left them scattered on my bed, so I put them in a baggy and sent them to her in the mail.  I think she appreciated it.

She broke her face at some point when she slipped in the bathroom, and has a metal plate in her cheek.  She also almost lost her left hand in a car accident, and was not even squeamish about the GRUESOME pictures of her opened flesh.  Imagining her with a hook instead of a hand is only somewhat disturbing.  She could totally pull it off.  Later, she was upset that her incredible, hot-orange Member's Only jacket had to be cut off of her and was covered in blood, rendering it unwearable in the future.

Her survival in general is somewhat of a medical mystery.

In summary,
Lumpkin Jennings is TOTALLY AWESOME and I LOVE HER!!!!

HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY!!!!

TURTLE PEOPLE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN!!! (Kerrturtle)

Dispatches from Awesomeville

Having survived the rapture, I am ready to impart some great wisdom I have learned in the past six months living and working in an anonymous city in South Asia. I hope that it is insufferable to all:

• Now that I’m on the exact opposite side of the world, being very, very important, you’d think I’d have better things to do than keep up with media developments from the United States. You, my dear, seriously underestimate my commitment to (obsession with) popular culture. No enforced piracy laws = fifty cent dvd’s = catching up on every tv show people have told me I must watch (my friends have not lied about the awesomeness of the wire, parks and rec, dr. who).

• No matter how sweaty, gross, tired, and frizzy you are, as a white lady, you will get catcalled constantly. It stopped being a compliment pretty quickly, because it has literally no meaning. These boys have the internet; they know what actual hot ladies from the USA look like. They should know better.

• Some things are universally enjoyable, no matter what language you speak. Pixar movies = anyone will love them even if they can’t understand a lick of English. Cute videos of animals on youtube = hours of shared laughter. Fantasia = boring to children in all languages. Curb Your Enthusiasm = pretty sure only appealing to East Coast liberals. Bob Marley = mention his name near the beach and you’ll make really fast friends.

Children being delighted by Toy Story 3

Bob Marley mural. Guess what that hotel is popular for?

• Food Subcategory: (1) Americans do not pickle enough things. You can pickle: garlic, lime, mango, coconut. And it is all delicious! (2) The egg hopper may just be the perfect breakfast food. It is an egg cooked and contained in a round pancake thing- a perfect egg delivery system. (3) cardimum tea makes everything better.

Perfection.

• Your sense of appropriateness can adjust really fast. Here, there aren’t the same hang-ups about being fat and skinny. It’s more like eye colour, where it’s very easily commented on without judgment. So, I can walk into work and have someone say to me “your belly looks big today,” (while pantomiming a fat belly to make their meaning clear because of the language gap) and I can smile and agree that I have put on a coupe of kg instead of locking myself in the bathroom to cry. My tri-shaw driver can ask me my age and after I respond say “oh you look MUCH older” and I can say “thanks” instead of punching him repeatedly. And, when my friends here tell me I look much prettier in my facebook pics from home than I do here, well…. I still tell them to fuck off, because what are friends for?

• I now believe in Jewdar. I was working in a pretty Muslim area a couple of months after I came here, and a man came up to me real close and asked “are you from Israel?” Instead of crapping my pants, I said “No. America,” and he moved on (I don’t think most people here get that Jews can live in other countries too). I’ve had several other experiences throughout the country where men (from here and other countries, Muslim and Christian) have asked me if I was from Israel. For the most part, it hasn’t been threatening (mostly curious), but it does rattle me a bit. I am 95% sure that most of them have never met a Jew in their lives. So, I’m wondering, do Jews just give weird Jewey vibes, or do I have the map of Israel on my face?

• No matter how shitty things get, some people just have a killer sense of humour:

• Monkeys are cute when separated by the protective bars at the zoo, but pretty terrifying when you are surrounded by twenty sets of their little beady, crafty, deceptively strong eyes.

Creepy.

Creepy.

Super creepy.

• Finally, and most importantly: Toilet paper is a precious commodity. Cherish it.

Laundry Day!

Now that I can't write extensively about the rapture anymore because it is sooo passe, I need a new hobby.  One of my old standbys is laundry. Not.  I hate doing laundry, but the problem is, I am really obsessive about it.  Not in any way related to the frequency at which I do laundry, or anything that really has to do with responsibility or cleanliness, but more related to an obsession with my clothing.  It's not even like I have any especially nice clothing, besides lots of overpriced designer jeans that I GOT AT SUCH INCREDIBLE DISCOUNTS (and I try to wash those as little as possible anyway), but I have weird hangups on how certain types of clothing need to be washed.  And really, I only do this for my clothes.  I shrink the hell out of most of my beloved husband's things.

However, Pearce cannot be trusted to know the rules of my garment washing.  Case in point: he put his wool suit pants (DRY CLEAN ONLY, HELLO!) in the dirty clothes hamper.  This resulted in me washing and ruining them, because I blindly throw his stuff in the wash, while meticulously separating, bagging, and line-drying my things. 

So, I do all the laundry because I literally cannot handle the stress of losing control over my babies (i.e. underpants, bras, and other such delicates).  While I will usually check the lint catcher thing for cash (finders keepers!) I don't usually check pockets before washing.  That's the policy, people, deal with it!  And that's where I have gotten into trouble.

As a preface, I need to explain that Pearce prefers to roam the house in his boxers.  I appreciate the view, and it gets him out of doing things like walking the dog.  He is in the habit of walking in the door, and removing his clothes, dropping them as he goes. So sometimes there are shirts and pants in weird places in our house.

The first washing incident was a while ago when I was on a laundry binge, running around, gathering the randomly strewn work clothes.  I snatched up a pair of slacks, shirts, socks, whatever was on the floor.  I washed them with everything else in my basket.  I remember hearing some banging, but I didn't really think much of it. 

I went to put things in the dryer.

There was a cell phone in the bottom of the washing machine.

Pearce had left his phone, which was a really old-school, crappy one, in the pocket of his most recently discarded pants, and so I washed it.  He, of course, told all his coworkers this story, who thought it was SOO hilarious. OO look at your wife doing all your laundry so efficiently that she even gathers your stuff off the floor, and even washes your electronics. How wifely!  Grossly exaggerated.   So yeah, that phone was done.

O and then a little later, I washed his watch in basically the same scenario. WTF! Learn a lesson, husbu!

Pearce's Watch enjoying a day at the water.

The watch, thankfully (since it was a gift from me to him), was okay.

He has since purchased a new cell phone.

The Rapture: Boring

I wonder what happened to Harold Camping.

I'll say it.  The rapture was a real snoozefest around these parts. I didn't see a single soul ascending into the sky to meet Jesus.  I didn't hear the Trump of God, or whatever was supposed accompany the zombie lord when he came to slurp out our entrails.  As I have long suspected, I am living in a town of sinners and non-believers, and most likely you are too.  Therefore, nothing has changed for us yet, on this cheerful day of reckoning. We were basically already suffering here - hell on earth.  No biggie, nothing we aren't used to.

Probably most of the rapturing took place out in the woods, where the true believers must live.  Far away from the antichrist, who lives a few doors down from me.  Non-sinners are total shut-ins.  You have to be in this day and age with Satan at every corner, looking to lure you off the path to holiness.  In conclusion, if you were lame enough to be raptured, I doubt anyone will notice you are gone for a while, except maybe your cats (unless you paid me to watch them for you). 

Still, I am noticing that things are getting worse.  I guess God wants to start small with the suffering, and gradually build it up to apocalyptic levels as we get closer to the End of Days on October 21st. I wonder when we will get to see the Cthulu!  Probably mid-September.

Proof that that the Tribulations have begun:

• Pearce's alarm clock broke!  Sure, it's from like 1970 with that tacky wood paneling and giant analog switches and dials, and I have been begging him to let me get him a new one for ages, but it stopped alarming him!  A sure sign of the antichrist gaining control over the earth, since the antichrist loves sloth and tardiness!
• I just made myself some tea and I accidentally put my hand over the spout in the water boiler, and now my palm is sort of tender from the steam!  Satan would use burning as his torture method of choice, second only to maybe flaying or sodomizing you with a pitchfork.
• I just bought a new leather purse at Marshall's at an amazing price, but got home and noticed it had a tiny blue pen mark on the bottom.  O the indignity!
• The weather is totally gorgeous outside, but I walked through a spiderweb and may have gotten a mosquito bite on my foot when I took the dog out to pee!!! The torturous itching!
• Umm... Gasoline is reallllly expensive?
• Work sucks?
•  
• Hmm

The suffering I must endure for my evil ways!!! ALAS!  Is there still time to repent? Hey JC, let's make a deal.

Pick-Up Lines to Use During the Rapture

Thank you to Colleen Ruddick and her CaaaRazy Coworkers, Lauren Kerr, Josh Wolf, and Nadja Vielot for contributing... 

Is that the Former President!?

"How'd you like a sneak preview of heaven?"

"Still on earth?  You must be a bad girl..."

"How about the only thing that gets left behind tonight is our dignity?"

"Wow, I must have not been as bad as I thought in this life because I am surrounded by angels..."

"Seeing as we're both fucked already..."

"So if there's going to be a second coming tomorrow, want to get the first one out of the way now?"

"So yeah, if I'm not here when you wake up, I ascended into heaven..."

"Let's make like the saved and just ditch all our clothes here?"

"You're making my little Christ rise again..."

"Jesus told me that you and I are supposed to get a head start on re-populating the earth."

"Was that the final tribulation, or did you just rock my world?"

"Did it hurt...(Did what hurt?)... When your insides were vaporized as you rose into heaven?"

"The Rapture must have come early because I WANT TO EAT YOUR BRAAAAAAAINS!"

"I can totally see up your skirt as you rise up in the air to meet Jesus."

"No such thing as a morning after pill tonight, baby."

"Just this one time, let me rapture in your mouth."

"Is that the Lord Himself descending from heaven with a shout, or did you just light up my world?"

Cool Things!

The internet is an infinite pool of stupid shit and hilarious cats, so here is a small compilations of the things that I have encountered in the past few days.

 

This is a baby dressed as a shrimp.  It gives new meaning to the oxymoron "jumbo shrimp," but in a really dumb way.  Is it someone's idea of a pun? A pun in the way that babies are kinda pink and tasty, with a hard shell and squishy heads, and they sometimes have that string off poop up their backs that you have to pick out before you eat them.  

It makes my womb ache in a way that resembles a shellfish allergy.

Amazing BoomBox Watch! (PS my birthday is March 17th, but I will accept early Xmas/Channukah gifts at any time past my half-birthday)

The Cosby Sweater Project. 

Someone is actually going through each episode of the Cosby Show and selecting the best sweaters/clothing, and then drawing a sample of the pattern.

Have you ever been in love?  This isn't really new at all, it is more something that pops into my head every so often from way back in the early/mid 00's when I was in college and these kinds of things were all the rage. I have no clue what it is about or where it came from, but it sure is one heck of a song! 

You can actually get a shirt with a copy of Barack Obama's birth certificate on it! FROM THE BARACK OBAMA REELECTION CAMPAIGN!!  
I already got mine.  This is pretty brilliant as a marketing strategy.

SVETLANA

I assume no one has ever seen this show unless they live with someone who falls asleep watching "Bikini Destinations."  There is this channel called HDNet that is owned Mark Cuban, the bajillionaire who also owns the Dallas Mavericks.  He REALLY loves boobies. Or so I assume.  You know you are watching classy television when 90% of the programming features T&A.  However, I stumbled across Madam Svet by chance, and she is so amazing.  It makes me want to open my own House of Discrete Pleasures. 

That's all for now!

That Face

My brother in law is the #1 photobomber, and he has a patented face that he makes.  Every time. It is truly blood curdling, in the sheer horror it evokes. It's sort of like in that movie, The Ring, where your face gets all blurry in the picture if you watch the movie... but more like this scary face appears behind you.  So really, nothing like that movie, but just as frightening.

Behold, the way he manages to get his eyes all wonky and bulgy, but still maintains a sinister squint. His nostrils a-flare, his jaw, unhinged, like a king cobra! About to strike his unsuspecting prey!  The variety in facial hair also adds an extra level of texture and intensity that only a true artist could appreciate. 

 

Here are some pictures of other people trying out his move, but often getting confused with biting the head, which is a totally different move, but far more delicious.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or something like that.