Random Thursday: Random Whoas*

Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s been sent by friends or has otherwise stumbled upon this week in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.

Because everyone needs a little whoa.

You knoa?

___________________________

©Andrew Hudson, All Rights Reserved

Andrew Hudson made an origami banana,
the existence of which validates
my entire Weltanschauung
if only because
banana and Weltanschauung
are both fun to say
and difficult to stop spelling.

(hey, indy—is this a poem?)

oooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooo

Gummi Bear Jam

Andromeda Turre’s voice + one of my favorite cartoon theme songs ever=

Whoa.

And there are more.

These guys make the theme to Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers sound like “Harlem Nocturne”.

I like that.

oooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooo

My husband and I have been married 21 years today.

I know.

Where did the time go?

Oh. Right.

The kids borrowed most it.

It’s probably in their rooms, somewhere—I assume we’ll be getting it all back when they leave home?

oooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooo

The Purple Store‘s tagline is “Everything we sell is purple.”

They do not lie.

They sell purple spangled shower caps.

They sell purple pet bowls.

They sell Purple Psychic Rats.

It’s breathtaking.

And very, very, purple.

Have I mentioned, for absolutely no reason, that my birthday is the middle of next month?

Just saying.

(cheerfully stolen from Vicki, via Facebook)

oooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooo

No, THIS is Freaking Awesome

Turns out that when you send a link to a Saturday Morning Slow Jam of  the Pokemon theme to my friend Kev, he immediately returns the favor by mentioning that Scott Bradlee (the pianist in the video above) also heads this group called Postmodern Jukebox.

Which proceeds to blow your mind.

Give yourself the gift of suggestive Yiddish and try their version of

“Talk Dirty to Me“

You’ll love it. My hand to Heifetz

________________

Thanks to everyone who sent best wishes and eCards to pass to my Mom.

They—and you—all all very much appreciated.

_____________________

*Your whoas may vary.  If they do, feel free to share ’em.

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Poetry Wednesday: Two Decades of Marriage

It’s difficult, after twenty years of marriage, to find an anniversary card that says what I want to say without inducing sugar shock or referencing stereotypical jokes that don’t apply, or blatantly propositioning my husband where my MIl might catch on.**

I need  something that encompasses knowing someone for over half your life, meeting, loving, and learning each other, and staying together anyway, through three apartments, two houses, four cities, three states, four cats, two kids.  Through colleges, careers, in-laws, weight fluctuations, annoying hobbies, lies, silence, tears, fights, hugs, backrubs, communication, dependence, independence, acceptance,  change.

That’s a tall order for a folded piece of cardboard.

It’s a tall order for a poem.

Because love isn’t what you think it is when the ring makes its big appearance and marriage is a lot more than not being alone anymore—sometimes it’s a lot less.  But not always.

It’s complicated.  Except when it’s the simplest truth in the world.

Luckily, there’s one poet who always has those nebulous paradoxical certainties covered:

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

—e.e. cummings

Happy anniversary, honey.

I love you, mostly, sane and sunly with a touch of mad and moonly.

Wanna go for twenty-one?

____________________________

*Except for the toilet seat thing, which always seems to apply, but never sets the right tone.

**That’s for birthdays.

The High(lander) Points of Courtship

I’ve already told the story of my wedding veil flambé, and our Canadian Honeymoon Chicken, so this year, I’m going to reminisce about what brought my husband and I together.

We both agree it was a miracle it ever happened.*

A miracle, fencing, and movies.

I joined the college fencing club because I’d broken up with my boyfriend of two years and wanted a) a reason to spend as much time as possible away from the dorm; b)  a way to work out some aggression; and c) a legitimate reason to carry a weapon.

My not-yet-husband was the student coach and I became captain of the women’s team—which would be more impressive if I hadn’t been the only woman on the team that first year.**  But that’s how we met and over the next few months, we became friends.

A three-day weekend was coming up, and he asked me if I was staying, and I said I was.  He asked me if I had plans, and I shrugged and said “Reading a good book.”

He said, “That’s right, you can’t drink yet.”  But he didn’t offer an alternative, and I wasn’t about to in case he was just making conversation, so we went our separate ways.

And then I thought about it . . . and called him. This was the first time I had ever called someone of the male persuasion with the intent of wrangling myself a date.  I reminded him of who I was and told him that I’d finished my book.

“Congratulations,” he said, not helping at all.***

So I gathered together my bravery and said, “So now I need something to do.  Any suggestions?”  If he said, another book, I’d give up.

There was a long pause.^  “Have you seen Highlander?”

“No.”

“Want to?  My folks have a VCR.”

So he picked me up at the dorm and we went to the rental place.  Highlander was out, but they did have Terminator and Living Daylights.

We stayed up all night in his parents’ living room—they were away for the weekend—watching movies and talking and then he took me back to the dorm early in the morning.  Our first kiss happened around then, though neither of us remember for sure—we were still playing it casual, I think.

Obviously, it didn’t stay that way for long.

You wouldn’t think Terminator was a good first date movie—or James Bond, either, for that matter—but it worked for us.  Really, really well.  A rom-com probably would have set up expectations we were too nervous^^ to handle.

And we eventually did see Highlander, which became our movie in that spiritual, quote it at every opportunity, name our wedding-present-cat Macleod kind of  way.   Movies are still a big part of our relationship—for last year’s anniversary, we saw Bridesmaids.  This year, we’re seeing The Avengers.  

Still avoiding the rom-coms after all these years.  Which only goes to show that it’s a good thing we found each other.

Happy Anniversary, Honey.  Want to go for twenty?

________________

*And he’s an atheist now.  When atheists speak of miracles, they mean it.

**But I did beat an ROTC Marine my senior year—he had the reach but was too much of a gentleman to hit my more  obvious target areas, though I believe I may have cured him of that once we reached three out of five.

***Sometimes when he tells this story, he claims that he was desperately trying to think of something clever and suave to say.  Other times he says he was wondering why on earth this crazy chick had called him up to tell him about her reading speed.

^During which, again depending on his retelling, the purpose of my call dawned on him and/or he realized he didn’t have enough money to take me to the only movie theater in town and/or he didn’t want it to look too much like a date in case the purpose of my call was actually simple boredom.  Like we both say, a miracle.

^^Or clueless, depending on who’s telling the story.

Eighteen Years Ago Today . . .

Today is the eighteenth anniversary of the day I set my veil on fire.

Having agreed in front of all our family and friends that We Did at the beautiful Kumler Chapel on the Western Campus of Miami University, my blushing groom and I arrived at our reception at the  Hueston Woods State Park Lodge, where our guests and Irish-American-Calypso folk band* (with bagpipe) awaited.

The only problem with the reception was the photographer’s assistant, a former high school teacher of mine who was so determined to arrange perfect tableaux of the bride and groom having fun with various friends and relatives that she ignored the possibility that we might prefer to have some actual fun.  She also wouldn’t let me take off my veil, in case something “happened to it.”**

 Right before we cut the cake, I was talking to one of Mom’s dearest friends in front of the main table and a passerby kicked over one of the flower urns flanking the main table, sending a flood of greenish water toward my white satin dress, which had already survived an attack by two (out of four) makeup-wielding bridesmaids, a walk over a lawn with a leaking sprinkler system, a barrage of previously-thrown birdseed mixed with dirt from my youngest cousins, because that was the “funnest part,”*** and chicken a l’orange with all the fixin’s.

So I backed out of the way.  Into a lit candelabra.

Mom’s friend yanked off my veil and put out the flames before they reached my hair.^  My dress was untouched.

And when the photographer’s assistant insisted, despite my protests, that I put on my burnt veil for the cake cutting and she’d hide the damage somehow, my new husband glared at her and said, “She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to.” 

I love you, too, honey.  Very muchly.   

Not every man would take his wife to see The Bridesmaids for their anniversary, and not every wife should would have asked.

I’m so glad we found each other.

____

*Fannigan’s Isle:  Rick Fannin and Tom Scheidt.  They can play anything, and play it well.

**My foreshadowing practice is paying off, yes?

***If I’d been a four-year old kid who’d just been forced to sit through an Espiscopalian-Catholic joint ceremony, Mass included, I would have thrown dirt at the bride, too, until my mother caught on and skinned me alive.

^Thank you again, Mrs. Pedersen.  I always liked babysitting your kids best.

(photo courtesy of the granat project on Flickr)