Like Mythical Sirens, but with Cookies

           January is a wonderful month, with all sorts of wonderful things happening like new seasons of TV series, award nominations and 1099s and W2s for those who anticipate a tax refund.  It’s also early enough in the year that the feeling you will actually start eating right and exercising is still real and true.  But the best thing of all is Girl Scout Cookies.  I cannot overstate how much Samoas (or Caramel Delights) mean to me.  They are life sustaining, y’all. 

            Having seen multiple posts on Facebook from friends letting me know that their tiny girl children of the scouting variety were looking to load me up with all sorts of deliciousness, I was on the lookout for these dessert-laden children.  Since most of my friends’ children live in other states, I have to wait to find these elusive Girl Scouts who appear suddenly on sidewalks calling to mere mortals like me, not unlike the mythical sirens, but with cookies.

            I was running errands on Saturday and remembered to keep my eyes peeled for groups of young ladies surrounded by throngs of parents at folding tables, precariously crammed with boxes of baked happiness.  I spotted a group just outside the bank and planned on buying a box or three once I had my cash in hand from the ATM.  While Girl Scouts in my city take card payments with Square, I prefer to pay cash.  I don’t need an electronic record of me cheating on my diet.

            Cash in hand, I practically bounced out of the bank lobby and toward the table of people.  I walked right up and was about to announce my intention to purchase Samoas, when I noticed the sign said Camp Fire Girls and they were attempting to sell me overpriced trail mix. Have you ever tried to stop mid-bounce?  It's difficult and it hurts.

            I’m embarrassed to say that my poker face failed me, and my disappointment was evident.  I sidestepped the table, made some excuses about being allergic to raisins and the outdoors and fled to my car, both slightly ashamed of my behavior and sad that I had no cookies.

            In my mind, I said, “Hmpf!  Camp Fire Girls! Trying to sell me trail mix so they can sleep outside, when they have perfectly lovely, overpriced houses in their neighborhood.  Ridiculous!  I do not want your trail mix! I do not want your campfire!”  During my internal tantrum, I wondered, what is a Camp Fire Girl anyway?

            Camp Fire Girls or Camp Fire, as it is no longer a girls-only group, was founded in 1912 in Missouri as a sister organization to the Boy Scouts.  It is an organization that emphasizes camping and outdoor activities for youth and has been co-ed since 1975.  As someone who has camped out dozens of times in my childhood, only a few of them voluntarily, I don’t get the passion for sleeping outdoors.  We invented houses so we wouldn’t have to do that.

            Camp Fire today, however, is geared toward helping youth find their spark and discover who they are.  They focus on camping and environmental programming and service and leadership, which I applaud and would fully support if they sold cookies.  

A list of notable alums includes Shirley Temple, Marian Anderson, Janis Joplin, Gladys Knight, Madonna and Rita Moreno.  I’m not sure if a vocal tryout is required before you join, but I’m guessing the sing-alongs at their campfire are better than yours.

Also, I need a Samoa.  Can somebody help me out?  Please and thank you.

Is It Reality, For Real?

            The other day I was sitting at Einstein Brother’s Bagels having a quick breakfast before my doctor’s appointment and I noticed a mother and son duo that piqued my interest.  At first glance, they appeared to be a run-of-the-mill Hispanic mother in her early 30s with a son around 13.  I only noticed them because the son had walked away from the counter where his mother was ordering to peruse the drink options.  When they were apparently out of the bagel he wanted, they had the conversation of choosing a new bagel flavor, while yelling at each other across the restaurant, neither of them feeling the need to walk closer to the other.  They fortuitously sat at the table next to mine, which allowed me to literally transcribe their conversation.

            Once they got their food, the son began talking and his side of the conversation was so much like a bad reality show that I surreptitiously looked around for a camera crew.

            Son: “Are you tired?”

            Mother: “Yeah.”

            “Is it because you’re worried about your brother?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Are you worried he might not have changed like he said?  That your love for him will only hurt you again?  That your belief in him is not helping him?
            “Yeah.”

            “I’m worried about you.  You don’t enough sleep and then you get clumsy and we both know how Dad gets when you get clumsy.  How he gets angry at you and it makes you sad and then you don’t get enough sleep.”

            “Yeah.”

            They stop talking for a few minutes so the son can take a breath and eat, and I find myself staring at his food trying to figure out what it is.  Like any narrator worth his salt, he describes his custom order which is a smoked salmon and cream cheese on a chocolate chip bagel with BBQ chips as an additional layer.

            Son: “You’d think those flavors wouldn’t work together but they do.  You get your salty and you get your sweet.”

            Mother: “Yeah?”

            “Definitely.  I’ve tried different ones.  Pretzel was too salty.  Pumpkin was the best, but they didn’t have it, which was what you told me earlier when I was looking at the drinks.  Remember, I had to find out what drinks there were to make sure they had something that you liked because I wanted you to enjoy your meal.  Our meal.  Our time together.  I really do enjoy our time together.”

            “Yeah.”

            “Do you worry when I’m not around?  When I’m gone to school?  Do you worry about me like grandma?  Here’s a text from grandma.  Let’s read it together.”

           

            At this point, I realized I was going to be late for my appointment, so I had to leave them behind.  I don’t know if this young man thinks that’s how people talk to each other because he thinks reality TV is actual reality or he was pretending that he was on a show in case he ever gets cast on a reality show or if it was actually a show and the cameraman was really great at camouflaging himself.  Either way, if you see me on TV at some point, and I appear to be furiously writing in my notebook, you can rest assured that I am writing down everything the people next to me are saying.  I’ve got to practice just in case I get my own reality show.

          Can I get an Amen, y'all?

Faith and Fried Shrimp

                When I was in 4^th grade, I flirted with the idea of converting to Catholicism.  The main reasons weren’t theological, it was that the Catholics at my school were special and rich.  They were special in that they got to leave class early on Wednesdays to attend a different class called catechism.  They were rich because they got to eat fried shrimp for lunch on Fridays, delivered from The Wagon Wheel, which was close by Delta Christian Academy, the name of the private school in Tallulah, LA.

                DCA (elementary) and Tallulah Academy (junior high and high school) were not affiliated with any denomination which was how Baptists and Catholics and others went to school together.  It appeared if you liked Jesus and could afford tuition, you were good to go.  Now, I don’t remember there being any particularly Jesusy about the curriculum or activities, but the name was descriptive as we were in the Delta, almost on the banks of the Mississippi River.

                Christmas vacation 1979, we moved from Moore, OK to Tallulah, a relatively populous town, about 8 miles from Alsatia, where my mother grew up and her parents, her sisters and their families still lived.  We took renter ship of a large two-story antebellum home behind the Post Office and enrolled in the public elementary school as we were not accustomed to attending private schools, the fact that we had just been students at Moore Christian Academy notwithstanding. 

That reality was unusual as we had always attended public schools.  The faculty at MCA didn’t really know what to do with us.  They were fascinated by our southern accents; on numerous occasions, pulling us out of class into the hallway to ask us to “say something”.  I was only in the 3^rd grade but I thought it was odd behavior.  After our performance at the talent show, I am sure they found us more than odd.  My cousin Kendra and I were fairly mundane in our rendition of “There’s a Hole in My Bucket, Dear Liza”, complete with costumes.  However, my sister recited a poem called “Little Orphan Annie” with an alligator puppet. 

If you’re unfamiliar with this poem, let me assure you it is not about the singing orphan from Broadway.  It was written by James Whitcomb Riley and has lines such as “…and the goblins will getcha if you don’t watch out.”  I wonder if they thought it was a message from Louisiana as most people from elsewhere imagine the entire state to be like New Orleans, all spicy food and voodoo. 

From a weather perspective, northern Louisiana is a bit less humid than New Orleans, but not enough to keep you from feeling like you can grab a handful of air.  From a gustatory perspective, there is a vast difference.  Although delicious and able to induce heart attacks from the abundance of fried things, there isn’t much spice.

Back to education in Tallulah, I had already been disappointed by the level of work in my grade.  I was up to the 13s in multiplication, while my classmates were barely past 5s.  My mother noticed that my sister (5^th grade) has the same spelling textbook as my cousin (2^nd grade at DCA) and it was determined that we would join the local elite at the private school for the following year.

Whenever my classmates left to go to catechism classes, I often wondered what it was.  I wasn’t familiar with the word and it sounded very close to cataclysm, which we had recently heard at church in relation to the impending return of Jesus and Armageddon.  As there was no internet to surf and I wasn’t ready to get into a religious discussion with an adult due to questioning, I assumed they were learning things to help them survive the Rapture.  I had recently been frightened enough to run down to the altar call at church after we watched “Like a Thief in the Night” at Parkview Baptist and give my life to Jesus so I wouldn’t be left behind like that girl who ate chips in the living room instead of listening to the preacher.  She got left behind and had to jump off a bridge and drown so she wouldn’t have to have the mark of the beast on her forehead.  It was terrifying y’all. 

There are those who watch the movie now and laugh at the imagery, like the guy mowing his lawn in cut-off denim shorts and striped knee socks.  But when you saw someone similarly dressed cutting the lawn on your way to the church, it tends to leave an impression.  Maybe these catechism classes were teaching them how to survive in the End Times. 

That was important as I was terrified of the Rapture happening before I got a chance to grow up and have an awesome life as an Architect and possibly have enough money to eat fried shrimp on Fridays. 

People from Nowhere Never Click on Internet Ads...Apparently

Hey, y'all.  I was reviewing the statistics from my blog, trying to figure out how to convince more people to read the darn thing so I can get a book deal and make a little money. There are always more pants to buy and more cinnamon rolls. So far, I've not met their lofty ad click threshold of $10, so they can cut me my first ad revenue check. The 59 of you who have registered to follow this blog, I adore all of you. To quote Miss Tina Turner, you are simply the best. The rest of you lot are on my naughty list and I can assure you I know both Jesus and Santa Claus, so whomever you're most afraid of, I'm telling them all about your unwillingness to make me rich. On an other note, I was looking at the traffic sources for my blog and I noticed a very interesting list of the home countries of fans of my blog.  Here is the Top 10.

1. US

2. Ukraine

3. Russia

4. UK

5. Philippines

6. Indonesia

7. Unknown Region

8. Switzerland

9. Germany

10. Japan

What exactly is going on here?  Other than being spied on by Ukraine and Russia (I assume), where is Unknown Region?  How does The Internets not know where somewhere is? The Internets knows where I park, where I go every other Thursday after work and what exactly I've been wanting to purchase but just haven't. It's creepy but also convenient for The Internets to know everything. So if it doesn't know, what am I to think? Is Unknown Region a proper noun? Is it a place? Is it outer space?  Is it a rift in the space/time continuum? Is this a Doctor Who episode and if so, which Doctor is it?  It had better be 10 or 11; 13, in a pinch.  12 would be okay if he wasn't always so irritable. He's like The Dad when he's tired of waiting for the Meals on Wheels people, except with a guitar.  If we were in the TARDIS together, one of us would have thrown the other one out the door somewhere during the first episode.  Also, why can't River Song be a Doctor?

But, returning to the less concerning locales, Switzerland is about as posh as they come. Well done me.  I wonder if I should go there for a book signing?  I've been to UK but am always looking for an excuse to go back. I've also heard Berlin is amazing, so maybe I'll plan a whole Western Europe trip to meet my people; all my loveable Pennies? Loafers? Almosters? What do you call yourselves? Do you call yourselves anything? If not, why not? We are headed to the Philippines for our honeymoon later this year. Maybe those fans in Indonesia can meet us there? I don't want to go to two hot places in one year. Plus, Indonesia doesn't have Bangus Embutido or Chicken Pastel. Manila does, so it's Manila for the win. I guess it doesn't matter where you are, I really appreciate your support. Please forward my blog posts to your friends. But not this one, it's not that funny. Send them a good one. And for those who are reading the blog from the Unknown Region, let me know where you are, if you can. Or at least send me a picture of your location's flag or an example of your clothing or your favorite food, as long as it's not spicy. Please and thank you.

Define 'Extra'

          This past week, I received a text message from my sister of a dump truck with it's bed in the 'up' position, like it was actively dumping it's load.  I was wondering what purpose there was to sharing this with me, when I noticed there were power lines running across the windshield and a utility truck sitting in the road to the immediate right.
          Apparently, the driver of this truck was unaware his bucket (?) was still up when he drove through the bustling metropolis of Vega, Texas, taking with him most of the power lines and the one red light.  Yes, they just have the one.  And it's not a real red light; it just flashes letting you know there is a Dairy Queen and a Subway nearby, I guess.  I'm not sure why they even have it other than Vega is a town on Route 66, which was a big deal back in the day but hasn't really been relevant since the 1980s, somewhat like Steely Dan, Care Bears or Larry King.
          Consequently, the power was knocked out to the entire town, and by that I mean, the 25 houses and two churches, of which one is inhabited by The Dad.  Of course, I'm not talking about the church because he hasn't been to one of those since I bribed him with pancakes back in 2012 when he lived with me.  It was Presbyterian.  They weren't having a potluck lunch.  He has not returned.
          When my sister got to her house, she found The Dad sitting on the front porch, sweating like a field hand (because it's Texas and it's 138 degrees in the shade until sometime nearer Halloween) but smiling.  Knowing he had missed his lunch because the restaurant that makes the meals for Meals on Wheels had lost power and hesitant to engage with a hungry Dad, she said, "Whatcha doin' on the porch?"
          The Dad said, "Oh, some poor fella knocked out the power so I came outside.  I can't read in the dark."
          Still thinking he hadn't eaten she asked, "What did you eat for lunch?"
          He said, "That's the best part.  I got two lunches!"
          She questioned, "What do you mean, two lunches?"
          Looking at her like she was 'slow', he said, "Just what I said.  The Sheriff came by with a lunch and then the Meals on Wheels lady came by with lunch.   So I got two lunches today."
          She said, "Did you ask why they brought you two lunches?"
          He stared at her and said, "Why would I do that?  If somebody hands you food, you take it.  I don't care why they brought it."
          She called her friend Jaylie and found out that when the power went out and the restaurant that makes the lunches for Meals on Wheels and the prisoners at the county jail couldn't cook, the Sheriff drove to the next town and bought BBQ for the prisoners.  Because he knew the Meals on Wheels wouldn't have any food, he also bought food for their customers and delivered it.  Of course, he knew who got Meals on Wheels and who didn't as there are about 24 people in Vega, y'all.  For real.
          Meanwhile, the restaurant found that it had enough provisions to make sandwiches, with fruit and chips and, not knowing that the Sheriff was delivering food, completed their normal delivery route.  It was brought to their attention, not by The Dad, that the Sheriff had already brought meals, so The Dad got an extra lunch.
          My sister, thinking that he still had some of the food, said, "Well, good.  Since you have the extra lunch, I can eat that for supper and I won't have to cook."
          The Dad said, "I don't have any extra food.  What are you talking about?"
          She said, "The extra lunch.  I'll eat it for supper."
          The Dad stared at her and said, "They brought me two lunches so I ate two lunches.  It's what you do when somebody delivers lunch.  You eat it at lunch."
          She stared and said, "But they gave you two."
          He said, "I know.  I ate both of 'em.  For lunch."
         She laughed and said, "Well, you must be full."
         He patted his belly and said, "Yep.  It was a good lunch."
         She sat down in the chair beside him and after a few minutes he turned to her and asked, "What's for supper?"

Sprint Made Me Fat

          Recently, I have been searching for a new cell phone carrier.  I currently have Sprint and they are the absolute worst.  I have used AT&T and they are pricey and the rest of them are just about the same I can tell you.  I haven't been happy with cell service since AT&T bought Cingular in 20whatever.  Cingular used to be great.  I had cell reception with Cingular in the bathroom of my sister's house in the Hill Country of Texas, when she had to drive down the road a half-mile just to talk on her cell phone.  Seriously.
          The reason I am on the search is that Sprint's service is laughably bad.  I live in Long Beach, CA, a city of 500,000 people, in Los Angeles County which is the 2nd most populous place in America, y'all.  I am not in the boonies.  I am straight up in the city limits.  Seal Beach, CA is a fancy little town about 27 inches from Long Beach, literally starting at the order of Orange County.
           Whenever I am in Seal Beach bargain shopping at the Home Goods or Marshall's or simply trying to buy groceries and sundries at Target or Ralph's, which is their version of Piggly Wiggly, I am unable to make diet-conscious decisions because the cell reception is nil and I cannot access my Weight Watcher app, which shows me what foods I should and should not be eating.  I take my phone and use the camera as a scanner on the bar code and it gives me the info to make good choices, like knowing that the Whole Wheat Ritz Crackers are the least number of WW points, which makes sense because they are the least delicious.
           However, when I am standing in the parking lot of a shopping center in the city limits of Orange County, I get no signal.  Based on my cell reception, you would think I was in a cavern, in a canyon, excavating for a mine with Clementine's Daddy; she of "Oh My Darlin'..." fame song.  Google it, youngsters.
          And I'm not talking about a weak signal, you know the one that messes with you, making you slowly move, twisting your body into weirder and more painful positions, while its showing one bar , then two bars, then one bar, then four bars, then one bar again, leaving you all twisted like a Cirque du Soleil dancer, who got stuck mid-performance.  I'm talking about no signal.  Where it literally shows on your phone, where the little bars should be, the statement "No Signal".
          How is that even possible?  I mean, Sprint is a nationwide company, with many customers.  Am I the only one with No Service in LA County?  I can sell you an overpriced phone and offer you no signal using the cooking utensils in my kitchen.  And I would do it for much less money.
          Plus, it's Sprint's fault that I'm fat, which is ironic because sprint is something that my old kick boxing coah used to try to make me do until I whooped him down during my last class.  And by whooped him down I mean, I lay on the floor, cried a little and then cancelled my gym membership.            And I need my WW app, y'all.  When I can't access my little 'getting skinny' app at the store, I end up buying things like Doritos and Oreos and Pumpkin Cream Cheese.  Are these things fattening?  Are they WW approved?  Who knows?  Well, my WW app knows, but I can't access it, so now I'm fat. All because of Sprint.
          So, I'm looking for advice on the best cell service to help me lose weight.  But only from the skinny people.  And by skinny, I mean, skinnier than me.
          Bless y'all.  Bless all y'all.