Crossover into Crazy

Sometimes I try to explain to people that my mother is “quirky”, which is just a cute word for crazy. Quirky means crazy in a fun-loving, zany way, not a I’ll-kill-you-while-you-sleep kind of way.

The top five reasons why I know my mom is quirky:
1. I’ve seen her in the yard wearing all spandex and a tool belt while shooting grackles with a bb gun.
2. We describe her car as a Walmart on wheels. (if you need an extension chord, a suture kit, a couple lamps, or 5 sweaters, she’s got it)
3. She considers two bandaids a great bra alternative
4. She gets a package of random junk from ebay about once a week
5. She sleeps with a dog named Potatoe on her pillow. (no I didn't spell it wrong. That is the way her name is spelled on her collar.)

Recently though, I think she may have crossed the line from quirky to crazy. About 5 months ago my mom found a baby deer while mowing the lawn at the ranch. She claims that the deer had been abandoned and was dehydrated, but I’m not buying it. I think the momma deer went to go find food and left the baby in the tall brush for a couple of minutes. During that time my mom happened upon her and kidnapped her. I know this is probably true because a momma deer hung out in our yard for weeks after my mom kidnapped her baby. So my mom has raised this baby deer, now named Venisa, as her own.

Owning a deer doesn’t make my mother crazy though. The line of nuttiness wasn’t officially crossed until she sewed her deer a coat for winter. She tried explaining to me that Venisa was jealous of her other dogs’ coats and wanted one for herself.

These are three conversations that actually happened:

#1-
Me- So mom, what are you up to today?
Mom- I just got done shopping at the fabric store. I wanted to make Venisa a coat.
Me- Mom, she’s a deer; she doesn’t need a coat.
Mom- She’s cold and I found this really bright fabric. I wanted her jacket to be bright so that hunters and neighbors will know that she is owned by someone.
Me- Any deer wearing a coat is obvious owned by someone.
Mom- Hmm. I hadn9t really thought about that.

#2-
Me- Mom stop feeding the deer gummy bears; they aren’t good for her.
Mom- You’re not the boss of my deer.

#3-
Me- So mom, so what are you up to today?
Mom- I just got done going through the Sonic Drivethru with all the pets.
Me- Is Diego (our pit bull) trying to get your food.
Mom- Yes, and Venisa too.
Me- Please tell me that you don’t have the deer in the car with the pit bull and Potatoe.
Mom- Of course. Venisa thinks they are her herd. She didn’t want to be left behind at the ranch.

I would like to leave you all with that visual image. My mom driving her orange Honda Element with a Pit bull, a deer, and a French bulldog hanging out the window while driving down the highway.
The crossover to crazy has been complete

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

This weekend I was visiting a friend in Palo Alto. I was awakened Saturday morning with the sentence, “We have to get up and go buy our Santa costumes so we can be at the bar by 11am!” Huh? I had been informed the night before, when I arrived, that I would be participating in something called SantaCon. It is an elaborate bar crawl full of people wearing Santa suits. I just never assumed that there would actually be people awake, wearing Santa suits, congregating at a bar before the 5pm hour. I was sorely mistaken. We got there and found over a hundred people dressed in a variety of Santa and Christmas costumes in the bar and dozens pouring out into the street. I learned that there were several meeting places all over the city and then we would steadily be bar crawling towards each other.

Each area was organized under different authority groups. Our leaders were the Gingerbread Militia. (Please see the attached photo) They were in charge of bringing several meeting areas together at a central park around noon.

The other group was led by Jesus and the Secret Service Elves. They were said to be more militant, secretive, and larger than our Gingerbread Militia. I was jealous when I learned this.

I quickly realized that there were a variety of Santas and Christmas costumes and was quite upset that I didn’t have proper time to plan a better costume. Here is a catalog of the various Santas I came into contact with.

Me Santa. How excited am I?!

Grinch Santa. His tongue kind of creeps me out!

Santa Banana (He had a girlfriend that never left his side. We had to cut her out of the photo.)

Gay-DominatraSanta Couple- Both sporting tights, cod pieces, and thongs (my neighbor would have liked these two Santas)


Streaking Santa- Wearing only underwear and a painted on costume. Apparently it looked sexy in the Sports Illustrated Magazine and he hoped to pull it off. Sadly, body paint isn't nearly as sexy on the opposites sex.

Santa on Stilts ( He offered to t-bag me for the photo, but I politely declined)

Bin-Santa (He was fully strapped with dynamite. He even let me hold his detonator, but boys usually aren't that choosy when it comes to letting people hold their Ds)

And ton of other variations of people dressed up as Santa that I didn’t want to have my picture taken with.

About 6 hours into the bar crawl we were shoved into the hole-in-the-wall bar (this is not a euphemism for a gay bar) where they were serving fifty-cent cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Yes, we had sunk that low. My Santa Date went off to find me a Diet Coke, and I was left as lonely Santa. A drunk Santa, we’ll call him Eyebrow Ring Santa or EBR, came up and started the following conversation.
EBR Santa- Heeyy, where are you from?
Me Santa- (thinking, that’s a new pick up line) I live in Utah.
EBR Santa- Are you some kind of Mormon? Ha ha ha. (He thinks he made a really funny joke calling me a Mormon)
Me Santa- Actually, I am.
EBR Santa- (looking sheepish and beginning to slurr his words) You’re hot!
Me Santa- Thanks (frantically looking around for my Date Santa only to find him coming up right behind me)
EBR Santa- Who is that? (pointing to Date Santa)
Me Santa- That is called Boyfriend Santa
EBR Santa- (turns to Date Santa and says slurringly) You’ve got the hottest Mormon Santa here!
Date Santa- (laughs) I think I have the only Mormon Santa here. (he brushes EBR off and cock blocks him from my view)

Later, outside the bar, we were congregation and deciding if it was time to leave, when EBR Santa found me again. He was hanging on me and proceeding to tell me again of my Santa hotness when Date Santa turned around and spotted him. Date Santa became hostile and we almost ended up with a Broken Santa. We decided to leave after that.


Top 3 favorite moments/conversations from the Santacon:

#1 – They pulled up a truck full of snow into a park and a huge snowball fight broke out. There was one guy dressed up as a giant blue dreidel. He quickly became the target for most of the Santas. I thought it was a hate crime, but I’m not sure how it would all play out in court. (you can see the driedel coming up the escalator in the picture to the right)

#2 – Three guys were standing around a dude wearing a red-plaid flannel shirt and a Santa hat and jeans, obviously not up to par with the costume requirements. One of the guys looks at him and says, “You’re the worst Santa ever. What are you, LL Bean Santa? You SUCK!”

#3 - My favorite memory was passing by a little girl on the street who was looking at the dozens of blasphemous Santas in utter confused horror. I’m pretty sure we screwed up Christmas for her for life.


Here is my favorite photo. This is what happens when you accidentally plan your wedding during SantaCon. There were so many Santas that they couldn't get in their car to drive away. Secretly I'm jealous of this couple. How amazing are their wedding photos going to be?! Maybe I should plan my next wedding around SantaCon.

Bring Us a Shrubbery

I taught my 7th graders personification a little bit ago by making them come up with a list of nouns that are objects, a list of verbs that only people can do, and then combining them into 15 sentences.
My favorite sentence was:
My mother's bush sings in the wind. (I bet it does Josh. I bet it does.)

I was teaching my 9th graders personification using the same lesson. We were making our long list of nouns on the board and a student yelled out "shrub" and then another student yelled out "bush." I immediately snickered out loud thinking of the 7th grader's Mom's bush. A student in the front asked what I was laughing about, and I decided to test my class to see if they would find the humor in the 7th grader's sentence. I told them the story about a 7th grader that wrote, "My mom's bush sings in the wind," and waited to see their response. Half of the class got it right away and cracked up. The other half of the class obviously didn't get the joke and were laughing that nervous half-laughter of naive kids who want to be included. I watched as one of my slower girls leaned over to another student and asked, " Was it a rose bush or something?"

Priceless.

The Holidate- Mormon SpeedDating

So last night I signed up for my church congregation’s version of speed dating called The Holidate. It was four dates in one night. The first date picked up at your house and drove you to the date. The second date ate dinner with you. The third date ate dessert with you. And then you were handed a set of keys to find your fourth day, who would drive you home. I only signed up for The Holidate because my blog has been lacking some of the usual bad date flair of old.

Date #1 – He showed up to the door and we both shared similar thoughts upon meeting. My thoughts, “Gosh, he’s like a tiny little man. I feel like I’m at a 6th grade dance all over again.” He thought, “Wow, I wonder if she’s going to fit in my car. I wish I would have worn my tall shoes.” (of course, I’m making his thoughts up) He was a history teacher, so we just talked shop on the way over. It wasn’t too painful at all.

I picked up my nametag… it read Virgina. I feel like the third “i” in my name is oh-so-important. I wanted to know who failed geography and was put in charge of making nametags. For the rest of the evening I introduced myself as Vir- gina just to see the shock I would get from others.

Date #2- His name was Zion. Yes, his parents named him after the promise land. Welcome to Utah. I’d like to be able to talk more trash, except I was wearing a name tag that labeled me as genitalia. He was only 23 and had moved to Utah after losing his money in a bad business deal to work for his brother. He was my best date. As we were getting ready to move to our third date, I told Zion that I was afraid to move to my third date because I knew that I was going to get the weirdo in the congregation that wears a camelpack to church. (I’m not sure how thirsty one has to be to wear a camelpack on top of his suit jacket into church, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve never been that thirsty in my whole life. In fact, I’m certain that is just a telltale sign of crazy, kind of like having more than three cats.) A girl sitting at our table overheard my comment about not wanting camelpack boy and she quickly chastised me saying, “You should try getting to know him and you may find that you like him. Part of the whole experience of The Holidate is learning to give people a chance and getting to meet new people.” So yea, I pretty much felt like a horrible human being after that. But honestly, I learned a long time ago that if you are nice to the crazies, then they misinterpret it and you end up with a stalker.

Date #3- He was shorter than my first date but just as nice. Unfortunately, to my left sat a guy that I had gone on with a date several months ago. I referred to him as Flava-flav in a previous blog. Flava-flav’s date looked at my nametag and she started laughing. She told him that he should use it in his story. His date explained that she had just learned that he was writing a story about The Holidate. I turned to Flava-flav and asked if he was writing a piece on the amazing event we were privileged to attend. I don’t remember what he said exactly, but he alluded to the fact that he was taking my blogging lead and writing stories about the “funny” things in his life. WHAT? How did flava-flav learn about my blog? I turned red immediately knowing some of the horrible things I wrote about our date. Oops. I couldn’t even concentrate on my third date because I was so mortified that he had read my blog and may pass it on to others. Luckily, the dessert date was the shortest one.

Date #4- Some girl came by during the dessert and handed all of the girls a set of car keys. You can make a lot of assumptions by studying someone’s car keys. I learned the following things about the guy that would be taking me home:
1. There was a CAT key, which meant that my date owned or operated a piece of heavy-machinery.
2. There was a motorcycle key, which I prayed didn’t mean that I was going to have to ride home on the back of a bike in the blizzard that took place last night.
3. He shops at Albertsons Grocery.
4. There was a random key that looked broken in half. I later learned that this key went to his car, which also looked broken in a variety of ways.
I can’t complain about my last date because at least the car had a heater and got me to my front door. My date walked me up to the door, where we engaged in the awkward-hug-with-a-near-stranger routine.

The Holidate only took up three hours of my time and I only got embarrassed twice. All in all, it was worth it.

Bonus photo

After reading my last blog post about my creepy neighbor, one of my dearest friends sent me the following photo.
I'm contemplating building something similar on my neighbor's lawn after the next big snow. I'll probably trade out the beard for a blonde wig, so it completes the dirty tranny look.

Won't You Be My Neighbor

I may not have mentioned this before, but I love the street I live on. I know almost everyone on the block, and people actually hang out on their porches and visit… well, at least they did before the temperature dropped to 40 degrees. We have a variety of personalities on this block and it keeps things interesting.

.

* We have the young professional boys that live together. They’re out of college with their first real jobs and have built a full walk up bar in the house, but still use a futon as a couch.

* The house near the main street is full of stoners, complete with annoying drum set and pit bull.

* We have the crazy old lady across the street that claims to have lived the longest on the block. Then again, she also claims to have a black belt in karate. Every day she walks to the Circle K to buy a 40oz can of beer (for her plants, she claims) and pack of cigarettes.

* We’ve got the fix-it-all nice guy next door that has repaired half of the stuff in my house I rent and even the one I own a few houses down. He’s amazing!

* Then there’s my best friend, the Korean Cardiologist that refuses to date Asian girls because he claims not to like his “own kind”. (his words not mine)

* The Mormon Bishop just moved last month and sold his house to a lesbian couple with a teenager.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. This is obviously the perfect street for someone like me. No one bats and eye when I’m wearing a bath robe and galoshes to walk across the street to borrow a cup of sugar. They don’t care that our pumpkins from Halloween are still out on the porch being prominently displayed…in December.

Anyway, now that I’m officially done being ADD, let’s talk about my next door fix-it-all neighbor. We have him to dinner almost once a week and I’ve thought he was so amazing…until last night. We share an internet connection and it has been so slow lately. Last night I was on my itunes and realized he his limewire folder opens on my itunes since we’re on the same connection. I was wondering what he was downloading, since the signal is so slow. These are the titles I found downloading on his computer:

Adult Movies - Rape Japanese Soldier Girl

Shemale - Tranny Surprise - Bianca Freire(1).mpg 26:15

Shemale - Tranny Surprise - Christy.mpeg Continuous

Shemale - Tranny Surprise Kalena Rios.mpg 26:57

Shemale Strokers - Suck My Tranny Cock.mpg 21:24

Tropic Thunder.mp4 Continuous

Vivid-Bad .porno.fuck.fucking.gangbang.orgy.

Nubiles-Sweet Girl masturbating - small tits

Shemale - Tranny Surprise Shayene Lima.mpg 21:16

Theres Something About Miriam, Transexual, Its her or him!(shemale)

I’m not sure which phrase is more upsetting to me “Rape Japanese Soldier.” “Suck My Tranny Cock,” or

“gangbang orgy groups.” I think I’m going to go with “Suck My Tranny Cock.” What surprised me the most was the quantity of tranny porn he’s downloading. Who knew he liked trannys? I’m shocked, disturbed, and completely intrigued; I had no idea that he would watch anything like this. I would have never guessed him for this type of guy.

Part of me wants to call him out, but the other part of me says that I should leave it alone and just make sure Ikeep my blinds closed at all times. Then again, I don’t have a penis, so he’s probably not even interested in me.

PS- How awesome is the porn movie title, “ There’s Something About Miriam. Transexual”?!!

Some Diamonds Aren't Forever

Until today, I really didn't have much to talk about. I've been so bored with my own life for the past two weeks that I couldn't even muster a simple story to entertain y'all.

The best thing that happened this Thanksgiving was when my granny opened a small leather pouch filled with jewelry that she said she didn't want anymore and was going to give away to us girls. I was excited until I realized that it was jewelry that probably nobody would want...ever. There was one piece that was particularly awful. It was gold nugget necklace. The nugget was shaped like a cock and balls though. I turned to granny and said, "My my, this a little phallic."

Without skipping a beat my grandmother said in her sweet southern voice, “I like phallic.”

*This proves that we’re related.

Today I’ve been given much more fodder.

So yesterday my sister called my dad to let him know that she was going to take one more semester of college. This is her fourth year of college, and she needs a few more credits to earn her two minors to beef up her resume for medical school. My father, a man that owns a yacht and a 2 million dollar cabin, told my sister that he was, “really strapped for cash right now and can’t afford to pay another semester of her schooling.” When I cite my dad’s wealth, please understand that I’m not bragging about how rich my dad is. I fully expect to receive a bill in the mail for the casket after he dies because he’s going to spend all of his money on himself. It just made me laugh that my dad actually believes that his explanation makes a bit of sense. BYU costs under $4,000 a year, making it one of the cheapest educations available. His ex-wife gets more than that every month in alimony.

Today, in typical big-sister fashion, I called my dad to tell him that he’s a cheapskate. Since I don’t expect more than a card or a bath robe for Christmas, I know that I didn’t risk much in telling him off. My dad started listing off how poor he was right now because of the economy. When I said that I wasn’t buying it, he then divulged the fact that even the ring he gave his fiancé was a CZ. What?!!? Hold on a minute. I immediately stopped caring about my sister Laura and started wondering about the CZ. How does one get away with giving their wife-to-be a fake diamond when you’re worth as much as my dad? Does Tanna, my soon-to-be-step-mommmy, know that she is wearing a big lie on her finger? (Please notice the picture to the right. She sent this out when she announced her engagement. This doesn't look like a girl that knows she's wearing a CZ. I'd be sitting on my hand ashamed if I'd just accepted a CZ that big from a mulit-millionaire cheapskate) What would she do if I told her? Should I tell her? Should I threaten to tell her to get my dad to pay for Laura’s college?

I wasted no time in informing my sister that Tanna’s ring is a CZ. We agreed that if a boy we loved proposed with a shiny, big diamond and asked us to marry him, we’d say “YES.” If he then told us the ring was a CZ, we would look at it as if he just handed us a used tissue. I don’t consider myself a snob, but I couldn’t handle wearing that big of a deception on my finger. I’d rather have a small diamond that is real than a big one that is fake. Our neighbor, who basically live at our house because of the plethora of baked goods we have lying around, then posed the question, “Would you accept a manufactured diamond? They’re not fake, just man-made REAL diamonds.

Laura, who had pulled out her own diamond ring and was wearing it said, “I just love the blood diamond that I wear.” Once again, this is why I know we’re related.