Random Things Heard at Bunco Last Night

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Semi Charmed Life

Doot, doot, doot. Doot, do-doot, doot. Doot, doot, doot. Doot, do-doot, doot. Doot, doot, doot. Doot, do-doot, doot. Doot, doot, doot.



You just can't help singing it once you hear it. It's one of those songs that sticks in your head all day long. I've heard these are called ear worms, but ick!

Anywho, that song came on last night during Bunco.

As happy a song it is, an argument ensued.

I was singing along, "Doot, doot, doot . . . I love this song. I remember working at Domino's when it came out."

My teammate made fun of me making pizzas.

I didn't make pizza, I was a delivery driver. I was 23 or 24.

You're not that much older than me. I'm 36 (which happens to be my age) and I distinctly remember this song coming out when I was in high school.

Well, I remember sitting in a drive thru with my Domino's uniform on and one of those light up do-dads on my car. (I was probably getting hamburgers plain with salt for my boss at the time. As weird as that is, I still married into his family - the kids might be doomed.)

[With a neck swagger] Maybe that was the first time you heard it . . .

I threw one of my dice at her. It bounced off her glasses. But impressively, she caught it even after drinking half a bottle of spiced rum.

She pitched it back at me. Bounced it off my glasses and I caught it too - with my boobs. It was quite the bank shot. Impressive indeed.

Silver Lining:

1. I'm not a loser as implied. The song came out in 1997. So if what she was saying is true, she was 23 and still in high school. Hmmmmm . . .


2. Nobody's glasses got broken.

Simple Solutions

Nursing your baby is a special bonding time between a mother and child.

You should be able to relax and thank the Lord that your baby is hungry; thus, relieving the sometimes unbelievable pressure that has built up.

However, when your six year old is running around, bouncing off walls, and shrieking just for the fun of it, there is no relaxing.

So, what is a nursing mother to do?

Of course, the answer is simple.

You call your six year old over to you, unfasten the other flap of your nursing bra, and squeeze.

A squirt of breast milk right between the eyes has an amazingly quieting effect on the attitude of your older child.

Silver Lining:

1. I never had to do this because, I didn't nurse for very long and my girls are only two years apart.


2. I can't wait for the Island Luau this summer. I think the nursing moms in the neighborhood may have an unfair advantage in the water gun fight - they don't have to stop to reload.

My Ding A Ling

My Ding A Ling, do you remember that song? What literary genius penned that?

Oh, wait. Through the magic of Mr. Google, it was. . .

CHUCK BERRY!

When I was a kid we had a cassette tape (jump into the way back machine). . .

I believe it was on a Halloween tape because the only other song I remember was Monster Mash - oooo, very scary.

You're "mashing" now aren't you? I can seeeeeee youuuuuuu.

Speaking of scary and being a kid, do you remember when you were too afraid to go into the dark basement? The whistling woods? The stony mountains of Kentucky?

Apparently, there is reason to be afraid of the Kentucky Appellation Mountains. There are nonhuman things that exist up there. Like Bigfoot, hookworm, distilleries.

From what I understand, to this day, you do not want your car to break down in the mountains of Kentucky for fear of getting shot. Those moon shiners are a bunch of paranoid folk. They think everyone who is not one of them (meaning one eye isn't pickin' on Venus, has all their teeth in the front, is clean-shaven, and doesn't smell like an outhouse) is thought to be the cops. Moonshiners have a long history of not liking the cops. Don't they know prohibition ended 76 years ago?

Thankfully, those distilleries existed way back when or my good friend Kitty probably wouldn't be around today. Her grandfather grew up in the mountains. They ran around seeking out the coolest hiding places in their bare feet, catching hookworm.

Ick!

To get rid of worms in the olden days, one would boil down some root to make crack candy. This had nothing to do with the drug, was very bitter, and the "perfect" cure for hookworm.

If it was so bitter, why was it called candy? If I didn't know it and someone gave me something bitter called, "candy," I would have avoided candy all my life. Maybe I'd have been thinner. Perhaps I should go catch me some hookworm.

STOP!

I'd much rather be over weight than to have nasty worms. I think having worms makes you a social pariah - that alone would have KILLED me!

So this "candy" killed the worms, but then they had to be expelled from their bodies. As if having worms wasn't gross enough, you had to sh*t out dead worms for about a week!

For all those years of seeking out the best hiding places, Kitty's grandfather thought he had found the perfect spot for his distillery. But alas, the cops caught up with him, and gave him a choice: go to jail or go to war. He chose war, met Kitty's grandmother in Italy, got married and the rest is history.

And history is passed down through the generations via stories. And who hasn't met an old person with stories to tell? Kitty's grandfather had a lot of stories of the Kentucky mountains. One of the favorites was about

BIGFOOT

I know most people don't think Bigfoot exists, but we have proof living right down the street from us.

I had no idea, but while we're playing Bunco, someone noticed skis by Ginny's the front door. I know it's chilly, but it isn't even close to ski season. And there is only the "King of the Mountain" sized hill in Pleasantville so down hill skiing isn't an option.

You'd be hard pressed to even try cross country skiing in Pleasantville. We live in one of those areas of the country that gets snow over night and is completely melted by mid morning. Anything greater than a dusting here causes the big city next door to go into a tailspin.

We're expecting an inch of snow?!?! Close the schools! Stop at the store for milk, eggs & bread! Bring in the firewood! Order up the National Guard!

Then when the "storm" passes to the south or north of us (which happens more often than not), there is just a little b*tching at the weather men. But as soon as they say there's another one coming, we go through the entire process again without question. The Boy Who Cried Wolf would have a field day here!

Anywho, turns out those weren't skis.

My friend's husband has the biggest feet I've ever seen. Well, I actually never seen his feet, but his shoes were by the front door.

Size 15

Where do you buy ginormous shoes like that?

And it's not like it was just a put on to fake people out. If he stuffed tissue paper into the toes, I'm sure Ginny would have noticed by now. You know what they say about the relationship between the size of a man's feet and well, other parts. There is no faking it. With feet that size, Ginny probably doesn't need to fake it either.

I wonder if "the signal" in their house is that Chuck Berry song.

My Ding-A-Ling, My Ding-A-Ling,
won't you play with My Ding-A-Ling
My Ding-A-Ling, My Ding-A-Ling,
won't you play with My Ding-A-Ling

Ginny's not a very big person. I don't know how she doesn't get ripped in two!

Seriously, did she marry the missing link?

I don't know. He doesn't seem that hairy. You know Bigfoot is always depicted as hairy.

I've never paid attention to that aspect and I guess I'll never know.

I'll never be able to look at anything but his gigantic feet from now on.

Silver Lining:

1. I'm very happy with the ding-a-ling I married.


2. Take that however you want :)

Where Have All The Carnies Gone?

I'll tell you where they are (or were). They were at the Fall Festival at Cupie's school on Friday & Saturday.

We had a lot to do on Saturday - School Festival, Hot Air Balloon Race, Island Luau. Since the festival started early in the morning, we started our day there. That way we'd have time to cram all the other events in later.

We pre-purchased tickets for the games & rides and were able to bypass the ticket booth. We had blue tickets for the rides and purple tickets for all the other stuff.

Whew! We didn't have to wait behind the one other person buying their tickets that morning.

The first thing the girls saw upon arriving at the festival was the petting zoo consisting of goats, chickens, roosters, ducks, sheep & alpacas. They went bonkers over the idea of the farm animals. I don't get this - we live by a farm. They see these types of animals all the time. One cool thing was they got to feed the animals (one purple ticket).

Once we were done with the animals and a thirty second pony ride (four purple tickets), we headed over to the carnival rides - the ones with the carnies.

They had the required carousel, tea cups/barrel ride, something scrambler-ish, a bounce house, swings, and that ride that goes around with seats that alternate going up and down (if that doesn't make sense, there is a picture in a bit).

Both girls saw the swings and made a bee-line for them. The ride was running so there was a wee bit of a wait. Good grief, you would have thought the world was going to end.

When the Carney came over to get the tickets, we were able to read his shirt. Mind you, he woke up that morning, knowing he was going to be working an elementary school festival.



The writing on his shirt, while not readable from this picture, said:

I Get Sh*t-Faced Drunk
How Do You Handle Stress?

How's that for class?

I wonder what's really in that Pepsi bottle.

You will also note the yellow swing seat at the left side of the picture. This was indicative of the condition of all the rides. Rusty and frickin' OLD.

Stinkles howled when the Carney told her she wasn't tall enough to ride the swings - she was only two inches short. Now the world really was going to end!

At least the carousel was height appropriate. It wasn't a fancy carousel. That would have been out of character for the operation posing as a carnival company. There were no horses that went up and down. Nothing went up and down. There weren't even horses. It was fire trucks and motorcycles.

I think she was the only kid on the entire ride. Doesn't surprise me. After about five rotations she was telling us, "I'm ready to get off now." Even a three-year-old was bored with it!

The next ride Cupie chose also had a height requirement taller than Stinkles. There was no howling because Daddy was putting her a different ride already. I gave Cupie a ticket and sent her by herself to Hustler.



So far we have a stressed out, sh*t-faced Carney and a ride called "Hustler". Nice, huh?

When I turned away from Hustler and looked at the ride Stinkles was on, I almost had a heart attack.

One of our friends commented that it looked like it had been around since the Roosevelt era. Hubby said, "Yah, the first one."

It was rusty everywhere. The hydraulics no longer worked so the cars didn't go up and down like they were supposed to. Most of seats didn't have cushions, only a wooden seat. The ones that had cushions were torn and you could see foam peeking out.

Oh, and the lanky Carney (who had three day old stubble and greasy hair) had to push the ride to get it going. Visualize the guys getting the propellers going on old prop planes.



Stinkles didn't understand that the ride would force her body to the outer side of the car and insisted on sitting on the inner side. She was holding on for dear life. At one point I shouted at her, "Just slide to the other side." Hubby then pointed out that sliding across that wooden seat might give her a splinter in her butt.

We're up to a stressed out, sh*t-faced Carney, Hustler ride, and a splintery Roosevelt-era, half functioning ride. Doing good, right?

Our final ride of the day was the bucking bronco ride. Eight purple tickets! Each! Both girls and Hubby wanted to ride it.

On level one, it doesn't move very fast. Cupie was actually a little bored, but watching Stinkles hold on was pretty humorous.




Like that crooked horn?

It was made out of duct tape. The real horns had broken off some time ago.

At one point it fell out and some kid just picked it up and stuck it back in the hole on the side of the bull's head. We didn't realize it was the horn at first. My first thought was that the bull had a realistic pooping feature. Thank goodness, I was wrong.

Hubby got on the bull too.



Ride Indie, ride! He started out at level one - pretty boring. He asked the guy to bump it up to the next level.

It must be a Richter scale type thing. That bull went twice as fast and jerked around violently.

Hubby was down in about 3 seconds.

All this excitement (stress out, sh*t-faced Carney, Hustler in the house, Roosevelt-era prop plane turned carnival ride, and horns optional bucking bronco) in only 2 1/2 hours. Whew, and we were hardly starting our busy day.

Silver lining:

1. The kids had a good time.


2. The kids are alive after the perilous rides they were on.


3. I didn't read about any accidents at the festival so the rides must have held up


4. The rest of the day, while busy, didn't seem to put the kids in any danger - aside from the burning propane less than five feet from them and the rolling hot air balloon baskets nearly squishing them at the balloon race.

Who's On First?

Abbott and Costello are one of the best comedy teams of all time. My favorite bit is “Who’s On First?”

It’s funny because of the confusion and/or mis-communication between the two when discussing a baseball team roster. The roster is:

Position	Name
1st Base	Who
2nd Base	What
3rd Base	I Don’t Know
Short Stop	I Don’t Give A Darn
Left Field	Why
Center Field	Because
Right Field	Costello???
Pitcher	Tomorrow
Catcher	Today

Now, that all makes sense, but you could see how if one person did not know that those were actually the player’s names, they would become more and more confused as the conversation progressed. Here’s just a part of it:

Costello: What's the guy's name on first base?

Abbott: What is on second.

Costello: I'm not asking you who's on second.

Abbott: Who's on first.

Costello: I don't know.

Abbott: He's on third, we're not talking about him.

Costello: Now how did I get on third base?

Abbott: Why you mentioned his name.

Costello: If I mentioned the third baseman's name, who did I say is playing third?

Abbott: No. Who's playing first.

Costello: What's on base?

Abbott: What's on second.

Costello: I don't know.

Abbott: He's on third.

Costello: There I go, back on third again! PAUSE

Costello: Would you just stay on third base and don't go off it.

Abbott: Alright, what do you want to know?

Costello: Now who's playing third base?

Abbott: Why do you insist on putting Who on third base?

Costello: What am I putting on third.

Abbott: No. What is on second.

Anyway, they make their way through all the players this way – and crack me up! The entire text and audio can be found here.

Now, after that long into, I’ll get to the real story.

There was a float trip this weekend. Just down one of the canals in into the big lake in Pleasantville.

While we were picnicking afterward, we got to talking about how in the olden days (before kids) we would camp for two nights with one of the days completely consuming what should have been a four hour float trip. When you bottom out every twenty feet, take time to eat lunch, don’t use the paddles at all, take time to remove swim trunks, vomit over the side of the raft, and take shelter during a rain storm that you though for sure was going to “blow over”, a four hour float trip takes at least eight hours.

Anywho, now that we have kids, the guys can take them and stop dragging us ladies out into the wilderness.

It’s only the end of August, not too late for a camping trip, right?

Well, maybe it is when you’re talking about five or six families. Here’s how this discussion went (and I’m so not using names because there are just too many – just assume it is never the same two people in a row):

How about next weekend?

No, we’ve got the alley party next weekend.

You guys should do it on the 10th – I’m hosting Bunco and that will get you all out of the house.

We’ve got a wedding that weekend.

What about October 3rd?

That’s the charity golf tournament.

We’ve got a birthday.

The 10th?

I said that and it got nixed already.

No, the 10th of October.

How can the 10th of October be a Saturday? I’ve got Bunco on the 10th of September and it’s always a Saturday.

Doesn’t matter, we’ve got a wedding on the 9th.

Of September?

No, October.

Wait, so what’s the second Saturday in September?

The 12th.

They’ve got a wedding.

Yah, in October, I was talking about September.

No, they’ve got a wedding (pointing to another couple).

Well, the 19th is out, that’s the block party.

I’m calling Thanksgiving.

[crickets chirping]

26th?

Of October?

No, September.

The 10th?

What month?

I don’t know.

THIRD BASE!

Believe it or not, this is the short version. We had to be going on for at least 15 minutes.

I’m not sure we ever set a date for the camping trip.

Silver lining:

1. I’m sure the guys will hammer this out at Guys’ Night.


2. It was a beautiful day for a float trip.


3. It was a great day to just hang out with friends.

It's Not Just The Concert

In case you're just joining me this week, Hubby and I went to Chicago this past weekend. The catalyst for the trip was a Jimmy Buffet concert.

If you've never been to a Jimmy Buffet concert, it's not just a concert. If you've ever been to one, you know this already. The concert is only half the fun.

The pre-concert tailgate parties are a cornucopia of entertainment in and of themselves. You don't even need a ticket for this!


As Hubby stated in his post, he got totally wasted at a Jimmy Buffet concert last year. He promised me this time we would walk out like this:


And I wouldn't be dragging him out by one foot because he looked like this:


If I had to drag him out, I would totally be freaking out. Not just because we spent so much money on a weekend in Chicago solely to attend this concert, but because he would have turned into a woman!

We were wandering around the parking lot looking for his co-worker (Hubby also covered this in his post), and we saw some awesome, party-ing Parrotheads.

As well as some a**es:


Then, there were a few who were proud of their deodorant. Or they were just really happy to be there. I don't know. I didn't get that close enough to ask:




Lots of Parrothead paraphernalia:





One of my favorite pieces of paraphernalia is this:


One of Jimmy's (yah, we're on a first name basis) songs is simply called "Fins". When the song comes on, you're supposed to put your arms above your head making a shark fin with your hands. My five year old can name that song in two notes, puts her hands above her head and says, "Fins Up!" Wow, what are we warping her mind with?

This guy really cracked me up:


Looks like an innocent Parrothead, right? Oh, no. He had a fishing pole and was casting out beads. As soon as someone reached for the beads on the ground, he'd reeled them back in.

Perhaps that's why I saw this sticker I saw on the ground (quite near him):


It was time to go in the stadium. I thought I'd have to put away the camera, but Hubby graciously offered to "sneak" it in for me.

How are you going to do that?

He grabbed his crotch.

And I let him do it.

Then, I used it!

Once we were inside the stadium, the beach balls were blown up faster than a woman with PMS can down a bag of chocolate chips.

Yes, that's beach balls at a concert. Jimmy expects it to be a beach party. And who goes to the beach without their balls? Well, us apparently. We didn't have one of our own, but there were plenty to go around.

Since, I had the camera, I took pictures:


Our seats were pretty far away. Even with the zoom extended as far as possible, I couldn't get any kind of detail up on stage. Good thing Hubby had his binoculars with automatic image stabilization.

I put the camera lens in the ocular lens of the binoculars to take these pictures. Sorry they're blurry. We'd had a little bit to drink before hand and there was a lot of crowd movement. Keeping the binoculars AND the camera steady was a tough job.





Silver Lining:

1. It was a great concert.


2. Hubby remembered it this time.


3. I didn't have to kick his butt.

PS - Turns out Hubby didn't have to sneak in the camera. We completely missed the sign that said that cameras under six inches (aka point & shoot) were allowed. *sigh*

The Training Paid Off

(FYI - This is a guest post from The Hubby)

Last night, Wifey and I completed our pilgrimage trip to Chicago to go see Jimmy Buffett in concert. This was our third time seeing him, or the second-and-a-half time seeing him for me. You see, we showed up about 3½ hours early for the show last time, and we proceeded to party (i.e., drink non-child-approved beverages) heavily for that entire time.

In my infinite wisdom, I decided once we got inside that we STILL hadn’t had enough, and bought us each another monster-sized margarita. That was apparently just enough to put me over the top, and I don’t remember much of the concert after that. On top of that, I managed to lose a $250 pair of Maui Jim sunglasses somewhere in the amphitheatre lawn.

So, having squandered that opportunity to see him, I vowed shortly afterwards that I had to make every effort to see him again. That concert was the first time he’d come to our town in 8 years, and he wasn’t coming there this year. Who knows if or when he’ll come back to our town again (after all, Jimmy Buffett isn’t getting any younger), so I figured I needed to look at surrounding cities.

Chicago’s a few hours away, but it’s doable. We’d gone to see Bill Cosby there a few years ago, so selling Wifey on the idea of going to Chicago for a concert shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. The bigger challenge was selling Wifey on the idea of me buying concert tickets at all – she just wasn’t real keen on the expense this year. She knew this was important to me, though, so I think her response was, “Whatever you decide, dear” (which of course meant I was going to buy the tickets).

I knew after the concert last year that I’d get my butt kicked if I ever got that inebriated at a Buffett concert again, so I’ve been in “training” ever since. Seriously, it seems that just about every kind of social gathering in Pleasantville involves alcohol. At the time of the concert last year, we’d only been living in Pleasantville a few months, but this was now almost a full year and a half later. Some of you might recall the time I tried to bend glass – this was part of the strict training regimen I was committed to follow. (In case you missed that story, click here to read more about it).

The night of the big event had finally arrived. We didn’t get as much time to party beforehand this time – traffic in Chicago was INSANE (even on a Saturday – there’s no way I could live with that all the time). That managed to cut a full hour off of our planned partying time. So, since we didn’t have as much time, I decided that I needed to get caught up in a hurry.

Granted, I didn’t drink as much in quantity this time, but what I lacked in quantity I made up for in speed. In under an hour, I’d managed to put down a little more than half of a gigantic bottle of Cuervo golden margarita. Unfortunately, Wifey was making me share it with her, so that’s when I ran out of liquor.

This was enough liquor for her, though, that she managed to get the brainiac idea of going to try and find one of my co-workers based on the time he arrived. You see, it turned out that he was also going to be attending the same show, and we were supposed to hook up together beforehand. However, I’m not sure if he turned off his phone or if he let the battery die, but I couldn’t get hold of him when we got there. I’d found out earlier in the day about when he was planning to get there, so her plan was to walk around to different areas and find out what time the people in that area arrived.

Now, get a mental picture of this – I’m sure you’ve all been to a big concert or sporting event at some point in your life. Imagine one big parking lot for everyone in attendance – we’re easily talking about several thousand cars. On top of that, there were apparently multiple entrances to the parking lot, so finding an area that parked about the time he was supposed to get there didn’t necessarily mean it was the right area.

We never did find him, but we did manage to see some interesting sights. Wifey did manage to get a number of interesting pictures that I’m sure you’ll get to see in the coming weeks on either this blog or her Picture This blog. I also managed to score a mighty tasty shish-kabob from a fellow parrothead (for those of you who don’t know, that’s the name for fans of Jimmy Buffett).

So enough of my digression into Wifey’s brilliant idea – let’s get back to my story. As the title said, the training paid off. By the time our little expedition was over, it was about time to go in. We got inside successfully, and we even managed to successfully “sneak” a camera in, when it turned out that cameras weren’t even banned in the first place. (I’m sure she’ll tell you more about that story at some point). We both managed to make it through all of the concert, and saw a heck of a good show.

So, in the tradition of this blog, here’s the silver lining:

1. I didn’t get my butt kicked by Wifey for drinking my way through another Buffett concert.


2. Our tenth anniversary is coming up in a couple weeks, so our trip to Chicago was kind of an early celebration of that, and we had a fantastic time (except for the traffic – we’re both SO glad we don’t live there).

Marching to the Beat of Your Own Drummer

As I was driving in to work today, I observed a woman walking. She was in her walking “gear” – t-shirt, shorts, tennies, IPOD. As she was walking, I could see her arms were a flappin’. Then, I saw her head grovin’. She was totally into what ever was on her IPOD, in her own world, power-walking to the beat of some kind of drummer.

I had to giggle to myself because as an outsider, she looked quite ridiculous. I think it’s funny when I bust people doing this in their cars too. I hate it when it happens to me though. Even worse, is if you get busted for speeding while you’re doing it.

This is exactly what happened to my mom many years ago.

We were driving from Mid-America to Florida. Mom had a conference and Sissy & I were going to Disney World! (I’m groovin’ in my chair to that “Goin’ to Disney World” song right now.)

It was Mom’s turn to drive and the driver gets to pick the music – that’s the universal rule for road trips. At the time, her favorite tunes were on the soundtrack to “Phantom of the Opera”. She knew every word, every crescendo. The crescendo is what got her in to trouble.

Song four – “The Phantom of the Opera” – has the lead actress singing couple of measures that kept getting louder and higher in octave each time they were repeated. Mom, envisioning herself as this character, sang right along. With every crescendo, her foot got a little heavier on the gas.

Head tipped back a bit (so she could project) and swaying a bit with each note, she sang and sped her way right past a State Trooper.

Sissy & I saw him as soon as she sped past, but this was too late. He saw us too.

In Macon County Georgia, Officer Slappy (yes, you read the name correctly) pulled my mom over and wrote her a ticket for speeding. Apparently, he wasn’t a fan of “The Phantom of the Opera”.

Silver lining:
1. After all the lectures before the trip about not speeding, Mom was the one busted, not Sissy & I.

2. Mom still likes “The Phantom”, I still like “The Phantom” and my five year old has just discovered “The Phantom” – cool, huh?

1/2 Ounce Per Minute

Consumption of a half an ounce per minute does not sound too bad.  I guess it depends on what you’re consuming.  Hotdogs, pie, hamburger, pizza, beer . . .

 

120 minutes, 3 ounces, 20 different beers.  Who’s in?

 

Hubby & I were.  It was time for the annual Pleasantville Beer Tasting Event.  Now, I’m a chic and I can not drink ANYONE under the table.  I’m the one who usually ends up there.

 

But the contest was on.  We had two hours to taste three ounce samples of twenty different beers.  Everyone attending the event had a card with the names & a short description of the beers (we’ll get to that in a moment).  As you got your sample, the server would “X” it out.  Whomever could fill their card with X’s first wins.

 

Unfortunately, I had to forfeit right off the bat.  I had my card and a pen handy at all times (forgot the black notebook at home) and was using my plastic cup to hold it down. 

 

Forget it – the wind just saw that as a challenge to see how fast it could pick up my card; thereby, tipping over my cup.  That happened on my fourth, sixth & seventh cup of beer. 

 

I finally learned my lesson and just held onto the card.  But not until I had spilled all three beers in the direction on my friend, Sugar’s, husband.  He finally got up an moved.  No one would sit across from me from that point on.  I felt like I was at the kids’ table, but there weren’t any other kids.  Are you shedding a tear for me yet?

 

I tried to explain that the wind was just assisting me in not acting like a beer sconge (that’s SCOH-nj, not SPUH-nj).  A beer sconge is one who only receives or takes from someone, but never offers any up.  See, I was just trying to share and be a giver.  Yah, no one else was buying it either.

 

Put the card in my pocket you say?  No way.  I needed it handy to write down the goofy shit.  The more I drank, the more difficult it would be to get the card out of my pocket.  I was liable to rip my pocket and I really like the pants I was wearing.

 

Now, I gotta tell you about some of the beers on the list.

 

Cooper’s Vintage Ale (Australia) – A robust English Ale from the land down under.  Robust indeed.  I’d like to know how it is still considered an English Ale.  Hasn’t Australia been independent from England for a long time.  We do not claim anything we develop is English, we call it American.  Hmmmm, puzzling indeed.

 

Curim Golden Celtic Wheat (Ireland) – An Irish Wheat Beer?  Heck, let’s give it a try.  Maybe I’m biased because I’m Irish, but this one was ok.

 

Weihenstephan Hefe Weiss (Germany) – From probably the oldest  brewery in the world.  Yup, this tasted old!  One table mate described it as tasting, “like it was filtered through my used toilet paper.”  That may have been a little strong, but it really wasn’t good. 

 

By the way, do you really think they needed to put the “Germany” behind the name?  With a name like that, I’m thinking, DUH!

 

Lindeman’s Peche Lambic (Belgium) – If you’ve loved their Raspberry Lambic, then give this peach a try.  Well, I’ve never had the Raspberry, nor was it offered so I’m not sure this was a good way to describe the beer. 

 

Anyway, this beer came in a champagne looking bottle.  I knew right away this was the beer for me (even if I’m not a peach fan).  Will & I had two different opinions on this one. 

 

My opinion was, “The brings new meaning to champagne taste on a beer budget.” 

 

Will’s opinion, “If I were camping with the boys and making bacon & eggs over a fire, this would be the perfect beer for breakfast.”

 

Big Sky Moose Drool (Montana) – This Brown Ale is proclaimed to be the best brewed beer to come out of Montana.  Good grief, I don’t even want to know what the second best is, let alone the worst!  Besides, can you believe “champagne” girl drank Moose Drool?

 

Schlitz (Wisconsin) – Nostalgia galore!  Our dads drank this!  No kidding, does this take you back?  My dad used to keep beer in the basement fridge (his preference was PBR, though), but I don’t think he ever saw the inside of it.  It was the job of us kids to fill it up when a new case came home, fetch a beer when asked, and take inventory on a regular basis so Mom knew when to get another case.  Honestly, this beer was better than most on the list.

 

That’s just the top six, the other fourteen are nothing to write home about.

 

We had a really good time and can’t wait until next year.

 

Silver lining:

1. We finished our cards with five minutes to spare.
2. We rode our bikes so we didn’t have to drive home.  I didn’t even fall down!

And the Oscar Goes to . . .

I have a head full of useless knowledge and fortunately, I have an outlet to relieve the pressure – TRIVIA NIGHT!

After removing the motor from the Christmas tree stand and mounting our homemade Oscar, we deemed ourselves ready for the “Let’s Go to the Movies” theme at Saturday’s trivia night.

Since our table theme was “The Oscars”, we decided to act as though we knew the answers to all the questions regardless of whether or not we actually had the right answer. Turns out, we would have to use our acting skills so often we should have won an Oscar.





Being the “Actors/Actresses” that we were, we should have known everything about the movies, right? We couldn’t be more wrong. In the “Oscar” category, we got a mere seven out of ten correct answers and the majority of the questions were about the 2009 Oscars! Oh, and we had to use a “mulligan” in order to get our score that high. Being the professionals we were, we played it off with fake smiles and golf clapping.

Our next, ‘we’re so awesome, we’re going to fall flat on our faces moment’, came at “Scavenger Hunt” time. This is the game where the MC goes through a list of items and as long as you have the items on your person, you are still in the game.

I was TOTALLY prepared for this. I had brought my pretty evening bag for walking the red carpet, but then I had another purse packed full of crap. This purse was reserved specifically for trivia nights, specifically for this game. I had everything in there:

ATM Receipt, Drycleaners Receipt, Sporting Event Ticket Stub, Pencil, Pen,Eyeglass Case, Teabag (unused), Tape, Metrolink Ticket, Daycare Receipt, $2 Bill, Raffle, Ticket Stubs, Breath Mints, Appointment Card, Cough Medicine, Emory Board, USB Cable, Screwdriver, Whistle, A Piece of Ribbon, A Length of String, Permanent Marker, Highlighter, Toothpaste, Business Card, Movie Ticket Stub, Mustard, Ketchup, Salt, Pepper, Penny, Nickel, Dime, Quarter, Gold Dollar, Deck of Cards, Coupon, Stamps, Lighter, Moist Towelette, Artificial Sweetner, Facial Tissue, Straw, Hand Sanitizer, Dental Floss, Flash Drive, Clothes Pin, Nail Polish, Lip Balm, Band-aide, Cough Drop, Wooden Match, Hair Clip, Tweezers, Candle, Screw, Flashlight, Rubberband, Toothpick, Playing Die, Battery, Hard Candy, Binder Clip, Paper Clip, Nail Clippers, Bobbie Pin, Button, Chuck E Cheese Token, and a Safety Pin.

And I was derailed on Scavenger Hunt item number three – A STICK OF GUM! As we were reviewing the contents of the crap purse prior to leaving, we found a piece of gum that was deteriorating. We threw it in the trash, but forgot to add a new piece to the mix.

In an effort to prevent other tables from benefiting from our brilliance, I brought post-it notes so we could write answers down & pass them around instead of trying to mouth them across the table. It’s a round table and beer was free so the telephone game from one side to the other was not going to yield a positive outcome. From past experience, trying to read lips when there were four of them moving was also a problem as the night wore on.

The post-its were working really well. They were getting needed information over to the secretary (aka answer writer person). See an example below:



Then, we got to a category where we could just throw in the towel (plus a mulligan). This was the “Manly, Yes” category. I don’t know who named the category as I really don’t get the title, but it was about movies guys should know about. Our’s didn’t know much.

One of the questions was “Name the fighter portrayed by Robert DeNiro in the moving Raging Bull.”

A serious comment was uttered, “It’s gotta be a white guy, right?” Well, I don’t know. Is Robert DeNiro white???

We had no use for the post-its in that round so we used them for other things.



At one point we had to unplug Oscar. We were fortunate enough to have a table right near a floor outlet, but it was also right in the middle of the walk-way to the beer stand. While the cord was taped down, people kept knocking the plug out of the outlet. During a more coherent time, we decided everyone’s safety as well as the protection of the cord itself, we should unplug Oscar.

During a less coherent time, I wanted him to light up and turn again. Being the darling husband he is, Hubby yanked up the cord and ran it over to a wall outlet. Mind you, it still ran across a walk way. When a tablemate pointed out someone could trip on the cord, Hubby’s response was, “What? There’s still slack in the line.”

A category, we ladies rocked at was about chick-flicks. Post-it notes were back in the swing and they were a flyin’. To this question, I had a post-it note thrust at me with such authority, I had to go with the written answer.

The question: “In the movie Sophie’s Choice, Sophie had to decide which of her children got to live. Did she choose her son or her daughter?”

The answer: “Her son.”

The Post-It: “Her daughter.” Wah, wah, wahhhhhh.

Before the last round they did announce the winning table. It was us!!! We got out our real smiles, high fived each other and did quite a few “Whoo-who” noises – all out obnoxious and very un-oscarly. My sister won for best costume (she’s the one in her wedding dress).

Since we knew we won for best table and had no chance of winning the night, we really let it all hang out for the last round.

And I received one last post-it.


Silver Lining:

1. I honestly believe our table will be remembered for a long time – best table theme, best dressed, most beers consumed from champagne flutes, most obnoxious . . .

2. Hubby and I have a winning streak going now. We won for best table theme last year too. The pressure – I don’t know if I can handle it (maybe this isn’t a good thing).