The Time Of Our Lives

Context: This post is about the third day (and second day in the city) of my third New York City trip.

Lots of people assume that I love Fraggle Rock for nostalgia purposes. In reality, I actually barely saw any episodes when I was a kid. I started getting into it through YouTube clips when I was seventeen.

You might remember that my junior year of high school was a tough time for me. I was held afloat by a combination of many things, one of which was my religion, one of which was my friends (especially Best Friend Boy), and one of which was Fraggle Rock. When you are completely and utterly depressed, why wouldn't you want to spend a lot of time in a place where cute fuzzy creatures dance and sing to banish their worries and cares? When you feel like most of your troubles come from not being able to connect with other people, how would it not be helpful to study a world where a different interpersonal conflict is studied in nearly every episode? Ya feel me?

Once I was properly introduced to the show, I glommed on to the precious Fraggles hard. They delighted me. That delight helped me feel better, and sometimes during hard things in later years, I would still turn to an episode that reflected my feelings or my situation.

Life after high school was always a bit precarious for me. I faced a lot of things I didn't feel prepared to face. But I was proud of myself for pulling through it without drifting back into clinical depression. I figured out what I needed to stay on top, and I sought it out as required.

Last year, though...I had a lot of difficult things happen really quickly. Some of them I couldn't talk about to protect other people. Some of them I didn't want to talk about because I was afraid of burdening other people. And some of them I knew no one would understand. So I just clammed up and kind of did the opposite of what I needed to do to take care of myself. I guess I figured that after being so vigilant for so long, and having gone through way worse stuff than what I was going through then, I was pretty invincible.

Ha.

Within a few months, I was...I don't know if I want to say clinically depressed again. I know clinical depression, and this wasn't really like that. I'd say it's more like situational depression, which the Internet tells me is a kind of depression people experience after a major life change. It involves a lot of the feelings of clinical depression, except it apparently doesn't usually leave you completely unable to cope for long periods of time like clinical depression does. When I was clinically depressed as a teen, I couldn't make myself do my homework most days or sometimes even brush my hair. But this time, I didn't feel that kind of listlessness or apathy; I did everything I normally did and more. I was productive yet felt terrible.

I got things back under control again, and all was mostly fine for a few months. However, around Christmas, the terrible feelings came back, and as I was hit by more big life changes (interpersonal crises, major surgery, and more) and other things completely outside of my control, they settled in to stay. I was not okay with that, so I surged forward to fix it. And whaddaya know—there's been improvement, and I now feel completely, absolutely fine for days at a time. But when I don't...

It's not a desirable situation.

But hey, you know what seemed like it might help? A delightful jaunt through an exhibit devoted entirely to Muppets, particularly Fraggles. It was the old medicine, the old relief, come back again in a newer and more potent form.

What I'm trying to say is that when Little Brother and I grabbed pastries from Starbuck's and headed for the subway to ride uptown to the Museum of the Moving Image to Astoria, Queens, I had very high hopes for the Jim Henson exhibit.

I'm happy to report that I was very much not disappointed!

Astoria turned out to be a quiet, cute neighborhood where people lived in actual houses. Tiny houses, but houses all the same. There were even yards! We walked around while we waited for the museum to open. I could tell that Little Brother was already enjoying himself much more than he was the day before. Score. Eventually we joined the other nerds at the museum (I was wearing my Wembley Fraggle shirt, obviously), and first thing we went to the Jim Henson exhibit.

Boy oh boy! That thing was pure joy. Pure. Joy. It was interactive, with video and audio and hand puppets to film a short clip with and a Sesame Street Anything Muppet to dress up. There were fascinating notes and bits of scripts and doodles and posters. And the puppets! I could tell you about them, but I'd rather just show you.

This was the first display (well, first after a cute little intro video). Kermit was sitting all lonely in this case opposite another case with a bunch of other puppets. It was like he was being shunned at a party.

Remember when we saw Carroll Spinney live? He had Oscar with him, but not Big Bird. Now we've seen them both!

My favorite!

Nigel, the original host of The Muppet Show.

Statler and Waldorf. It's funny that the museum is in Astoria since Waldorf's wife's name is Astoria.

The Swedish chef (with fake hands added since the puppeteers use their own hands).

Koozbanians! The Koozbanian pups are SO CUTE!!!

Zoot.

The sign that Gonzo pops out of at the beginning of the show!

And that's just a sampling of what this trove of wonders had to offer! This may surprise you, but we weren't even the biggest nerds at this museum. Most of the people were older folks or parents who didn't seem to know much about Jim Henson but who were trying to entertain their little kids. However, there was a group of college-aged guys who lingered for, like, ten minutes at every display case and spouted facts, figures, and trivia.

We definitely were the biggest Fraggle Rock nerds, though. Not even those guys lingered at the Fraggle Rock displays as long as we did. We examined every inch of those three puppets.

Cantus Fraggle, the wise wandering musician. Cantus is one of the two Fraggle Rock characters played by Jim Henson. The puppet of his other character, Convincing John, was totally creepy-looking, but I didn't get a photo of him.

The one, the only, Gobo Fraggle as he appears from Season 2 on! He looks so lifelike.

Uncle Travelling Matt!

We were fascinating by the hole in the back of Cantus's robes for his tail and by the instruments tucked into the folds. We were excited by the Doozer stick's in Gobo's vest pocket and by the details of his guitar. We examined Uncle Travelling Matt's baloobius and debated whether it was the same throughout the show or whether they used a different baloobius during Scared Silly. We also discovered that all of the Fraggle hair is made from ostrich feathers, even the tiny bits that we thought was fluff!

This talks about the many themes of Fraggle Rock. Notice that "hats" was added at the bottom in handwriting. There literally is an episode of Fraggle Rock entirely about a hat.

Doozers!

Cotterpin Doozer!

A piece of puppetry equipment from The Dark Crystal. STEVE WHITMIRE'S piece of puppetry equipment from The Dark Crystal.

From the opening day of MuppetVision 3D, one of Disney's funnest attractions!

After we'd toured the exhibit very thoroughly, we checked out the rest of the museum. There was an exhibit about YouTube as an artform and about special effects and costumes and merchandising and all kinds of film-related stuff. Little Brother used an interactive stop-motion display to capture a masterpiece involving a rainbow and two Shakespeares rising out of a troubled sea.

Once we'd seen everything else, though, Little Brother said, "Should we go through that exhibit again? Just to say goodbye?"

So we did! (And, yes, said a very reluctant goodbye to the Fraggle cuties.)

On our way out, we raided the gift shop. We scored some expensive chocolates, a magnet, a pin, a children's book, and a key chain.

Wembley is hard to draw right, but he looks pretty good here! Little Brother also bought the a chocolate bar with a Boober wrapper. We opted out of the Red on because it had coffee. :/

Ecstatic, we went in search of a lunch just as perfect as the Jim Henson exhibition. We ended up at Joe Asian & Sushi, where we threw down an amount of money equal to what I'd just blown at the MOMI gift shop. Worth it, though!

These crab wontons were SO GOOD!

Also this miso soup.

The sushi was yummy, too, but we overestimated how hungry we were and only ate about 2/3 of it.

After dropping our treasures back at Older Sister's place, we lazily made our way downtown to Wall Street and the 9/11 Memorial. Too lazily, as it turned out. We'd spend so much time in Astoria that we were waaaaaay behind schedule, so we spent an abbreviated amount of time at the museum and memorial. We had to go, though, since it was non-negotiable for Little Brother. (You can read more about my impressions of the museum here.) I was glad that we did; the solemnity was just right after the giddiness of the morning.

Then we met up with Older Sister. I'd basically told her, "When we're hanging out with you, we'll do whatever you want." And what did she want to do? She wanted to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and take pictures. So that's what we did. Older Sister's phone has a special photography mode that makes every picture look like it's been Photoshopped 1,000 times. Which meant that the photos turned out really, really well.

When we had enough pictures to satisfy Older Sister, we went into Dumbo (the Brooklyn neighborhood, not the elephant) and had a delightful dinner at Shake Shack! I had my very favorite chicken sandwich with herb mayonnaise (not pictured) and a delectable chocolate concrete.

After that, we were all very tired. We took the subway back to Older Sister's apartment, where I fell asleep feeling lighthearted, perfectly content after a nearly perfect day.

My Week with Blue Apron

A Muppet fansite I used to frequent often did "My Week" series. For example, they'd do "My Week with Fraggle Rock," where they'd watch an episode of Fraggle Rock every day for a week and then give a snarky review at the end.

I regret to inform you that because of the way Blue Apron works, I'm unable to cook a recipe from them every day for a whole week, so I don't have seven snarky reviews for you. I do, however, have two reviews to share!

The two recipes that I chose from Blue Apron for this week are Shanghai Kung Pao Chicken with Stir-Fried Peas, Sweet Peppers, & Bird's Eye Chile and Seared Steak with Roasted Potatoes & Caper Aioli.

First Impressions: I think it's a requirement that you feel a rush of excitement when you open a box from a subscription service. I certainly did when I opened my Blue Apron box. All of the food was cold and packaged nicely, and I was able to recycle a lot of the packaging.

The best part, though, was the recipes. They're presented so prettily on nice paper! Also, I was pleased to find a bonus recipe in the box. Do they put a bonus recipe in every week? Dunno, but it was a nice touch. This bonus recipe was for Wild Alaska Pollock Au Pouvre. Obviously, they didn't put ingredients in the box to make the bonus recipe, but I look forward to trying it sometime. 

I sorted the ingredients by recipe, put them in the fridge, and waited for Monday night to try my hand at cooking with Blue Apron.

My understanding of Blue Apron is that the business model is geared towards: 1) people who don't know how to cook but want to learn, 2) people who know how to cook but have more money than time, and 3) people who know how to cook but struggle to find new recipes.

I fall mostly under categories 2) and 3). I fall slightly under category 1) in that I don't know how to cook certain things and would like to learn. Three of the four recipes I chose featured entrees I'd never cooked before.

I started by trying the Shanghai Kung Pao Chicken with Stir-Fried Peas, Sweet Peppers, & Bird's Eye Chile! This was a special Air BnB-partnered recipe. I make rice dishes with veggies and chicken all the time, so it wasn't a big stretch for me. I chose it because it looked tasty and because I'm always looking for a good rice dish.

The ingredients!

First off, Blue Apron markets their meals as taking less than an hour to make. However, this recipe required the chopping of no less than five items, along with some other prep. I am a meticulous chopper; also my mind tends to wander while I chop, so I knew I would not be able to make the dinner that quickly. The chicken was pre-chopped though, which I liked.

The recipe mostly involved sauteing assorted veggies. The recommended heat settings proved to be much too vigorous for my stove/pan/altitude/something. The garlic burned slightly, as did, well, pretty much everything.

Once the veggies and chicken were sauteed and the rice was sitting on the stove, it was time to add the kung pao sauce. I was annoyed to discover that the mixture included mirin (alcohol). Cooking with alcohol doesn't necessarily violate my religious health code, but I prefer not to use it. I wish I'd had a heads-up!

After everything had cooked together, I performed the last step of fishing out the bird's eye chile (which actually burned my hands while I was chopping it because it was so spicy; it was clearly not edible unless you are a maniac). Then I dished up a bowl, noting with pleasure that there was enough food for three servings rather than the two Blue Apron advertises.

The Verdict: I liked the mix of veggies! I'd never cooked with snap peas before, and they were very good. The food was pretty spicy...almost too spicy...on account of the chile. My main complaint, however...well, I don't think I've ever had kung pao chicken, so maybe this was my fault, but I was not expecting it to taste so strongly of soy sauce. When I picked the recipe, I thought the sauce would be sweeter.

What I'd Do Differently: I'm planning to make this again sometime, but I've already found a honey-based sauce to use instead. Also, since I don't think my grocery store sells bird's eye chiles, I might have to leave it out or use a more mild chile for the flavoring instead.

Next up was the Seared Steak with Roasted Potatoes & Caper Aioli. I make steak for myself a couple times a year, but always in the oven, and it's never as good as I want it to be. I've also never made kale, roasted potatoes, or aioli. I was excited to try!

This recipe actually did take under an hour! The preparations were minimal. I had to chop the kale, the potatoes, and the capers.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Who chops capers?!

I repeated this several times while I was, yes, chopping the capers. It was difficult, and I'm still not convinced it was entirely necessary.

I also had to chop and mash the garlic "into a paste". I usually just use pre-chopped garlic, but I didn't have it on hand this time. Also I wanted to see what this paste thing was all about. However, I was unable to make a paste. I just ended up with flat bits of garlic.

First I mixed the aioli (which had sherry vinegar...again with the alcohol). This aioli consisted of mayonnaise, the vinegar, some of the garlic not-paste, and the capers. I was curious how that was going to taste. I coated the potatoes in oil, salt, pepper, and a Blue Apron-provided seasoning blend that smelled like spicy nutmeg and Old Bay Seasoning. Then, while the potatoes were roasting, I seared the steak.

The first thing I thought when I unwrapped the steak was "Hey, that's a pretty nice piece of steak!"

You may be thinking, "Awkward Mormon Girl, that's not that nice of a steak! I eat steak like that at home all the time." Well...I don't. I always do the flatter steaks that are about as cheap as they can possibly be while still being steaks. I never cooked a New York strip steak so fat and juicy.

The last step was cooking the kale. I was skeptical of the kale. I'm not a big kale fan, and there was a lot of it. However, I was happy to give Blue Apron a chance to prove me wrong.

So. Much. Kale.

Once again, I was able to get three servings out of the meal (though I had to be miserly with the steak). Everything looked very beautiful plated.

The Verdict: The steak was amazing! So good! I've been converted to pan-seared steak for sure. The potatoes were a bit underdone (maybe should have been chopped smaller or cooked longer or both), and the secret spice blend Blue Apron provided to season them didn't impress me. The kale was way better than expected, but it was still kale. Blue Apron didn't specify what the aioli was for—the steak? the potatoes? the kale?—so I just put it on everything. It was delicious! I especially loved it on the steak.

What I'd Do Differently: Find a different potato spice blend. Maybe even skip the potatoes in favor of a different type of potato? Swap the kale for spinach, which I still don't love but which I think is more palatable than kale. Try a different vinegar in the aioli if I can find a viable substitute.

I sure had fun trying this out! I'm looking forward to one more week of Blue Apron.

Random Updates

What's new with me? Not a ton. But there's a lot new with almost everyone else. So...

The Seamstress is getting married. Obviously this is a good thing, but because of this everything is slowly being moved out of the apartment. Like the piano. And the TV. And the things we sit on. Also, it's been a while (think over three years) since we've had any turnover in this home, so that's a little jarring. But it's grand for the Seamstress to get to move on to the other parts of life.

Flower Child is also getting married.

So is Valiant.

Little Sister and Mr. Little Sister went to New York to visit Older Sister a few weeks ago. Not long before that, Rosebud and her husband were in New York. When they returned, Rosebud said to Little Sister, "Oh hey, there's this Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image you might like..." And Little Sister was all, "YEAH I KNOW." Because the exhibit finally opened in summer 2017. And Little Sister got to go this month, and she geeked out a ton on Instagram, videoing the Cantus and Gobo puppets and the like. She brought us back nice Fraggle souvenirs, too.

Baby Sister is still loving the mish. Here's a recent email snippet that I found particularly amusing: 

Little Brother is starting to scare me on account of his Disney collection (which was augmented with the Robin Hood display piece over Christmas).

EARTHQUAKE HAZARD. BEAUTIFUL EARTHQUAKE HAZARD.

Felt

Context: Following this post, I decided it might be appropriate to post the content from my creative nonfiction project about Steve Whitmire. I've thought about it a couple times, but before I never thought there would be much interest.

Creative nonfiction is a genre that I didn't even knew existed before taking this class. It's nonfiction turned into a compelling story. This means that dialogue may be recreated without total accuracy...events may be combined...things that didn't actually happen but could have happened may even be included. ("Based on a true story" movies are, in my opinion, classic examples of creative nonfiction.) The following piece is light on the creativity and heavy on the nonfiction. Dedicated Muppet fans will know where I've taken liberties, but the majority of the Steve side of the story is reconstructed from a Steve Whitmire interview.

When Steve Whitmire got the box in the mail, he opened it right away. Inside, resting on a bed of Styrofoam peanuts, was Kermit the Frog.

The puppet was the same as the many others that had been made over the years: green felt skin, eleven-point collar, flippers, eyes with elongated pupils, and a flexible head that could be scrunched into almost any expression. The puppet’s mouth was slightly open in a half-smile, half-word. He looked like he was about to announce a guest star on The Muppet Show, sing a song about being green, or say, “Hi, Steve! How are you?”

Steve almost returned the greeting. His characters had played alongside Kermit for so long, it would have been natural for him to say, “Hiya, Kermit,” in the voice of Bean Bunny or Rizzo the Rat. But he stopped himself. As far as Steve was concerned, this wasn’t his old friend Kermit. The frog’s animus, his spirit, his essence—all of that was gone. Kermit had died with his performer, Jim Henson.

It doesn’t have to be that way Steve thought, staring at the Muppet. Jim’s spirit had left his body forever, but Kermit could be resurrected. All it would take was the right Muppeteer.

Steve picked up the famous frog and slipped his hand up into the body. He sat very still for a minute. Then he put the Muppet back in the box and walked away. 

***

With great nervousness and excitement, I considered interviewing Steve Whitmire.

“He’s sure to have an e-mail,” my creative writing teacher said, something I had never even considered. Steve Whitmire? Me, e-mailing Steve Whitmire? Well, it was something to think about, for sure.

What would I say?

Dear Steve Whitmire,

My name is Awkward Mormon Girl Obnoxious. You’re probably not aware of it, but we sort of know each other. See, I have this friend named Runner Bean. Runner Bean’s family was on Extreme Home Makeover a few years back, so he knows Ty Pennington. Ty Pennington was on a segment in a Sesame Street Christmas special, in which he interacted with the Count von Count. As you know, the Count’s current puppeteer is Matt Vogel. You perform with Matt Vogel frequently. So we know each other. Sort of. By association. Yup.

Not that.

***

Steve Whitmire had been a fan of puppeteering since he was just a kid living near Atlanta. At eleven years old, he wrote a letter to Jim Henson. Jim Henson wrote back.

When Steve graduated from high school, he had a yearbook full of scribbled notes jokingly calling him “Kermit” and a first-place prize for puppeteering in the school talent show. He jumped straight into performing a character called Otis the Beach Bum at a local theme park, then cohosted a television program with his best friend Gary. Simply called The Kids’ Show, it was nominated for a state Emmy Award. Clearly, Steve was going places.

He was in the middle of negotiating his own television show when Jim Henson called.

***

“Eighteen and a half, Joni,” I said to my Muppet. “Jim Henson hired Steve Whitmire when Steve was eighteen and a half.”

It took a long time for her to respond. This was due to my cringeworthy technique. When I say “cringeworthy,” I really mean “cringeworthy.” Usually when I pick Joni up, I never get around to performing her because I get wrapped up cringing in anticipation of my poor puppeteering instead. To be fair, I guess it would be easier for me if she were a more expressive Muppet. She isn’t, though; she’s a Whatnot, or a type of basic human puppet used in the background of The Muppet Show. Joni is great-looking: short dark hair, blue skin, orange nose, slanted purple eyes. I designed her myself on F.A.O. Schwartz’s Whatnot-making website, and I’m pretty proud of the way she turned out. However, Whatnots have fat plush heads that can’t easily be wrinkled into different expressions—pretty difficult to use effectively without additional mechanisms in the head. Alas, Joni lacks such mechanisms.

“Ahem,” Joni said. I stopped cringing and went back to performing her. “So?”

“So he’d hired teenage Muppeteers before, but that was when the Muppets were just starting and he was pretty darn young himself. In 1977, the Muppets were doing well for themselves. He could have had his pick of puppeteers, hired someone his own age. But no, he hired this super-naïve teenage boy from Atlanta, Georgia. Why’d he do that, Joni?”

“Super-naïve teenagers do amazing stuff all the time. Remember how you became a famous author when you were a super-naïve teenager? Oh… oh wait, you never did that, did you? My bad.”

“Thanks a lot,” I grouched, glaring at her. With some effort, I arranged her face in a sort of smirk. “I was always planning on it, but…”

“But reality caught up to you,” Joni said, patting my head.

***

Steve pressed the buzzer three times before the door opened. Later he learned that the door was the kind of door where you pressed a bell and then someone else buzzed you in, but on the day of his audition at Henson Associates he didn’t know that. So there he was, repeatedly pressing the buzzer, when all of a sudden the door flew open.

Hastily Steve stepped back. Out stepped Jim Henson.

“Hi!” Steve said brightly. He’d flown to New York the night before with $20 (of which he’d already spent $19), a lightweight coat, and a trunk full of puppets. He had absolutely nothing else to his name, but he’d never been more excited in his life.

Jim stared at him. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m Steve Whitmire.”

Jim stared.

“The puppeteer from Atlanta?” Steve clarified, his heart sinking down to his toes. He was overcome with a sense of panic.

He knows who I am, right? He’s got to; he paid for my airfare and my hotel! But… what if he doesn’t? What if this is all some huge mistake?

Steve highly doubted he would be able to purchase a return ticket with his one dollar. He wasn’t even sure he could find his way back to the airport. He knew nothing about New York. Before last night, he’d never been farther away from home than Kentucky.

To his relief, Jim said, “Oh yeah, well, c’mon in.” He led Steve inside, then paused at the top of the stairs.

“You know, we really weren’t expecting you this early.”

Steve looked at his watch. It was eight a.m. That didn’t seem too early, especially considering that he’d gotten up at seven and had put off heading to the studio as long as he possibly could. Sure, he’d only held off for less than an hour, but, still. He’d tried to wait, and every minute he’d been able to delay running straight towards his audition with the Muppets was a small victory.

The panicky feeling returned. “Well, you know, I could leave and come back later,” he said, trying to sound polite but hoping Jim wasn’t going to make him wait any longer. He didn’t know if he had that kind of willpower. Besides, he had no money and no place to go.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

Steve left his trunk of puppets at Henson Associates, trudged to a Woolworth’s on the corner. He spent his last dollar on a cup of coffee and sat there for three hours, waiting. 

***

“Why didn’t you?”

“Why didn’t I what?”

Joni touched the keys of my laptop. “Can I write something?”

“No. Why didn’t I what?”

“Why didn’t you become a famous author when you were a teenager?”

“Because I never wrote anything good enough to publish.”

“Who told you that you never wrote anything good enough to publish?”

“I did.”

“Well, what did the publishing companies say?”

“They didn’t say anything. I hardly sent out any submissions.”

Joni looked at me reproachfully.

“Listen, Joni, it’s like you said earlier: Reality caught up to me. Eventually I realized I was too young to get published, okay? Adults have a hard enough time getting themselves published, and then once they are published, they hardly ever become famous. A teenager like me doesn’t stand a chance. The only thing I can do with my life right now is go to school and get my creative writing degree.”

“And then you’ll be a famous author?”

“No, then I’ll have to find something else to do with my life after I ultimately fail as a writer,” I snapped.

“Well, you could always be a Muppeteer,” Joni said in a sing-song voice. There was a long pause. “Are you cringing at your technique again?”

I put her away.

***

Steve’s audition wasn’t much of an audition. When he returned to the studio at eleven, he and Jim and Frank Oz played around with puppets for a while. Then Jim took Steve around and introduced him to the people at the studio.

After a few days of this, Jim told Steve he was hired. He wasn’t going to work on Sesame Street, though, as Jim had originally led him to believe. No, Jim was hiring Steve to come work on The Muppet Show.

***

“You have to be mean to Kermit,” Jim chided Steve.

Steve bit his lip and said nothing.

“Your character is guarding Liberace’s door. He doesn’t want to let Kermit in, Steve, and he has to be mean about it.”

“Jim,” the floor manager said softly. “It’s five minutes to eight.” Eight o’clock was when the technicians went home—always. The cast wasn’t allowed to keep them in studio a second longer than that.

Steve stared at the floor, frustrated. This was his first speaking role: easy, short, technically simple. Still, he had screwed up every take. It just wasn’t working.

“Don’t worry,” Jim said to the floor manager. “We’ll be done by then.” His voice was calm, confident. Never mind the fact that he had been working on this brief scene with Steve since seven-thirty, and it still hadn’t come together. Never mind that he could have turned to any one of “the guys”—Frank Oz, Richard Hunt, Jerry Nelson, Dave Goelz—to take over Steve’s part. It didn’t matter who played the guard in front of Liberace’s door. Jerry or Dave or Richard could easily do it in a take or two; Frank would only need one. Despite this, Jim hadn’t asked Steve to pass the puppet over to someone else, and Steve had a feeling he wasn’t going to. Jim wasn’t about to give him the easy way out.

“Let’s do it again, Steve,” Jim said. Steve extended the puppet above his head and waited for the camera to roll.

***

“Who did Steve play on The Muppet Show?” Joni asked me. I’d brought her out again after some wheedling on her part and many, many promises to be good and to not talk about my puppeteering technique.

“No one, really. Rowlf’s hands. Miss Piggy’s dog, Foo-Foo. And Rizzo the Rat.”

“But Rizzo’s an important Muppet!”

“Not back then, he wasn’t. Rizzo was a background character on The Muppet Show—some rat puppet Steve found in storage and would walk in and out of scenes. Jim decided to make Rizzo an exalted extra by giving him lines, but the rat didn’t really take off until he was paired with Gonzo as a narrator in Muppet Christmas Carol.” I shrugged. “He spent his two and a half seasons on The Muppet Show doing all the puppetry work that nobody else wanted to do.”

“Poor kid.”

“Poor kid? No, he loved it.”

***

When The Muppet Show ended in 1981, it was because Jim wanted to move on to other things. Specifically, he wanted to create a kids’ show that could lead to world peace. It was called Fraggle Rock.

Of everything that Steve has done as a Muppeteer, I envy him Fraggle Rock the most. Fraggle Rock has sometimes been cited as “the best children’s television show of all time” and, really, I don’t think that can be argued with. Because of the lofty goals Jim had for it, you’d think the show would be boring and overly teachy, but this is not the case. The show is about a group of creatures named Fraggles who sing and dance and have fun all day while learning important life lessons and cracking fantastic jokes. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Each of the five main Fraggles is complex and nuanced, made likable by the puppeteer despite the character’s obvious faults. Steve’s Fraggle was named Wembley, a chronically indecisive but goodhearted little fellow.

“Wembley, give it to me straight. Am I invisible?” Gobo Fraggle asked his best friend.

Steve moved Wembley’s head and scrunched his nose into an expression of genuine scrutiny and consideration. “Uh… well, I don’t think so, but that’s only my opinion.”

The set members choked on their quiet laughter.

“What should I do?” Wembley asked Gobo.

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Can you give me a hint?”

“That’s a wrap!” the director called.

“Good job,” Jerry chuckled as he and Steve lowered their puppets.

“Thanks. You too.” Steve carefully pulled Wembley off his hand. As he went to put his puppet away until their next scene, he noticed Jim standing there, watching. When Steve caught his eye, he nodded and gave an approving smile.

***

Guess what? Steve doesn’t have an e-mail address, at least not one you can find on Google. I discovered this after I tried every single search term I could think of. The closest thing I found was a website explaining that if you want Muppeteers to sign photos of their characters, you have to send the photos care of Sesame Workshop and pray they fall into the right hands. Unless I became a writer for a posh magazine overnight, there was no way I was going to be able to interview Steve Whitmire. I would just have to make do without an interview, and he would just have to remain unaware of my insignificant existence.

I wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. 

***

“You know, we need to get you a main character,” Jim said over dinner in 1990.

“I have Wembley.”

“Sure, but Fraggle Rock ended several years ago.” That was true. Since then, Steve had done many movies and projects as a full-fledged, experienced Muppet performer, but he had no main Muppets. Rizzo was a fun side character and Bean Bunny was a great character originated in The Bunny Picnic. Neither of them, however, was part of the core Muppet cast. “I’m frustrated that you don’t have any main characters. I think we should work toward getting you another major character, maybe something that’s like a sidekick to Kermit.”

“Like Fozzie?”

“Yes, like Fozzie. Fozzie is there, but Frank’s not always available, and it would be nice to have another character that could fill that role sometimes. I can work on that as soon as I get back to New York.”

“Great!” Steve said. It would be good to have a main character.

Then Jim passed away, and his son sent Kermit to Steve in a box.

***

“What about that thing you wrote over the summer? Are you going to send that to a publisher?”

“Eventually. I have to edit it some more first.”

“So when will you be done editing?”

“Over Christmas break. Hopefully. Maybe.”

If Joni’d had an eye-rolling mechanism like Wembley Fraggle’s, it would have been in use then. “Hurry it up. You’re going to want to get that thing published as soon as possible so you can be a famous author.”

“And what’s the hurry, exactly?”

“Well, hey. You’ll still be a teenager until April. There’s still a chance for you to make your lifelong dream happen.”

Joni was silent as I thought about it. “Well,” I said slowly to her, “when you put it that way…” If there was anything I’d learned from Steve’s story, it was that it didn’t matter how young or inexperienced you were as long as you were willing to try.

“I guess I can hurry the revisions a little.”

“Yay!” Joni said. “Also, I would appreciate it if you worked on your puppeteering technique some more. You’re not doing me justice.”

I made a noise of disgust.

“You say that now, but who knows? Maybe if you get good, you’ll get hired by the Muppets, and you can be a famous author.”

“Yeah, and maybe I’ll become the next performer of Kermit the Frog.”

“Maybe you will,” Joni said, and she wasn’t being sarcastic.

***

Kermit could be resurrected. All it would take was the right Muppeteer, and according to Jim’s wife, his son, and the guys, that Muppeteer was Steve Whitmire.

It was a month before Steve could take the puppet out of the box again. Finally, the studio called and asked him if he would record something for them as Kermit. Nothing too stressful, just a little song or something—but even a little song became stressful when Steve considered what they were really asking of him.

“Oh, Jim,” he whispered, “I can’t do this.”

In his head, Jim said, “Of course you can, Steve. Of course you can.”

Steve took a deep breath, then settled the green frog on his hand. He opened the puppet’s mouth. He spoke.

“Hi-ho, everyone. Kermit the Frog here.”

The Worst Thing

Remember this post?

Remember how I said that Ron Stoppable said "I'm losing everything I ever cared about"?

I'm afraid I have to report that things did not get better.

THEY GOT SO MUCH WORSE.

I'm not going to catalog how things have gotten worse. As everything slips into a downward spiral, I'm trying to be positive and trust that either I'll stop moving downwards or I'll touch the bottom and be able to push off. And some good things have happened, too. I haven't yet seen permanent solutions to any of my problems, but I have been blessed with temporary fixes. There's no doubt who is in charge of my life. I keep getting reminders that Heavenly Father isn't going to let me hit the bottom—or, if He does, there will at least be a cushion at the bottom.

But I do want to talk about THE WORST THING OF ALL which is that Steve Whitmire is no longer performing Kermit the Frog. He is no longer performing with the Muppets.

Guys. Since I found this out last week, I've been devastated. My heart is broken. The first thing I said was, "This really hurts me."

It does, though. It's personal. I've been a Muppet fan my whole life, and Steve is my favorite Muppeteer. I love his performances. I also love his story; I actually wrote about his life for a project in college.

For those of you who don't know the story, when he was growing up Steve was also a Muppet fan...who was discovered by Caroll Spinney as a teenager and then hired by his idol, Jim Henson. For close to 40 years, the Muppets have been this man's life. He worked on pretty much every Jim Henson from The Muppet Show on, and when Jim passed away in 1990, Steve took on the role of Kermit.

Heaven knows I think Steve has done a great job as Kermit, but honestly if he wasn't playing Kermit anymore, I wouldn't care so much as long as he was still playing his other characters, like Bean Bunny and Rizzo the Rat. (And my favorite Muppet of all time, Wembley Fraggle. Wembley is not part of the current Muppet brand, though—more on that later.) I don't however, care about Waldo C. Graphic. I'm pretty sure nobody does.

Anyway, this has bothered me far more than the firing of a man I've never met should. I've never broken up with anyone, but a while back one of my friends and I decided we should stop being around each other for a while. I'd go around town but every place reminded me of that friend because we'd gone so many places together. Everywhere was haunted, or tainted, if you will. That's kind of what this is like. The Kermit the Frog plaque I ordered came in the mail...and reminds me that Steve was fired. I see my Wembley Fraggle doll...and remember that Steve was fired. I'm folding laundry and hang up my Kermit shirt...and oh yeah, Steve was fired!

On Tuesday night, I could not go to sleep. At first it was just general insomnia but after a while it turned into "I can't sleep because Steve was fired and I need some answers right now!

So I was up until around 2:30, looking for answers.

I discovered, much to my shock, that since I'd originally learned of the issue the entire Internet had exploded. Suddenly, there were comments from Disney reps and Jim Henson's kids (??) everywhere!

Before I proceed, I will share with you my biases. Here's how I feel about everyone involved:

Disney: I'm a devoted Disney fan. I've seen a lot of sneering comments about Steve's firing saying that Disney is a heartless company that only cares about money. I couldn't disagree more. Yes, Disney cares about money. But I don't think that's all they care about. The only real contention I have with them is that they've never really been able to figure out how to use the Muppets to their best advantage, which is a shame.

Jim Henson's kids: I don't really care about them...at all.

Steve Whitmire: You know how I feel about him.

Now that that's out of the way, let me tell you my reactions to everyone's comments:

Disney: I find Disney's comments to be rather vague. Some of the things they vaguely mentioned sound like legitimate concerns. Some of the things they vaguely mentioned didn't make much sense to me. For example, that Steve wouldn't accept an understudy. I was always under the impression that Muppets aren't supposed to have understudies. Let me explain...take Sara Bareilles. She's a successful singer-songwriter, right? And right now, she's starring in Waitress on Broadway. Now, if you went to see Sara Bareilles in Waitress and she suddenly got sick and her understudy had to go on, you would be disappointed, right? Especially if the main reason you'd gone to the show was to see Sara Bareilles. But it wouldn't be a travesty. However, if you'd bought a ticket to a Sara Bareilles concert and she suddenly got sick, her manager wouldn't send an understudy on. If the manager did that, it would be a travesty. That's how it's always been with the Muppets. For years, they've been marketed as celebrities, not characters—which is what makes them viable guest stars, such as when the Sesame Street Muppets were guest stars for the MoTab Christmas concert alongside Santino Fontana. There's only one Santino Fontana, and he's always played by Santino Fontana. There's only one Kermit, and he's always played by the performer who currently "owns" the role of Kermit.

Jim Henson's kids: I find the Henson kids' comments to be unnecessarily personal and weirdly timed. It's odd to me that if they had concerns about Steve that they didn't voice them earlier, particularly at the time when Steve was still working for them and not Disney. I also am not sure how much weight their comments should have when, as far as I'm aware, none of them has worked with Steve in years.

Steve Whitmire: For someone who has just lost his job, his passion, his friends, and to all appearances his life's purpose, he seems to be doing well. Whether his firing was actually deserved or not, I feel like he should be angry right now. But he doesn't really seem to be.

So I didn't really find any answers. In fact, I'm more confused than ever, but I can tell you that in spite of how much everything is changing and how depressing it is to be powerless to stop it, the way I feel stays the same. I'm still a devoted Disney fan. I still don't really care about Jim Henson's kids. And I still really love and admire Steve Whitmire's work.

Now, in the interest of positivity, here are some good things that have happened because of this.

The Muppeteer taking over Kermit's role (Matt Vogel) is extremely talented. I don't yet know if he has the chops for the role, but I don't doubt that he'll work very hard.

Initially, I was hoping Steve no longer working with Disney would mean that he would be more available to play Wembley in the supposed upcoming Fraggle Rock movie. Unfortunately, since the Henson kids own Fraggle Rock, I'm guessing they will not be bringing him back. Apparently Kevin Clash, the former performer of Elmo, will now be playing Wembley?! I actually find this news to be kind of disturbing. I don't have anything against Elmo, but I keep having this horrific vision of a Wembley-Elmo and aaaaahhhhh noooooo. Is nothing sacred anymore?! Plus no one could ever play Wembley the way Steve could.

BUT something else that actually is good news...well. When I wrote my college project about Steve Whitmire, my professor was pushing for me to interview him.

And I was like, "Um, this man is impossible to get ahold of! He has no Internet presence! I only know he's a real person and not a conspiracy because I've seen interviews with him on Fraggle Rock bonus discs!"

Here's what I actually ended up writing within the project itself (it was a narrative that mashed up my life with Steve Whitmire's):

Guess what? Steve doesn’t have an e-mail address, at least not one you can find on Google. I discovered this after I tried every single search term I could think of. The closest thing I found was a website explaining that if you want Muppeteers to sign photos of their characters, you have to send the photos care of Sesame Workshop and pray they fall into the right hands. Unless I became a writer for a posh magazine overnight, there was no way I was going to be able to interview Steve Whitmire. I would just have to make do without an interview, and he would just have to remain unaware of my insignificant existence.

He doesn't have a Facebook or Twitter, either.

However, following Disney's announcement, he started a blog about his work with the Muppets. I found this blog during my answer quest. It was pretty amazing to hear more about his viewpoint in his own words. So, naturally, I decided to subscribe to the blog.

Within a few minutes, I had in my inbox an email that called me by name.

Even though I knew it was just an automatic message Steve Whitmire had typed out when he set up his blog, I couldn't help but squeal a bit inside with excitement!

And even though I still had didn't have the answers I wanted, I finally felt peaceful enough inside to go to sleep.

My Migraine

I've been planning to write this post...with this title...for literally three years.

WELL HERE I AM.

During my first year of college, I started getting dizzy on occasion. I would become disoriented, and I'd see rainbow splotches on my vision. The splotches were beautiful, but also scary, because human vision isn't supposed to rainbow splotch.

But nothing ever came of it. It would last for an hour or so, and then it would go away. No big deal.

You might remember that throughout most of college, I worked in fast food. Just typing those words makes me recall the smells of French fry grease and bleach water; the weight of the long, perky ponytail dangling down my back; the way I would sob into the soapy water with which I was deck-scrubbing the dining room floor at one a.m. when I still had to finish a paper before going to bed. (Actually, I don't remember now if I actually physically sobbed. Probably not, since the assistant manager was right there. But I was sobbing imaginary tears, I promise.)

We got free kid-sized drinks every day at work. I almost always got water. One day, though, I filled my little cup with Dr. Pepper, because I had a headache.

It started off small, that headache. Instead of going away, it got worse. Then it slowly wrapped around my head and bore down into my brain.

My mom often has migraines. I suspected that this was one.

I felt terrible. My head hurt so bad, and I was a little nauseated. Then I started getting dizzy. You'd think that might be a big cause for concern, but I figured I just needed to make it to the end of my shift, and then I could go home and rest.

I tell you, I almost made it. I had less than an hour left. A man walked up to my register and ordered a chicken basket. I started punching things on the register and suddenly realized that I could barely talk, barely stand, and that I had no idea how to get this man's chicken basket rung up. I smiled at him and told him I needed to step away for a moment. I walked into the back office and declared that someone needed to help the man at the counter because I was going to pass out.

I didn't pass out, but that wasn't much comfort to me. My face was numb. I could barely talk, barely remember words. La Petite, who worked with me at the time, said she thought I was having a stroke.

BOSS: You need to eat something.

I found enough words to tell her that I didn't have any money. I was probably exaggerating, but not much. The price of food at my place of employment was far too much considering how much money I allotted myself to spend each paycheck.(That amount was 20%, though I would cap my funds at lower amounts on the rare occasions I made a paycheck that was, say, $150-plus. During the school year my two-week paycheck was often around $60, meaning I had $12 to spend on entertainment for the next two weeks. I know that sounds terribly tightfisted, and it was, but I managed to fund my own trip to Europe that way so don't sneer.)

My boss bought me a chicken sandwich and watched me eat it, which was a struggle. Then she made me call my mom, which was also a struggle. I went home, took a nap, threw up, ate a bunch of ice cream, and watched Fraggle Rock with the Fearless One.

And that, my friends, is how I found out that I am one of the rare humans who get basilar migraines, which is a fancy name for migraines that come with a whole slew of debilitating symptoms.

Yay.

During my last year of college, I left the fast food business and accepted a job tutoring kids in a tourist-trap city half an hour from College City and an hour from Hometown. To reach my workplace, I had to drive through a twisty, snowstorm-ridden canyon, sometimes in the dark.

One day, I was scheduled to go to work right after my afternoon class. During my morning class, I came down with one of my lovely basilar migraines.

I happened to bring my journal to school that day. Here's what I wrote: Geez. I'm having a crazy dizzy spell. I get these sometimes, and it's scarey because I have to drive to wWork cCity in two and a healf hours. Hopefelly it will clear up fore before I han head out.

Migraines are not conducive to flawless spelling.

By that point, I had learned ways to help mitigate the symptoms. I took headache medicine, drank a lot of fluids, and ate a copious amount of food. The dizziness abated enough for me to drive safely. However, my head pounded like someone was knocking on the inside, trying to get out.

When I arrived at the picturesque, expensive building where my workplace was situated, I was informed that my first appointment had been canceled (that would happen sometimes, but I still got paid). I knew what I had to do! I stuffed Quits inside my already-bulging backpack and headed towards the picturesque, expensive Italian restaurant next door.

Like the town, the restaurant was a tourist trap. It was such a tourist trap that the prices were posted on a glass-encased parchment-y piece of paper displayed outside, like in European vacation spots and at Disneyland, but the restaurant was still relatively nice. It was the kind of place you would bring a business client whom you were hoping to mildly impress.

Mind you, I didn't make a habit of dressing nice for school. Even if I had, I was exhausted, I hadn't been home in about ten hours, and I felt terrible. I must have looked a sight. Yet I lugged my fat backpack into the relatively nice, picturesque, expensive restaurant where a few people were meeting with business clients they hoped to mildly impress, and I asked to be seated.

The waiter obliged. He treated me most civilly, though he could easily have chosen to disdain me. I sat heavily at the highly polished table and unceremoniously dumped my backpack on the seat opposite. Then I proceeded to spend almost all the money I was earning from my canceled tutored session on a Dr. Pepper and an order of focaccia.

I was expecting a small plate of focaccia. Instead I received an entire focaccia pizza. Eight pieces. Plus my frosty, delicious Dr. Pepper.

In the two hours before my next tutoring session, I ate all eight slices of focaccia and drank all the Dr. Pepper. I do not normally do such things. I couldn't do it now. I wouldn't advise trying it at home. But I stuck my head in one of the Chronicle of Prydain books and, using a slow and measured pace, I worked my way through the entire focaccia pizza and the entire soda.

That, my friends, is the kind of aplomb with which I handle my basilar migraines.

Promote Promote

As some of you might know, Little Brother is a YouTube star. Sort of. Kind of. A little bit.

For the past few years, he's run a YouTube channel called Helga von Eggwitz. Helga is a sarcastic chicken who has very specific views about the world around her. She has become pretty popular with Little Brother's middle school- and high school-aged friends as well as among some of my own friends.

I've alluded to Helga before. Little Brother asked me several times to promote her on the blog. I told him it would be easier to promote if I could tell people that he was the one behind Helga. The people who read this blog are presumably interested in me, not in random YouTube videos, so it seemed unlikely they would appreciate having videos of a chicken recommended to them unless they understood my personal connection to said videos.

However, Little Brother resisted because he didn't want people to connect him to Helga.

Finally, though, Little Brother has given me permission to reveal him as Helga's puppeteer. Because when I say Helga is a chicken, I mean Helga is a chicken puppet. A live-hand chicken puppet, to be exact. I don't know if it's all the Fraggle Rock that Little Brother has seen or what, but he's a naturally talented puppeteer. He does little nuances and expressions that he clearly learned from observing the works of Jim Henson. And the kid has a crackin' sense of humor (which he obviously gets from me).

What else can I say? If what I've said about Helga interests you, check it out!

Confession: I've been dying to use this GIF since I first saw it on a tumblr called Avatar Parallels. I'm not sure where it originally came from, though. As far as I can tell, GIFs are one of the few things on the Internet whose origins you don't have to cite.

The End of January

I firmly believe that January is the worst month. It's cold, it's gray, it's miserable, it's blech.

I don't do much in January, so it seems like I always end up writing about strange things. However, I felt like this month's blog topics were particularly eclectic.

Based on the number of views I got on each post this month, it seems like you guys are most interested in reading about semi-political things, followed by the miserable weather in this state, followed by Little Sister's engagement. Sadly, my post about Fraggle Rock, even though my stats say it was shared at least twice, got the second lowest number of views. (It's okay, Fraggle Rock. I still love you.)

That's how the month went, blog-wise. Personal life-wise, it was a very strange month. Not only am I adjusting to getting an insta-brother, I made changes to my personal life in hopes of zeroing in on my next life steps. (Among other things, this consists of finding out that I unknowingly graduated from institute two and a half years ago and choosing to leave the world of improv comedy behind. I'll probably talk more about that later.)

In any case, I'm just glad January is over. February, here I come!

Fraggle Rock: There's an Episode for That

Timehop informed me that this past week marked the 34th anniversary of the airing of the beloved children's show, Fraggle Rock.

Let's get something straight. Contrary to the belief of some people that I know and even cherish, Fraggle Rock is not some obscure show. It's a little obscure for today's kids, but when it was on the air, it was hot. It was an international program. It got critically praised. It won an Emmy. Not even the Soviet Union could resist it—Fraggle Rock was the first American program that was aired in their country. That makes it historically important.

Jim Henson must have been proud. When making Fraggle Rock, he had a lofty goal to create a television program that would promote world peace. And if every kid in the world had been able to see it, world peace might have actually happened. It's one of the only shows I've ever seen where the characters resolve their differences without changing their fundamental nature. In other words, it's more realistic than a lot of shows that involve some kind of problem-solving.

Although the aesthetic is decidedly eighties, the themes and the humor are timeless. In fact, I would say that Fraggle Rock has an episode for almost any situation in which you could find yourself. For instance:

-You're having trouble with your roommate? Watch "A Cave of One's Own."

-You feel inferior next to the people around you? Watch "I Want to Be You."

-You've been the victim of one too many practical jokes? Watch "Scared Silly."

-You're trying to choose a suitable career? Watch "The Thirty-Minute Work Week," "Gobo's Discovery," "Mokey and the Minstrels," or "All Work and All Play."

-You're materialistic? Watch "The Perfect Blue Rollie."

-You're a pushover? Watch "We Love You, Wembley."

-Your friends don't believe you when you share something important? Watch "The Terrible Tunnel," "Wembley's Wonderful Whoopie Water," or "Wembley's Flight." (Yes, all of these episodes feature Wembley. Nobody ever believes Wembley. It's interesting, because even though he always turns out to be right, they keep not believing him. The turning point is in "Wembley's Flight," when Wembley finally realizes that they're not going to change...and realizes that it doesn't matter whether he gets their validation.)

-You have a hard time getting along with your friends? Watch "I Don't Care," "The Garden Plot," or "Marooned."

-You have a hard time getting along with your parents? Watch just about any episode past the first season featuring Gobo and Traveling Matt.

-You're proud and stubborn, even when you secretly think you might be wrong? Watch "Catch a Tail by the Tiger."

-You're proud and stubborn, and you don't secretly think you might be wrong? Watch "A Friend in Need" or "Gobo's School for Explorers."

-You're a hypochondriac? Watch "Pebble Pox Blues."

-You're greedy? Watch "The Grapes of Generosity."

-You're in an unhealthy relationship? Watch "The Incredible Shrinking Mokey."

-You're a tyrannical ruler? Watch "The Gorg Who Would Be King."

-You have a split personality? Watch "Boober's Dream," "Boober's Quiet Day," or "Sidebottom Blues."

-Your friend or relative passed away? Watch "Gone But Not Forgotten."

-You're a time traveler? Watch "Mokey, Then and Now."

-You want to learn how to better feel the Holy Spirit? Watch "The Voice Inside."

-You think you might be an atheist? Watch "The Bells of Fraggle Rock."

-You want to be an amateur detective? Watch "Inspector Red."

-You're in the middle of a teen pregnancy? Watch "Wembley's Egg."

-You want to see the most perfect series finale in the history of series finales? Watch the last four episodes of the last season.

Of course, in order to appreciate the last four episodes, you'd have to watch the other 92 episodes first.

TOTALLY WORTH IT, THOUGH. Happy 34th, Fraggle Rock!

The Dragon Dance

Usually, when my roommates and I go to dinner, we go to the second-best Chinese restaurant in Hometown.

I call it the the second-best because it is, and it is on account of there's another Chinese restaurant in town that's better. Their food is fantastic, but so are their prices. And so are their lines because they're only open a few hours a day. If I were feeling wealthy and exclusive I would go to the best Chinese restaurant in town, but I hardly ever feel wealthy and exclusive so I usually go to the second-best Chinese restaurant in town.

Best Friend Boy and his family goes there a lot and knows the manager fairly well. Etch-a-Sketch used to go with them a lot, so she also knows the manager fairly well. And now I go there so much that the manager knows me as well. Or he's confusing me with Etch-a-Sketch, since we've gone there a few times together and people commonly mistake us for each other due to similar hair and body structure.

Whether he thinks I'm me or whether he thinks I'm Etch-a-Sketch, the manager usually comes to personally talk to me whenever I'm in the house. A few weeks ago, when Pepper and I came for dinner, he encouraged me to come to the restaurant for their Chinese New Year's celebration.

Since I'm a sucker for Chinese food and celebrations and interesting things that I've never done before, I agreed, and on the night of the celebration I showed up for a 6:30 reservation with Pepper, the Seamstress, and Goldfinger in tow.

The restaurant was pretty crowded with couples and families. Little red envelopes hung from the ceiling. There was one near our table that was hanging alongside a bunch of lettuce.

We ordered from the special New Year's menu and settled in to wait.

Pepper was excited because her grandmother is Chinese and used to take her to a Chinese restaurant for a similar New Year's celebration. She was so excited that she brought us all gifts for the occasion: notebooks!

PEPPER: Read the words on the front, because they mean something.

The Seamstress's notebook said, "Reach for the stars." Goldfinger's notebook said, "Make mistakes." This is what mine said:

Obviously, Pepper knows me well.

Shortly after our food came, a drumming started within the restaurant. It was a compelling, steady drumbeat, and everybody started moving in time to it. I kept bobbing my head back and forth because I just couldn't help myself. Goldfinger was bobbing his head, too. The waiters were stepping in time.

Then the dragon came out! We all craned our heads eagerly to look... buuut this lady from the table next to us stepped in front of us so that she could take a video. So we were left in suspense while she videoed. But then finally, finally, she moved, and we could actually see the dragon.

It was the real deal, too. The dancers in the dragon costume pranced up and down and all around the restaurant to the beat of the drum. They were accompanied by a dancer wearing a mask and carrying a fan, and another dancer in a monkey mask and costume. It was just like in Fraggle Rock when they dress up as the Weeba beast and dance and shout "Weeba weeba!" Except nobody shouted "Weeba weeba!" Not even me, even though I really wanted to.

The kids in the restaurant couldn't get enough of that monkey. I couldn't get enough of that monkey. He hopped around, crouching on the ground and poking his head through the cutouts in the partition walls. He monkeyed his way through the aisles, which we enjoyed watching... buuut then the lady from the table next to us stepped in front of us again so that she could take a video. Again.

After about twenty minutes of this, the dragon began a different kind of dance. It lifted its head up to one of the red envelopes hanging from the ceiling, close its giant dragon mouth around it, and gulp it into its gut. Envelope after envelope it swallowed, even the one hanging next to the lettuce. In fact, in its haste to eat the envelope, it also swallowed the lettuce. And then it danced around the restaurant and threw the lettuce up onto the ground. Because apparently, dragons like red envelopes but not lettuce.

All the while, the drums kept beating. They made me feel like I had to get up and do something, but there was no room in the restaurant to do anything. The only thing to do was to keep eating, even though I was stuffed with food from the very filling special New Year's menu.

Soon the whole thing was done. We applauded, paid, boxed up our food, had an obligatory conversation with my BFF the manager, and left. I couldn't help feeling kind of hopeful because a) the excitement of the drumbeat had gotten into my soul. Also b) Pepper had said that we should use our notebooks to make New Year's resolutions because, as far as she was concerned, it was like New Year's all over again. And since this was a lot more exciting than what I usually do for New Year', I liked the idea of starting 2016 over with this other beginning.

Then we got home, and the Seamstress looked up our zodiac signs.

THE SEAMSTRESS: (to Awkward Mormon Girl) Apparently the year of the monkey is supposed to be really bad luck for you!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: ...NO.