Kimopolis

My kind of town.

Posts Tagged ‘Humor’

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Forever Rizzo

Posted by kimlno on January 7, 2010

Betty Rizzo, the tough and sarcastic leader of the Pink Ladies.

Facebook quizzes can be more than just a pointless waste of time. No, really. They can. Personally, I’d thought I’d taken all the interesting and applicable FB quizzes available, but yesterday the “Which Grease Character Are You?” popped up in my Live News Feed (btw, HATE that) after a couple of friends had taken the test themselves. Of course, I had to see what this deeply-probing, all-telling quiz had to say about who I am in relation to the stereotypical female cast members of Grease, a film that played a pivotal role in making me the woman I am today (scary, huh?). A couple of casual clicks later, *POOF* there was my result in black and white for all the world to see: Rizzo. And, just like that, it was as if a dam of memories had burst free of the constraints of time (not to mention, the massive brain cell slaughter of my youth), and it all came rushing back to me…the day I was cast as Rizzo (bet you never pegged me as a musical theater type of girl, did you?).

It should come as no surprise to anyone who grew up in the ‘70s that one of the musical productions put on by my class at school was a most likely ill-conceived performance of “Summer Lovin’”. Meant to be an ode to the upcoming Summer break, perhaps a promise of good things to come graduation day, my 3rd Grade teacher, Mrs. Van Bloom, assigned each of her students a part of the song to sing. As she went down the line handing out lyrics and sheet music (as if I needed either…I had the entire film committed to memory), I heard her give the boys ahead of me their roles. Then, the girl next to me was assigned to play Frenchie. So, as Mrs. VB’s gaze finally landed upon me, my heart leapt at the thought that she’d fulfill my lifelong dream (I was only 8 at the time, so give me a break) of portraying Sandy. Alas, that was not the name that passed her lips that fateful, smoggy day on the Montessori playground in Woodland Hills. Mrs. VB looked directly at me and said, “Kim, you will sing the part of Rizzo.” Rizzo? Was I hearing her correctly? Maybe the intense heat of the Valley (like, gag me with a spoon) was making me hallucinate, but surely she didn’t just tell me I was to play Rizzo, the drinking, smoking, “easy” girl who believes she might be pregnant for the majority of the film, right? I mean, that could potentially be the basis for a future filled with YEARS of profound psychoanalytical therapy for such a sweet, unassuming, innocent little girl like me. And when I asked her why, things went from bad to worse.

“Well,” she said, “you have short, brown hair and so does Rizzo,” as if her obviously logical decision would help me understand why I wasn’t cast as the winsome, pretty blonde and not the cheap, dirty whore. My goddamned hair. Damn you, mother, for making me have short hair! Curses to Dorothy Hamill and her wretched wedge cut that I so coveted yet could never obtain due to my full, yet fine hair! Why couldn’t I have been allowed to have long, flowing locks like Marcia Brady? And, now…look what this hair had gotten me. I had been cast as the bitter, mean-spirited slut even though inside, I wanted desperately to be the pretty, new-girl-in-town-who-everybody-can’t-help-but-adore, Sandy. No, I don’t blame you, Mrs. VB…I blame my hair, my mom, and Colleen (my hair stylist at Saks), all of which conspired against me on that one, hot, almost summer’s day in 1979 to be branded as Rizzo forever.

Thank you so very much, Facebook, for bringing up THAT painful memory. Next time why don’t you just give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?!?

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New Year’s Resolutions

Posted by kimlno on December 31, 2009

Oh, great. It’s that time of the year again. You know…resolution time. Usually, I don’t even bother. By the time January 2nd or 3rd rolls around, most of my resolutions have gone the way of the Dodo. But this year I’m going to try something a little different. This year I’m going to make some reasonable resolutions…ones I can actually accomplish. No more ridiculousness like “lose 50 pounds”, or “finish my novel”, or “volunteer in my spare time/donate blood/give to charity”. Such lofty goals are just a set-up for disappointment. This year my New Year’s Resolutions are going to be small, realistic…easy. So, without further ado, I give you, my resolutions for 2010:

1. Blog more often, at least once a week. They don’t all have to be good, or necessarily even entertaining, but a few paragraphs of my random thoughts ought to suffice.

2. Play less FarmVille. And by “less” I mean restrict visits to my farm to once a day (or less).

3. Finish reading Stephen King’s The Dome. Who knew he could write such a LONG book? And with SO many characters?!? My god, man, I get it. You’re a wonderful storyteller. No need to show off.  I’m 300+ pages into this tome and not much has happened and you’re STILL introducing new characters. Get on with it already. I mean, the title pretty much covers the main issue so how about you start revealing the reason behind the Dome? All I’ve got is: the Dome is impermeable, the hicks in the town are mostly crazy and all potentially dangerous, and the town children are all speaking nonsense about “Halloween” and “pink stars”. The next 600+ pages had better be riveting. RIVET-ing, you hear? (I have a confession to make…when I went to look up exactly how many pages long The Dome was, I couldn’t help but stop by my farm and harvest some crops. I know, I know. I could have just walked my lazy butt into the other room, where the book actually is, and checked, but…I had farm chores to do, okay? Get off my back! The resolutions don’t start until tomorrow! I still have one day of farming left. Which brings me to my next resolution…)

4. Go outside daily. I’ll be honest, in the past two months, there have been days where I haven’t left the house. Now, to be fair, I did have a back spasm that left me completely incapacitated for almost a week. AND I had the flu about ten days after that. THEN, I hurt my back again. And, as if God hadn’t punished me enough, immediately following that I came down with the nastiest cold I’ve ever had. Seriously. It was resistant to all forms of treatment including, but not limited to, massive fluid intake, “The nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine”, tomato soup and tuna melts (which, until this point in time, I believed could cure ANYTHING), and good, old fashioned bed rest. So, some days, perhaps more days than entirely necessary, were spent indoors. Barring any unforeseen illness or injury, I fully intend to adhere to this resolution.

5. Be less flaky. If you’re one of my friends, I’ve probably cancelled plans with you more than once (If not, then you’re my FAVORITE friend…kidding. I love you all EQUALLY.). I call it the “Cameron Frye Syndrome”. The full spectrum of CFS can be observed in the following clip from the seminal ‘80s film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, specifically from the 3:03 mark through the end:

That last minute-long conversation Cameron has with himself in the car is the very same inner monologue I endure every time I have made plans to meet my friends. Although, not just limited to friends, CFS extends to doctor’s appointments, going to work, and really anything else that involves leaving the house and interacting with other human beings. I’m not anti-social. I’m just pro-me.

Well, there they are. I know, there are only 5 of them, and tradition dictates at least ten resolutions for such a list to truly be taken seriously. But, like I said, I’d like to keep all of these little promises to be a better Kimberly, so I’m starting small. It may not be much, but at least it’s a start. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even add more as the year passes and these simple changes become routine…but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve a farm to plow.

P.S. Happy New Year!

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The Candy Cane

Posted by kimlno on December 15, 2009

See? Pretty.

Do you know what I have absolutely no use for? Candy canes.

Oh, I know that’s rather Grinch-like of me, but a co-worker gave me one this morning, and, as thoughtful as it was, I have no idea what to do with it. I mean, it’s a perfectly nice candy cane, as candy canes go…a real sized one, not those hinky “fun” sized canes which might as well just be a freakin’ mint because technically you can pop the whole thing into your mouth at once. Because, really, aren’t those round red and white striped mints they give you with the check after dinner just “fun” sized candy canes rolled into a ball and smushed? Think about it. They taste the same. Same colors. Same swirl. I have an inkling that every after dinner mint starts out as a “fun” sized candy cane, but after Christmas, the ones who’ve survived being crushed or completely pulverized into a fine minty dust, are recalled, reconstituted, and resold as peppermints. Perhaps not, but I guarantee you the candy cane people are in cahoots with the dinner mint people, so I wouldn’t put it past them.  I mean, it’s not like the candy gets stale or anything.  In fact, I’m pretty sure the peppermint has a half-life of about 85 years, give or take. It seems to me that no matter how long one of those things has been in the pocket of my winter coat (why is there always one in there anyway?), it still has all the same properties of a “fresh” mint. I can’t go so far as to say they taste good, and that’s exactly my problem with the candy cane itself, but an old peppermint is almost indistinguishable from a new one. You may not agree, but I bet in a blind taste test you wouldn’t be able to tell which one was which. Whoops. TANGENT. Sorry.

I want to be clear that I’m NOT a candy cane “hater”. Aesthetically, I think they’re very pleasing. They evoke a sentimental feeling of Christmas, and to be fair, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without candy canes. I just don’t want to eat one. Ever. I honestly can’t think of a situation in which I’d be so desperate to actually consume a candy cane. Perhaps if I was stuck in a snow drift and the only thing between starving to death and clinging to life while I waited for my number one fan to come find me and dig me out was to eat a candy cane, I might eat one then. But, in general, candy canes are just plain disappointing. They’re a far better decoration than a food.

So, if you’re thinking of handing out candy canes this Christmas, ask yourself this first…would you want one?

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Might As Well Face It, I’m Addicted To FarmVille

Posted by kimlno on December 6, 2009

My Virtual Farm

Hi. My name is Kimberly and I’m an addict.

I’m not addicted to drugs or alcohol, nor am I addicted to gambling or even shopping. I’m addicted to FarmVille. Yes, FarmVille, that ridiculously time-consuming Facebook application that’s taken over my life. At first it was just a couple of crops here and there, and then someone gifted me a Cherry tree. It really didn’t start to spiral out of control until I started in with the livestock. The next thing I knew, I had enough chickens to fill an entire coop and a half (why can’t you have more than one chicken coop, FarmVille? WHY?!?), a dairy farm full of cows, not to mention the goats, sheep, ducks, pigs, horses, and the giant turkey I purchased at Thanksgiving. I’ve already expanded my farm twice, and I couldn’t even count how many different types of crops I can grow at once. I have so many trees, I can’t even see some of them anymore. The only way I know it’s time to harvest them is if my cursor turns into that little blue sickle telling me it’s harvest time.

What’s worse is now that Christmas is right around the corner, the FarmVille Market has a plethora of holiday themed items. I’ve already accumulated 8 reindeer and a special stray one I found wandering on someone else’s farm who I call “Rudolph”. I’m just waiting to save up enough Farm Cash to buy a sleigh, because spending real money is where I draw the line. Everything on my farm has been earned through hard labor, bringing in the sheaves, as it were. Sure the evil FarmVille geniuses try and tempt me with special offers, discounted Farm Cash and Coin bundles, but the moment I whip out my credit card…well, that’s when I’m definitely going to seek professional help. I’ve got to tell you, though, when I first saw the giant snow globe with the little barn inside, I almost caved.

And it’s not just the bounty of farm related items that can be purchased to make your farm more, well, farmier. It’s the secret gifts and the lost rare animals (like the pink cow I adopted the other day who, of course, yields strawberry milk) that drive me to check Facebook several times a day (okay, an hour) to see what my fellow farming friends have discovered or accomplished. I want that Mystery Egg. I want to share your Special Bonus for receiving the Yellow Ribbon in the Crop Whisperer category or a White Ribbon for being the King of Compost. Yes, I will visit your farm and pull weeds or shoo the crows before I fertilize your crops because I want the Experience Points, and yes, I want those Farm Coins and Cash. Because I don’t know exactly how I am going to earn 28 Farm Dollars in the next 27 days, but that snow globe will be mine. Oh, yes. It WILL be mine.

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Taking the Plunge

Posted by kimlno on November 12, 2009

plunger_final

The plunger is mightier than the sword.

I am not a patient person (although, oddly enough, I am a HUGE procrastinator…go figure). So when I don’t see immediate results, I can get a little irritated. Such was the case last night when, for no apparent reason, my toilet clogged. Now, bear in mind, my commode is over 30 years old, so it’s not exactly what you’d call “high tech”. You know that Kohler commercial where the horny guy is flushing everything but the kitchen sink down his toilet so that the pretty lady plumber (like THEY exist) will have a reason to visit? Yeah, mine can’t do that. It can barely handle two-ply tissue. Quilted TP? I might as well try to flush a hand towel down the drain.

It should come as no surprise to you that I am well acquainted with my plunger. In fact, I recently purchased a new one because I wore the old one out. No lie. The rubber vulcanized (or whatever chemical process was involved) into an inflexible solid that rendered it completely useless. Of course I didn’t find out this extremely pertinent information until I needed to use it. That was a pisser (no pun intended). Why is it that I seem to discover that my plunger doesn’t work in the middle of the night when everything is closed? Or, am I just lucky like that?

Well, last night my clogged toilet literally drove me to drink. As my first 10-20 plunging attempts were unsuccessful, I took a much needed breather and watched a little Glee. I can’t say I enjoyed the show as much as usual, because in the back of my mind, I knew the stubborn toilet waited. So, during the commercial breaks, I schlepped back into the bathroom for another round of “The Plunger in the Toilet Goes Up and Down”. Somewhere during round 3 or 4, I started to cry. I was way passed irritated and on my way to madness when the “Plunging Chronicles” stretched into the second hour of battle. If I were churning cream, I’d have had butter by now.

Desperation set in, and I began to doubt my plunging abilities. Was I doing it wrong? Was there some secret plunging technique I wasn’t aware of? So, I did what any logical person driven to the point of insanity would do. I checked the internet. Yes, last night, around 11:30, I Googled “how to plunge a toilet”. I think that’s a new low for me. Not surprisingly, there were a plethora of sites to choose from. I visited three separate pages, reading their directions carefully, searching for the secret solution to my problem. Y’know what? I was doing it correctly. There’s no secret. I just had to keep on plunging. That’s when I poured my first glass of wine.

After two more, I ventured once again into my bathroom to confront the beast. I made sure the plunger was perpendicular to the toilet, that no air bubbles were trapped in it, and that it fit securely around the drain. I plunged down slowly, then up quickly, and prayed.  My hands were red and raw. My shoulders ached. My back screamed, “Oh, please don’t bend over again!” And, in a moment I can only compare to sheer ecstasy, the toilet drained. Halle-fuckin’-lujah.

Then I finished another bottle of wine to calm my frayed nerves and went to bed. Kim-1, Toilet-0.

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