Just Get on the Floor and do the New Kids Dance

Don't worry 'bout nothing cuz it won't take long!
Yes, they've put me in a trance with a funky song. My childhood crushes have decided to reunite for a reunion tour. It has been 15 years since I cried over how beautiful Jordan Knight is and at least that long since I grabbed my belt buckle and swung my legs side to side to do "The Right Stuff" dance. Being a child of the late '80s and early '90s in a southern city suburb means that I was head over heels for New Kids on the Block. Recently they announced their reunion tour which includes a little of the old stuff and some of the new - but for me, it's all the right stuff. After discovering a news article about them, I launched myself into a mad search for all things NKOTB. I started humming "Popsicle" at work.....for those of you that missed those brilliant lyrics, it goes a little something like - "You're my popsicle. From the first time I met you girl, you captured me. Sweeter than candy, better than cake - and everytime we kiss it feels oh so great!" Seriously! Who wouldn't swoon hearing a boy sing this with notes higher than I can sing now. *Sigh*
I'm just giddy over the whole thing! The only bad part is all of my New Kids swag is gone (and likely too small anyway). Oh, how I miss my florescent colored hats and shirts proudly displaying which member of the boy band that I most desired (I will fight forever that Jordan was the best!). My only souvenirs are cassette tapes (from the self-titled album to Step by Step) and two VHS's that are somewhere at my parents house (crossing my fingers that they didn't jump into the last yard sale pile).

And here's one to bring a tear to your eye (or mine at least): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLhSHktuZGw
My Jordan professing his undying love to me - yep, just me. And you must check out the rat-tails on these guys! Wow!

Oh my NKOTB, You've got the right stuff, baby. Love the way you turn me on. And I sure do love the way you bring me to tears 15 years after I stalked you all.

I'll be loving you, New Kids on the Block, FOREVER!

Just get on the floor and do the New Kids Dance - elbow thrust to the right, elbow thrust to the left, pelvic thrust. Get loose everybody cuz they're going to do their thing!

Cuz you had a bad day....

Everyone has had a bad day, right? Last week I was having the motherload of bad days and one thing after another kept blowing up in my face. At some point people are either driven to madness or just sit around and cry a river. I had a very different experience. After spilling coffee on my white sweater (which can thankfully be washed at work in the theatre laundry room), losing a UPS package, forgetting my cell phone, and numerous other little things, my level of frustration was so high that I was going to burst.
Then the phone rings.....
I'm talking with a student that has some random question (I was asked if I knew were a ladder was that someone could carry across town - what??). I tell her that I'll need to transfer her over to someone else and the line goes dead. At first I thought she'd hung up on me - how dare she! but then I realized that I was no longer attached to my phone. The entire phone cord fell out and I was left holding the handset of the phone. My frustration bubble popped when I started laughing....it was the icing on the cake.

And today I get to work and discover that someone took my good pen. I can tell already that I'm going to need something to blow up or fall down or break just to give me a good laugh today.

Blue skies are going to clear up......

In Sync

I am indeed a horrible, miserable person.

This headline made me laugh hysterically:
"Teen Synchronized Swimmers Faint, at the Same Time"

Why, you may ask, is this funny? More importantly, why do I feel guilty for laughing? (If you were asking the second question, kudos - you're already on my side).

I've gotten many an email with listings of things to ponder....you know...the ones about why you park in a driveway and drive on a parkway. And how it is impossible to lick your elbow. And more importantly, that a pig's orgasm lasts for like 30 minutes. It's one of those emails that you always laugh at and then you may pass it on. Which goes back to my email forwarding theory - when I get a forward from someone, I will bet money that the other chronic forwarders in my family will send me the same thing in a matter of 5 hours. The result - 10 emails about poopy being on lemons on your iced tea in restaurants.

Back to In Sync.....the most recent email I got with these strange ponderings involved synchronized swimming. Not only is synchronized swimming one of the funniest things ever, it's also weird to watch people do the same thing at the same time. It's like looking into a kaleidoscope...you just can help yourself. So, if one person goofs up, do they all goof up? Apparently so.

So, I'm not a bad person. I'm glad these girls are ok. But, let's face it, it is funny that they all did it at the same time while participating in an activity that involves everyone doing the same thing at the same time.

Bye, bye, bye.

Comeback Kid

Two things have happened to me this week that I now have the best comeback for.  Unfortunately, these moments are now gone and I have the perfect comeback for situations that I hope will never happen to me again.

Sometimes I wish I was the 12 year old girl that could get by on the classic comeback "Yo Mama".  Or my best comeback, "Oh yeah," (tosses hair, puts hand on hip, does neckroll), "So?".

Today I was dropping off more stuff I don't need at Goodwill.  The drop off for our Goodwill is behind the store, on broken pavement, and between dumpsters.  The great part about dropping off things at Goodwill is 1) the tax write off and 2) they are always playing Classic Rock, which really makes you want to jam out while your unloading your crap.  The bad part is that the drop off location looks more like a crack rock pick up location.  So, I unloaded my crap to some great Lynard Skynard song, got my little tax write off slip, and walked back to my car.  This elderly lady (yes, I'm being polite....I really want to call a spade a spade here), got out of her car and said to me "Well, that's a dumb place to park".  In the 3 seconds it took me to respond, I had about 55 combinations of curse words go through my mind.  What I ended up saying was "I'm sorry (doh! Why was I apologizing?), I'm moving my car now if you'd like to take my spot".  I got in my car, slammed the door, and coaxed my middle finger to remain wrapped around the steering wheel.  What a jerk!  I mean bitch.....I mean *Holey-Moley Who Put A Corn Cob Up Your Butt*.  I almost turned the car around to tell that rude woman how....well, rude she is.  But no comeback came to me.  Two hours later, I'm still angry at this stupid woman for making an unnecessary comment and ruining my Target shopping experience.  Of course, that's when what I should have said to her came to me - "Hi, I'm Amber and I'm so sorry that I forgot that my entire existence is to accommodate you.  I will sincerely try to work on this in the future.  In the meantime, your options are to move your beautiful car into a more accommodating area of this crappy parking lot, or wait until I move so that you can have the princess parking you so deserve".  And, of course, if she didn't get the sarcasm in my tone (how could you miss it?), I could break it down for her - "Good Gosh, Bitch!  Get over yourself."

And so, this leads me to keep to my new school comebacks that I want to use so badly, but remember them so far after the fact:

1. Get over yourself

2.  Oh, I forgot everything was about you.

3.  Crap, I hate when I forget that you are the center of the universe.

4.  Because it's your job (I have used this a lot at work)

5.  (The best one!) Bite me!

So, eat my shorts, kiss my grits, and go take a long walk off a short pier - you jerkface woman at Goodwill.  I hope they just throw all your crap in the dumpster!

Honk, Honk, Rattle, Rattle

So, driving to work this week I saw a group of young girls standing on the corner.  Geez, man, get your mind out of the gutter.  These girls were probably my age (mid-late 20's) and were jumping around with Hillary signs.  One of the signs was particularly amusing to me....."Honk for Hillary".  Why was this amusing?  For one, no one was honking.  This wasn't entirely strange, since I assume many people are like me and flip-flop between these two democratic candidates.  I don't feel there is a lack of support for Hillary in Central PA - which brings me to the second reason this moment amused me.  My peer group of Hillary supporters decided that the best possible place in my town to hold up a Honk sign is on the corner of, possibly, the busiest intersection in my itty-bitty town.  At this one stop light at 7:45am, there are 14 driving lanes of traffic (counting turn lanes) that are waiting for the light to change so they can zoom off (at the racing speed of 35 mph) to get to their 8am jobs.  

So, can you picture it?  What would happen if we had 14 lanes of traffic at 7:45am on a freezing cold Central PA day all honking at each other?  Seriously!

Middle fingers would be flying freely.

Honk for safe driving.  And, at 7:45am, here's a Honk for really good coffee!

Oh My God! They Killed.......

No, not Kenny. The Easter Bunny. Yep, that's right. I just had the strangest Easter Sunday ever! It was strange for so many reasons.....and now, I will attempt to articulate the strangeness.

First, Easter weekend started with a beautiful blanket of snow in our yard. That's right - 5 inches of stupid snow on Easter. After the hubby shoveled the sidewalk and the deck (so our tee-tiny dogs could go out and potty), we started in on our Easter festivities. I baked Amish Friendship bread and poured Limoncello on fruit while practicing how to speak Italian on my ipod in the kitchen. The pups waited for me to drop food and hubby was up in the attic rewiring the house. Our Easter lunch was scheduled to start at 1:00pm at our friend's house down the street. So at 1:15 (fashionably late) we loaded up the goods and headed down the street of our little village. (Note: Yet again I walked the streets with an open bottle of alcohol to go to our friend's house - it wouldn't be normal if I didn't).

We arrive at a wonderful dinner with good food and good conversation. Yeah....life is great.
The anticipation in the room started to grow as it got closer to the popular egg hunt. The older adults went outside to hide the eggs while the younger adults sat inside, ate fun dip, and drank beer.

Let me clarify the people involved in this Easter celebration. At 27 years old, I am one of the youngest at the party. The oldest is 81. Those over the age of 40 are hiding the eggs and those of us 25-40 are participating in the hunt.

So, the hunt begins and we all ran screaming to find the eggs. My hubby has a history of injuring himself on the egg hunt. A few years ago he scratched his eye diving into a bush to get an egg. This year, his thumb suffered an injury.

One of the eggs had a yellow post-it note that said "Winner!". This lucky individual received a chocolate peanut butter egg from a local chocolate shop. The lucky individual this year was me! Woohoo! Everyone was bummed that they didn't win, except for hubby who asked if he could take half of my winnings. I guess that's how a happy marriage works right - if I win a big hunkin' chocolate peanut butter egg, we split 50/50.

The next activity involved a beautiful hollow chocolate bunny named The Professor. At some point during the day, The Professor had been lynched and was hanging from a noose on the side of an old barn. Whatever are we to do? One suggestion was to throw darts at him.....someone else suggested golf balls.....and then someone brilliantly shouted "We should peg 'em with snowball". I mean, seriously, when could you ever peg a chocolate easter bunny with real snow balls?

We all start throwing snowballs at this poor lynched chocolate bunny. What must the neighbors think?

I don't know how it happened, but someone knocked the head off! The chocolate bunny was hanging on by one little sugary thread! We all move in closer and we continue to throw snowballs. And Score! I nailed the hollow bunny body and he fell to the ground. Oh-no! What have we done? We have to do something to the body so the dog doesn't eat the chocolate. One of the "dads" in the group steps out of the crowd and says "I have a firecracker in my pocket. Let's see if it'll blow up!". So, as the crowd backs away, two brave souls light the firecracker and place the hollow bunny head on top of the firecracker. The first time the head didn't stay in place so there was no explosion. The second try produced satisfying results. They lit the firecracker, placed the hollow chocolate bunny head on it, and we all held our breath in anticipation. About 10 seconds later the chocolate bunny head exploded in a million pieces! "I feel like we're on myth busters!" Someone shouted. "That was the wickedness Christmas EVER!" Someone else shouted. And then everyone stopped to ponder why she said Christmas and not Easter.

I should mention at this point that we are not drunk while doing this. I can see how it would be easy to say - Man, those people must be lit! But, this is not the case. In fact, only about 3 of us (out of 20 or so) had even had anything to drink at all. Which is why this story is freaking hilarious!

Back to the exploded bunny. We walked around trying to pick up our mess - again, so the dog doesn't find and eat the chocolate. Someone says, "We need to bury it".

So, we begin the chocolate bunny funeral service. "Ashes to Ashes, Confection to Confection". Someone starts in on a funeral hymn, which is cut off by someone singing a soulful version of "Here comes Peter Cottontail". My The Professor Chocolate Bunny and all his pieces Rest In Peace.

How could we possibly top this? Here's where we bring a little bit of Martha in. We managed to get into a discussion about eggs, dying easter eggs, and blowing eggs. Blowing eggs? What does this mean? "It's all legit...I saw it on Martha Stewart". We must try this! Thus begins the hour long activity of sticking a needle into both ends of an egg and attempting to "blow it's guts out". It is one of the nastiest, funniest things I have ever seen. It is so strange to sit around a table of adults cheering on "egg blowers" and celebrating when the egg has been blown out or blows up (on a person's face -yak!).

And after all that excitement, I went home and did laundry. I also cleaned my living room, organized my paperwork for a board meeting, and organized my sock drawer. What an uneventful way to end one of the zaniest days ever!

And, I know what you're thinking now - "And then I woke up!". But, No! This was not a dream....my dream this weekend was much stranger. I dreamed that we were traveling to England on the Queen Mary 2 with two of our dogs and we got lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Seriously, sometimes real life is better than fiction!

Here's to many more egg hunts, chocolate bunny snowball targets, and egg blowing contests. Cheers!

For the love of Peep!

In honor of Easter candy (and to celebrate the wonders of the microwave), I found myself in a discussion about putting random things - like peeps - into the microwave. While I would never-ever-ever do this in my own microwave, I find it highly amusing to watch other people do it. The peeps exploding are hilarious, but check out the other random things hanging out in the microwave. I mean, seriously, people - who thinks of these things? (Thank you random person for thinking of these things - you've been my source of amusement for the past hour).

http://microwavecam.com/microwavecam/index.htm

If the videos don't show up, you can do a search in youtube. The peeps are definitely worth a look. I laughed like a hyena on Lion King when the things exploded. It's kindof like the joy I get from popping bubble wrap or squishing packing peanuts.....you know what I mean.

Maybe this stems from some childhood trauma (don't they all, Oediupus?). I have a memory of my uncle making popcorn at Christmas and it caught fire. I remember the way the microwave looked and the way my mom had decorated the kitchen....everything is very vivid. I remember being terrified that the microwave would randomly catch fire and burn down my house. (Ya see, I have the fear of my house catching fire and I can't get everyone and everything out. Similarly, my sister has a dream about tornadoes where she tries to get all of us into a safe place in the house. I wonder what Freud would say?). Anywho, I've always been fascinated by a machine that magically heats, pops, melts, and randomly catches fire.

P.S. No peeps were harmed in the writing of this post.

Hail to the Peeps!