2008 May | Pumpkins don't have ankles

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Home Life: Eating Stuff

May 30th, 2008 by witherow

Family affects us all deeply. The kinds of conversations we have at home reflect the nuances of our upbringing and of the way we think. After all, blood is thicker than water. (Actually, I have never understood that phrase, but it seemed like the best cliche to use at the moment.)

So tonight I went home to my family’s house, and this is the conversation that transpired:

First of all, Heidi had half a sandwich left over from Denny’s. Molly came home from work and ate it, saying it was regular protocol since Heidi never eats her leftovers.

BECKY: (Running up the stairs): Heidi! Heidi! Go beat Molly up because she ate your sandwich!

HEIDI: I didn’t want my sandwich.

BECKY: Go beat her up! She ate it!

HEIDI: I said she could.

BECKY: No, beat her up!

Molly walks into the room.

HEIDI (suddenly and inexplicably hostile toward Molly): You ate my sandwich!

A few moments later, I heard this conversation as well:

BECKY: Hey, Molly, eat that candle.

MOLLY: No.

BECKY: Carol at the Y said it was edible.

MOLLY: Carol at the Y says a lot of things. No, I won’t eat it.

BECKY: I’ll give you a quarter.

MOLLY: I will if you give me twenty dollars.

BECKY: A quarter. It’s the least you can do after eating Heidi’s sandwich!

So if any of you are wondering why I’m so messed up, this might explain a lot.

Posted in Hijinks, That's life | | | 2 Comments

Balloons, fried Oreos and other adventures

May 26th, 2008 by witherow

This past Saturday was a day full of Adventures of the Grandest Sort. Christy, April and I, along with guide dogs Reba and Winston, went to the Freedom Weekend Aloft festival in Simpsonville. Basically, it’s this big festival to-do revolving around hot air balloons—pretty sweet! Anyway, here is another attempt at photo journalism.

First of all, though, I must say I had a grand morning out with my friends Rebecca, Brian and Stephanie. There are no pictures because I didn’t think to bring my camera to a yard sale (go figure). The yard sales turned out to be a bust, so we went to the farmer’s market and found fascinating things like pickled okra and garlic jelly, as well as some things you would actually eat.

We then went to Saffron’s Indian restaurant and had exotic foods like mango pudding and these cheese balls that had been deep-fried and drenched in honey syrup. You would think this would be the most devastating thing healthwise that I would eat all day, but no, it gets better. (Saffron’s, by the way, is great and I would recommend it.)

Me with a map.

My Simpsonville adventures with Christy and April started out, as most of my adventures with Christy and April do, with me taking a … detour. Yes … let’s call it a detour. A detour that added about 40 minutes to our trip (but hey, at least I got to see downtown Mauldin) (not that I had ever been planning to).

Things got better after that. The balloon festival has rides and crafts and overpriced fair food, so we partook in our share of those. And for the first time in my life, I went up in a Ferris wheel (no, seriously, I had never ridden one before).

Me on the Ferris wheel. Notice the not-freaking-out-like-I-always-thought-I-would expression on my face.

Christy and I went around … and around … and around … and we began to wonder if we had accidentally gotten onto some sort of Wheel of Eternity and would show up on the next rerun of the Twilight Zone. Fifteen minutes later, we made hand signals to the operator guy to let us off!

A view of the fair grounds from the Eternal Wheel.

There is a predominately bubble-gum pink building in the center of this photo. It is a fine vending establishment called “The Sugar Shack.” Pay attention to it, because it becomes important later on in this story.

We then went on some other rides, including one of those bungee bouncers and a giant inflatable slide. Winston and Reba were quite worried to see their moms get strapped into a giant swing and whirled around! I stayed behind and tried to reassure them.

By the way, when Winston gets nervous, he drools. On your pants, if he can. Grin.

Now for the main event … the balloons! It’s really hard to grasp how huge these things are. Pictures don’t really do them justice. In this photo, the tiny people at the bottom of this balloon (near the teal truck) give some sense of how ginormous this thing is.

Off they go! This photo has been brought to you by the letter B and the basic principles of physics.

Then it was our turn. They had tethered balloons that would float about six stories above the ground that paying customers could ride. So after forking over $15 each, Christy, April and I decided to take a spin.

Christy went first. Smile, Christy, you’re in a balloon!

Here’s April in the balloon, all smiles. This is before we took off. Yeah … it was pretty cool.
Then April and I had a turn. The balloon pilot was pretty much amazing and had his wife stand on the ground and call up so April could get a sense of how high we were. As for me, the height actually didn’t scare me at all, which was kind of surprising. Of course, maybe it was because I was too busy taking pictures to think much about it.

As we were floating up above the crowd, it seems I recalled early memories of being inside a balloon basket and watching the pilot run the propane. But I don’t think I ever rode in a hot air balloon as a child. I’ve come to the conclusion that I must have seen an episode about hot air balloons on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood way, way back in the day, and the camera person must have gotten into the balloon and showed close-ups of all the parts. So now I’m wondering how many other memories I have are things I never actually experienced and were actually just Mr. Rogers. I mean, we did have a miniature train running through our living room at the same time each day, right?

Anyway, after that, like after every Grand Adventure, it was time to eat.

It seems that once upon a time, some carnival workers were standing around and had a contest to see who could come up with the highest-calorie-per-square-atom snack food. One particularly devious worker decided to take an Oreo, smother it in batter, deep-fry it and then sprinkle powdered sugar on top. In honor of him, the three of us went to the aforementioned Sugar Shack and bought deep-fried Oreos … and actually ate them. They tasted good, but I will still be working off those calories in October.

Here I am with said Oreo. It looks kind of like a doughnut hole, but it so isn’t.

One of the last stops were the bumper cars.

CAUTION: Blind women driving!!

And of course, it wouldn’t be a fair if you didn’t have to sit in gridlocked traffic for thirty minutes just to get out. Grin.

Honestly, though, I had a wonderful day and at the end of it I thanked God for so many great friends and for these fun experiences, even those that involve great heights or trans fats.

Posted in That's life | | | 1 Comments

Anime

May 18th, 2008 by witherow

My sisters and I have seen our share of anime, or Japanese cartoons, which can be extremely weird. Now, to be fair, I will say that I have watched some series that I rather enjoyed, so I’m not knocking the genre completely. But there are some things that are somehow lost in translation and end up sounding very funny to Americans.

Theme songs, for instance. For some reason, every Japanese cartoon has to have a theme song that may or may not be related to the content of the cartoon. This is strange to Americans, whose cartoon theme songs basically tell you the entire plot of the cartoon. That way if the simple scenarios and exaggerated characters confuse us, we can always look to the theme song to help us understand what’s going on.

Not so in Japan. If you have a cartoon about seven girls with blue hair who are trying to fly a spaceship to the Charmeleon Galaxy and make the perfect teriyaki recipe on the way, the theme song will be about riding bicycles through the snow with the boy you like and hoping he will smile at you and say hi. And unfortunately the lyrics don’t quite make sense in English. One series I’ve watched has a very catchy theme song with subtitles reading things like, “If I could be a bird, or the wind, will my dreams come true?” and “When my memories that frolicked made a pinky promise on love, ‘thank you’ distressed my heart.” (I am dead serious. That’s what the translation says.)

So one afternoon I thought I would sit down and write an anime theme song. Thirty seconds later (literally), I pushed back my keyboard and read my creation:

Like a tree, I know my true feelings
But cannot find my roots
But you are there with me
And I can smile
And we can go to the beach
Walking along the water
With pebbles in our pockets
And songs of wings in our heads
And I will cry and you will laugh
Love memory

I sent it to my sister Heidi, who is a die-hard anime fan. She laughed and then sent me the translation to another theme song I had heard. Mine actually made a ton more sense!

Then, of course, there is the extremely popular “Pokemon” series that took America by storm. Children all over the country were pitting monsters that look like fuzzy blue turtles against neckless animals with pincers coming out of their heads. This is all part of cultural awareness.

So one day Becky and I were emailing back and forth, and I happened to mention something about Lima, Peru. The conversation somehow degenerated into the following:

BECKY
Lima-chu, I choose you!

EMILY
*A pale green llama with soap powers jumps out of a ball much too small to fit its body*

BECKY
scenes continually cut from my face to your face to the strange streaks of color and then to the Lima-chu in all of its soapy glory.

EMILY
Everyone gasps three and a half times, taking turns to do so, before Lima-chu is interrupted by a commercial break.

BECKY
after countless commercials for other cartoons and unhealthy breakfast cereals, we recap all of the scene cuts and gasping. i then say something clever, such as “who will it be today, villain?”

EMILY
The villain, who has purple and orange-striped hair and a scar over one eye, merely yells “argh” in disgust and calls out his own monster, that looks like a giant olive with big, mean-looking eyebrows. The aforesaid villain then laughs maniacally.

BECKY
a contest of who can make the loudest and longest grunt now begins, until suddenly a third guy with a green mohawk jumps out of the woods and joins the grunting contest.

EMILY
The grunters then send Lima-chu and the Evil Olive and the mohawk guy’s monster, which looks like a dustpan with buff arms, after one another. It appears that the monsters are traveling toward one another at great speed, but actually they’re staying still while the striped background quivers slightly.

BECKY
the scene then cuts to a large
TO BE CONTINUED…
and then the credits roll on for endless hours filled with non-American names

EMILY
In the next episode, the olive monster will explode in a fantastic display of blue, red, and green flashing lights, which will send children nationwide into epileptic seizures.

BECKY
yet the show grows ever more popular…

Posted in Most popular posts, Poetry that oughtn't, Strange E-mails | | | 0 Comments

Radioactive Bran

May 18th, 2008 by witherow

I associate with some very strange people who also happen to be hilarious. Some of the e-mail correspondence I’ve had with them has been downright hilarious. Basically, one of us will say something completely off the wall, and the other reacts like he or she knows exactly what’s going on and adds new (bizarre) details. And on and on it goes, getting weirder all along. So (with their permission) (I hope), I am going to post some of the funniest selections.

The following snippets took place between my sister Becky and I about a year ago. I’ve omitted some of the irrelevant stuff.
BECKY
sorry. was i gloating? :-p

EMILY
I think you were glowing, actually.
You need to stop eating those Uranium-O’s for breakfast. When it was just your tongue glowing, that was one thing . . .

BECKY
but i’ve switched from Uranium-O’s to Radioactive-Bran

EMILY
You really should pay attention to the biohazard symbols and Environmental Disaster Warnings all over the box. They’re not just there for decoration.

BECKY
silly, they don’t come in a box. they come in an unmarked lead vault.

EMILY
Yes, your roommates have been complaining about that. They say they’re not always in the mood for lead poisoning.
Just thought I’d give you the head’s up.

BECKY
all of my roommates are gone…

EMILY
And you wonder why.

BECKY
not really. i know they think my Radioactive-Bran glows strangely and that my pet granola bar is unfriendly.

EMILY
I’m afraid to ask how the aforesaid pet granola bar manifests its unfriendliness.

BECKY
he’s been better now that i’ve given him the key to the sun deck.

EMILY
That might explain why girls are coming down from there with sunburns and oat marks.

BECKY
yeah, well, please don’t tell the RAs… they really don’t need to know.

EMILY
I won’t tell the RAs. Although I don’t think it will be too hard to track down where the oat marks are coming from. I mean, you’re the only one with a pet granola bar . . .

{We then somehow got onto the subject of chocolate milk, which for some reason we’ve taken to calling “cocoa moo”. This week was the national American Association of Christian Schools competition, which our school hosts. This means many, many, many high schoolers on campus and crowds everywhere. So when I mentioned chocolate milk, she responded …}

BECKY
don’t say that. the milk line in the dc was too long today so i didn’t get my cocoa moo with my waffley breakfast….grumble…angry mutterings… >:-(

EMILY
As I breakfasted, my waffles syruping,
Suddenly I heard some burping,
As of high schoolers, slurping, slurping,
Slurping away the cocoa moo
‘Tis some visitors, I muttered, slurping,
Slurping away my cocoa moo.
Sorrow for the lost cocoa moo . . .

BECKY
quoth the becky “please, no more!”

Posted in Poetry that oughtn't, Strange E-mails | | | 2 Comments

A Grand Day Out

May 12th, 2008 by witherow

It’s happened before and it will probably happen again. A sibling (Heidi) got older. To mark the passing of this event, we (my two other siblings and I) decided to take said sibling for a grand day out.

We went to the outlet stores in Gaffney, South Carolina. That was fun in itself, but even more fun was taking three digital cameras with us and attempting photo journalism while we were there. We didn’t quite get photo journalism, but we did get this:
The cast of characters: Becky, Molly, Heidi, me and my good ol’ purple Saturn.

First stop: the sock store. Yes, in an outlet mall, you may just find an entire store devoted to selling socks.

Becky and Molly were quite thrilled.

Heidi … not so much.

So we went to Kaybee Toys instead. Heidi was much happier there. So happy she hugged a mechanical puppy. (Don’t tell Marzipan!)

We found some unusually large Pokemon. So we took pictures of them. Kawaii!! (That’s Japanese for “sappy big-eyed cuteness”)

I found a My Little Pony! It’s like a blast from the past. (It’s really sad when toys you played with as a kid are now retro). Anywho, this one wears a tutu and dances in a little circle. It’s called “Twirly Twinkle Twirl.” Seriously. I would love to know what goes on in the My Little Pony, Inc. brainstorming meetings. This name probably took like three whole minutes to come up with.

And then we found a T-shirt with a unicorn with a unibrow. Funny, but wrong.

“Wait,” you may be asking. “Is that a water tower in the shape of a giant peach?” Why yes, yes it is. Just more support for my theory that people (in this case, Southerners) are weird.

Okay, Becky, that’s not funny! Well, only kinda funny. <<for those who can’t see it, she’s looking worried about my driving >>

Posted in People Are Weird, That's life | | | 3 Comments

Brilliant ideas … that never caught on

May 9th, 2008 by witherow

<this one is compliments of my sibling unit Becky, whose computer <i am borrowing to write this post. çshe has a weird international keyboard that has random non’english symbols where regular keys are supposed to be. <every time <i try to hit return, <i get this weird ç symbol instead. <instead of a cap, <i get a carrot, and instead of a colon, <i get <ñ. And so on.

ç<ç Anyway, this is her brilliant idea that never caught on<ñ ª€<’¡¿ ö :

Rental Floss

Really, we can´t figure out why this business has not taken off. <if you are interested in procuring said floss, please contact my sister.

<+ç`’¡<’”ª<<ñ<ó

Posted in Brilliant ideas ... | | | 1 Comments

Llamas

May 7th, 2008 by witherow

My sister Heidi said she wouldn’t read my blog unless I used the word “llama”.

So here goes: llama.

I hope this makes you happy, Dee.

Posted in That's life | | | 1 Comments

Office plants I’ve killed

May 6th, 2008 by witherow

Olivia the orchid is doing quite well, thank you. A thoughtful gift from my friends Brian and Rebecca, Olivia sits by the window, blossoming in the exotic-looking Asian way only an orchid can.

But if Olivia only knew my past history with potted plants, she’d be quivering in her fancy wood bark soil.

It’s not that I don’t mean well. Like with Mel’s plant. My good friend and coworker Mel was leaving and bequeathed to me her desk plant. This plant, who we’ll call “Spike” (because that was his name) was some kind with long, skinny leaves (that is the technical botanical description). He did quite well for a while. But then he got ambitious, forgetting his destiny was to be a nice friendly office plant and deciding instead he wanted to be some sort of small tropical bush.

It was about this time that Mel returned and was keenly interested in the welfare of her relinquished plant. So I got him a nice big terra cotta pot. But then he wouldn’t fit on my desk anymore. So Spike moved to the floor of my room. And thus was the beginning of woes.

See, an office plant is usually at eye level. So the probability of it being watered is significantly higher than, say, a plant on the floor by the wall of your room somewhere. The tragic results of these unfavorable odds were revealed one day when Spike’s pot was accidentally knocked over and the soil spilled out like desert sand.

So after a lecture of the importance of moist soil for plants, I began to water Spike faithfully. So faithfully that the soil got waterlogged and the terra cotta began to mold and give my roommate asthma. This was the last straw. I put Spike outside on the porch step so he could think about what he had done.

Two days later, Mel comes to my door with a browning plant, horrified. “Spike is an indoor plant!” she said. “What’s he doing out on the step?”

“He’s being punished,” I answered.

She didn’t think much of this response. So, like some sort of Plant Social Services, she took Spike in, nursed him back to health, and returned him with a warning.

But it went unheeded. Spike then grew not only mold, but he had picked up tiny multi-legged friends while outdoors. Out on the step he went again. And back came the PSS with another warning. Eventually I pawned Spike off on my friend Jessica, who had many plants. I told her I just couldn’t handle this one.

Then there is my current desk plant, the pachira or “money tree”. It too, did well for a while (though it never did grow any money. I checked it every day, but not even a nickel) (but I’m not bitter). It was growing so beautifully. But alas, it too got too big for its britches (or in this case, its ceramic pot). Now, the point of a little tree like this is for it to stay little. I mean, bonsais stay small because they’re kept in a small living space, right? Maybe? So I’m afraid if I get a bigger pot for my pachira, it will start getting ideas and I will walk into work one morning and find a full-grown ficus on my desk. So I staunchly refuse to buy it a bigger pot. It responds by staunchly refusing to stay alive. That, plus a pruning experiment gone awry, has reduced my poor money tree to a long stick with two half-developed bunches of leaves sticking out of the top. It looks like something rejected by Dr. Seuss.

Sigh … so anyway, Olivia is doing quite well. I think as long as I stay on this side of the apartment, and she stays over there, all will be well.

Posted in That's life | | | 3 Comments

Welcome!

May 3rd, 2008 by witherow

Welcome to Pumpkins Don’t Have Ankles, a place where I will record some of the funniest happenings in my life, various schemes and conversations my friends and I have come up with, and some of my hilarious dreams (and trust me, some of them are pretty bizarre!). Anyway, I enjoy good humor every now and then (good humor as in funny stuff, not the ice cream) (though I do like ice cream) (frozen yogurt is better though) (but I digress), and I am putting them here hoping that others will enjoy them as well.

You may be wondering about the title of this blog. You may wonder what it means. And I say … why wonder? Isn’t it a self-evident statement?

Actually, “Pumpkins Don’t Have Ankles” is the name of a self-help book I am supposedly writing that uses a clever metaphor about pumpkins. One of my friends will ask me about it from time to time, and I tell him things like, “Oh, yes, we have the book signing set up next month, and I found someone to wear the pumpkin costume during it, except he has a podiatrist appointment at two-thirty, so it will be a stretch …” The problem is that though I’ve supposedly been in close contact with an agent and even have the self-help sequels planned (”Pirouette with the Pumpkins” and “Embracing your Inner Pumpkin”) I still haven’t figured out what the book is about. Minor details, I suppose.

Posted in Great book titles | | | 1 Comments

Pumpkins don’t have ankles

Random musings of a twenty-something writer