Well That's Not How I Was Planning to Spend My Afternoond

I woke up at 2:15pm on Sunday afternoon.

I was already two hours behind schedule in my plan to turn my life around and become a productive human being who does not regularly run four hours late for things.

I typed Netflix in my internet browser. Because, hey, I was already two hours behind. Why not make it three?

And that's when I started to wonder about the thunder outside.

Is this a hurricane? I thought. Should I be taking cover and sprouting lentils?

So I interrupted my Netflix search to check storm warnings in the area.

At 2:17pm, two minutes into my plan to ignore my plan to turn my life around and become a productive human, I read a tornado warning for my city.

Not two blocks down. Not maybe around the corner. Not next week around noon.

Now. In my neighborhood.

So I called my mom.

"How's your day?" she asked.

"Not that great. I took a nap and woke up to a tornado warning."

"What?"

"A TORNADO WARNING."

"Turn on the news."

The meteorologist told me it was serious, to take cover, and hole up somewhere on a bottom floor.

BUT I LIVE ON THE TOP FLOOR.

NOOOO!

The  wind started hitting my window, my anxiety kicked in, and I seriously contemplated asking the downstair neighbors to let me stay awhile.

But I was too scared to walk down the stairs.

So instead...

Wait for it.

I lifted my queen size mattress off my box spring, dragged it through the bathroom door (which took some maneuvering--at one point I didn't think it would fit) and put it right against the bathtub. And then I crawled inside the bathtub and sat there for more than an hour. Every time the wind got louder, I pulled the mattress closer to the bathtub. At one point, I tried lifting the mattress into the bathtub, but it wouldn't fit. In the event of a real natural disaster, I am going to need a better emergency plan.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world was hanging out at Disney World 5 minutes down the road.

Not me though. I was sitting in my bathtub fort, contemplating life and the possibility of my ceiling falling in.

By 4pm it was sunny outside.

The wind had subsided.

I think I made a taco.



And so concluded the great and terrible tornado warning of 2013.

Which was almost as bad as the terrible tornado warning of 2012. Which was only worse because I spent it in a Best Western hotel in Biloxi, MS. And I didn't even have any lentils to sprout there.

MAKE THE WRITER'S BLOCK STOP

You guys.

Sometimes I have philosophical conversations with myself about what I should be doing with my life. Where I want to end up. How I'm going to fund my sailing trip across the world. You know. Simple stuff like that.

And I decide that my best option is just to write my way around the world.

And I know that saying you want to be a writer is kind of like saying you want to be an actress or a pro athlete.  I'd take the acting gig, but not the pro athlete one. Volleyball gives me weird bruises on my arms. And I didn't practice dribbling enough as a child to play basketball.

So then I think, well there's only one way to be a writer. Write something.

Which seems simple.

BUT I CAN'T DO THE SIMPLE THINGS BECAUSE REALLY THE SIMPLE THINGS ARE MONSTERS.

That's right. Monsters.

I get through complex things--like Sudoku and loading the dishwasher--by turning on my Pandora and singing my way through the problem.

But I can't sing my way through the writing thing, because by the time I've finished singing the song I've forgot the beginning of the song and then, well, my creativeness is wasted.



In other news, today I dripped snot while someone was filming me.

I hope they weren't using a high definition camera.

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I just wanted to let you know, if your car smells like sulfur every day for three weeks...

it is probably not because of farting squirrels.

Please have it checked.




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Oh wait. Never mind.


Hugs and Kisses,

Alec

I have decided not to title this post, on account of I couldn’t decide between the following—

1. All Because I Could Not, Would Not, Did Not Buy a Store Bought Pie

2. Maybe This Is Why My Grandmother Was Hesitant to Accept My Help When I Offered to Make Cookies

3. The Difference Between Ariel and The Little Mermaid

4. There is Karo Syrup on My Pants

I almost decided not to write this post at all. That way you could spend the rest of the night playing a game akin to which of these things is not like the other. Except not. Not like that game at all.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…

Well actually, I don’t really know where to go from here. I guess I could tell you how my evening started out with me glaring at a chocolate pie in Walmart and ended with me putting my Karo syrup-dipped pants in the hamper.

Oh yes. Good idea Alec. Let’s start there. 

Once upon a time, I was standing in Walmart, glaring at a chocolate pie.

I was going to bring the aforementioned chocolate pie to a Thanksgiving celebration. Because I couldn’t think of anything else which required zero minutes of prep time and fit into my budget of cheap.

Turkey was out of the question. For so many reasons. Not least among them I’m a vegetarian. Not most among them I don’t like when people look at me weird.

Anyway, mashed potatoes and rolls crossed off the list later, I was standing in Walmart, staring down a chocolate pie, trying to choose the one with the least whipped cream smeared across the top.

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take a store bought pie to a Thanksgiving function.

Because what if the instructions for the Thanksgiving function were to bring some family Thanksgiving tradition food? I didn’t want the whole congregation thinking my family’s tradition was to buy sloppy chocolate pie from Walmart with whip cream smeared on top. I worked hard to ensure my family has holiday traditions. I’m not going to ruin that with one Walmart-pie fell swoop.

I changed my mind. I want the title of this to be One Fell Swoop.

I changed my mind. I want the title of this to be Useless Ramblings, Which No One Quite Understands About Karo Syrup and the Little Mermaid.

Don’t worry. I’m getting to the part about the Little Mermaid.

So I shrugged at the pie and walked away.

And then I started thinking about everything my family has ever eaten.

Yams, grape juice and apple cider later, I decided to make chocolate-covered, peanut butter rice Krispies.

Because even though I can’t remember if I have ever actually eaten those on Thanksgiving, I know I have eaten them at my grandparents’ house, and I know they have Karo syrup in them. And if anything SCREAMS holidays, it Karo Syrup.

Sorry for the capitalization. I really wanted to drive the point home there.

So I set off to the 5000 aisles in Walmart for 4 ingredients.

I’ll skip the part where I buy Advil and check out, and drive home, and unload my groceries, and watch a Tinker Bell movie while my milk goes bad.

So then I’m stirring all the ingredients. Dropping spoons into Karo syrup. Stuff like that. When, all of a sudden, I look at my rice krispies and see—DUN, DUN, DUN—they’re actually rice krispy treats.

Did you know Kellogg’s does that? They make a rice krispy treat cereal.

Here’s where the convoluted bit about the Little Mermaid comes in. See, me—or my sister (I can’t remember who)—used to call the movie “The Little Mermaid” Ariel. Probably because Cinderella was called Cinderella. And Sleeping Beauty was called Sleeping Beauty. (Although turns out Sleeping Beauty has a real name--Aurora. Weird. Right?) So Ariel should get her name written on the front of a VHS too. It’s only fair.

Point is. In my childhood head, the Little Mermaid was also named Ariel.

In my adult head, Rice Krispies cereal is also named Rice Krispy Treats. And so when the box read, “Rice Krispy Treats,” I said, “Perfect,” and bought all 11 cups and 4 ounces of it.

So now I have marshmallow-ridden Rice Krispies, covered in a peanut-butter, Karo-syrup, white-sugar concoction, topped with chocolate and butterscotch.

Want to come visit me? You can have some.

Fair warning: they don’t look pretty. They look like… well I won’t go into detail. But I will say there are several shades of brown. And they’re... umm... chunky.

Funny. I remember them being pretty and less chunked when my grandma makes them.  

I thought maybe I could salvage my dessert’s aesthetics by drizzling melted butterscotch atop, but then I remembered the Karo syrup, white sugar and marshmallow that is already seething inside. I decided not to add extra butterscotch. 

Side note: I have now created a non-vegetarian dish (marshmallows contain gelatin which contains ground bones or something) to bring to this Thanksgiving function. I might as well have cooked a turkey.

I changed my mind. I want the title of this to be Highly Educational, But Completely Unrelated, And Sometimes Difficult to Follow, Parenthetical Phrases. 

I think that pretty much covers all my main points. Except for the bit about the Karo syrup on my pants. But you figured that much out on your own. Right?

See, what did I tell you? Just like a game of which one is not like the other.

Except not.

Not like that game at all. 

I think my neighbors are having a party upstairs.

Apartment living is awesome.

Also, I can't sleep until I do my laundry and take out my contacts.

But blah, I'd prefer not to do either of those things.

So in lieu of getting 8 hours, I give you my first ever TEXTS OUT OF CONTEXT!

Please hold your applause.

Because it wasn't even my idea.

It was Jessica's idea.

We're not on a first name basis or anything. I'd just prefer not to type out her, as my British friend at work calls it, surname. It seems a little stalkerish. Or something.

Jessica seems cool. I'm sure she wouldn't mind too terribly that I have assumed first name basis. I'm sure she also won't mind that I've stolen her idea.

After all, she told me to steal it.

Okay, fine--she didn't tell me, specifically, to steal it. She just told the blog world to steal it. And sometimes I feel like the Pioneer Woman and I are the only people in the blog world left.

Well actually, it's just the Pioneer Woman left. I'm just an occasional weird relative visitor.

Anyway... about those out-of-context texts.

TA DA!



1. The car in front of me has a foot out its window. Do you think they're trying to flip me off?


2. Dang, if I knew you wanted to treasure it I would have brought two--one for drinking, one for treasuring. Next time. In Eloy.

3. I drove all the way home!

4. You don't often think of eye candy and Walmart going together.

5. I'm just here to make sure your rap career takes off. I guess you could say I'm a logician.

6. I feel like I should warn you, since we're approaching 10pm I could fall asleep at any moment without notice.

7a. You can't wear them in France. But you can wear them to nurse mystery parties.

7b. Nurse mystery parties? I've never been to one of those!

8. Dumbledore. He has a beard.

9. That's great news. I can finally stop hiding Sally in the bathtub.

10. Boomshakalaka.



Good night everyone!

Oh hey there

I might make this blog private.

For like a week. Or two.

I don't intend to write anything during this week(s).

I'm just being weird and vague and maybe I'll explain it someday, but probably not.

I'm sorry, this is the type of thing that people write on their blogs that drives me crazy.

For a minute. But then I go back to living my life and I forget that I'm dying to know why suddenly they must make their blog private right this second.

Anyway...

Once I start writing posts I'll be all public and what not again.

Sorry again for being all, 'I'm writing, I'm not writing, I'm moving, I'm not moving, I'm private, I'm public.'

Someday I will make up my mind.

Probably.

You Know? You know!

Guys, Word Press hates me. So what if I want to put an extra equal sign in my html code? You don’t have to go blow up on me. Geesh.

It’s alright though because I haven’t had much to say lately.  Because I love my internship, and loving things makes me feel all braggy. You know, like: GUESS WHAT I DID TODAY? I WENT SCUBA DIVING IN A SPRING. AND THERE WAS A CAVERN AT THE BOTTOM!

No one wants to hear that.

So instead of saying that, I’ll pose to you a question--

Have you ever had one of those days at work where you’re sitting in front of the computer screen, trying to focus on the words, but all you see is the blinding light of the monitor, telling you, “Close your eyes, go to sleep, la la la lullaby”?

You know…

 You went to bed the night before praying that you’d feel renewed and inspired come morning, but instead you wake up feeling like you haven’t slept at all, because you had a dream that your mom sent you to a doctor’s office where you have to pay for parking, and ‘what kind of doctor can’t afford their own parking lot?!’ you wonder, and then you have to come home from work at lunch time and load up on caffeine, but you don’t have a bottle opener, so you try to use a spoon, a knife and your hand, but that doesn’t work, so you check again, and it turns out the corkscrew in the drawer is actually a bottle opener, too, so you pop that Mexican Coca Cola open and chug, and then you eat two pickles on a piece of bread.

It’s a two pickles on a piece of bread kind of day.

Which doesn’t quite compare to a, I literally have nothing in my cupboard except kidney beans, kind of day, but still. It’s no veggie burger and milkshake either.

YOU KNOW?

But it’s OK, because sometimes a pickle sandwich can bring you back to your roots and help you remember who you are.

And even though the who you are stuff is a little wishy washy still, you’re working on it--one weirdy food analogy at a time.

That’s right. I said weirdy.