Friday Pet Blogging
It’s hard to read while wearing all of your pets.
Scary Kid Stuff (with pictures!)
Paul the Spud at Shakespeare’s Sister asks the question “What creeped you out as a kid?” Here are my answers, many of which were from TV shows that I probably shouldn’t have been watching.
1. The Star Trek episode “Miri” where the crew beams down to a planet that at first seems deserted. But they soon find out it’s occupied only by children, because a strange leprosy-like disease attacks adults and kills them. The crew gets the disease, and has to find a cure. I still vividly remember the disease was like a strange blue-green mold growing on the crew — gross!
I couldn’t find the image that sticks out in my head – Kirk pulls back his sleeve and he’s got blue mold on his forearm. Ugh.
2. The Space 1999 episode “The Dragon’s Domain” – There’s a creepy-ass octopus-like monster with a glowing eye that sucks the characters in and spits back out their mutilated corpses. Until I started searching for it just now, I had no idea what the show or episode was. I found it by searching for “space creature glowing eye tentacles.”
Shudder. I’m going to have dreams about that. I had nightmares about this thing for YEARS.
2. The Towering Inferno — which we weren’t supposed to watch on TV, because we were too young, but the babysitter let us stay up. I don’t remember a thing about the movie, but I’ve hated disaster movies ever since.
Hmm. Why do I suspect this is a movie that will never get a remake?
3. The Wicked Witch popping into Munchkinland. (Although this was also my favorite part, because Dorothy backs up and Glinda puts her arms around her to protect her from the witch. “Rubbish. You have no power here! Begone, before someone drops a house on you, too!” Sigh.) Unlike some of the comments from other people, I was never scared of the flying monkeys, cause I thought they were prisoners. I was afraid of the castle guards. Apparently the witch surprise is pretty universal — my aunt Rosemary ran out of the theater and refused to see the rest of the movie.
Completely an excuse to post another picture of Glinda.
4. The original Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life” – the creepy kid who can make any of his wishes come true — I vividly remember the image of his sister, who had no mouth.
I looked for a picture of that, but couldn’t find one, so here’s a picture of a flying monkey instead. I love their little cape/jackets. (2021 Update – found a pic. Still creepy.)
For a very short time today, we outranked Lance Armstrong
The seller’s agent for our new home was a bit late to our closing, because he has Lance Armstrong and Robin Williams staying at his house for race weekend. His house is a block and a half from ours, BTW. During our closing, he got paged that they had arrived at his house, but he had to stay for us to sign everything.
So for about 20 minutes, we were slightly more important than Lance Armstrong. Aren’t you glad you know us?
Also — WE HAVE A HOUSE. Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Freshly Poured Concrete
I went to Bagel Fair this morning to get a bagel and coffee for breakfast. There’s a construction crew around the building on scaffolding working on the exterior, and they were also pouring fresh concrete on the sidewalk in front of the building. To get into the store, you had to walk across a wooden plank laid down over the concrete.
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After getting my bagel and coffee, I turned to leave, but there was a guy standing on the wooden plank, blocking the way. He was wearing dress clothes, and he was surveying the work being done above — he had an air of authority, so I’m guessing he was a builder or project manager or something. I stood for a few seconds and waited for him to see me waiting, but he was completely oblivious. The lady after me was ready to leave also, and I realized there would soon be a traffic jam, so I cleared my throat and got the guys attention: “Excuse me. I’m sorry, I just need to get through.”
But rather than stepping backwards off the plank as I had expected, he stepped to the side. Into the concrete. He didn’t even realize what he did until I looked down at his nice dress shoes, now covered with cement.
He jumped back out really quickly, looked at his construction guys, and said, “Hey, someone stepped in the cement, there,” sort of jokey… like it wasn’t him that did it. And the foreman guy said, “um, yeah, I saw that.”
And I walked the plank back to my car in the parking lot, satisfied at my morning accomplishments; I had a bagel and coffee, and I ruined a guy’s shoes.
You Know You Were A Little Girl Of The 70’s If:
This is the most accurate of these lists I have ever seen! I’ve checked off all the ones that are mine.
You wore that rainbow shirt that was half-sleeves and the rainbow went up one sleeve, across your chest and down the other…
You made baby chocolate cakes in your Holly Hobby Easy Bake Oven. You washed them down with The Snoopy Snow Cone Machine.
You had that Fisher Price Doctor’s kit with a stethoscope that actually worked. After training with these tools you became an expert at the game of “operation”.
Legos, Legos, Legos.
You owned a schwinn bicycle with a floral banana seat and a basket. In the early 80’s you moved onto the ever-popular 10 speed. God that seat hurt.
Your roller skates had metal wheels.
Admit it…… you thought Gopher from Love Boat was cute. You had nightmares after watching Fantasy Island.
You had rubber boots for rainy days. Your shoes actually fit inside of the boots (with a little help from your mom and some plastic bags).
You had Tinkerbell bath products that change the color of the bath water. {yes, mine were from Avon}
You had either a “bowl cut” or a “pixie” because your mom was sick of braiding your hair. How traumatic when people thought you were a boy.
Your sleeping bag was your most prized possession. {yep, my red snoopy bag}
You wore a “poncho” with your faux fur “muff” and your clogs.
You begged Santa for the electronic game… Simon which may be just as fun as 온카.
You had the Donnie and Marie dolls with those pink and purple shredded outfits. {didn’t have the dolls, but loved the show. My mom bought me purple socks to match Donnie’s. Too bad he’s such a jerk now.}
You spent hours out back on your metal swing set with the trapeze.
You were into ping pong. {This is Cate!}
You had homemade string barrettes in every imaginable color.
You kept losing your mittens so your mom bought you the kind that were attached by a string.
Your Hello Kitty pencil case was cuter than anyone else’s.
You wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder really bad. You wore that Little House on the Prairie-inspired plaid, ruffled shirt with the high neck in at least one school picture. You despised Nellie Olson! {Not just the shirt! I had a whole dress mom made for me, and a BONNET! And I had all the books. Laura was cool. She still is.}
You wanted your first kiss to be at the roller rink.
Your hairstyle was ever described as having “wings”.
Strawberry Shortcake and her friends Blueberry Muffin and Huckleberry Pie. {This was more my little sister’s thing. And she loved the Peculiar Purple Pieman Of Porkupine Peak.}
You carried a Muppets lunch box to school. {I can’t remember my lunch box, except that I hated it because the other kids laughed at it.}
You and your girlfriends would fight over which of the Dukes of Hazard was your boyfriend. {Well, not really. I wanted the car.}
You memorized every song on the “Annie” movie and know at least one person who immediately went out and got the Annie afro. Every now and then “Dumb Dog” will pop into your brain and you can’t stop singing it all day. {yes. I was actually offended when they remade it for tv on ABC last year. I thought the movie was the definitive version.}
You had Star Wars action figures, too. {yep, Leia. I have the new ones too.}
Lightsabers were the dream, weren’t they? Back then, we’d wave around plastic versions, making the sounds with our mouths, pretending we were in some epic duel. Now, it’s a whole different game. With custom sabers online, you can get hilts that look straight out of a Jedi temple, with glowing blades that hum just like in the movies. The best part? Some brands, like Theory Sabers, perfect with every little detail—colors, even the way the blade ignites. It’s not just for collecting anymore; these things are built for full-on dueling.
You thought unicorns were real. {I had every book you could think of and all these little ceramic figurines, and people gave them to me long after I stopped collecting them. Grandma gave me a unicorn a few years ago for Christmas.}
It was a big event in your household each year when the Wizard of Oz” would come on TV. Break out the popcorn and sleeping bags! {yes! I had a huge crush on Glinda.}
You wanted to be a part of the Von Trappe family. {yep! Love Julie Andrews, too.}
Light as a feather, stiff as a board. {yes, But that wasn’t as good a slumber party stunt as stealing everyone’s bras when they were asleep, getting them wet, and putting them in the freezer.}
You loved The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe so much you got the whole Chronicles of Narnia series for Christmas but never read the other books. {Well, I actually read all the books. I read them again in 1997.}
You completely wore-out your Grease and Saturday Night Fever soundtrack albums. {yep. I remember mom coming downstairs and catching me singing and doing a dance routine to Grease.}
You tried to do lots of arts and crafts things like yarn & Popsicle stick God’s Eyes or those weird potholders made on a plastic loom. {yes. Mom still has all this stuff in her house – the gods eyes and string art stuff is still hanging in our old rooms.}
Shrinky-dinks! What was so appealing about these? I loved the Raggedy Anne & Andy shrinky dinks. I still remember how the oven smelled when they were “baking”. {Everyone at work has been looking for these! We want to do some now that we’re adults. We feel we’re better artists now. A very helpful reader sent this in… you can buy a Shrinky Dinks book.}
You used to tape record songs off the radio by holding your miniature tape recorder up to the speaker. {yes, but the best thing to record was when we recorded my dad yelling his head off and played it back later, over and over, until he caught us.}
You couldn’t wait to get the free animal poster that came when you ordered books from the scholastic book orders your teacher would give you. Remember? The order catalogs looked like miniature newspapers. {yes. I had sooooo many of these books.}
You learned everything you needed to know about sex and your period from Judy Blume books. {yes, including that one that the neighbor girl loaned me, and mom took away because it described sex. But I snuck down and read it in the middle of the night.}
McDonalds Employees Make Own Recipes from McD’s Ingredients
Boing Boing links to a Live Journal community of McDonalds employees that make their own recipes (for back room and after hours consumption) using the ingredients from McDonalds foods.
We did this back when I was in college and working at Mickey D’s in the summer time, and got in so much trouble for it when we got caught. You’d be surprised what you could make, especially with the ingredients from salads. We had a pretty healthy chicken burrito similar to what they’re describing, made from the diced chicken that went on salads, combined with lettuce and the tortillas from breakfast burritos. We also had a version of the “Orange Julius” (shake ingredients mixed with orange drink) that they’re making, too, and lots of variations on the McNuggets, because those were fairly new in my day.
They have a lot more specialty ingredients to choose from these days, lucky kids. Oh, wait. They work at Mickey D’s — they’re not that lucky.
Childhood Memories
Passed along from my friend Matt. Typically I add these to the big fat list I’ve compiled of quizzes about me, but right now I don’t have time to merge the two. I should also link a bunch of the answers below to pages on the site, but no time for that either.
1. What was the first car your family had?
A 1957 Chevy. It was blue, and I barely remember it. Then we had a succession of volkswagens which my dad drove, and my mom hauled us around in a Pontiac Bonneville. Then my dad drove a VW Rabbit, and my mom had a Ford Country Squire station wagon, brown with wood panel sides.
My own first car was a 1977 Audi Fox station wagon I bought in 1988 from my girlfriend Peg’s dad for $300.00. It was a stick and was a pretty good car for that amount of money. Nothing worked on it except the engine, the brakes, the steering wheel and the headlights. But it had tons of room that let me haul all my crap around, and I think I actually was stupid enough to drive the thing to Dayton, Ohio (to go to 1470 west) a time or two as well.
2. What was the name of your first pet and why?
We had a poodle named Puddles that I got when I was five or six.
3. What did you want to be when you grew up?
A knight in shining armor. Yeah. I read King Arthur stories when I was really, really little and I didn’t understand that all that was in the middle ages. And that all the knights were boys.
4. What was the name of your elementary school?
I went to North East Elementary in Ankeny, Iowa for the first few years, and after we moved I went to East Elementary. I think.
5. Who was your first best friend?
Sherri Castle and Kay Kaufman, who lived on either side of us.
6. Are you still friends today, and if not, what happened?
They moved when I was still a kid.
7. What was your favorite board game?
Clue, as you can tell if you look at my board game collection.
8. Did you play house or other make believe games?
Yep, we played house. I had a tiny kitchen with a stove, sink and refrigerator, kitchen table, and even a kitchen cupboard my grandfather made for me. We also played cowboys and Indians and tons of other stuff.
My brother Paul used to dictate what the make believe games were all the time, and he always chose what he thought were the best characters. He had to be Bert, I had to be Ernie. He had to be Kermit, I had to be Grover. He had to be the Lone Ranger, I had to be Tonto. Looking back, I was always the cooler character, and he was the dork, so I guess he picked that pretty accurately.
9. Were you a Dungeons and Dragons geek?
Nope. That was after my time.
10. Did you sleep with stuffed animals as a kid?
Yep. I got a teddy bear for my first birthday, which I still have, and then later I got bud the bear, and mom made this corduroy dog that I loved, too.
11. Do you still sleep with stuffed animals?
Heh. I have an entire monkey collection, people. I don’t sleep with them, though. I occasionally will grab blue flat bear to lean against if my heart surgery pillow isn’t around, but that’s to support my sternum at night.
12. Who was the first person you looked up to when you were younger?
I’d say my mom and dad pretty much equally.
13. Who was your favorite relative?
My aunt Chris, who was young and really loved playing with us. She’s one of those people who is just genuinely good-natured and happy all the time and a lot of fun to be around. And she was hot.
14. Were you short or tall in elementary school?
I was pretty tall, and inconveniently, I was about six inches taller than my older brother, who I think still resents me to this day for it.
15. Were you teased in school?
I had a terrible time in junior high, especially the two years we lived in Ohio.
16. What was the name of your favorite teacher?
My kindergarten teacher Mrs. Forsythe was great, and I loved my fifth-grade teacher Miss Verban. My six-grade teacher Mrs. Wilson was cool, too.
17. What was the name of your least favorite teacher?
My second grade teacher, who’s name I can’t remember, was my least favorite. She yelled at me for reading ahead of the rest of the class in the reading workbooks, and constantly gave me a hard time about daydreaming. I was SO BORED in her class because I was so far ahead of everyone, and she wouldn’t let me move on. I remember she also yelled at me once when I was raising my hand in class, and I was goofing off snapping my fingers, because she thought I was snapping my fingers at her. She also threatened to shove my pen down my throat if I didn’t stop chewing on the cap. I chew on pens to this day. So there.
18. What was your best subject in school?
English, social studies, history.
19. What was your worst subject in school?
Probably math, because I hated it, although I did well.
20. Did you do well in Physical Education?
No. I think it was taught really poorly. I wish they hadn’t emphasized competition so much, because it didn’t allow people like me, who didn’t participate in sports, to find a physical activity that was appropriate. I was always so overwhelmed and dominated by the kids who had more experience competing that I never got in touch with my physical self.
21. Were you clumsy when you were younger?
Nope. I was pretty well coordinated.
22. Who was your favorite band as a kid?
Oh god. Do i got there? I loved Olivia Newton John. And the Bee Gees. And Barbara Mandrell.
23. What was your favorite movie as a kid?
The Wizard of Oz, because I was in love with Glinda. I also loved the Sound of Music, because I had a crush on Julie Andrews. For a long time, I thought I wanted to be a nun, because I didn’t want to marry a man, and that seemed like a good way out. (I know, I wasn’t paying attention to the plot of the movie, people.) Turns out I really wanted to be a lesbian.
24. Did your parents read to you?
All the time. You can see the results. My mom reading to us was one of the best gifts she could have given us, and I am so grateful for that. I love books.
25. Did you have a favorite book?
Way too many to name.
26. What was your favorite restaurant as a kid?
Pizza Hut, or Godfather’s Pizza.
27. What TV or movie star did you have a crush on?
This will take a while. Julie Andrews, Lynda Carter, Olivia Newton John, Carrie Fisher, the bionic woman, the chick who played Isis. Okay, I have to stop, because this will take all day.
28. Do you now wonder what you were thinking?
Hell, no, they were all hot.
29. Who was your first crush in school?
Jamie Reyhons, who lived down the street, and later her friend Shawn Hoffman, who lived a block over. I also had the inconvenient problem of having crushes on some of the same girls my older brother did. He didn’t get them either.
30. As a child, what kind of car did you want when you grew up?
I didn’t think much about cars as a kid.
31. Did your parents spank you?
Let’s not go there.
32. Did your parents fight a lot when you were a kid?
Some.
33. Did your parents get divorced or stay married?
They divorced when I was in college.
34. If they got divorced, how old were you when it happened?
20, 21?
35. Did you ever run away from home?
I wanted to. Growing up as one of six kids can get pretty unbearable at times.
36. How old were you when/if you first got glasses?
Second or third grade.
37. Did you need braces or a retainer?
Yep, in late high school and college.
38. If you’re male, how old were you when you had your first wet dream?
N/A.
39. Both sexes when did you start shaving?
Who knows.
40. Girls when did you start wearing a bra?
Who knows.
41. What was your first kiss like?
It was icky, and with a boy. I made out with a boy named Rob Fox (?) in my friend Linda Griggy’s basement, in eighth grade, when I lived in Ohio. I was probably 13. Linda would have me stay over, and her mom worked the night shift (my mom did not know this) so we did whatever. I can honestly say it was the most boring make-out session ever. I was totally uninterested.
Linda was the one who later helped me figure out that I was gay (no, not THAT way) by explaining what it felt like to make out with her boyfriend. It dawned on me that what she was describing was the way I felt about girls.
42. What did you do on your first date?
Made out in my friend Linda Griggy’s basement. Yeah, fun.
43. How old were you when you first drank?
13 years old. Again, with Linda. Her boyfriend was 18 (!) and could get liquor, so he bought whiskey, and we’d walk around at night drinking and hanging out.
44. Where was your first house?
810 Belmont Ave, Ankeny Iowa. I visited in 2001 on a vacation and took pictures.
Schwinn Stingray
Schwinn is once again producing, after 25 years, the Sting-Ray bicycle, with a version for kids, and also one for adults.
My first bike when I was a kid was a red Stingray, very similar to this one, and my older brother’s was blue. I had the V-back handle bars and banana seat. We thought they were really cool until 10-speeds and BMX bikes came out, and then the Sting-Rays were dweeby and uncool.
A year or two ago, I took the two Sting-Rays, along with a bunch of other old bikes from my mom’s garage, to the Bicycle Action Project [link deprecated: no longer in business] in downtown, Indianapolis, which is a no-for-profit group that helps kids repair bikes they can then keep. When we wheeled the Sting-Rays in the building, the kids were nuts about the banana seats, and everybody wanted to use those on their bikes.
Pretty funny how everything comes around again.
Bigotry and anti-gay hate at the Republican National Convention
Pastor Donnie McClurkin will be performing at the Republican National Convention. Among other things, McClurkin thinks homosexuality is a “curse,” that it’s caused by men raping small children, that being gay is a choice, that it can be cured, and most explosively, that gays are trying to “kill our children.”
He’s come to those conclusions through his personal experience. He was molested by an uncle as a child, and believes his homosexual feelings came as a result of that.
While I’m sorry about what happened to McClurkin as a child, he’s blaming the wrong people. Homosexuality is not caused by being molested as a child. I was not molested, and neither were the vast majority of gay people. And most molested children do not turn out to be gay. Most gay people are not in the least interested in children. Most child molesters molest children of the opposite sex. Almost all children who are molested, nearly 90% are girls molested by adult men.
The numbers just don’t support what he’s saying here.
And if we truly want to get serious about children being molested, we need to looking at adult heterosexual males.
Stuff I used to believe
When I was a kid, I got the colors yellow and orange confused all the time, because yellow cabs are actually *orange* and I would read the name “yellow” and think that was the color. No I didn’t learn colors late, I learned to read early.
Also, I remember my grandma talking with my mom about black people, and I was so confused, because I knew brown people, but I didn’t know anyone who actually was black.