Fireball 2.0

There is an episode of Friends when Joey is supposed to be writing a screenplay but instead he and Chandler create "Fireball," a highly dangerous yet ingenious game involving a blow torch and bowling ball. The look on Joey's face when announcing his creation to Ross still gets me rolling. Yesterday, I created my own version only it starts with fish and chips.

All I wanted was to reheat my leftovers. I wasn't asking much. Where the story gets interesting is when my impatience and stupidly jumps in. I wanted the food so hastily that I, all safety regulations aside, stuck the cardboard box in the tiny oven. I just wanted it crispy not like soggy sad fish from the microwave. Well, if you do something this stupid you can count on not being careful enough when pulling it out as to avoid the hot coils of the oven which, by the way, will ignite cardboard. Voilà! A quick recipe for a personal-sized ball of flame.

Now, what do you do with a handful of fire on your counter? Easy, transfer to sink with bare hands, of course. Done...except what happens when the ball of fire bounces out of the sink, across the counter and onto the living room floor? Fireball disaster. With a flying fireball now threatening to take my apartment down I must quickly end this fiasco. I run over and attempt to stomp out the blaze, barefoot. I'm way smart. After the flames were out, and my fish certainly extra crispy, I gave myself a little vocal cheer and fist pump for taking out that fire like a champ with minimal bodily harm. I hope you're both laughing hysterically and shaking your head in judging disbelief. It's ok, go ahead. No one died except my pride and maybe a few pieces of carpet.

Not a minute after stomping the heck out of the mini bonfire, it occurs to me that by jumping on this highly flammable box, I sent smoldering pieces of cardboard across the floor. Sure enough, they were still glowing just begging a second challenge. My much smarter, safer solution: dump excessive amounts of water everywhere. Done. An hour later it is very clear I had a fight with something. You’d never guess it was with a fireball, but it was. I came out victorious. Yes, I did...mostly.

Hannah’s Hoedown Heals

I watched the Hannah Montana movie last night. What can I say? It was a rough week. Despite the anticipated ridiculousness of various plot points it was overall a very humorous, upbeat movie and it did make me feel better.

Every protagonist struggle in Disney movies are basically identical, but in the simplicity of the formula is the appeal. We love the characters, they speak to us and you can rest assured things will always work out in the end. Aside from the fame, I can not say I find myself relating to Hannah all that much, but I certainly empathize with the heartache and struggle of figuring out who you are while trying to win the heart of a cowboy. Who doesn’t, really?

Last night Hannah reminded us to never forget our roots and who we really are. The movie also reminded me that I never want to live on a farm, although I am pretty sure this was unintentional.

Disney moral #2*: When life starts to get crazy, take the time to regain perspective with the help of those who truly love you. Magically, the world is not as scary as you might have thought and you can now overcome anything. Also repetitive, cheesy and purely addictive music never hurts.

P.S. we all really need to learn the moves to this Hoedown Throwdown. Trust me, just do it.

*Disney moral #1 has to do with Disney royalty struggling to get back the throne.

Injubily

Google just made me type in this ‘word’ before posting a comment. I passed. It’s not a real word, but it is now my favorite word. The best thing about non-words (or my entire vocabulary) is it can be anything you want it to be. ANYTHING. Who is going to stop me?

Of course, I think this about myself anyway, a made-up word. I get to be whoever I want to be all the time. In fact, today, I am a Facebook stalker. Now, it’s true, I am that a lot of days, but today I’m admitting it so it’s totally different. Last week I was seamstress/sutto-aunt/baker/amazing. For the rest of the week I am going to be seamstress again and this weekend I will be the hot redhead in the brown dress that catches the bouquet. After this weekend, I will return to being single white female watching prime time TV and not thinking about anything that starts with wedd…I’m not even going to finish that.

Ah life, it’s injubily!

One of these things...

I just saw a very tall Asian walking with a very short Asian and it confused me, well, I mean I starred at them. Then I remembered this must be how Asians…or anyone feels when I, a 5’ redhead am seen with my 6’4” blond housemate. Fair is fair.

While I was in Ireland, I was amazed at the ability of Irish to identify us as American even though I really felt like we could easily be Irish. I mean I even have the hair! Still, somehow the Irish knew we did not belong. This combined with today’s Asian encounter reminded me of a talk by President Nelson some time ago. He said ‘we’ (LDS) are a peculiar people.

At first this doesn’t sit exactly pleasantly. We all know how we felt about the peculiar kid in middle school – safe distance encouraged – but in reality the scriptural reference to peculiar is one of the highest compliments. In fact, it references a “valued treasure,” “made” or “selected by God.” I’ll take that.

Indeed LDS members, particularly our Utah friends (love you), often do seem peculiar from the outside. We don’t often dress, talk, or act like what is considered ‘normal’ in today’s world and we don’t for a reason. We are peculiar because our value can not be ignored and hopefully as time goes by, as we get stronger, we will only become a more peculiar people because we should stand out.

So, the next time I catch myself staring at something that seems odd to me, I’ll remember just how peculiar I am. Sounds good.

Potty Phone

When did it become acceptable to talk on the phone in a public bathroom? As far as I know, it is still taboo to have a conversation with anyone when conducting business and it is certainly not cool to strike up a conversation with a stranger, so how on earth could it be acceptable to have an open telephone conversation…in a bathroom? We don’t even let boys in there! Are conversations really that important that you can’t wait just a few minutes? Do you really dislike your phone friend so much that you are willing to risk them suffering through the sewer symphonies with you? Do you know that we can hear your entire conversation? Do you know that I now hate you and am fuming in the next stall...dangerous.

I put up with your annoying phone conversation in the dressing room, checkout line, tiny elevator, library, restaurant, airplane, grocery store, bank, concert, movie, bus (ok I don’t ride the bus, but if I did it would be really annoying), but can you please respect the sacredness of the ladies restroom?

It’s time to make a choice – pee or phone. I promise the acoustics are horrible and next time I’m not holding anything in!

What the Nike shorts?!

So, is it just me or does the University of Texas have a new dress code?

While on my break earlier, I counted 43 girls wearing Nike color-blocked running shorts. Really?! Now, granted, they were of varying colors and sizes but there were 43 people in a 5 min window wearing the EXACT SAME item of clothing. If you don’t know what shorts I’m talking about, then I’m afraid, you are more behind in the fashion world than I - shame on you. Oh and if you are asking why I was counting them, you are missing the point and well...my job is really boring.

So apparently, work-out clothes are the new college uniform in 2009. Why does everyone seem to know this? Maybe there was a critical Tweet I missed while checking Facebook, but I surely did not get that memo. However, I don’t think I get the fashion either. Sure, they look pretty comfortable and it is really hot here, but if running shorts are what you wear to class what is it that you wear while running? Isn’t that why they are called running shorts? I’m just being practical.

I suppose I might be slightly biased being that I went to BYU and we had a strict honor code that kept Polos and khakis in constant style. I just feel like people should wear real clothes in public. Maybe that’s far too old school and I need to start embracing the trend tides. Perhaps kids now-a-days are all about multi-tasking, you know, “I’m not only a student but also an athlete”. I could support that, especially if neither had to actually be true.

Solicited, unsolicited compliment.

I don’t think there is any question that we all love to be complimented and praised. It feels awesome to be told you’re fantastic. A really good, unexpected compliment can literally make your day. Of course, some of us require more compliments than others to stay afloat, which can quickly become annoying. Personally I find that when I’m not satisfied I’ll just compliment myself, but still, compliments are much appreciated and in general a healthy level of reinforcement benefits us all.

The extremely frustrating and irrational expectation is when we want someone to tell us something nice but we certainly don’t want to have to ask for it. I find this occurring most often with the opposite sex being that same gendered friends are usually more aware of each others’ nondescript codes. In general we want to be noticed for things like our outfit or shoes or general amazingness but we don’t want to presumptuously point it out. Then on top of that, we want to hear the "right" thing not just anything. In reality this is a problem on at least two levels, we can’t control what someone else does or thinks and second, we really need to find a way to be happy with ourselves with what we can control, our own opinions.

I rediscovered this little paradox yet again this weekend when I found myself fishing for reassurances from my friend about something rather silly. It didn’t work, as it rarely does. After I walked away disappointed I thought, why didn’t I just say – hey, buddy, it would be great if you would tell me this right now because I really need to hear it, but don’t say it like I told you to say it, make it seem like you were going to say it and don’t forget to mean it. Somehow saying such a truthful statement out loud manages to miss the entire point. Fiddlestix.

Sometimes I think life would be easier if we were all comfortable enough to say so boldly what we want/expect/need from each other but then I think about it for 5 seconds and remember why it is probably best I keep those things to myself…or to a blog.