But that was nothing compared to the requirements one of my friends has put in place to screen any and all potential interactions with other human beings.
Her rule?
“I only talk to people that I’ve already pre-approved as being normal.”
Things That Make You Say, “What?!” : Pip The Cat
Ha, Ha, Ha, My Powers Really Are Growing
The other day, in a moment that clearly rivaled the splitting open of the atom and the discovery of electricity, I discovered how to add photos to my blog using a flickr account. So now I can share humor through images as well as through the written word.
Watch out world! Soon my self-expression will know no bounds!
Not To Put Too Fine A Point On It…
…but after many years of careful observation I have come to the conclusion that sometimes, I am REALLY weird. (As opposed to the rest of the time when I am merely “quirky”, “eccentric”, and “entertaining”.) Here’s an example of what I mean.
Yesterday I was at Quiznos attempting to pick up dinner, but I was stymied in my quest due to the fact that I was behind a family of four who had absolutely no idea how to order a sandwich. This despite the fact that there is a sign directly above the ordering station that details the entire 3-step process, with pictures and everything. Here’s how that process went.
The Quiznos Lady: “What kind of sandwich would you like?”
Family: “Honey mustard and mayonnaise.”
The Quiznos Lady: “What kind of sandwich would you like?”
Family: Extremely long consultation among the four of them; no response for the Quizno’s lady.
The Quiznos Lady: “What kind of bread do you want?” (trying a new question, since the previous question wasn’t getting through)
Family: “We want ALL the vegetables.”
There were many possibilities available for how I, personally, chose to respond to that situation. Anger. Disgust. Irritation. Impatience. Laughter. Extreme Eye-Rolling. But did I choose any of these? Um, no.
Instead I took a deep breath, marshaled all of my inner resources, and decided, “When it is my turn, I will place The Most Perfect Sandwich Order that has ever been seen in any Quiznos in the history of all time.”
YEAH! Because that’ll show…no one…nothing? But in that moment I honestly believed that my perfect sandwich ordering behavior would become such a shining beacon of light as to show that family of four the gross error of all of their ways, leading to a grand repentance and renouncement of all of their former restaurant practices, and a personal culinary redemption.
See what I mean? Weird.
If I Dream It, They Will Come
Apparently my subconscious has been carrying on a conversation with the Universe lately that I was unaware of. And the gist of this conversation seems to be, “Hey! Let’s see some more animals around here!”
So far in the last week there have appeared at or near our house a snake, a possum (who was strolling through The Corn in the middle of the day), and a red fox.
I don’t know what that is all about. It could be a desire to get more in touch with nature. Or perhaps it’s a desire to get back in touch with my roots.
My grandparents live on a farm up in Northeastern Maine, a place where it is not at all unusual for a moose to walk up to the farmhouse and attempt to stick its entire head inside the kitchen window. (My grandmother just loves that!) A place where, as my husband and I were driving to the drugstore one afternoon, we saw a very large bear galloping down the road on which my grandparents live.
It seems that I’ve been spending lots of time meditating on moose in the kitchen and bears in the backyard lately, and the Universe is starting to send some similar experiences my way. Because yesterday, as I was walking next door to attend our neighbor’s birthday party, I discovered this ambling over to my house (at the time it was un-penned and unleashed):
And if it weren’t cool enough to almost have a camel in my backyard, I also got to hold a ferret:
If you’d like to see more photos of our adventures with wild animals (and by “adventures” I mean, “going next door to the neighbor’s backyard”, and by “wild animals” I mean “animals that were completely tame, enclosed in a pen or a cage, and wearing harnesses and leashes”), you can click here
Hm…What to ask for next?
Not So Much Funny As Cool
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
As I believe I’ve mentioned before, my husband and I live outside of Atlanta, in one of the many suburbs here in Northern Georgia. We do see a lot of wildlife here, but it is all pretty much what I consider to be Regular Wildlife. Things like dogs, cats, birds, squirrels (the bane of my cat, Tigger’s, existence), lizards, rats, and snakes. Anything else I classify as Exotic (what can I say? I’m a city girl.)
Once when he was mowing the lawn my husband found a turtle and called me outside to come and see it. I was fascinated with the turtle, and stared at it for a very long time, much like an infant who has just discovered that, “Wow! Not only do I have a foot, but I can put the entire thing in my mouth whenever I want to!” I insisted on taking pictures of it before we released it into the wild (AKA-the other side of our backyard fence), and I often wonder what happened to it and where it went after it left us.
However we do live next door to a great couple with a fabulous backyard garden. I refer to it as “The Corn”, because to me it is exactly like the magical cornfield in the movie, “Field of Dreams”: you never know just what might come walking out of there.
When we first moved into our house 7 years ago, before they built the neighborhood behind us, it was not uncommon to see the occasional deer amble by my window. And (and this is my favorite), there are rabbits that live back there. One of my favorite moments each year is the first time I see the bunnies again in spring. Unfortunately for my husband, this year’s moment occurred while we were talking on the phone. “BUNNIES!” I announced, causing him to temporarily lose all hearing so that the rest of our conversation had to be conducted via smoke signals.
I love the rabbits, especially when they come over to our backyard for a visit. So much so that all last summer I did nothing but watch as they devoured Every. Single. Hosta in our backyard. My attitude was not so much irritation as fascination: “Can they really fit an entire hosta leaf in their mouth all at once?” (Important Side Note: Yes, they can!)
So yesterday I was once again sitting in my office talking on the phone, when I saw something out the window that caused me to utter a very loud expletive. One that would have been appropriate if, say, masked intruders had suddenly entered my home and forced me, at gunpoint, to work on a math problem. Because all of a sudden, from out of The Corn there appeared…A Fox. A FOX! Right here in my suburban neighborhood!
It was so cool, and when I told my friend on the phone she thought it was cool too. But she lives in Colorado, and in my mind I imagine that (being part of The West) as a place where you can routinely find foxes ambling down the street, along with tumbleweed, coyotes, and men in chaps with big gold “Sheriff” stars pinned to their leather vests.
And the best part? She said that, to her knowledge, they are not carnivores. But they might eat rodents. And possibly even the occasional snake.
So there you have it. Our own little circle of life.
Rebel Yell
I’m sure it will come as no surprise to any of you to learn that I have an extremely well-developed inner rebel. But the weird thing about her is the the things she chooses to rebel against.
For example, I will happily dump every single trash can in our house, tie up the garbage bags, and deposit them outside the kitchen door in the garage. But I absolutely refuse to take those same garbage bags and place them in the big trash can that we take to the curb every Tuesday. I just now went outside and checked, and it is exactly 24 extra steps from the kitchen doorstep to the trash cans. I refuse to walk 24 extra steps because I believe that in doing so, I am winning some kind of moral victory. (Please know that I never said any of this is rational.)
Fortunately I am married to a man who is afflicted with this same issue. But where my rebellion is up front and in your face his is more passive, so you don’t actually realize what’s going on until you notice for the 2 bazillionth time in a row that, Under No Circumstances Whatsoever will he retrieve clean towels from the linen closet and hang them on the hooks in the bathroom.
I’m not really sure what this proves other than the fact that if, as I am, you are the firstborn child of 2 firstborn parents, married to another firstborn child of a firstborn parent, that there will occasionally be moments in your marriage when you both act like rams who are continually smashing into one another, horns locked in mortal combat. Except that you’re not fighting for anything important, like a mate. You’re just fighting to defend your right to be stubborn about really stupid stuff.
My inner rebel also showed up A Lot in my work life, and I’m sure you can imagine just how much my employers enjoyed that. It did not matter what rule they made; I was an expert in finding a way to react with moral outrage and righteous indignation, thus allowing me to feel totally justified in completely ignoring said rule.
However now that I’m in my 30’s I’ve been thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could try to do things a little differently. And so for the last 7 months I have been taking a class to actually become certified at this profession of being a Life Coach. And that is also why I have been absent from my blog for the last week. This Tuesday was our 2 1/2 hour final oral exam, and while I do excel at totally-making-things-up-as-I-go-along and pulling-things-out-of-my-ass-at-the-last-minute, I thought that perhaps I should actually prepare for this exam, so as not do undo all my hard work of the last 7 months (and the 4 months before that).
And so I am very happy to report that I successfully managed my inner rebel, and now I am officially a Certified Life Coach.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming of humorously commenting on all of the goofy contrasts that we, personally experience in life. (And thankfully, there are lots.)
Cool-I Didn’t Know We Were Allowed To Do This!
Yesterday at the bookstore I also saw this book: It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be. That sounded pretty normal, and similar to many other personal growth books on the market. But then I saw its subtitle:
“The world’s bestselling book by Paul Arden”.
WHAT?!
I didn’t know we got to just declare stuff like that for ourselves! How cool!
Of course, my husband did point out that instead of reading that as, “I, Paul Arden, am declaring that THIS IS the world’s bestselling book”, it could be saying that, of all the books Paul Arden has written, this one is the bestselling one. But I think it’s way more fun to read it my way.
And on that note, now that I am giving myself permission to make impressive declarations for myself, from now on you may all refer to me as “Her Royal Highness Jenny Ryan, Supreme Empress Of The Universe.”
Things That Make You Say, “What?!”: Competition
My husband and I are really competitive people. Like, really competetive. Especially over goofy stuff.
For example, he and I were recently playing a board game with 3 other couples, and on more than one occasion we caused the entire game to ground to a screeching halt because we were arguing with each other over whose turn it was to read the question to the other players.
“Wow,” said one woman. “You’d never know by looking at them how competitive they are.”
“It doesn’t really matter who reads the question,” said her husband, in a futile attempt at making peace.
“OH IT MATTERS!” I retorted triumphantly, as my husband finally admitted that, yes, he had read the last question, and that it actually was my turn to read, and handed me the card in grudging resignation.
However, today at the bookstore I saw something that made me feel SO MUCH BETTER about myself and my competitiveness, that I just had to post about it here. It was a book entitled, Eat This Book: A year of gorging and glory on the competitive eating circuit.
There apparently exists in this world a Competitive. Eating. Circuit.
So clearly, I could be A Lot worse.
PS-For another humorous look at competition, check out today’s Story of the Day at StoryPeople.
And The Universe Laughed
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
Yesterday I decided that I had had enough of the muscle in my leg that had been twitching non-stop for two days. Since the “doing nothing” option really hadn’t helped it at all, I thought that maybe doing some yoga and stretching it out might. However practicing yoga always means I need a special strategy for dealing with the cats because, in addition to watching us clip our toenails, yogurt, and swaggering through the house knocking over all our trash cans, they are obsessed with my yoga equipment. I have absolutely no idea why this is; all I know is that there is a substance on earth more seductive and alluring to cats than catnip, and it is The Material That Yoga Mats Are Made Of.
But my practice yesterday was, for some reason, surprisingly cat-free. “How nice,” I thought.
“A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” That was the sound of the Universe laughing, because the Universe knew something that I did not.
Specifically it knew that my husband was about to call me, and that at the exact moment I picked up the phone to hear him tell me that his plane had landed safely in a whole other state, I would see peeking out from under the ottoman the teeny, tiny, terrified head of a lizard that my INDOOR cats had somehow found, caught, and brought inside for a play date.
Fortunately my husband has a PhD in Talking His Hysterical Wife Through Difficult Situations Over The Phone, and was able to guide me through capturing the lizard and releasing it back into the wild. Although I have to say that it pretty much undid all the good relaxation work I had just done in my yoga routine.
And you know how lizards have that defense mechanism where they can detach their tails in order to escape predators? (Important Side Note: Although I have to say, from my extensive experience over the past year, that that feature is apparently completely useless when facing cats.) Well, when I finally got the little guy back outside I noticed that he was very stubby looking, due to the fact that he was missing his entire back end. And I still haven’t found that part of him yet.
But I will definitely be needing something a little more powerful than yoga when I do.
