Photo Special: Rajasthan, India

Summer-isms, Vol. 52

"I'm going to guess he has a lot of tape measures."

"She writes down the things I say. She puts them on the Internet."

"Tell me more about me being right."

"Sugar, beer and stress? Those are your three favorite things."

"Snow crunchy rashy."  (She was trying to say Cross Country Skiing.)

Sunday Favorites: Makeup and a Dress

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. This story originally appeared on December 17, 2011:

The other day at work, we were sitting in the car finishing up some paperwork and an older gentleman came out to the end of his driveway and stared me right in the eye.  I shrugged my shoulders at him but he kept staring and so finally I rolled down the window.  

He said, (in a Native American-slash-Canadian-slash-Mexican accent), 

"To be honest with you I wish there was a problem here all the time so I can see beautiful women like you."

"Damn.  You know?"

"Both of you are pretty."

"The way you are right now?  I can imagine you in a dress and some makeup."

"I've been watching you work, and I thought, man, she can look like a movie star.  You know?"

"It's incredible."

Summer was on the phone and I was talking to this weirdo and writing everything he was saying really fast.  She wondered what all the hubbub was about and ended her phone call.  She leaned across me and asked him what he needed, and he said,

"Don't believe who hired you.  Believe a stranger.  Don't believe whoever hired you.  It's not correct to hire beautiful women.  You know what I mean?  Do you understand what I'm saying?"

We had to take a picture of ourselves.  Because we could look like movie stars?  You know?

An Interview With My Sister Kim: Peein' in the Woods Ain't Easy

Kim, tell me, have you ever had to pee in the woods?

Many years ago, I went hunting for deer with my husband, his father and his brother. At one point, I needed to use the bathroom really bad, and planned to take the 3-wheeler from the woods back to the farm and use the outhouse. I was voted down by the guys who insisted they needed me to help with the next deer drive, and they didn’t want to wait for me. I was told to just go in the woods.

How did you feel about that? I mean, what's so hard about peeing in the woods?

I hate going in the woods, because there’s always the danger that the pee will run down my legs and into my pants and boots instead of running nicely in a stream directly to the ground.

Oh, I see. That would be terrible. Well, what did you do?

I finally gave in to the pressure and decided that if I found a good log to sit on, it would keep my stream separate from my pants and boots, and I could make it work. My father-in-law stayed behind, and my brother-in-law took off down the trail to eat his lunch at his 3-wheeler. I waited until he disappeared around the corner of the trail and then headed off into the woods to find a log. I made my husband accompany me.  

Ah yes, the "fallen log" approach. I too have opted for this method. It really can save one from having to squat and thus risk spraying urine all over their pants and boots. How would you describe this method, perhaps to City-Folk who have never heard of it before?

For those who aren’t familiar with the art of log-peeing: It’s important to find a log that’s big enough around to accomplish two purposes. It must keep you high enough above the ground. It must also completely meet the ground so the stream cannot enter your boots on the underside of the log. If you do find a log that meets these specifications, it then becomes very difficult to balance your body, so that there is enough of you on the back side of the log ensuring the pee stream stays on one side while your clothing is clean and dry on the other side. There’s another challenge if one has short legs. I have short legs. When you push several layers of long johns, jeans and wool pants (not to mention a few pairs of long socks) down as far as possible until they meet boots, those layers don’t get very far before they meet resistance. This means that in the winter, if you want to keep your clothes pee-less, far more of your body must be on the back side of the log than would be necessary if the weather were warmer and you were wearing fewer pieces of clothing. This is why I needed my husband.

Oh, I see. I was confused about the necessity of his presence. You know, I made the mistake once of sitting on a fallen log that was hovering a few feet above the ground. Can you comment on why that wouldn't be such a good idea?

What? Are you stupid? You weren't concerned the log would break and fall, taking you with it?

Maybe just continue with your story.

Anyway, I headed off into the woods to find a good log. I walked a ways to make sure I was out of sight. I saw and rejected several logs. Finally, I found a log that passed inspection, and wiggled my several layers down as far as they would go. I sat on the log. I squirmed my way back as far as I could and grasped my husband’s hand so I wouldn’t fall over backwards. At last I relaxed and began to relieve myself, at which point I looked up. To see my brother-in-law, sitting on his 3-wheeler, eating his sandwich, watching.

Minnesota Wild

I think I accidentally went on a date last night. And by "date" I mean a male friend-of-a-friend had an an extra ticket to a hockey game and I was the first to respond so we went together. Me and a dude. Sharing a six pound mound of buffalo chicken and tater tots stuffed into a helmet, cheering for the home team: what's-their-names.

I mean, I spent several hours trying not to fart. If that's not a date, then what is?

The seats were awesome.

Guh.

The highlight of the entire evening (at least for me) wasn't the two goals what's-their-names scored within six seconds of each other. It wasn't even the beer. It was meeting this hometown hero:

Dick Enrico. The 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment guy.

For those of you who have never watched TV in Minnesota, here's a little Dick Enrico:

"Uh-Oh!"

I have a friend who was employed as a carpet layer. As such, he often found himself in people's homes. And being in people's homes made him observant to certain things. 

One day, a customer called to him and his coworker from inside the house to come in. As my friend entered, he noticed a wheelchair folded up behind the door. He also noticed a very conspicuous mechanical wheelchair stair lift going from the first level up to the second.

His co-worker was not so...observant. He noticed only the crutches as the homeowner hobbled to the top of the stairs to greet them.

"Uh-oh!" the co-worker sing-songed. "Someone's on crutches!"

All signs point to...

Snow Angel, Interrupted.

Abby: I just watched the movie Bully and I want to apologize for what happened on Saturday.

 

This is a legitimate wrestling move. I think it's called a Butt-Up?

 

 

Photo Special: Mumbai Out the Window

These shots were taken of the outside from the inside.

 

 

Summer-isms, Vol. 51

"I just wanna feel young and be happy tonight."

"Ever since New Orleans, I'm a pork maniac."

"I've never been, but my skin likes it."

"I love Leonardo DiCaprio like he was my family."

"My body odor is not as pleasant as it used to be."

Record Store Day

This year, on Record Store Day, it's snowy and cold. Remember last year when we went fishing for Hipsters?? When Spring was really Spring and it was mild and just a little rainy?

Please enjoy the following recycled post from 2012:

A few weeks ago, on National Record Shop Appreciation Day, (or whatever they call it), I met up with my buddy Cash and we hung out at his place all day.  He happens to live above Hymie's, a local Minneapolis record store.  

Hymie's. Photo credit: C. Moore

They put on some festivities with in-store shows and a street show too.  My new favorite local band Night Moves played and we chilled out, opened the windows and enjoyed the scene from his gross boy apartment, complete with chairs whose cushions hide mouse poop underneath and secret disgusting things I can't discuss here and will pretend I didn't see.

And then I guess the boys got a little bored.  So they decided to go Fishing for Hipsters, using a record as bait:

If you catch a Hipster, you have to remember to feed it vegan,-gluten-free-dairy-free sandwiches and give it plenty of Grainbelt Premium beer. Or Hamm's. Also acceptable: PBR. In a can.

April 19

Yah, yah. We know. It's snowing in Minneapolis. A month after the official start of Spring. It's April 19th. Whatever. Even I'm sick of hearing about it.

But this stupid dumb storm kept me from my niece Karley's graduation in Ohio tomorrow night. My sisters and I were going to drive out but couldn't because we got 6 inches of snow today. Yesterday you could almost see the dead grass and now it's just like December out there. 

After work, I drove home very slowly, packed up my Tito's Vodka and some accoutrements, threw my boots on and walked across the street to hang out with my friend Lariz. We made her husband take pictures of us making snow angels in the yard. You know, the usual.

"FTW".

Remember my friend's relative who thought "LOL" meant, "Lots of Love", and sent out an email to the family that said, "Grandma died. LOL"?

I had a similar moment today. One of the owners of the company who sponsors my MS150 team recently posted an article on his Facebook page about one of the other owners of his company. She was featured on finance-commerce.com in an article and he posted a link to the article with the caption: 

"Nancy FTW!"

I was so shocked and confused because I was always under the impression that "FTW" meant: 

"[bad word] The World"

But, why would he caption it that? It was a business posting. I couldn't wrap my brain around it and so I googled "what does FTW mean?".

"For The Win", Kady. It means "For the Win".

Any idea how many people I prudishly judged harshly for using that terminology? One million, that's how many. This idiot: so offended anytime somebody was mentioning a "Win" in their lives.

Kady Stupid.

"Speak in the Horn!"

So, my mom got a hearing aid. This would have been helpful when I lived with my parents for a few reasons...least of which was the constant "WHAT?!?ing" I got from her and mostly because I might have been able to fall asleep with her TV on right under my bed if it had been at a slightly lower volume than ALL THE WAY UP.

Not that I'm complaining. I lived there for free.

But, you know.

Anyway, I wanted to make her laugh in case she was sad about losing her hearing, or whatever, so I spent part of yesterday googling some stuff about hearing aids and being hard of hearing (to be honest I needed something to distract me from googling and then reading about and subsequently sobbing over the Boston Marathon -- did you SEE the picture of that little boy who died and his cute little missing tooth?). I wanted to find an old cartoon I recalled from my childhood in which (I think) an old lady duck can't hear anything and so she tells the little kid ducks to "speak in the horn". And she holds up this horn to her ear. Nothing. Did I make this up? I could have sworn...

Guess what a google image search brings you when you search for "speak in the horn"?

This guy.

and:

This guy. I'm guessing he really gets the chicks.

I gave up and instead tried to YouTube search for a clip from a movie I remembered from my early teens starring Patricia Arquette who played an abused and abandoned stupid girl who was locked in a barn (it turns out she wasn't stupid at all, she just couldn't hear) and somewhere in the movie she gets a hearing aid and there's this great emotional scene in which she discovers that things make noise. Paper. Hands clapping.

But I couldn't think of the name of the movie. I emailed my friend. She was out of the office. I googled "hands make noise? paper make noise?" (the quote I remembered from the movie) Nothing.

Then I googled "Patricia Arquette deaf girl". Jackpot! The movie was called Wildflower and it was made in 1991. It also starred a young REESE WITHERSPOON as the girl who goes nosing around in barns that aren't her business and finds abandoned partially deaf girls in there and then helps them go to barn dances and get a leg up in life. I still couldn't find the clip I wanted. (The one where Wildflower first gets her hearing aid and says "hands make noise? paper make noise?") Nothing.

I did, however, find the trailer. There's a tiny bit of the scene I'm referring to at 1:31-1:33. ("I hear words!") Funny, I remember it being SUCH a good movie and here it looks kind of awful:

There is no ending to this hearing aid story, nor is there a moral. In fact they don't even call them "hearing aids" anymore, but "Hearing Instruments" (according to my mom.) My point is that some things just aren't on the internet (because you probably made them up in your head). And sometimes people bomb things and you have to try and look away for a few minutes and make fun of your mom.

But you can't. Because there's nothing wrong with being hard of hearing.

And look how cute it is:

That was a trick question. YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE IT.

"Hey mom!"

"What?"

"You have a banana in your ear."

"What?!"

"You have a BANANA in your ear."

"WHAT?!?"

"I SAID, you have A BANANA in YOUR EAR."

"WHAT?!? I CAN'T HEAR YOU. I HAVE A BANANA IN MY EAR."

Hal-isms, Vol. 36

"I've got acute Arabia."

"I will drive by way of California to stay away from Branson."

"Let's move on here. Let's have our lives back." (Pushing 'Play', after having paused the Weather.)

"Kiss my Patoot."

"When you call next time try to be more positive so it's easier for me to say something."

Deep Thoughts, by A Lady Reveals Nothing

"To see One's future, One must only look behind Oneself on the #19 bus." -A Lady Reveals Nothing

Sunday Favorites: Laotongs?

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. This story originally appeared on December 14, 2011:

Tonight Summer and I watched Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.You may remember I read that book when I was traveling.

It's about the relationships between female best friends. While we were watching it, I asked Summer if she was my laotong? And she said, "I don't think so. I don't think we're the laotong type."

According to Wikipedia, laotong "is a type of relationship within Chinese culture, which was practised in Hunan, that bonded two girls together for eternity as kindred sisters...the Laotong or "Old-Sames" relationship was the most precious friendship bond...the bond was for life...Laotong would frequently develop a language to use to communicate between them that only they could understand (a type of Nu shu), allowing them to send messages back and forth to one another."

Summer and I have been friends for a really long time. Seven years probably.  Acquaintances for much longer. We are good friends. Best friends. But not always in the purest sense of the word. The truth is, we have only maybe hugged four times. (And one of those was because a co-worker brought donuts to work.)

The spring that I was training for my first triathlon, I decided to do my swim in Lake Nokomis, and then bike over to Summer's place in St. Paul because she had recently sprained her ankle. It was bad. Real bad:

Actual photo of Summer's ankle.

She was pretty happy to see me, having been completely shut-in. We talked and visited for a while and she asked if I would take her to the library so she could get a bunch of movies to watch. "Sure," I said, "but I ain't going in. Not dressed like this."

And so, dear readers, I made my laotong go into the library by herself and rent a bunch of movies. It was only when she came hobbling out, crutches and all, struggling not to drop all five movies and her purse and the crutches that I very reluctantly got out of the car and helped her. But -- come on. I was sweaty. And dressed like this:

I'm sure you can imagine the maxi pad butt.

The other day here in Tucson I jumped out of the car to grab something from the back. Since it was cold and raining, I was trying to hurry. But the back was locked. I did the usual *knock* on the back hatch, to signal that it was locked and needed unlocking. This is a common occurrence for Summer and me, and usually the driver would then just unlock the door. But on this day, I was the driver and Summer was in the passenger seat, unaware that she could unlock right from her seat. She thought the only unlock button was in the driver's seat.  I squinted, peering through the freezing rain at her, where she sat, shrugging her shoulders. Unwilling to reach the 18 inches across to the drivers' side to hit the button.

Maybe we're not laotongs. But we're definitely 'old-sames'.

Summer-isms, Age 50

"I love everything about this car except it doesn't run. And the doors don't lock."

"Oh No my swearwords are getting so big."

"I gotta start dressing like a better Bad-*ss."

"It's like David Hasselhoff, you know? And how big he got in Germany."

"For all I know I don't have any good lotion in my storage unit."

So Close and Yet, Jafar

When I was in 10th grade I loved (from afar) a boy in 11th grade who worked for the movie theater.

One night I went with a group of friends to see Aladdin. When I approached this handsome, red-headed older man to pay for my ticket, he waved me through and smiled at me.

He knew who I was? He let me into the movie for free? I almost fainted.

The theater was packed. Almost every single seat was taken and I had to sit separately from my group. I found two seats on the aisle near the front. I left the aisle seat open and dreamed up this great fantasy in which my true love came into the theater and sat by me. Like a date. I dreamed and wished and hoped and prayed it. I could feel his invisible presence in my imagination and it was as if he were really there. Sitting by me. Like a date.

Have you ever wished for something so hard that it came true?

He came into the theater just as Jafar made his appearance on the screen (I'll never forget that detail.)

HE SAT BY ME.

LIKE A DATE.

I almost fainted.

He and I never spoke. Not that night and not ever again. To this day, I can't see an image of Jafar without remembering that moment, the most romantic of my entire life.

Pure Romance.

Not So Great Idea

The weather up here in Minnesota has been a little bit all over the place and last week we had some 50 degree temperatures (that's Farenheit, btw). I got the bright idea to ride my bicycle to work and to do it every Friday from here on out. (It's 19 miles one-way.) Why the heck would I do that, you ask? Well, the weather! And I'm training for a few big athletic events (I'm a Super Athlete, you know).

Most people would map out their route in advance when attempting a new 19-mile trek across three suburbs and I suppose I did attempt to do that. Sort of. But I don't have a printer and so I just tried to memorize the route I needed to take. Basically up the River Road, across the worst part of North Minneapolis, onto a Parkway and then onto a Trail and then boom! In just two hours I would arrive to the gym next door to my office where I would shower and freshen up. Fridays are short days at my office and so boom! I'd ride home around 3pm and be home by 5.

Well. I did ride up the River Road and then across the worst part of Minneapolis and then onto the Parkway but the Parkway bike trail was pretty icy and gravelly and so I had to ride on the narrow road alongside cars and somebody threw a cigarette at me and another guy yelled out his window, "THERE'S A BIKE TRAIL!"

My first reaction was to scream back "AS SOON AS THEY SWEEP IT *DUMB-DUMB*!" but I didn't think quickly enough. He was out of earshot. I kept my chin up and rode on. At the next stoplight "Dumb-Dumb" was sitting there with his window still down! I rode up next to him, and calmly explained that I would be happy to ride the bike trail as soon as it was swept. I also expressed that I thought he looked way too cool to be yelling at bikers. He was a super-cool old hippie-type dude with  a great amazing long beard. I had him eating out of my hand before the light turned green and we parted ways with a greater understanding between bike and car. (I do what I can.)

ANYWAY:

I think that was around the time I took a wrong turn and ended up right by Lake Calhoun. Which is a 20-minute bike ride from my house. The only problem with that was that I had been riding for an hour-and-a-half already. I started to panic. I found a trail map and realized I was way off course (duh) and I needed to backtrack quite a ways to get back on course. So I did.

And then I ran smack dab into a trail. Which I assumed must be my trail, the one that would slide me all the way to Plymouth. I rode it for a long long time in a direction I assumed to be West. I stopped to read another trail map.

Still way off course.

Now I was two hours into my ride, and not even half-way to Plymouth. I texted work to let them know. I started to cry. (I think I have mentioned that I'm emotional and I cry basically all the time.) I finally dragged out my phone and entered my work address into my GPS. I wasn't getting any 3G signal. Then I really started to cry. I was in some guy's driveway and then from all the crying my new and very real Ray Bans (a present I bought for myself and a decision that I agonized over but ultimately decided to buy and probably shouldn't have. Who buys real Ray Bans?) fell off my face and landed lens-down onto the gravel and the lens got scratched. Then I REALLY started to cry. I couldn't stop. Ten cars passed me. Nobody stopped. That made me even sadder.

You guys. It's not like I mind a long ride. I ride all the time. I pretty much belong to a bicycle gang:

Hard core.

I've been known to ride the streets of Minneapolis in the middle of the night wearing nothing but this:

What? I thought it would be funny.

But I was late for WORK. At my NEW JOB.

Finally my 3G came back up and I found out I was still 8 miles from work but at least I got a map to follow. And I followed it. And I made it to the gym for a shower. And to work. Two hours late.

Boy did my co-workers have a laugh over the whole situation. And boy was I famished because before the three-hour ride I only had ONE BANANA. So I ate lunch. Then I ate second lunch. Then I went out for third lunch at Chipotle.

And then it started snowing.

I gave up and made two coworkers take me and my stupid bike home.

Later, I was told by more than a few people that the forecast had predicted the snow and everybody and their brother knew it was going to snow on Friday. I didn't know. I don't pay attention to forecasts. Is that a thing? 

Almost Home

The first night I spent with my parents after my big long trip, (and having made the SEVEN HOUR drive from Minneapolis to Roosevelt via my sister's place in Cook, MN), my mom kept my drink filled and my brother Pete played song after sad country song purposely trying to get me crying. (It's not that hard.) I wanted to capture the moment forever because I was so happy and so sad but so happy:

Come on. "Almost Home"? You'd have to be made of stone not to start sobbing at that one. Please notice my supportive and adoring parents and how they react to finally seeing their favorite daughter alive after traveling to the ends of the earth. 

I was happy to see you too, GUYS. Jeez.





p.s. there was never a Cottonwood tree.

My Favorite Spam Comment. Ever.

I get so many of these spam comments to my blog. So, so many. And they're so, so good.
I need to write a book. (Using the copy and paste function.)

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Do we really need spam to sell this magic pill?

Sunday Favorites: The Funniest Thing I Ever Said (In My Opinion)

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. This story originally appeared on June 21, 2012:

Hobo Siren's recent Out of Context Friday Caption Photo Context reminded me of a story.

A group of my friends and I were hanging out one night and my sister Kasey got it in her head that it would be a BRILLIANT idea for us all to google image search for hemorrhoids. (She's like that.)  We looked at scads of photos. Scads. They're gross. I'm not going to post photos here, you'll just have to make your own search.

Anyway, we were all crowded around the computer screen, unable to look away when I remarked,(And in my opinion, the following is probably one of the funniest things I've ever said.)

"It's like looking in your mom's purse."

Click photo for credit -- I robbed it from a very messy blogger.

The resemblance is uncanny. Google it. Trust me.