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Put A Bird On It!

8 Feb

Portlandia is a genius show. I know it’s set in Portland, Oregon, but it really has elements of Santa Cruz, Berkley, and San Francisco in it as well. Basically I think that if you live anywhere on the West Coast you’ll identify with some part of Portlandia.

Today I had to share one of my favorite sketches from the show, plus a story. First, here is my favorite Portlandia sketch, mostly because I love things with birds on them.


And here’s my story. The other day I was wrapping a present and found this great bag at Whole Foods. The Child (youngest sister) is a Portlandia fan as well, and also loves birds, so I sent her a picture of my wrap job with the following caption:

Put a bird on it!

She responded: “Hahaha! At first I thought ‘Oooo! Pretty!’ Then I saw your caption and thought, ‘Oooo…I am such a hipster. :/”

So here’s to hipsters everywhere, and celebrating the co-opting of all things hip by mainstream culture!

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And the VBA Goes To…

6 Feb

Last Friday I was honored to be given the Versatile Blogger Award from Cara at This Little Light. And boy, am I honored! As a woman who self-professes to wear many hats, there can be no better compliment. Thank you so much Cara! You deserved to be named a Versatile Blogger, so thanks for passing on the love. (Spoiler alert! You’ll be seeing more from Cara on tomorrow’s How Tuesday. Stay tuned…)

Apparently there are rules if you get this award, which are as follows:

The Grand High Rules for the VB Award

  • Thank the person who gave you this award. (Common courtesy, really.)
  • Include a link to their blog. (Again with the courtesy.)
  • Next, select 15 blogs that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. (Oof, I can’t do 15. Way too many of the blogs I follow are delightfully single-focused. How about five? Ya’ll know I like the number five.)
  • Nominate those bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award. (I’m guessing this means contact them and tell them? Or something?)
  • Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself. (That I can do. What do bloggers like more than writing about themselves?)

So here goes, seven things you might not already know about me:

  1. My all-time favorite television show is the classic Addams Family. I’ve had an affinity for the odd, the strange, and the macabre since I was a kid, which is why I’m still obsessed with Edward Gorey.
  2. When I was a sophomore in high school I went from a 32A to a 34D-DD in about five months. It wasn’t fun. (Cara shared a boob fact, I thought I might as well follow suit.)
  3. When I was a kid in SoCal I used to head up ladybug hunts in the tall grass in front of the abandoned drug house on our street. We thought it was great, like trekking through the jungle, and we’d fill up whole coffee cans with the red and black bugs.
  4. The most fun I ever had at a job was when the theater I worked at in SF was closed for 3.5 months over Christmas, and I got a job as a hot dog vendor in Union Square. Everyone thought I was crazy to love it, but I got to meet people from all over the world in the middle of the greatest city ever, and I got to wear a Santa hat to boot. And let me tell you, I worked that tip jar.
  5. Apparently I never learned to spell ‘versatile,’ because I’ve typed it about 50 times during this post and spell check keeps catching it. That’s one even I didn’t know! Versitle? Versitile? Hmm, will have to practice.
  6. I have four names. Because I didn’t take A’s name, I added it to the end of mine. It’s an important distinction.
  7. I was almost the lead singer for an all girl’s cover band called Inspect-Her Gadget, but as a broke college student living in SF I couldn’t afford the studio fees. Ah, the road not taken…

Here are the blogs (in ABC order, because that’s how I roll) that make me smile when a post pops up in my inbox that I feel deserve the Versatile Blogger Award:

Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Katie is my reading idol – I don’t know how this girl goes through so many books each month. She’s the queen of lists, the claimer of all things red, and is my go-to for good tea recommendations. I was lucky enough to become friends with her when she and her man lived inAbilene, and love keeping up with herBoston adventures. I feel like I could walk around that city, just for reading her blog.

Chatting at the Sky
I’ll admit that sometimes I avoid this blog, because Emily always seems to write in a way that cuts through the trivial, the petty, and the unnecessary, and hits me right in my gut with what it means to be God’s woman. I’ve never left her blog without feeling edified, comforted, or convicted.

New Dress a Day
I followed Marisa since about a month after she started her NDaD venture. Even though her blog is focused on remaking the old and fugly into something unique and wearable, she definitely deserves this award because of how many different ways she can pull a rabbit out of a hat and make truly awful clothing look couture.

 Ready Go! Get Set
You might think this is just another mommy blog, but Adelle writes with passion about everything she loves, including (but not limited to) being a Boymom. From the tongue-in-cheek to the beautifully lyrical, this lady writes it all, and does it while wearing great shoes.

Sweet Glitterati
The only tumblr account I follow, this gal knows how to do glamour! She posts great photos of whatever catches her eye, and I love seeing her perspective of the world through her lens. If you ever need a personal style consultant, give her a call.

 

 
So that’s it! Thanks again to Cara and This Little Light for kicking this off. Now I want to know, who would you give a Versatile Blogger Award to?

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Marmota Monax

2 Feb

Today deserves an explanation. And who better to provide that than the explanation comic stylings of C.G.P. Grey? Without further ado, here is Why Once a Year We Care What a Ground-Rat Thinks, or Groundhog Day Explained:

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Amphigory

31 Jan

Remember my list of books I want right now? My loving mother found a copy of Amphigorey she had in her library and bequeathed it to lil’ ol’ me, along with an equally great collection by Chaz Addams. I’d forgotten how brilliant this book is. I was especially taken by the section titled “The Listing Attic” which contained dozens of truly morbid limericks. Which is fitting, since I have a truly morbid sense of humor. (Ask A about my fascination with dead baby jokes. On second thought, don’t.) So I thought I’d try my hand at one or two (maybe slightly less morbid) as I’ve been known to throw a poem or two around in my day. And limericks are so much fun!

There once was a young man named Louis
Who was struck with a bad case of ennui
To get out of his funk
He took up with a skunk
And all who laid eyes thought him screwy

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Two Doggy Tales, or How Can Such a Smart Dog Be So Stupid?

9 Jan

From right to left: Logan, the ever-handsome A, and the smart dummy.

Tale number one ( I swear I wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t happened right in front of me):

We got our dogs a new toy for Christmas, because, yes, we are that kind of dog owner. It was a stuffed giraffe, and it was adorable. Of course, the doggies had to compete to see who would claim ultimate ownership of New Toy. Traditionally Logan loves tennis balls more than anything, but he also is obsessed with whatever is new, especially if our baby dog, Martigan, wants it. Martigan will happily chase a ball, but his true love is stuffed toys, especially if they have squeakers, which New Toy did. So naturally Logan was dominating New Toy while poor Martigan looked mournfully on.

Martigan tried to get him to give it up; he tried to steal it, to muscle it away to no avail. He tried what I can only assume was canine coercion, doing a bark/whine combination while scooting his skinny butt forward. Logan was having none of it. After longingly looking on for five minutes (an eternity in puppy years) Martigan abruptly turned around and started rooting around in his toy box. (Yes, our dogs have a toy box. I already said we’re those kind of dog owners.) He emerged with a green tennis ball held haughtily between his teeth. He pranced around the room until he was in Logan’s direct line of sight, then forcefully dropped the ball, letting it bounce and roll for several feet. Instinctively, Logan was up on his feet, chasing the ball. Faster than you could say “oh, snap!” Martigan pounced on New Toy and carried it triumphantly away, while Logan looked on in confusion, ball clenched protectively between his teeth. All I could think was “dude, you just got played!” and “my dog is so freakin’ smart!”

Tale  number two (occurred about five minutes after tale number one):

I walk into my yarn room to look for an errant ball. My dutiful doggies followed me. As I’m sitting down on the guest bed examining the label on a hank of yarn, I hear a wet, slurpy sound. I look up to see my smarty-pants little puppy trying valiantly to lick a spot of sunshine that’s coming in through the blinds off of the wall. For five minutes. When he finally figures out that he can’t get it off, he switches to another spot six inches away. Rinse and repeat three times. What a dummy.

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