 |
| For all intents and purposes, we looked exactly like this. |
The only person who recognized us was Porch. But that's life.
More details to come!
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Happy Halloween!
This year for Halloween, Baby Brother and I were characters from his favorite video game.
The only person who recognized us was Porch. But that's life.
More details to come!
The only person who recognized us was Porch. But that's life.
More details to come!
Friday, October 30, 2015
Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
I rarely win contests of chance.
When I was nine or ten, I went to the elementary school carnival and won the cake-and-book walk a few times...because I was one of like four kids competing and I did it like ten times. I won My Side of the Mountain, The Search for Delicious, and some baked goods to eat while I read them.
When I graduated from high school, they had a bunch of drawings at our all-night party. Everyone who participated won several items from the drawings. But even though I knew everybody won something, I was still thrilled with my prizes. I loved them. I felt like some great honor had been bestowed upon me.
However, these are the exceptions. I've been in a million drawings and a million other contests of chance over my twenty-x years, but I've only won things a few times. Once I was in a drawing with only two other people and lost.
You may be thinking, "Oh, that's how it is with everybody!" But I know some people who, I swear, win every contest they enter. The Chess Master used to win galoots of prizes in the drawings at the assemblies that marked the end of each year of junior high, while I didn’t win a thing.
The good news is that if the Hunger Games were a real thing, my name would never be drawn.
A few weeks ago, my roommates and I went to the State Fair. We ate ice cream and visited the Seamstress’s prize-winning jean quilt. We looked at handmade crafts and commercialized products. Pepper bought root beer and fried clams. The man at the fried clams stand tried to convert the Seamstress to clam chowder by giving her a free sample. The Seamstress politely tried it, then gave me the rest.
On our way out of the fair, we passed a Saladmaster booth. The ladies at said booth asked us if we wanted to enter a contest to win a free dinner.
We were like, “Please explain more.”
And they were like, “If you write your names, ages, and professions on these pieces of paper, you can spin this wheel. The wheel will land on a type of cookware. We will write down that cookware and then put your pieces of paper in a drawing. If your piece of paper is drawn, you will win a dinner and the cookware chosen by the wheel.”
We felt this seemed like a decent system, neither too invasive nor too good to be true. So we all filled out a piece of paper and spun the magical wheel of cookware.
If I recall correctly, Pepper and I landed on serving spoons, while the Seamstress landed on a set of knives. The Saladmaster ladies wrote down these items and promised that if one of us won, they’d let us know.
We went home and promptly forget about the whole thing.
Well, a few weeks later, I received a call from one of the Saladmaster ladies. She said that I’d won a free dinner!
I was all kinds of excited because free dinner!
LADY: You also won a serving spoon!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Hooray!
The lady proceeded to tell me about the dinner that I’d won.
LADY: It’s a dinner show.
Sorry, dinner show.
LADY: Do you like fried chicken? We’re going to make you fried chicken without cooking it in oils or grease!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: That sounds impossible, but cool!
LADY: And diabetic-friendly mashed potatoes!
AWKWARD MORMON: Ooh!
LADY: They’re really yummy!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I’d take your word for it, but I guess I won’t have to!
LADY: And a vegetable medley!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Great! Vegetables!
We arranged for this exciting dinner to take place on a Thursday night.
Then, when I hung up, something occurred to me. When the lady said, “dinner show,” she didn’t mean a waterfront diving spectacular like they used to have at the lovely restaurant called the Mayan before its unfortunate closure. Or even dinner theatre, which I have enjoyed both here in Hometown and in places as far away as Kauai. She meant, “showing off Saladmaster stuff and convincing you to buy it.”
I’ve been to similar events before, such as Mary Kay parties. It’s always a little uncomfortable if you don’t want to buy anything, but it’s still fun. So I decided to go ahead with the dinner, pressure to purchase notwithstanding.
So that Thursday night, my roommates and I awaited the arrival of our Salad Master. (My father also waited with us, just to make sure that we weren’t willfully letting an axe murderer into our home.) Once our Salad Master had arrived, my father gave his stamp of non-axe-murderer approval. He left, and the dinner began.
Like many companies’ sales teams, Saladmaster’s representatives have a prescribed dialogue that they use to share their message. I will freely admit up front that I didn’t buy into their dialogue. I also found their business model curious. Even though Saladmaster is operating under the same principles as Mary Kay, the sales process felt a lot different than Mary Kay’s. I think this is because some of Mary Kay’s products meet needs I already have. They have superior eye makeup remover and they used to sell a great face wash. At the last Mary Kay party I went to, I even ended up buying a bottle of a new lightweight foundation because it was way better and easier to use than the foundation I had.
Saladmaster’s business, on the other hand, relies on convincing people that their cookware is adversely affecting their health. They essentially have to create the need. And if they manage to create the need, then they have to complete a second step, which is to convince people that their product is the answer to this need. I feel like this isn’t as effective.
Of course, I am not a businessperson by any means, so let’s leave off talking about the business model. What I really want to share with you is the experience of the Saladmaster cooking process, which I found endlessly fascinating.
First, the Salad Master started cooking the chicken. And guess what? She really did cook it without putting it in any oil or grease! She put the chicken in an electric skillet with some oil in a container underneath the skillet. The oil created heat that fried the chicken in its own fat.
Then she used the eponymous Saladmaster machine to grate some potatoes and onions, which she put in a pot that, like the skillet, operated as sort of a double boiler.
Before preparing the food, the Salad Master had shared with us Saladmaster’s theories about not peeling food, not cooking it at high temperatures, not cooking it with additional oils, nor cooking it with water. I could tell that some of these theories didn’t sit well with the Seamstress. So when the Salad Master put the potatoes on the stove to cook, the Seamstress brought out her Amazing Snark.
Most people have an Amazing Snark, but the Seamstress’s is more amazing than most. An exchange along these lines ensued:
THE SEAMSTRESS: So basically, you’re steaming the potatoes.
SALAD MASTER: No, because I’m cooking it at such a low temperature that there’s no steam.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: (trying to be diplomatic) So it’s like you’re steaming them, but you’re just… not… steaming them.
SALAD MASTER: No, I’m not steaming them.
After this productive conversation, the Salad Master began the vegetable medley. She grated carrots and cabbage and put them in a pot with frozen peas and corn. Interestingly, she did not mix them together. I think she said this would allow them to better retain their individual flavors.
After that, the Salad Master began to make us a cake! I had not known that cake was involved. Cake is almost never a bad thing.
First, the Salad Master put half a box of chocolate cake mix into a bowl. So far, so good.
Then she started grating zucchini into the cake. And carrots. And red cabbage. And radishes.
I was having a hard time trusting this cake.
Then the Salad Master went to our fridge and grabbed ketchup and mustard to put into the cake.
THE THREE OF US: What are you doing??? Is this necessary?
SALAD MASTER: Trust me, you won’t be able to taste a thing!
THE THREE OF US: But why are you doing this to the cake???
Some eggs went into the cake, and then the cake went into a pan on the stove.
Finally, the Salad Master grated more radishes, cabbage, carrots, celery, and zucchini together with some lemon zest to make a coleslaw. Instead of making coleslaw sauce, she squeezed lemon juice on top.
When everything was ready, we ate.
How was the special food? The fried chicken was quite good! The potatoes really needed some kind of seasoning or dairy. I did not care for them. The cole slaw was better than average, the vegetable medley tasted like vegetables, and the cake tasted like cake in spite of the vegetables and condiments. (Although we never did get a satisfactory answer for why she added the condiments in the first place.)
As you may have suspected, while we appreciated the dinner, neither my roommates nor I bought anything from Saladmaster. The only thing I was interested in was the skillet with the oil underneath, and it was very very pricey.
However, I did get my free serving spoon. It’s beautiful, and I love it. And since the Salad Master kept emphasizing that the Saladmaster cookware is made of titanium, the purest of metals, I suspect the spoon is also titanium.
THE SEAMSTRESS: (with Amazing Snark) You could just hold the spoon over the stove and cook something in that!
When I was nine or ten, I went to the elementary school carnival and won the cake-and-book walk a few times...because I was one of like four kids competing and I did it like ten times. I won My Side of the Mountain, The Search for Delicious, and some baked goods to eat while I read them.
When I graduated from high school, they had a bunch of drawings at our all-night party. Everyone who participated won several items from the drawings. But even though I knew everybody won something, I was still thrilled with my prizes. I loved them. I felt like some great honor had been bestowed upon me.
However, these are the exceptions. I've been in a million drawings and a million other contests of chance over my twenty-x years, but I've only won things a few times. Once I was in a drawing with only two other people and lost.
You may be thinking, "Oh, that's how it is with everybody!" But I know some people who, I swear, win every contest they enter. The Chess Master used to win galoots of prizes in the drawings at the assemblies that marked the end of each year of junior high, while I didn’t win a thing.
The good news is that if the Hunger Games were a real thing, my name would never be drawn.
A few weeks ago, my roommates and I went to the State Fair. We ate ice cream and visited the Seamstress’s prize-winning jean quilt. We looked at handmade crafts and commercialized products. Pepper bought root beer and fried clams. The man at the fried clams stand tried to convert the Seamstress to clam chowder by giving her a free sample. The Seamstress politely tried it, then gave me the rest.
On our way out of the fair, we passed a Saladmaster booth. The ladies at said booth asked us if we wanted to enter a contest to win a free dinner.
We were like, “Please explain more.”
And they were like, “If you write your names, ages, and professions on these pieces of paper, you can spin this wheel. The wheel will land on a type of cookware. We will write down that cookware and then put your pieces of paper in a drawing. If your piece of paper is drawn, you will win a dinner and the cookware chosen by the wheel.”
We felt this seemed like a decent system, neither too invasive nor too good to be true. So we all filled out a piece of paper and spun the magical wheel of cookware.
If I recall correctly, Pepper and I landed on serving spoons, while the Seamstress landed on a set of knives. The Saladmaster ladies wrote down these items and promised that if one of us won, they’d let us know.
We went home and promptly forget about the whole thing.
Well, a few weeks later, I received a call from one of the Saladmaster ladies. She said that I’d won a free dinner!
I was all kinds of excited because free dinner!
LADY: You also won a serving spoon!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Hooray!
The lady proceeded to tell me about the dinner that I’d won.
LADY: It’s a dinner show.
Sorry, dinner show.
LADY: Do you like fried chicken? We’re going to make you fried chicken without cooking it in oils or grease!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: That sounds impossible, but cool!
LADY: And diabetic-friendly mashed potatoes!
AWKWARD MORMON: Ooh!
LADY: They’re really yummy!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: I’d take your word for it, but I guess I won’t have to!
LADY: And a vegetable medley!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Great! Vegetables!
We arranged for this exciting dinner to take place on a Thursday night.
Then, when I hung up, something occurred to me. When the lady said, “dinner show,” she didn’t mean a waterfront diving spectacular like they used to have at the lovely restaurant called the Mayan before its unfortunate closure. Or even dinner theatre, which I have enjoyed both here in Hometown and in places as far away as Kauai. She meant, “showing off Saladmaster stuff and convincing you to buy it.”
I’ve been to similar events before, such as Mary Kay parties. It’s always a little uncomfortable if you don’t want to buy anything, but it’s still fun. So I decided to go ahead with the dinner, pressure to purchase notwithstanding.
So that Thursday night, my roommates and I awaited the arrival of our Salad Master. (My father also waited with us, just to make sure that we weren’t willfully letting an axe murderer into our home.) Once our Salad Master had arrived, my father gave his stamp of non-axe-murderer approval. He left, and the dinner began.
Like many companies’ sales teams, Saladmaster’s representatives have a prescribed dialogue that they use to share their message. I will freely admit up front that I didn’t buy into their dialogue. I also found their business model curious. Even though Saladmaster is operating under the same principles as Mary Kay, the sales process felt a lot different than Mary Kay’s. I think this is because some of Mary Kay’s products meet needs I already have. They have superior eye makeup remover and they used to sell a great face wash. At the last Mary Kay party I went to, I even ended up buying a bottle of a new lightweight foundation because it was way better and easier to use than the foundation I had.
Saladmaster’s business, on the other hand, relies on convincing people that their cookware is adversely affecting their health. They essentially have to create the need. And if they manage to create the need, then they have to complete a second step, which is to convince people that their product is the answer to this need. I feel like this isn’t as effective.
Of course, I am not a businessperson by any means, so let’s leave off talking about the business model. What I really want to share with you is the experience of the Saladmaster cooking process, which I found endlessly fascinating.
First, the Salad Master started cooking the chicken. And guess what? She really did cook it without putting it in any oil or grease! She put the chicken in an electric skillet with some oil in a container underneath the skillet. The oil created heat that fried the chicken in its own fat.
Then she used the eponymous Saladmaster machine to grate some potatoes and onions, which she put in a pot that, like the skillet, operated as sort of a double boiler.
Before preparing the food, the Salad Master had shared with us Saladmaster’s theories about not peeling food, not cooking it at high temperatures, not cooking it with additional oils, nor cooking it with water. I could tell that some of these theories didn’t sit well with the Seamstress. So when the Salad Master put the potatoes on the stove to cook, the Seamstress brought out her Amazing Snark.
Most people have an Amazing Snark, but the Seamstress’s is more amazing than most. An exchange along these lines ensued:
THE SEAMSTRESS: So basically, you’re steaming the potatoes.
SALAD MASTER: No, because I’m cooking it at such a low temperature that there’s no steam.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: (trying to be diplomatic) So it’s like you’re steaming them, but you’re just… not… steaming them.
SALAD MASTER: No, I’m not steaming them.
After this productive conversation, the Salad Master began the vegetable medley. She grated carrots and cabbage and put them in a pot with frozen peas and corn. Interestingly, she did not mix them together. I think she said this would allow them to better retain their individual flavors.
After that, the Salad Master began to make us a cake! I had not known that cake was involved. Cake is almost never a bad thing.
First, the Salad Master put half a box of chocolate cake mix into a bowl. So far, so good.
Then she started grating zucchini into the cake. And carrots. And red cabbage. And radishes.
I was having a hard time trusting this cake.
Then the Salad Master went to our fridge and grabbed ketchup and mustard to put into the cake.
THE THREE OF US: What are you doing??? Is this necessary?
SALAD MASTER: Trust me, you won’t be able to taste a thing!
THE THREE OF US: But why are you doing this to the cake???
Some eggs went into the cake, and then the cake went into a pan on the stove.
Finally, the Salad Master grated more radishes, cabbage, carrots, celery, and zucchini together with some lemon zest to make a coleslaw. Instead of making coleslaw sauce, she squeezed lemon juice on top.
When everything was ready, we ate.
How was the special food? The fried chicken was quite good! The potatoes really needed some kind of seasoning or dairy. I did not care for them. The cole slaw was better than average, the vegetable medley tasted like vegetables, and the cake tasted like cake in spite of the vegetables and condiments. (Although we never did get a satisfactory answer for why she added the condiments in the first place.)
As you may have suspected, while we appreciated the dinner, neither my roommates nor I bought anything from Saladmaster. The only thing I was interested in was the skillet with the oil underneath, and it was very very pricey.
However, I did get my free serving spoon. It’s beautiful, and I love it. And since the Salad Master kept emphasizing that the Saladmaster cookware is made of titanium, the purest of metals, I suspect the spoon is also titanium.
THE SEAMSTRESS: (with Amazing Snark) You could just hold the spoon over the stove and cook something in that!
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
My Third Stitch Fix Experience
I scheduled my first two Fixes to arrive on Thursdays.
I wrote like three drafts of this post trying to explain to you why Thursday is the best day of the week for me to receive a box full of clothes to try on, but it was complicated to explain and I couldn't do it justice. To make a long story short, when I scheduled my first Fix I did a thorough internal analysis and a blood test plus a horoscope that led me to deduce that Thursdays would be the best days for my Fixes to arrive.
Because they let you schedule when your Fixes arrive. Which is pretty cool if you ask me.
So. The week of my first Fix, my email told me that Stitch Fix sent the package out on Monday. And I was like, "Excellent." Then on Wednesday afternoon, the package arrived.
Usually, packages arriving early are a good thing. But Wednesday is not a good day for me to receive packages for much the same reasons that Thursday is a good day for me to get packages.
At first, I was all, "Whatever. This is how it goes with packages. They never get here when you want them to." But then I noticed a special 2-day shipping sticker on the Fix box. And I was all, "Huh. How about that? It took exactly two days to arrive! What precise shipping! Surely, with shipping that precise, they really can control what day my Fixes arrive! I bet this time was just a test run to see how long the shipping to Hometown took. Surely when they see that my Fix arrived early, they'll sent the next one on a Tuesday so that it arrives on a Thursday!"
So I scheduled my second Fix to arrive on a Thursday. Again, it was sent on a Monday and again, it arrived on a Wednesday.
So I was all, "No worries! It looks like Stitch Fix sends their packages out a day early to be extra careful! So from now on, I'll schedule my Fixes to arrive on Fridays! So they come on Thursdays!"
So I scheduled my third Fix on Friday, expecting to receive an email on Tuesday saying that the Fix had shipped. But this time it was shipped on Wednesday and actually arrived on Friday as scheduled.
Okay, Stitch Fix. You get one point for getting the Fix here on the scheduled date but minus one point for foiling my plan! Which is zero points, Stitch Fix! Zero points for shipping!
So this is what my stylist said this time:
Hi Awkward Mormon Girl! I hope you had fun at your high school reunion and were able to rock one of your Stitch Fix Dresses! his Fix isn't as colorful as last time, but I still think you will love it! I did not have any polka dot jeans in this time around but I will definitely keep an eye out for next time, so I decided to instead send you a pair of the colored pants we just got in that everyone seems to love. Try the Liverpool Skinny Pant paired with the Ijoah Top for work or an event, it's a great dressy casual outfit. I also noticed some fun bangles on your pinterest so I knew you would love the Zad Arrow Bangle, just a great simple piece to stack with other bracelets like the Bay to Baubles Bracelet in your last Fix. For some warm autumn shirts i thought you would like the Staccato Sweater for a easy and fun layered piece. Xo Jessica
Maybe if I start signing my notes to her with Xo, Jessica will recognize me as one of her own kind and ship my Fixes on the day I want.
Also, what happened to the V in Jessica V??? Did the other Jessicas quit? Or maybe Jessica V. quit and they replaced her with another Jessica. But they didn't tell me because they hoped that I wouldn't notice.
I'm on to you, Stitch Fix. Super on. It's on.
Lest you be confused, allow me to explain that in this Fix I specifically requested some polka dot jeans and warm autumn shirts. I know of other people who have gotten polka dot jeans in their fixes, so I was pretty disappointed not to get some. I could use another pair of jeans.
Anyways, I opened up my Fix and saw lots of navy blue and a bit of olive green. I like navy blue. My American Girl Doll Molly came with a navy blue sweater outfit, so when I was a child every year I tried to find myself a navy blue sweater "like Molly's." Since then, I wear so much navy blue that my mother refuses to buy me navy blue clothes anymore. Conversely, I dislike olive green with a passion.
With those thoughts in mind, I began to try on the clothes.
Everly Lexa Dot Dress: I liked the pattern. However, I don't really like boxy dresses. Also, this was too short for me. Also, I'd bought two dresses in my last Fix and didn't need another at the present time. Verdict: Send back.
Zad Marigold Arrow Bangle: As Jessica mentioned, I had pinned several bracelets like this on my Pinterest board. This one was actually better than the ones I'd pinned. Verdict: Keep.
Liverpool Anita Skinny Pant: These pants fit perfectly! Since the shorts and skirt they've sent me before were too big, I think finding well-fitting pants is a small victory. And they did look great with the Ijoah top. However, over the summer I'd obtained forest green pants and did not need any more colored pants. Especially because, again, I'm not wild about olive green. Also, somebody please explain to me why these were called "pant" in the singular. Verdict: Send back.
Ijoah Nial Lace Overlay Top: I liked this immediately. I tried it with an undershirt, and it looked great, particularly with my forest green pants. Verdict: Keep.
Staccato Aleia Mixed Material Pullover Sweater: I could tell that my sisters would love this sweater, but it wasn't really my style. I usually don't like wearing baggy clothes. However, it was, as I'd requested, very warm. I decided I would branch out and buy it. Verdict: Keep.
Okay, everybody. I've tried Stitch Fix three times in rapid succession to see how I like it. Overall, I've really enjoyed it. I've decided that it's not sustainable to get a Fix once a month, because a) it gets to be expensive and b) I really don't need that many clothes. But I think it is something I will enjoy doing quarterly.
I will probably also continue to document my Fixes on this blog. Some people I know who can't seem to get into my normal sort of post have mentioned that they enjoy the Stitch Fix ones.
If you want to try Stitch Fix, try it! If you use my referral link, I'll get $25 in referral credit. Once you've signed up, you'll get your own referral link that you can use to get credit, too. Just get fifty of your closest friends and family members to sign up and then you'll have like a bajillion dollars in credit (actually $1,250, but same thing) and then you can get all the clothes you want!
I wrote like three drafts of this post trying to explain to you why Thursday is the best day of the week for me to receive a box full of clothes to try on, but it was complicated to explain and I couldn't do it justice. To make a long story short, when I scheduled my first Fix I did a thorough internal analysis and a blood test plus a horoscope that led me to deduce that Thursdays would be the best days for my Fixes to arrive.
Because they let you schedule when your Fixes arrive. Which is pretty cool if you ask me.
So. The week of my first Fix, my email told me that Stitch Fix sent the package out on Monday. And I was like, "Excellent." Then on Wednesday afternoon, the package arrived.
Usually, packages arriving early are a good thing. But Wednesday is not a good day for me to receive packages for much the same reasons that Thursday is a good day for me to get packages.
At first, I was all, "Whatever. This is how it goes with packages. They never get here when you want them to." But then I noticed a special 2-day shipping sticker on the Fix box. And I was all, "Huh. How about that? It took exactly two days to arrive! What precise shipping! Surely, with shipping that precise, they really can control what day my Fixes arrive! I bet this time was just a test run to see how long the shipping to Hometown took. Surely when they see that my Fix arrived early, they'll sent the next one on a Tuesday so that it arrives on a Thursday!"
So I scheduled my second Fix to arrive on a Thursday. Again, it was sent on a Monday and again, it arrived on a Wednesday.
So I was all, "No worries! It looks like Stitch Fix sends their packages out a day early to be extra careful! So from now on, I'll schedule my Fixes to arrive on Fridays! So they come on Thursdays!"
So I scheduled my third Fix on Friday, expecting to receive an email on Tuesday saying that the Fix had shipped. But this time it was shipped on Wednesday and actually arrived on Friday as scheduled.
Okay, Stitch Fix. You get one point for getting the Fix here on the scheduled date but minus one point for foiling my plan! Which is zero points, Stitch Fix! Zero points for shipping!
So this is what my stylist said this time:
Hi Awkward Mormon Girl! I hope you had fun at your high school reunion and were able to rock one of your Stitch Fix Dresses! his Fix isn't as colorful as last time, but I still think you will love it! I did not have any polka dot jeans in this time around but I will definitely keep an eye out for next time, so I decided to instead send you a pair of the colored pants we just got in that everyone seems to love. Try the Liverpool Skinny Pant paired with the Ijoah Top for work or an event, it's a great dressy casual outfit. I also noticed some fun bangles on your pinterest so I knew you would love the Zad Arrow Bangle, just a great simple piece to stack with other bracelets like the Bay to Baubles Bracelet in your last Fix. For some warm autumn shirts i thought you would like the Staccato Sweater for a easy and fun layered piece. Xo Jessica
Maybe if I start signing my notes to her with Xo, Jessica will recognize me as one of her own kind and ship my Fixes on the day I want.
Also, what happened to the V in Jessica V??? Did the other Jessicas quit? Or maybe Jessica V. quit and they replaced her with another Jessica. But they didn't tell me because they hoped that I wouldn't notice.
I'm on to you, Stitch Fix. Super on. It's on.
Lest you be confused, allow me to explain that in this Fix I specifically requested some polka dot jeans and warm autumn shirts. I know of other people who have gotten polka dot jeans in their fixes, so I was pretty disappointed not to get some. I could use another pair of jeans.
Anyways, I opened up my Fix and saw lots of navy blue and a bit of olive green. I like navy blue. My American Girl Doll Molly came with a navy blue sweater outfit, so when I was a child every year I tried to find myself a navy blue sweater "like Molly's." Since then, I wear so much navy blue that my mother refuses to buy me navy blue clothes anymore. Conversely, I dislike olive green with a passion.
With those thoughts in mind, I began to try on the clothes.
Everly Lexa Dot Dress: I liked the pattern. However, I don't really like boxy dresses. Also, this was too short for me. Also, I'd bought two dresses in my last Fix and didn't need another at the present time. Verdict: Send back.
Zad Marigold Arrow Bangle: As Jessica mentioned, I had pinned several bracelets like this on my Pinterest board. This one was actually better than the ones I'd pinned. Verdict: Keep.
Liverpool Anita Skinny Pant: These pants fit perfectly! Since the shorts and skirt they've sent me before were too big, I think finding well-fitting pants is a small victory. And they did look great with the Ijoah top. However, over the summer I'd obtained forest green pants and did not need any more colored pants. Especially because, again, I'm not wild about olive green. Also, somebody please explain to me why these were called "pant" in the singular. Verdict: Send back.
Ijoah Nial Lace Overlay Top: I liked this immediately. I tried it with an undershirt, and it looked great, particularly with my forest green pants. Verdict: Keep.
Staccato Aleia Mixed Material Pullover Sweater: I could tell that my sisters would love this sweater, but it wasn't really my style. I usually don't like wearing baggy clothes. However, it was, as I'd requested, very warm. I decided I would branch out and buy it. Verdict: Keep.
Okay, everybody. I've tried Stitch Fix three times in rapid succession to see how I like it. Overall, I've really enjoyed it. I've decided that it's not sustainable to get a Fix once a month, because a) it gets to be expensive and b) I really don't need that many clothes. But I think it is something I will enjoy doing quarterly.
I will probably also continue to document my Fixes on this blog. Some people I know who can't seem to get into my normal sort of post have mentioned that they enjoy the Stitch Fix ones.
If you want to try Stitch Fix, try it! If you use my referral link, I'll get $25 in referral credit. Once you've signed up, you'll get your own referral link that you can use to get credit, too. Just get fifty of your closest friends and family members to sign up and then you'll have like a bajillion dollars in credit (actually $1,250, but same thing) and then you can get all the clothes you want!
Friday, October 23, 2015
My New Obsession
Several times over the past few years, my mom has said things to me like, "Do you keep a list of all the books you've read? You should. You should keep a list."
And I've always been like, "No, the effort of writing or typing out each individual book I've ever read seems really difficult."
BUT. Last night, I was looking at the Goodreads account that Viola convinced me to get seven years ago but that I've never actually used. And I realized that Goodreads has a super-handy reading tracker system that requires you to only click a picture of a book to put it on a "read" list.
And so I decided to do it. I'm embarking on a journey to record every single book that I've ever read on Goodreads.
At least, I'm going to try. Although I have a pretty great memory, I've been reading since the age of four. It's more than probable that I'll miss a few books here and there. Particularly the books I read when I was around seven and eight. We were given an hour or two of free reading time every morning in second grade. Childhood BF and I were in different classes, but we would frequently meet up in the library to check out books together. And we checked out a lot of books. A lot. The AR program tracked us as two of the most-read kids in the school. We would check out, read, and return multiple books each day. A lot of these books were from really long, really unremarkable children's series. I'll never be able to remember which of the books in said series I read and which ones I didn't. But I'm going to give it a good try, at least.
You guys. Today I added about half the books in my bookshelf on Goodreads plus all books I've read by those same authors. I've added the library books I've read recently plus all books I've read by those same authors. I've added a single shelf of books from my parents' house plus all books I've read by those same authors. And I'm at over 500 books!
I'm excited to see the final total. Stay tuned!
And I've always been like, "No, the effort of writing or typing out each individual book I've ever read seems really difficult."
BUT. Last night, I was looking at the Goodreads account that Viola convinced me to get seven years ago but that I've never actually used. And I realized that Goodreads has a super-handy reading tracker system that requires you to only click a picture of a book to put it on a "read" list.
And so I decided to do it. I'm embarking on a journey to record every single book that I've ever read on Goodreads.
At least, I'm going to try. Although I have a pretty great memory, I've been reading since the age of four. It's more than probable that I'll miss a few books here and there. Particularly the books I read when I was around seven and eight. We were given an hour or two of free reading time every morning in second grade. Childhood BF and I were in different classes, but we would frequently meet up in the library to check out books together. And we checked out a lot of books. A lot. The AR program tracked us as two of the most-read kids in the school. We would check out, read, and return multiple books each day. A lot of these books were from really long, really unremarkable children's series. I'll never be able to remember which of the books in said series I read and which ones I didn't. But I'm going to give it a good try, at least.
You guys. Today I added about half the books in my bookshelf on Goodreads plus all books I've read by those same authors. I've added the library books I've read recently plus all books I've read by those same authors. I've added a single shelf of books from my parents' house plus all books I've read by those same authors. And I'm at over 500 books!
I'm excited to see the final total. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Back to the Future Day
It's October 21st, 2015! Which I know you know is the day that Marty McFly and Doc Brown arrived in the future in Back to the Future Part II.
I am fairly fond of the Back to the Future movies. In fact, Back to the Future was the first adult movie I ever saw...at the age of, oh, two or three. When our parents would watch it, we would sometimes watch it too.
You must remember that when Older Sister and I were young, our parents were still fairly new parents. It took them a while to realize that we understood what was happening in the movie well enough that we should not be watching it with them. From then on, it was off-limits.
PARENTS: You can't be in the family room right now. We're watching Back to the Future.
OLDER SISTER AND AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: But we've watched that movie before!
PARENTS: WELL YOU'RE NOT WATCHING IT NOW.
I didn't see the movie again until I was an adult. There were a couple of summers where Little Sister and I decided to watch entire movie franchises in their intended order. In this manner, I re-watched Back to the Future and first saw Back to the Future Part II. Unfortunately, I did not get to see Part III. I was working during those summers, but Little Sister was not. She invariably would get bored waiting for me to come home from work.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Let's watch Back to the Future Part III!
LITTLE SISTER: Sorry, I watched it while you were gone.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Let's watch Star Wars: Episode VI!
LITTLE SISTER: Sorry, I watched it while you were gone.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Let's watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!
LITTLE SISTER: Sorry, I watched them while you were gone.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: ...
LITTLE SISTER: But you can watch Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with me!
Although I still haven't seen the sixth Star Wars or the second and third Indiana Jones movies, I did manage to watch the third part of Back to the Future this past weekend to prepare for this very special day.
And special it was! I wore my pants inside-out (and nobody at work even noticed). Baby Sister put together a super-awesome futuristic outfit, and Little Brother passed out flyers that said, "Save the clock tower!" at his school.
All leading up to today, everyone on the internet has been like, "It's October 2015! Where's my hoverboard? Where's my self-drying jacket? Where's my lace-up sneakers? Where's my Pepsi Perfect? Where's my metal hat that looks like a stainless steel pot?"
Well, Universal Pictures and Doc Brown offered a simple explanation in a YouTube video: "The future has finally arrived! Yes, it is different than we all thought. But don't worry! It just means your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one."
I kind of love this video, for one of the same reasons that I love the movies. The movies are all about how choices, even seemingly small ones, can change the future of an individual's life and even the world. That resonates with me on even a religious level. My favorite scripture even says that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." And the opposite is true as well. our daily small, seemingly insignificant choices can make us worse as surely as they can make us better.
For a comedic sci-fi movie, that seems pretty heavy. (Ba-dum-ching!) But joking aside, it's something that I try to think about every day. Are my current choices taking me to the future I want? Are your current choices taking you to the future you want? If not, choose something else! Be the master of your owndensity destiny.
Anyways, happy Back to the Future Day! Make your future a good one.
I am fairly fond of the Back to the Future movies. In fact, Back to the Future was the first adult movie I ever saw...at the age of, oh, two or three. When our parents would watch it, we would sometimes watch it too.
You must remember that when Older Sister and I were young, our parents were still fairly new parents. It took them a while to realize that we understood what was happening in the movie well enough that we should not be watching it with them. From then on, it was off-limits.
PARENTS: You can't be in the family room right now. We're watching Back to the Future.
OLDER SISTER AND AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: But we've watched that movie before!
PARENTS: WELL YOU'RE NOT WATCHING IT NOW.
I didn't see the movie again until I was an adult. There were a couple of summers where Little Sister and I decided to watch entire movie franchises in their intended order. In this manner, I re-watched Back to the Future and first saw Back to the Future Part II. Unfortunately, I did not get to see Part III. I was working during those summers, but Little Sister was not. She invariably would get bored waiting for me to come home from work.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Let's watch Back to the Future Part III!
LITTLE SISTER: Sorry, I watched it while you were gone.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Let's watch Star Wars: Episode VI!
LITTLE SISTER: Sorry, I watched it while you were gone.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Let's watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!
LITTLE SISTER: Sorry, I watched them while you were gone.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: ...
LITTLE SISTER: But you can watch Kingdom of the Crystal Skull with me!
Although I still haven't seen the sixth Star Wars or the second and third Indiana Jones movies, I did manage to watch the third part of Back to the Future this past weekend to prepare for this very special day.
And special it was! I wore my pants inside-out (and nobody at work even noticed). Baby Sister put together a super-awesome futuristic outfit, and Little Brother passed out flyers that said, "Save the clock tower!" at his school.
All leading up to today, everyone on the internet has been like, "It's October 2015! Where's my hoverboard? Where's my self-drying jacket? Where's my lace-up sneakers? Where's my Pepsi Perfect? Where's my metal hat that looks like a stainless steel pot?"
Well, Universal Pictures and Doc Brown offered a simple explanation in a YouTube video: "The future has finally arrived! Yes, it is different than we all thought. But don't worry! It just means your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one."
I kind of love this video, for one of the same reasons that I love the movies. The movies are all about how choices, even seemingly small ones, can change the future of an individual's life and even the world. That resonates with me on even a religious level. My favorite scripture even says that "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." And the opposite is true as well. our daily small, seemingly insignificant choices can make us worse as surely as they can make us better.
For a comedic sci-fi movie, that seems pretty heavy. (Ba-dum-ching!) But joking aside, it's something that I try to think about every day. Are my current choices taking me to the future I want? Are your current choices taking you to the future you want? If not, choose something else! Be the master of your own
Anyways, happy Back to the Future Day! Make your future a good one.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
On a Roll
When Baby Brother was small, he was severely allergic to several kinds of meat, nuts, and fruits and vegetables.
One day, before she realized her son was allergic to everything, my mom gave him some carrots and told them they were good for his eyes.
A while later, Baby Brother came to her. "You were right, Mom!" he said excitedly. "I can feel my eyes growing!"
What he actually felt was his face swelling in an allergic reaction to the carrots.
Needless to say, Baby Brother existed basically on a diet of dairy and carbs and that's it.
There were two kids in our neighborhood Baby Brother's age with bad allergies. One was allergic to gluten. The other was allergic to dairy. I used to picture them eating lunch together in the elementary school cafeteria. Between them, they could consume napkins and some lettuce.
Eventually, Baby Brother grew out of his allergies. But, having eaten only dairy and carbs for so long, he had a natural suspicion and dislike of meat, fruits, and veggies and refused to eat them. Thus the world's pickiest eater was born.
Now, over the past year I've made some strides with Baby Brother. He now enjoys naan. And in July, he even tried a piece of calamari and found it tolerable. Still, I don't really know why earlier this week Little Brother and I decided to take him with us while we got sushi.
I wasn't expecting Baby Brother to eat anything, so I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to order some calamari. He ate a piece or two of that. Then, suddenly, Little Brother was challenging him to eat a piece of sushi.
I thought it couldn't hurt, so I gave Baby Brother a piece of the Vegas roll. You can't say you don't like sushi if you haven't tried a Vegas roll. They're not what people typically think of when they think of sushi, but boy, are they magically delicious!
Baby Brother tentatively picked up the sushi with his chopsticks. He dipped it in the soy sauce as directed, then brought it to his mouth.
Then pulled it away.
Then brought it back.
Then pulled it away!
Then brought it back!
Lather, rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
LITTLE BROTHER: YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY! JUST TRY IT.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Hey, trying new foods can be scary!
Finally, Baby Brother took a small bite of the breaded exterior of the roll.
BABY BROTHER: Hey, that's good!
A few minutes later, he took another bite! And another.
He was actually consuming food with nutritional value! It was a miracle.
We praised him. We told him that this was a basic roll he could get at any sushi restaurant.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: The sushi restaurant near our house puts fish eggs on their Vegas rolls.
It just so happened that one of our raw rolls had some fish eggs sprinkled on it, so we scraped off the eggs and gave them to Baby Brother.
BABY BROTHER: That's good!
He started scraping fish eggs off my share of the roll.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Okay, that's enough...
After we paid, Little Brother and I chewed some bits of ginger to cleanse our palates.
To our surprise, Baby Brother wanted to try some ginger, too. And he liked it!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: You're on a roll!
BABY BROTHER: Ha! Sushi! On a roll!
To conclude the story on a slightly different note, as we left, we thanked our waiter and said goodbye to him.
LITTLE BROTHER: Bye! Love y--
We laughed at him.
LITTLE BROTHER: IT'S HABIT!
One day, before she realized her son was allergic to everything, my mom gave him some carrots and told them they were good for his eyes.
A while later, Baby Brother came to her. "You were right, Mom!" he said excitedly. "I can feel my eyes growing!"
What he actually felt was his face swelling in an allergic reaction to the carrots.
Needless to say, Baby Brother existed basically on a diet of dairy and carbs and that's it.
There were two kids in our neighborhood Baby Brother's age with bad allergies. One was allergic to gluten. The other was allergic to dairy. I used to picture them eating lunch together in the elementary school cafeteria. Between them, they could consume napkins and some lettuce.
Eventually, Baby Brother grew out of his allergies. But, having eaten only dairy and carbs for so long, he had a natural suspicion and dislike of meat, fruits, and veggies and refused to eat them. Thus the world's pickiest eater was born.
Now, over the past year I've made some strides with Baby Brother. He now enjoys naan. And in July, he even tried a piece of calamari and found it tolerable. Still, I don't really know why earlier this week Little Brother and I decided to take him with us while we got sushi.
I wasn't expecting Baby Brother to eat anything, so I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to order some calamari. He ate a piece or two of that. Then, suddenly, Little Brother was challenging him to eat a piece of sushi.
I thought it couldn't hurt, so I gave Baby Brother a piece of the Vegas roll. You can't say you don't like sushi if you haven't tried a Vegas roll. They're not what people typically think of when they think of sushi, but boy, are they magically delicious!
Baby Brother tentatively picked up the sushi with his chopsticks. He dipped it in the soy sauce as directed, then brought it to his mouth.
Then pulled it away.
Then brought it back.
Then pulled it away!
Then brought it back!
Lather, rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
LITTLE BROTHER: YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY! JUST TRY IT.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Hey, trying new foods can be scary!
Finally, Baby Brother took a small bite of the breaded exterior of the roll.
BABY BROTHER: Hey, that's good!
A few minutes later, he took another bite! And another.
He was actually consuming food with nutritional value! It was a miracle.
We praised him. We told him that this was a basic roll he could get at any sushi restaurant.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: The sushi restaurant near our house puts fish eggs on their Vegas rolls.
It just so happened that one of our raw rolls had some fish eggs sprinkled on it, so we scraped off the eggs and gave them to Baby Brother.
BABY BROTHER: That's good!
He started scraping fish eggs off my share of the roll.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Okay, that's enough...
After we paid, Little Brother and I chewed some bits of ginger to cleanse our palates.
To our surprise, Baby Brother wanted to try some ginger, too. And he liked it!
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: You're on a roll!
BABY BROTHER: Ha! Sushi! On a roll!
To conclude the story on a slightly different note, as we left, we thanked our waiter and said goodbye to him.
LITTLE BROTHER: Bye! Love y--
We laughed at him.
LITTLE BROTHER: IT'S HABIT!
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Disenchanted
On Thursday, Little Sister frantically sent me a link to an article. At least, I assumed it was sent frantically from the all-caps words that accompanied the link.
The link was to an article that says Disney is filming a sequel to their amazing movie Enchanted. And the all-caps text was as follows.
Little Sister: WE ALREADY MADE THIS MOVIE
Little Sister: WE SHOULD HAVE COPYRIGHTED IT OR SOMETHING
Because, you see, the article said that this sequel is rumored to be called Disenchanted. But guess what? Several years ago, my younger siblings and I made a parody of Enchanted. And guess what we called it?
You guessed it.
So something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 'Cause it's possible that Disney is taking credit for our brilliant idea of a movie.
But. Let me tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm going to describe to you our beautiful movie Disenchanted. And then if Disney's Disenchanted is anything like our Disenchanted, you can help stand up for truth and justice and independent filmmakers who are also children.
Our story begins with the Fairy Godchild Princess (Baby Sister). The FGP opens up a storybook and introduces us to a picture of Lizelia. She tells us important things about Lizelia, like that Lizelia loves all bugs and animals. Also that Lizelia is engaged to Prince Sam, but Prince Sam was recently turned into a troll. Nobody ever explains how this happened.
It's important to note that Baby Brother was still toddler age when we filmed Disenchanted. He was assigned the role of Prince Sam the troll. However, toddlers are known to struggle with certain aspects of filmmaking, particularly the concept that they don't get to be in every shot. Whenever we tried to keep Baby Brother behind the camera, he would scream and cry and make it impossible for the camera to pick up on what the actors were saying. Therefore, we allowed him to wander freely in front of the camera, even during scenes that he wasn't supposed to be in.
So while Baby Sister aka the FGP is doing all this narration, Baby Brother aka Sam the Troll is talking over her and asking questions in his high-pitched toddler voice.
The camera next turns to Lizelia, who is an American Girl Doll voiced by Little Sister. Little Sister tells her animal friends how sad she is.
LIZELIA: I'm sad because my prince is a troll, and he's rude now.
Please note that Little Brother is audibly whispering Little Sister's lines to her from offscreen.
Lizelia inexplicably decides to climb on a windowsill. She even more inexplicably falls off. And then the most inexplicable thing of all happens: all her animal friends decide to jump off the windowsill after her.
This chain of poor decision-making leads Lizelia and her animal friends to land in a hotel room in Los Angeles, which is apparently what happens when you fall off a windowsill in fairytale world. Lizelia, now a human played by Little Sister, is so confused by this that she decides to take a nap on the floor.
While Lizelia is napping, Sam the troll once again walks into a shot that he is not supposed to be a part of. Lizelia wakes up long enough to exclaim that she misses Sam so much that sometimes she imagines that he is near her even when he is not.
Frederick von Hoozer Howzer, played by Awkward Mormon Girl, arrives home to discover that there is a strange girl in his hotel room. He makes an appropriate expression of surprise.
FREDERICK: Well, hay the horses!
Frederick and Lizelia have a conversation, during which it becomes apparent that Lizelia doesn't understand anything, including how to pronounce people's last names.
LIZELIA: Please to meet you, Frederick von Hoozer Howzer! Or is it Howzer Hoozer?
Lizelia explains the situation to Frederick, who gives another appropriate expression of surprise.
FREDERICK: Well, ain't that the darndest thing I ever heard!
He tells Lizelia where she is.
FREDERICK: You're in Cal-i-for-ni-ay!
LIZELIA: Oh. Can I eat California?
FREDERICK: Well, you could, but you'd have a mighty big stomachache after!
Frederick decides that there's no harm in letting a strange, naive girl stay in his hotel room, and the next scene is Lizelia waking up on Frederick's couch the next day. She decides that she needs to sew herself new clothes.
LIZELIA: It's highly not fashionable to wear this your whole lifetime in California.
After she sews new clothes out of couch covers and a tablecloth (which takes literally twenty seconds because she just touches them and says, "Sew sew sew!) she decides to clean Frederick's hotel room.
The next ten or so minutes is a dance scene with shaky cam while Lizelia cleans the hotel room with the help of the animals. This scene is notable for Little Brother shouted lyrics about cleanliness over other, popular songs that are playing in the CD player. It is also notable because towards the end of the scene, I realized that if we turned the camera off and on in a certain way, we could make people and objects disappear and reappear at will.
We used this new device judiciously and frugally to allow for maximum effect each time it was used.
Just kidding. We used the heck out of our new trick.
First Lizelia's animal friends disappear. Then Frederick says that he has to get to work and disappears also.
After the second of 10,000,678 costume changes she will undergo during this movie, Lizelia decides to try disappearing also.
LIZELIA: I'M GOING TO LEAVE NOW.
Nothing happens.
LIZELIA: (throws her arms up in the air) Poof! Poof! It's not working!
Leaving Lizelia alone with her struggle, we travel back to the fairytale world, where Prince Sam the troll is busy admiring himself upside-down in the mirror.
As you may have guessed from his inability to stay out of a shot, the toddler Baby Brother really enjoyed being filmed by others. However, his real love was to be given the video camera, flip the lense, and video himself. This resulted in an upside-down picture, but the kid didn't care whatsoever.
So to simulate Prince Sam looking at himself in the mirror, we let Baby Brother video his own face with the camera while we fed him his lines from offscreen.
ONE OF THE SIBLINGS: Say, "Ee-ee-ee! I'm so pretty!"
SAM:(accidentally moves the camera so that it's only videoing half of his face) Oh! I have one eye!
SAM:(accidentally moves camera again) I have two eyes! (moves it once more) ...I have one eye again.
Eventually, we got him to say the lines we wanted.
SAM: Lookit my farkly blue ice! Lookit my furly little teef!
(Translation: Look at my sparkly blue eyes! Look at my pearly little teeth!)
Cut to Sam sitting on a couch.
SAM: Prince Joe! Tum here!
Prince Joe (Little Brother), Sam's best friend and the FGP's betrothed, arrives with much fanfare.
JOE: (sings) I'm Prince Joe! La la la la la! I'm not the princess, I'm not the king! No queen no no no!
Sam asks Joe to go find Lizelia and take care of her in between now and the wedding. So Joe, with zero effort, disappears and reappears in Frederick's hotel room in Los Angeles.
So far, everything's going swimmingly, which is why it's time to introduce a villain played by Baby Sister. Our next cut takes us to Sam's mother, Queen Twre, otherwise known as the witch.
The witch's costume consists of a blanket that Baby Sister threw over her FGP costume and pulled over her head to create a kind of cloak.
WITCH: I'm Queen Twre, and I won't let anyone get in my way, especially my little troll son!
The witch monologues about her motives and plots. She doesn't want Sam to be king, but she especially doesn't want him to marry Lizelia. So she decides the best course of action will be to turn Lizelia into a mermaid.
Meanwhile, Joe tells Lizelia that he willbabysit spend time with her while Sam gets ready for the wedding back in the fairytale world. Lizelia, who has once again changed clothes, agrees to a picnic.
Joe, Lizelia, and Sam ("I imagine Sam here with me all the time. But he's not really here; I just imagine him.") go on a picnic. Other than the fact that Lizelia tries to eat Joe's pen, it's a pretty uneventful meal until the witch shows up in disguise and offers Lizelia a soda.
Lizelia decides to drink the soda offered her by a complete stranger. But the soda, which is supposed to turn Lizelia into a mermaid, doesn't work.
The witch poofs in and says, "It didn't work!" She then proceeds to hatch a new plan. She starts singing, but then remembers how much she hates singing, and ends by singing a song that goes thusly, "I don't like singing! I don't like singing!"
The witch isn't the only person who hates singing. Suddenly, we cut to the Fairy Godchild Princess, the narrator at the beginning of the movie, to find out what's going on with her life. Voiceover tells us that everyone in the FGP's kingdom likes to sing, but that the FGP hates that stuff. She prefers to dance.
VOICEOVER: Until one day...
I should explain that, during this time of their lives, Baby Sister and Little Sister were in an obscure children's musical. Baby Sister, really, really wanted to sing one of the songs from that show in this movie. So much that she decided to sing it even though it added zero plot points.
FGP: (sings) IIIIIII... I feel a song coming on... and it's a magorious, something and glorious...
Please note that Baby Sister did not actually know the words.
At this point, Little Sister decided to create a new character. So she wrapped a blanket around her waist to make a costume for a new character and hopped in front of the camera, pretending to be a lady-in-waiting.
LADY-IN-WAITING: (sings) We, we feel a song coming on!
FGP, who does not want to sing with the lady-in-waiting, stops singing. They embrace and then poof out of the frame.
Next, the camera focuses on the front door. A lady wearing a blue bathrobe, chewing gum, and carrying a shopping bag walks in. The cameraperson remarks that this woman is not supposed to be on. The witch is supposed to be on!
The lady in the blue bathrobe remarks that she is the witch; she just changed and went shopping. She tells the cameraperson to follow her into the bathroom because she wants to show them something. Sure enough, she gives a lengthy exposition about her new plan and shows how she is poisoning the apple she just bought from the store. She seems very pleased with herself.
WITCH: Don't laugh at my gum!
She starts to sing and dance about the gum but then she remembers how much she hates singing and dancing.
Meanwhile, Lizelia decides to pass the time by doing crafts. She decides to make a model of a prince. However, she runs out of craft supplies partway through, so she cups her hands around her mouth and yells, "Frederick!"
Apparently that's Frederick's bat signal or something, because he immediately poofs in and yells, "Whaa-aat?"
He agrees to go in search of new craft supplies. He poofs in and out of the hotel room several times, bringing such things as crumpled paper, a hairbrush, a noisemaker, a pink bathrobe, and some marbles.
Even though Lizelia's betrothed, Sam, has blue eyes, she chooses to use brown marbles for her model prince's eyes. Guess who has brown eyes? Joe. DUN DUN DUN.
We move away from Lizelia's crafts to the scheme of the witch. She poofs in and comments on Frederick's pink bathrobe.
WITCH: I wonder... Frederick!
FREDERICK: Whaa-aat?
The pink bathrobe poofs onto the witch. The witch celebrates by dancing and singing about how much she hates bathrobes before disappearing.
Frederick, however, is much less jubilant. He vows that he will be avenged.
FREDERICK: I will get my bathrobe BAAACK!
Meanwhile, Sam calls Joe and asks him to take Lizelia to the ball.
JOE: Okay, Sammy! Whoo!
Out of spite, the witch destroys the prince statue that Lizelia made.
WITCH: (to the camera) Do you like my pink bathrobe? It is hot.
Things are finally going well for the witch. She is so jubilant that she decides to mess with the FGP by sending her to California for the ball. The witch's spell sends not only the FGP but also her hopping lady-in-waiting to California.
WITCH: I am going for the best person who wears bathrobes, even when she goes shopping.
The FGP appears in Frederick's hotel room.
FREDERICK: Well, hay the horses!
The FGP tries to tell her story to Frederick, but Frederick tells her that he's had enough of fairytale girls appearing in his hotel room. He disappears. From off-camera, Little Brother whispers, "Say, 'People come and go so quickly here.'"
FGP: ...People come and go so quickly here!
Joe tells Lizelia that they will go to the ball, where they will meet Sam. Then Sam and Lizelia can be married.
Lizelia is conflicted about this, but there's one thing that she's sure about.
LIZELIA: Just one minute... just one second... Frederick!
FREDERICK: Whaa-aat?
Lizelia invites him to the ball. First, though, she has to change her outfit, as usual.
Lizelia goes in and out of the front door, coming back with a different outfit each time while the camerperson (currently Baby Sister) comments on it.
BABY SISTER: I don't think so. Get. Back. To the mall. Mm-hmm.
Lizelia even tries on the pink bathrobe that the witch stole from Frederick.
BABY SISTER: What does the witch look like? Is she wearing anything?
Finally, Lizelia emerges wearing a beautiful red-and-gold ball gown. She's ready for the ball!
All the characters go to the ball. Lizelia dances with her betrothed, Sam, even though it is clear that she is totes in love with Joe.
Because the ball scene was done on a budget of negative dollars, it consists of me placing the camera at a stationary vantage point to video the dancing characters while I bang out a few songs over and over again on the piano.
We then go to Sam, who has left the ball to enjoy looking at himself upside-down in the mirror. He makes faces at himself and won't dance with Lizelia. She begs him to come back to the party.
SAM: (looks at Lizelia) Who are you?
This was not the line we kept telling him to say, but 'twas effective nonetheless.
Though hurt and offended, Lizelia finally gets Sam to dance with her. And while they're dancing, she sings a little song of Little Brother's invention.
LIZELIA: (sings) I don't know where I am. And now that I'm rescued by Sam, I don't want to go. Oh don't you know? I want to stay with Joe...forever,
Joe overhears Lizelia singing, and he stands there stricken. Like he's just had a heart attack or something.
Remember that song that Baby Sister wanted to sing? Well, she was ticked off with Little Sister for interrupting her earlier. Therefore she stopped the progress of the entire movie so that she could sing the song again.
FGP: (sings) IIIIIII... I feel a song coming on...
And this time, when Little Sister tries to upstage her, Baby Sister full-on slaps her.
Once that's done, the ball is over and it's time for Sam and Lizelia to go get married. Sam declares that he will go call a carriage.
SAM: I just walk down the stairs and I sall a sarriage!
While Lizelia waits for Sam, the witch pops in behind her. She offers Lizelia the poisoned apple.
WITCH: Eat it or wear it!
Lizelia looks at the camera in panic. Little did we know that Little Sister was afraid to bite into the apple because of her braces. And since Lizelia won't bite the apple, the witch just keeps talking. And talking.
WITCH: Taste it, or else I shall make you eat it more and then you'll die quicker!
LIZELIA: ...what?
WITCH: Just forget about that.
She tells Lizelia that the apple is special and that eating it will take her to a better world and a new life where Lizelia can fix her mistakes and find a better prince.
After the much-prolonged scene, Lizelia bites the apple and then collapses.
Joe and Sam rush to Lizelia's aid. Joe remarks that true love's kiss is the most powerful thing in the world. First Sam kisses Lizelia, but she doesn't wake. So then Joe kisses her, and she does wake. Joe is Lizelia's true love!
The witch, of course, is mad that she lost. She says she has the perfect solution! She turns into a snake, then a lizard, then a dragon. However, nobody seems to notice.
WITCH: It's not working!
So in the end, the witch just turns back into herself.
WITCH: Don't I look so much beautifuller than those other things? Look at my gorgeous legs!
It would seem that Sam comes by his self-centeredness honestly.
Speaking of Sam, now that Lizelia and Joe are together, that leaves the FGP and Sam without anyone. They get into conversation, and the FGP offers to use her magic to turn Sam back from a troll into a normal prince.
The FGP comments that now Sam is a prince!
SAM: And you turned into a frincess!
FGP: I already was a princess.
She begins to sing a song of true love to Sam, but he ignores her.
SAM: You're a frincess now!
Finally, the FGP gets him to pay attention to her long enough for them to sing together and kiss.
That leaves just one loose end to tie up. The witch poofs away to mourn her failure.
WITCH: I am sad and in doom!
Then Frederick poofs in and challenges her to a duel. Thus the battle for the pink bathrobe begins.
After a very cool battle with many visual effect, Frederick wins.
FREDERICK: I claim this land for Cal-i-for-ni-ay, and you know what that means, sister!
The bathrobe appears back on Frederick. The characters gather and exclaim that now they can have a happy ending!
Everyone poofs away, leaving Lizelia alone.
LIZELIA: Poof! Poof!
Nothing happens.
LIZELIA: This is so not a happy ending.
Then Sam appears with a sign that says, "The End."
Then we cut to the FGP, closing the book that she was reading out of at the beginning of the movie.
FGP: And that's the end!
Little Brother puts another sign in front of the camera.
LITTLE BROTHER: (from offscreen) The end! (flips sign) And the end.
So there you have it, folks. Disenchanted. Now, the Disney movie will likely not come out for a few years. But when it does, all y'all can be my witnesses that we created this movie long before Disney ever did. And if their version includes any of the elements from the movie above, such as magically disappearing or reappearing or toddler actors or pink bathrobes, then you can be witnesses in our lawsuit. I'm thinking we'd settle for our names in the credits, five percent of the movie's earnings, and a signed cardboard cutout of James Marsden.
The link was to an article that says Disney is filming a sequel to their amazing movie Enchanted. And the all-caps text was as follows.
Little Sister: WE ALREADY MADE THIS MOVIE
Little Sister: WE SHOULD HAVE COPYRIGHTED IT OR SOMETHING
Because, you see, the article said that this sequel is rumored to be called Disenchanted. But guess what? Several years ago, my younger siblings and I made a parody of Enchanted. And guess what we called it?
You guessed it.
So something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 'Cause it's possible that Disney is taking credit for our brilliant idea of a movie.
But. Let me tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm going to describe to you our beautiful movie Disenchanted. And then if Disney's Disenchanted is anything like our Disenchanted, you can help stand up for truth and justice and independent filmmakers who are also children.
Our story begins with the Fairy Godchild Princess (Baby Sister). The FGP opens up a storybook and introduces us to a picture of Lizelia. She tells us important things about Lizelia, like that Lizelia loves all bugs and animals. Also that Lizelia is engaged to Prince Sam, but Prince Sam was recently turned into a troll. Nobody ever explains how this happened.
It's important to note that Baby Brother was still toddler age when we filmed Disenchanted. He was assigned the role of Prince Sam the troll. However, toddlers are known to struggle with certain aspects of filmmaking, particularly the concept that they don't get to be in every shot. Whenever we tried to keep Baby Brother behind the camera, he would scream and cry and make it impossible for the camera to pick up on what the actors were saying. Therefore, we allowed him to wander freely in front of the camera, even during scenes that he wasn't supposed to be in.
So while Baby Sister aka the FGP is doing all this narration, Baby Brother aka Sam the Troll is talking over her and asking questions in his high-pitched toddler voice.
The camera next turns to Lizelia, who is an American Girl Doll voiced by Little Sister. Little Sister tells her animal friends how sad she is.
LIZELIA: I'm sad because my prince is a troll, and he's rude now.
Please note that Little Brother is audibly whispering Little Sister's lines to her from offscreen.
Lizelia inexplicably decides to climb on a windowsill. She even more inexplicably falls off. And then the most inexplicable thing of all happens: all her animal friends decide to jump off the windowsill after her.
This chain of poor decision-making leads Lizelia and her animal friends to land in a hotel room in Los Angeles, which is apparently what happens when you fall off a windowsill in fairytale world. Lizelia, now a human played by Little Sister, is so confused by this that she decides to take a nap on the floor.
While Lizelia is napping, Sam the troll once again walks into a shot that he is not supposed to be a part of. Lizelia wakes up long enough to exclaim that she misses Sam so much that sometimes she imagines that he is near her even when he is not.
Frederick von Hoozer Howzer, played by Awkward Mormon Girl, arrives home to discover that there is a strange girl in his hotel room. He makes an appropriate expression of surprise.
FREDERICK: Well, hay the horses!
Frederick and Lizelia have a conversation, during which it becomes apparent that Lizelia doesn't understand anything, including how to pronounce people's last names.
LIZELIA: Please to meet you, Frederick von Hoozer Howzer! Or is it Howzer Hoozer?
Lizelia explains the situation to Frederick, who gives another appropriate expression of surprise.
FREDERICK: Well, ain't that the darndest thing I ever heard!
He tells Lizelia where she is.
FREDERICK: You're in Cal-i-for-ni-ay!
LIZELIA: Oh. Can I eat California?
FREDERICK: Well, you could, but you'd have a mighty big stomachache after!
Frederick decides that there's no harm in letting a strange, naive girl stay in his hotel room, and the next scene is Lizelia waking up on Frederick's couch the next day. She decides that she needs to sew herself new clothes.
LIZELIA: It's highly not fashionable to wear this your whole lifetime in California.
After she sews new clothes out of couch covers and a tablecloth (which takes literally twenty seconds because she just touches them and says, "Sew sew sew!) she decides to clean Frederick's hotel room.
The next ten or so minutes is a dance scene with shaky cam while Lizelia cleans the hotel room with the help of the animals. This scene is notable for Little Brother shouted lyrics about cleanliness over other, popular songs that are playing in the CD player. It is also notable because towards the end of the scene, I realized that if we turned the camera off and on in a certain way, we could make people and objects disappear and reappear at will.
We used this new device judiciously and frugally to allow for maximum effect each time it was used.
Just kidding. We used the heck out of our new trick.
First Lizelia's animal friends disappear. Then Frederick says that he has to get to work and disappears also.
After the second of 10,000,678 costume changes she will undergo during this movie, Lizelia decides to try disappearing also.
LIZELIA: I'M GOING TO LEAVE NOW.
Nothing happens.
LIZELIA: (throws her arms up in the air) Poof! Poof! It's not working!
Leaving Lizelia alone with her struggle, we travel back to the fairytale world, where Prince Sam the troll is busy admiring himself upside-down in the mirror.
As you may have guessed from his inability to stay out of a shot, the toddler Baby Brother really enjoyed being filmed by others. However, his real love was to be given the video camera, flip the lense, and video himself. This resulted in an upside-down picture, but the kid didn't care whatsoever.
So to simulate Prince Sam looking at himself in the mirror, we let Baby Brother video his own face with the camera while we fed him his lines from offscreen.
ONE OF THE SIBLINGS: Say, "Ee-ee-ee! I'm so pretty!"
SAM:(accidentally moves the camera so that it's only videoing half of his face) Oh! I have one eye!
SAM:(accidentally moves camera again) I have two eyes! (moves it once more) ...I have one eye again.
Eventually, we got him to say the lines we wanted.
SAM: Lookit my farkly blue ice! Lookit my furly little teef!
(Translation: Look at my sparkly blue eyes! Look at my pearly little teeth!)
Cut to Sam sitting on a couch.
SAM: Prince Joe! Tum here!
Prince Joe (Little Brother), Sam's best friend and the FGP's betrothed, arrives with much fanfare.
JOE: (sings) I'm Prince Joe! La la la la la! I'm not the princess, I'm not the king! No queen no no no!
Sam asks Joe to go find Lizelia and take care of her in between now and the wedding. So Joe, with zero effort, disappears and reappears in Frederick's hotel room in Los Angeles.
So far, everything's going swimmingly, which is why it's time to introduce a villain played by Baby Sister. Our next cut takes us to Sam's mother, Queen Twre, otherwise known as the witch.
The witch's costume consists of a blanket that Baby Sister threw over her FGP costume and pulled over her head to create a kind of cloak.
WITCH: I'm Queen Twre, and I won't let anyone get in my way, especially my little troll son!
The witch monologues about her motives and plots. She doesn't want Sam to be king, but she especially doesn't want him to marry Lizelia. So she decides the best course of action will be to turn Lizelia into a mermaid.
Meanwhile, Joe tells Lizelia that he will
Joe, Lizelia, and Sam ("I imagine Sam here with me all the time. But he's not really here; I just imagine him.") go on a picnic. Other than the fact that Lizelia tries to eat Joe's pen, it's a pretty uneventful meal until the witch shows up in disguise and offers Lizelia a soda.
Lizelia decides to drink the soda offered her by a complete stranger. But the soda, which is supposed to turn Lizelia into a mermaid, doesn't work.
The witch poofs in and says, "It didn't work!" She then proceeds to hatch a new plan. She starts singing, but then remembers how much she hates singing, and ends by singing a song that goes thusly, "I don't like singing! I don't like singing!"
The witch isn't the only person who hates singing. Suddenly, we cut to the Fairy Godchild Princess, the narrator at the beginning of the movie, to find out what's going on with her life. Voiceover tells us that everyone in the FGP's kingdom likes to sing, but that the FGP hates that stuff. She prefers to dance.
VOICEOVER: Until one day...
I should explain that, during this time of their lives, Baby Sister and Little Sister were in an obscure children's musical. Baby Sister, really, really wanted to sing one of the songs from that show in this movie. So much that she decided to sing it even though it added zero plot points.
FGP: (sings) IIIIIII... I feel a song coming on... and it's a magorious, something and glorious...
Please note that Baby Sister did not actually know the words.
At this point, Little Sister decided to create a new character. So she wrapped a blanket around her waist to make a costume for a new character and hopped in front of the camera, pretending to be a lady-in-waiting.
LADY-IN-WAITING: (sings) We, we feel a song coming on!
FGP, who does not want to sing with the lady-in-waiting, stops singing. They embrace and then poof out of the frame.
Next, the camera focuses on the front door. A lady wearing a blue bathrobe, chewing gum, and carrying a shopping bag walks in. The cameraperson remarks that this woman is not supposed to be on. The witch is supposed to be on!
The lady in the blue bathrobe remarks that she is the witch; she just changed and went shopping. She tells the cameraperson to follow her into the bathroom because she wants to show them something. Sure enough, she gives a lengthy exposition about her new plan and shows how she is poisoning the apple she just bought from the store. She seems very pleased with herself.
WITCH: Don't laugh at my gum!
She starts to sing and dance about the gum but then she remembers how much she hates singing and dancing.
Meanwhile, Lizelia decides to pass the time by doing crafts. She decides to make a model of a prince. However, she runs out of craft supplies partway through, so she cups her hands around her mouth and yells, "Frederick!"
Apparently that's Frederick's bat signal or something, because he immediately poofs in and yells, "Whaa-aat?"
He agrees to go in search of new craft supplies. He poofs in and out of the hotel room several times, bringing such things as crumpled paper, a hairbrush, a noisemaker, a pink bathrobe, and some marbles.
Even though Lizelia's betrothed, Sam, has blue eyes, she chooses to use brown marbles for her model prince's eyes. Guess who has brown eyes? Joe. DUN DUN DUN.
We move away from Lizelia's crafts to the scheme of the witch. She poofs in and comments on Frederick's pink bathrobe.
WITCH: I wonder... Frederick!
FREDERICK: Whaa-aat?
The pink bathrobe poofs onto the witch. The witch celebrates by dancing and singing about how much she hates bathrobes before disappearing.
Frederick, however, is much less jubilant. He vows that he will be avenged.
FREDERICK: I will get my bathrobe BAAACK!
Meanwhile, Sam calls Joe and asks him to take Lizelia to the ball.
JOE: Okay, Sammy! Whoo!
Out of spite, the witch destroys the prince statue that Lizelia made.
WITCH: (to the camera) Do you like my pink bathrobe? It is hot.
Things are finally going well for the witch. She is so jubilant that she decides to mess with the FGP by sending her to California for the ball. The witch's spell sends not only the FGP but also her hopping lady-in-waiting to California.
WITCH: I am going for the best person who wears bathrobes, even when she goes shopping.
The FGP appears in Frederick's hotel room.
FREDERICK: Well, hay the horses!
The FGP tries to tell her story to Frederick, but Frederick tells her that he's had enough of fairytale girls appearing in his hotel room. He disappears. From off-camera, Little Brother whispers, "Say, 'People come and go so quickly here.'"
FGP: ...People come and go so quickly here!
Joe tells Lizelia that they will go to the ball, where they will meet Sam. Then Sam and Lizelia can be married.
Lizelia is conflicted about this, but there's one thing that she's sure about.
LIZELIA: Just one minute... just one second... Frederick!
FREDERICK: Whaa-aat?
Lizelia invites him to the ball. First, though, she has to change her outfit, as usual.
Lizelia goes in and out of the front door, coming back with a different outfit each time while the camerperson (currently Baby Sister) comments on it.
BABY SISTER: I don't think so. Get. Back. To the mall. Mm-hmm.
Lizelia even tries on the pink bathrobe that the witch stole from Frederick.
BABY SISTER: What does the witch look like? Is she wearing anything?
Finally, Lizelia emerges wearing a beautiful red-and-gold ball gown. She's ready for the ball!
All the characters go to the ball. Lizelia dances with her betrothed, Sam, even though it is clear that she is totes in love with Joe.
Because the ball scene was done on a budget of negative dollars, it consists of me placing the camera at a stationary vantage point to video the dancing characters while I bang out a few songs over and over again on the piano.
We then go to Sam, who has left the ball to enjoy looking at himself upside-down in the mirror. He makes faces at himself and won't dance with Lizelia. She begs him to come back to the party.
SAM: (looks at Lizelia) Who are you?
This was not the line we kept telling him to say, but 'twas effective nonetheless.
Though hurt and offended, Lizelia finally gets Sam to dance with her. And while they're dancing, she sings a little song of Little Brother's invention.
LIZELIA: (sings) I don't know where I am. And now that I'm rescued by Sam, I don't want to go. Oh don't you know? I want to stay with Joe...forever,
Joe overhears Lizelia singing, and he stands there stricken. Like he's just had a heart attack or something.
Remember that song that Baby Sister wanted to sing? Well, she was ticked off with Little Sister for interrupting her earlier. Therefore she stopped the progress of the entire movie so that she could sing the song again.
FGP: (sings) IIIIIII... I feel a song coming on...
And this time, when Little Sister tries to upstage her, Baby Sister full-on slaps her.
Once that's done, the ball is over and it's time for Sam and Lizelia to go get married. Sam declares that he will go call a carriage.
SAM: I just walk down the stairs and I sall a sarriage!
While Lizelia waits for Sam, the witch pops in behind her. She offers Lizelia the poisoned apple.
WITCH: Eat it or wear it!
Lizelia looks at the camera in panic. Little did we know that Little Sister was afraid to bite into the apple because of her braces. And since Lizelia won't bite the apple, the witch just keeps talking. And talking.
WITCH: Taste it, or else I shall make you eat it more and then you'll die quicker!
LIZELIA: ...what?
WITCH: Just forget about that.
She tells Lizelia that the apple is special and that eating it will take her to a better world and a new life where Lizelia can fix her mistakes and find a better prince.
After the much-prolonged scene, Lizelia bites the apple and then collapses.
Joe and Sam rush to Lizelia's aid. Joe remarks that true love's kiss is the most powerful thing in the world. First Sam kisses Lizelia, but she doesn't wake. So then Joe kisses her, and she does wake. Joe is Lizelia's true love!
The witch, of course, is mad that she lost. She says she has the perfect solution! She turns into a snake, then a lizard, then a dragon. However, nobody seems to notice.
WITCH: It's not working!
So in the end, the witch just turns back into herself.
WITCH: Don't I look so much beautifuller than those other things? Look at my gorgeous legs!
It would seem that Sam comes by his self-centeredness honestly.
Speaking of Sam, now that Lizelia and Joe are together, that leaves the FGP and Sam without anyone. They get into conversation, and the FGP offers to use her magic to turn Sam back from a troll into a normal prince.
The FGP comments that now Sam is a prince!
SAM: And you turned into a frincess!
FGP: I already was a princess.
She begins to sing a song of true love to Sam, but he ignores her.
SAM: You're a frincess now!
Finally, the FGP gets him to pay attention to her long enough for them to sing together and kiss.
That leaves just one loose end to tie up. The witch poofs away to mourn her failure.
WITCH: I am sad and in doom!
Then Frederick poofs in and challenges her to a duel. Thus the battle for the pink bathrobe begins.
After a very cool battle with many visual effect, Frederick wins.
FREDERICK: I claim this land for Cal-i-for-ni-ay, and you know what that means, sister!
The bathrobe appears back on Frederick. The characters gather and exclaim that now they can have a happy ending!
Everyone poofs away, leaving Lizelia alone.
LIZELIA: Poof! Poof!
Nothing happens.
LIZELIA: This is so not a happy ending.
Then Sam appears with a sign that says, "The End."
Then we cut to the FGP, closing the book that she was reading out of at the beginning of the movie.
FGP: And that's the end!
Little Brother puts another sign in front of the camera.
LITTLE BROTHER: (from offscreen) The end! (flips sign) And the end.
So there you have it, folks. Disenchanted. Now, the Disney movie will likely not come out for a few years. But when it does, all y'all can be my witnesses that we created this movie long before Disney ever did. And if their version includes any of the elements from the movie above, such as magically disappearing or reappearing or toddler actors or pink bathrobes, then you can be witnesses in our lawsuit. I'm thinking we'd settle for our names in the credits, five percent of the movie's earnings, and a signed cardboard cutout of James Marsden.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
The Massage
On Wednesday, my workplace invited some masseuses from a chiropractic establishment to give us each ten-minute back massages.
I'd never had a professional back massage before. The extent of my massage experience is from family and friends. The masseuse had to tell me how to sit in the special massage chair and how to place my arms and legs and whatnot.
"So where do you usually carry your tension?" she asked.
I felt like the sum of those words meant something different to her than they did to me, but I took a stab at what I thought she meant. "Probably at the base of my neck," I said.
She made a noncommittal noise and started massaging near my ribs. "Ten minutes is not enough for you," she said after a minute. "There's a knot here, and a knot here... You could use a whole hour."
Which is how I learned that perhaps I should pay more attention to my back and that it might be good for me to go get a longer massage. From someone not associated with a chiropractor, though. With my RN mother and a physical therapist uncle, I have inherited a healthy skepticism of all things chiropractic. As the masseuse was telling me about various chiropractic treatments that her place of employment offers, I said things like, "Uh-huuuuh," and "Suuure," while not really listening. The only reason I even believed her when she said I could use a massage is because I've had an incredibly stressful year and don't doubt that my back is full of tension.
"Well, you're done," she said after ten minutes. "Be sure to drink plenty of water today."
I wasn't sure if that was a general comment or some mysterious chiropractic wisdom.
I'd never had a professional back massage before. The extent of my massage experience is from family and friends. The masseuse had to tell me how to sit in the special massage chair and how to place my arms and legs and whatnot.
"So where do you usually carry your tension?" she asked.
I felt like the sum of those words meant something different to her than they did to me, but I took a stab at what I thought she meant. "Probably at the base of my neck," I said.
She made a noncommittal noise and started massaging near my ribs. "Ten minutes is not enough for you," she said after a minute. "There's a knot here, and a knot here... You could use a whole hour."
Which is how I learned that perhaps I should pay more attention to my back and that it might be good for me to go get a longer massage. From someone not associated with a chiropractor, though. With my RN mother and a physical therapist uncle, I have inherited a healthy skepticism of all things chiropractic. As the masseuse was telling me about various chiropractic treatments that her place of employment offers, I said things like, "Uh-huuuuh," and "Suuure," while not really listening. The only reason I even believed her when she said I could use a massage is because I've had an incredibly stressful year and don't doubt that my back is full of tension.
"Well, you're done," she said after ten minutes. "Be sure to drink plenty of water today."
I wasn't sure if that was a general comment or some mysterious chiropractic wisdom.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Sugar Rush
Seeing the title of this blog post may have misled you to think that this is a post about Wreck-It Ralph. Well, it's not, so don't get too excited. Instead of discussing a great Disney movie with you, I am going to warn you.
About SUGAR!
It all started a few Sundays ago, when I was feeling down. Whenever one of the roommates is having a bad day, the Seamstress likes to whip up a batch of brownies. And these are homemade brownies. Sometimes she flavors them with extract. And when she has lots of time and we're feeling really sad, she makes super-brownies laden with cream cheese and marshmallows and homemade frosting. They are, in a word, glorious.
This Sunday, the Seamstress did not make make me super-brownies, but she did make me some rich brownies with chocolate chips and hazelnut extract. I love all things hazelnut, so you better believe that I guzzled those things like I'd never see a brownie again.
The next day, we went to the state fair to see the Seamstress's quilt. This year, the Seamstress made an amazing jean quilt. And she decided, somewhat on a whim, to enter it into the state fair. And it won first place. So even though it sits on our couch every day, we naturally had to go see it during its stint at the state fair too. And while we were there, we naturally had to also stop at the three-dollar ice cream social where for three dollars we could eat all the ice cream our hearts desired.
My heart desired quite a bit of ice cream.
And then on Wednesday, I came home from the temple to discover that the Seamstress had made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with some kind of amazing penuche-like frosting. So I had to eat many of those.
That Friday was Etch-a-Sketch's baby shower. The invitation to the shower literally said that we would be eating "sweet treats." The invitation was not wrong. I ate many sweet treats and drank even sweeter substances.
And then Saturday was National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Pepper, the Seamstress, and I woke up at a decent time, dressed as pirates, and went to Krispy Kreme to get free doughnuts. First they gave each of us a fresh, hot doughnut that they literally pulled straight off the conveyor belt on its way out of the glaze machine. So good. Then, they handed us each a box of a dozen, completely free doughnuts.
That's right. Between the three of us, we had three dozen doughnuts.
By the time I made it to Viola's apartment for some hang-out time, I was tired and in a stupor born of the excess of sugar that I had consumed that week.
Viola and I had planned to spend an evening writing together. But my sugar coma had killed my creativeness, and I felt considerably unable to contribute. So in the end, we watched a chick flick and four or five episodes of anime.
Then I went home and slept for a million years and did my best to cleanse myself of all sugar. BECAUSE TOO MUCH SUGAR IS BAD FOR YOU.
Please don't ever let me do that again.
About SUGAR!
It all started a few Sundays ago, when I was feeling down. Whenever one of the roommates is having a bad day, the Seamstress likes to whip up a batch of brownies. And these are homemade brownies. Sometimes she flavors them with extract. And when she has lots of time and we're feeling really sad, she makes super-brownies laden with cream cheese and marshmallows and homemade frosting. They are, in a word, glorious.
This Sunday, the Seamstress did not make make me super-brownies, but she did make me some rich brownies with chocolate chips and hazelnut extract. I love all things hazelnut, so you better believe that I guzzled those things like I'd never see a brownie again.
The next day, we went to the state fair to see the Seamstress's quilt. This year, the Seamstress made an amazing jean quilt. And she decided, somewhat on a whim, to enter it into the state fair. And it won first place. So even though it sits on our couch every day, we naturally had to go see it during its stint at the state fair too. And while we were there, we naturally had to also stop at the three-dollar ice cream social where for three dollars we could eat all the ice cream our hearts desired.
My heart desired quite a bit of ice cream.
And then on Wednesday, I came home from the temple to discover that the Seamstress had made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with some kind of amazing penuche-like frosting. So I had to eat many of those.
That Friday was Etch-a-Sketch's baby shower. The invitation to the shower literally said that we would be eating "sweet treats." The invitation was not wrong. I ate many sweet treats and drank even sweeter substances.
And then Saturday was National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Pepper, the Seamstress, and I woke up at a decent time, dressed as pirates, and went to Krispy Kreme to get free doughnuts. First they gave each of us a fresh, hot doughnut that they literally pulled straight off the conveyor belt on its way out of the glaze machine. So good. Then, they handed us each a box of a dozen, completely free doughnuts.
That's right. Between the three of us, we had three dozen doughnuts.
By the time I made it to Viola's apartment for some hang-out time, I was tired and in a stupor born of the excess of sugar that I had consumed that week.
Viola and I had planned to spend an evening writing together. But my sugar coma had killed my creativeness, and I felt considerably unable to contribute. So in the end, we watched a chick flick and four or five episodes of anime.
Then I went home and slept for a million years and did my best to cleanse myself of all sugar. BECAUSE TOO MUCH SUGAR IS BAD FOR YOU.
Please don't ever let me do that again.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
zulily Takes Over
In the course of my Christmas shopping (shut up shut up I know it's only October), I found myself on a site called zulily.
Since I started Stitch Fix, zulily ads have started appearing all over. Presumably because the Internet now thinks I have a mania for cute clothes, which isn't exactly true. I have a greater mania for good food and books than I've ever had for cute clothes. But that's not terribly topical at the moment.
What is topical is that I thought of an item that I thought I might want to get Baby Sister for Christmas. I'd tell you what it is, but Baby Sister reads this blog so I can't say too much. I will say that I'm thinking about getting her a ___ because she likes to ___ and also ___ and I thought this item might help ___ her ___. Also, it would be useful in case she ever decides to ___. And y'all know how I feel about that.
Anyways, in my course of further investigating, I learned that zulily had a decent deal on one item like this. Then I discovered another one on zulily that was even better, but strangely enough I couldn't find the price. Every time I tried to find the price, zulily would ask me to sign up.
Which is how I discovered zulily's nefarious plot, which is that they won't tell you the prices of certain items unless you sign up with them. Clever, zulily. Very clever. In the end, I had to sign up because I really wanted to know how much this thing was. And sure enough, once I'd given them my email price tags started popping up all over the place.
But that's not zulily's only evil plot. By forcing you to sign up, they obtain your email address. And once they have that, they begin an evil email plot. Which is to say that in the few days since I've signed up, they've sent me a lot of not-so-helpful emails, most of which go something like this:
From: zulily events
To: Awkward Mormon Girl
Today at 8:20 PM
zulily is now having a five-minute sale.
From: zulily events
To: Awkward Mormon Girl
Today at 8:25 PM
The five-minute sale is now over.
Also, zulily had the brashness to actually send me an email where they informed that their goal is to send me a "daily email from zulily."
Excuse me, zulily?! When did I say that I wanted a daily email from you? Never, that's when!
But I'm on to you, zulily. I am 90.239865% certain that your goal is to harass people so much that they'll break down and agree to do whatever you say if only you'll stop sending emails. And then you'll command them to join your army and to buy your items to fund said army. And once you've amassed enough wealth and soldiers, you'll march on the world and transform it into a cutesy craft booth.
Well, I'm not going down without a fight. Try to break me, zulily. I dare you. I'm ready.
Since I started Stitch Fix, zulily ads have started appearing all over. Presumably because the Internet now thinks I have a mania for cute clothes, which isn't exactly true. I have a greater mania for good food and books than I've ever had for cute clothes. But that's not terribly topical at the moment.
What is topical is that I thought of an item that I thought I might want to get Baby Sister for Christmas. I'd tell you what it is, but Baby Sister reads this blog so I can't say too much. I will say that I'm thinking about getting her a ___ because she likes to ___ and also ___ and I thought this item might help ___ her ___. Also, it would be useful in case she ever decides to ___. And y'all know how I feel about that.
Anyways, in my course of further investigating, I learned that zulily had a decent deal on one item like this. Then I discovered another one on zulily that was even better, but strangely enough I couldn't find the price. Every time I tried to find the price, zulily would ask me to sign up.
Which is how I discovered zulily's nefarious plot, which is that they won't tell you the prices of certain items unless you sign up with them. Clever, zulily. Very clever. In the end, I had to sign up because I really wanted to know how much this thing was. And sure enough, once I'd given them my email price tags started popping up all over the place.
But that's not zulily's only evil plot. By forcing you to sign up, they obtain your email address. And once they have that, they begin an evil email plot. Which is to say that in the few days since I've signed up, they've sent me a lot of not-so-helpful emails, most of which go something like this:
From: zulily events
To: Awkward Mormon Girl
Today at 8:20 PM
zulily is now having a five-minute sale.
From: zulily events
To: Awkward Mormon Girl
Today at 8:25 PM
The five-minute sale is now over.
Also, zulily had the brashness to actually send me an email where they informed that their goal is to send me a "daily email from zulily."
Excuse me, zulily?! When did I say that I wanted a daily email from you? Never, that's when!
But I'm on to you, zulily. I am 90.239865% certain that your goal is to harass people so much that they'll break down and agree to do whatever you say if only you'll stop sending emails. And then you'll command them to join your army and to buy your items to fund said army. And once you've amassed enough wealth and soldiers, you'll march on the world and transform it into a cutesy craft booth.
Well, I'm not going down without a fight. Try to break me, zulily. I dare you. I'm ready.