Filed Under: humor

Restoring sanity next Saturday

October 22, 2010 at 5:19 pm

Being a sane person who now lives within a five-hour drive of Washington DC, I’ve decided to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity/March to Keep Fear Alive next Saturday, October 30th. For those of you who live in foreign lands or don’t have cable, this event is being held by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, hosts of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. They generally serve as court jesters pointing out the absurdity in American politics. Anyway, they are hella’ funny and smart, and I think the rally will be a blast as long as I bring several layers and a polar fleece. I’m also exactly the type of person the rally is intended for—someone who believes in sanity in politics, but is too lazy to leave my apartment to campaign or attend any rallies to do anything about it. It’s a rally for people who don’t usually attend rallies! That’s me!

I’m crashing with an old high school friend Friday night, and I’m leaving the city right after the rally ends at 3pm. But if you are in town Saturday morning, perhaps we could meet up and eat up at a breakfast establishment before huddling together for warmth at the rally. Comment here or email me at blog (at) pastaqueen [dot] com. We’ll figure something out. Just don’t be surprised when you see that I’m 50 pounds heavier than from my thinnest, ok? It’s good insulation, my head hurts, and sometimes I need the ice cream.

If you don’t live close to Washington DC, you can check this meetup page to see if there is a satellite rally happening near you. According to the rally web site, the event will be broadcast live on Comedy Central and streamed live on their web site. Watch and try to spot me! It will be like playing Where’s Waldo.

Order food here

April 13, 2010 at 2:41 pm

Order food here

Uh, no thanks. I don’t think I will. My cat might be interested though.

We seemed to have misplaced our meatballs

January 1, 2010 at 10:49 am

“Do you have the crockpot full of meatballs?” my mother asked me after I got out of my car. We’d just driven two vehicles to my uncle’s house for a holiday gathering. However, all the food was in my mother’s car, not mine.

“Uh, no,” I told her after a short pause. I couldn’t believe my mother was asking me this question. My mother, who compulsively checked the stove before leaving the house. My mother, who carefully staged all the food on the dining room table the night before departure so she wouldn’t forget anything. My mother, who made me top off my car’s coolant in the dark and cold on Christmas Eve so she wouldn’t worry about my car overheating on the drive down. How could my mother ever possibly misplace a crockpot full of meatballs?

“I carried them out and put them on the sidewalk by your trunk,” Sister-in-law chimed in. Two seconds later we all simultaneously made the same realization: We had left a crockpot full of meatballs on the sidewalk in front of my mother’s apartment.

“Do you think they’ll still be there when we get back?” I asked Brother and Sister-in-law on the drive back home four hours later. Sister-in-law was confidant that yes, the crockpot of meatballs would still be there, because neighbors wouldn’t steal other neighbors’ meatballs. She said that if she saw a crockpot full of meatballs on the sidewalk of her neighborhood, she would assume someone had left them there and would be back for them eventually.

I was uncertain whether the crockpot or the meatballs would still be there. I had seen many dog walkers in my mother’s apartment complex and was concerned that some of the mutts may have smelled the meatballs and knocked the glass lid off the slow cooker to have a holiday snack. I also knew that whenever someone left a couch or dresser and bookshelf near the dumpster in my own apartment complex, it was quickly scavenged by someone else. The crockpot was at least 30 years old, and definitely looked like something someone might throw away. We hadn’t left it by the dumpster though, which meant context was going in its favor.

Brother sided with Sister-in-Law, claiming that an empty crockpot might be scavenged quickly, but the presence of meatballs inside the crockpot would lead any snatch-and-grabbers to conclude that this crockpot had not been discarded on purpose.

As we turned the corner onto my mother’s street, there was great anticipation. Would the meatballs still be there? Would the crockpot?

Take me to “The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance” by Elna Baker

October 15, 2009 at 9:05 am

I was driving to Cleveland in the dark and I’d had a headache for half of Ohio, when Elna Baker came on my MP3 player. I had downloaded podcasts of The Moth, a storytelling show based in New York, and the latest episode featured the comedian/writer/Mormon recounting a family trip to Cyprus (which you can listen to here). My second reaction was, “Man, my family vacations only occurred at lame places (like Gettysburg,which is as interesting as you think a field would be) or predictable places, like Ocean City (love the salt water taffy). Why didn’t I get to go to Cyprus?” This was my second reaction because my first reaction was laughter, which helped me get through the rest of Ohio.

Later, I looked up information on Elna Baker and realized I’d heard her before, on This American Life where she told another funny, yet disturbing story, about selling dolls at FAO Schwarz. So, when I saw that she had a memoir coming out this October 15th called The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, I requested a copy to review, which is why I am typing this and you are reading this now.

The memoir is a humorous and moving tale of Elna’s life as a 20-something Mormon in New York who has lost 80 pounds. It’s peppered with some stories from her childhood, but the driving storylines of the book are Elna’s search for a boyfriend who doesn’t treat Mormonism like an STD, and her shifting relationship with her faith which is tested and changed by her experiences in New York City.

While I don’t subscribe to Elna’s particular beliefs, her descriptions of how she feels about her faith and the comfort it gives her were touching. It was refreshing to read a book by someone who is sincerely religious, but not preachy, and still has their sense of humor firmly in tact. I can tell that the Mormon community means a lot to her, but she’s also honest about the doubts she’s had about it and the problems she’s encountered with her faith.

But, don’t let that make you think this is a heavy book. It weighs less than a pound and contains many humorous, self-deprecating stories about Elna’s adventures. As I mentioned, she lost 80 pounds in her early 20’s, and then had to learn how to deal with men who never would have flirted with her before. She talks about her loose skin problems (as I have), and explains why she decided to have a tummy tuck. While I recommend the book, I do not recommend losing weight the way Elna did, which involved a crash diet and Fen-phen (though in her defense she didn’t realize that was what her doctor was prescribing her).

Overall, the book is infused with a childlike enthusiasm for the world and all the wonders in it. Where it occasionally stumbles in technique, it makes up for in spirit. Elna has a conversational writing style that is probably an extension of her stand-up comedy experience. She is unafraid to reveal personal stories that leave her vulnerable, an act I respect and admire.

The book is interspersed with humorous drawings and diagrams about Elna’s love life and beliefs at different ages. By the end of the book, things still felt somewhat unresolved, but that is probably because the author still wrestles with these issues herself. Anyway, this was a funny, pleasurable read and if you like the tone of my blog, you’ll probably like this book. It’s official release day is today, Thursday, October 15.

At the end I was left with only on big question. In one chapter she talks about making out with a famous guy she met at the sushi restaurant she works at in New York. She doesn’t give us the leading man’s real name, but he would be about 70-years-old, is an actor and a writer, married, and she says, “he’s up there with Robert Redford, Paul Newman, and Jack Nicholson in terms of classic sex appeal, age, and fame. Also, my all-time favorite screen kiss, one that I’ve watched over and over again, belongs to him.” It’s not Warren Beatty. The fact that she couldn’t say who it was has now made his identity far more interesting to me that it would have been otherwise. So, dear readers, please tell me, who did Elna Baker French kiss? I need to know! If we put our heads together, I know we can figure this one out. My best guess was Harrison Ford, but he’s not a writer.

Like a hamster in a wok

April 7, 2009 at 8:55 am

I’ve laughed and laughed and laughed at this video ever since a friend instant messaged me with the link. What a silly little hamster, running as fast as he can to escape the wok, but never making any progress.

“Why doesn’t he ever figure out it’s pointless?” I asked my friend. Then I started the video at the beginning and watched it again. But upon this viewing I started to wonder, are there things in my life that I am attacking like a hamster in a wok? Is there anything I am working and fussing and plowing at head on, making no progress, when it would be better to take another approach? If so, some highly evolved organism might be laughing at a YouTube video of me too.

Then I found this video of cats on a slide and started laughing all over again.