When one of your favorite authors corresponds with you on Twitter. Eeee!!!!
I’m calling this one, “Fan Girl Geek Out.”
Category: Commentary
Disney Princess Trivia
Tonight (Tuesday) I’m hosting a Meetup group for a night of Disney Princess Trivia at a Tallahassee bar. Normally I feel fairly confident in my ability to compete in trivia contests, but I’ve kind of skipped out on some of the more recent Disney princess movies.
I’ve tried practicing for the event by taking online quizzes, but I should have watched the movies when I had the chance. The only answers I’ve gotten correct so far deal with Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty. Everything else is pure guesswork.
I have learned a few tidbits from practicing online:
- Did you know that of all the princesses, only Pocahontas doesn’t have a single costume change?
- Or that Tinkerbelle used to make the princess list, but was booted out? Probably some sort of discrimination based on height.
- Mulan’s father’s name was Fa Zhou (kind of sounds and looks like father, so there’s my mnemonic.)
- Merida’s brothers’ names were Hamish, Hubert, and Harris in the film “Brave.” I’ve seen this film, but thought the brothers were Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Wrong cartoon.
- “The Princess and the Frog” is set in 1920’s New Orleans.
- “Mulan” is the only Disney princess film to tackle war and cross dressing. Sounds like a way to avoid serving back in the old days.
- Ariel, in “The Little Mermaid,” wears a pink bikini top and later a purple gown.
- Oprah Winfrey voices the character of Eudora in “The Princess and the Frog.” I guessed correctly on this one.
- Only two Disney Princesses, Aurora and Cinderella, had wicked stepmothers. I’d have thought there were many more!
- Ariel is the princess with the most licensed, themed merchandise.
Now my head hurts, and I’m suffering from princess overload. I’m even beginning to see dwarves hiding in every corner. Prince Phillipe, hurry and save me from Ursula before she turns my mother into a bear and cuts my hair with my dad’s sword. I have a bad feeling about this.
Peace, people.
Snapshot #221
I just earned this mark on my big toe:
When I sat at my table at a local restaurant, my foot slid underneath the raised table leg. I thought I’d severed my big toe, it hurt so bad.
I’m titling this one, “The Klutz in Me Honors the Klutz in You.”
A History of Klutziness
Why is it that some folks are blessed with a natural grace and others, like me, are natural born klutzes? Is klutziness genetic? Or is it environmental? One thing’s for certain, klutziness is hazardous to one’s health.
I’ve fallen down stairs. I’ve fallen up stairs. I’ve slipped on wet bleachers and slid on my bottom from row eight all the way down to row one. I’ve fallen out of a bus and into the snow. In one week I slipped on ice two days in a row bruising my left knee on the first day and the right one on the second. I’ve fallen in various kitchens three or four times over the years. Is it any wonder I dislike cooking?
As a kid I fell out of bed on a regular basis, and I’ve exited a tree ass first on occasion. Once I was knocked into the middle of a Tilt-a-Whirl carnival ride when the car I was exiting swung around and sent me sprawling. I hit my head on one of the support bars hard enough to see stars circling alá Sylvester the cat.
I’d like to think I’m resilient, that I take a licking and keep on ticking. The truth is, I’m so astonished that so far none of my escapades have led to injury or even death that I can only assume I’ve been living a charmed, yet clumsy life. It’s a good thing I’m not a cat. If I were I’d be all out of lives.
Peace, people.
Here’s another of my favorite klutzy scenes. I give you Ross and the leather pants from Friends.
The Klutz Life
As I was shaving my legs this morning I managed to nick the tender area of my inner ankle bone on not just one leg, but both. Not gonna lie, I cursed. One of the cuts bled on the rug as I limped over to the cabinet for a bandage. I cursed again.
As I straightened up from cleaning the spot of blood on the rug, I conked my head on the cabinet door that I’d carelessly left open after getting the bandage. Now I have a bump on my noggin. I was laughing too hard to curse this time. Given the law of averages I’d have to say I’m safe for the remainder of the day, perhaps even the rest of the week, but I’m not taking any chances. If you need me, I’ll be in bed.
Here’s one of the funniest klutzy scenes of all time. Enjoy!
When I Get it Wrong
I’m not going to write much today. It seems that I worked myself up over something I manufactured in my head. I didn’t sleep at all last night wondering what I’d done wrong, who I’d ticked off, and how I should make amends, only to discover that I’d misread the communications that precipitated my presumptions. I jumped to some wrong conclusions and landed ungracefully on my face.
Sometimes I forget that I’m not the center of the universe, you see. I’m not responsible for all of the good in the world, nor am I the cause of all that is foul. I’m just an almost 62 year old woman who is blundering along in this life. Usually I can avoid unnecessary drama, but occasionally I’m a veritable factory of the same.
The sad thing is, jumping to conclusions doesn’t burn any calories. If it did I’d be able to fit into my size 7 wedding dress with room to spare. Here’s to trying to do better.
Peace, people.
King of the Road
Thursday morning NPR’s program, Fresh Air, featured an interview with Dean Miller, son of the deceased country singer, Roger Miller. Dean has compiled a tribute album, actually a double album, of his father’s music and was promoting it in an interview with the wonderful Terry Gross. I listened as I drove into Tallahassee to do some grocery shopping.
Roger Miller was one of my favorites growing up. Even when I detested country music I still enjoyed his songs: “King of the Road,” “England Swings,” “Husbands and Wives,” “The Last Word in Lonesome is Me,” and so many more. No one put words together like Roger, and the interview with his son brought back some great memories of trying to sing along with his novelty songs like, “You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd,” and “Oo-de-Lally.”
I’m tempted to order King of the Road: A Tribute to Roger Miller. Here’s what LA Times pop music critic, Mikael Woods writes about the album,
Various artists, “King of the Road: A Tribute to Roger Miller” (BMG)
Country stars young and old — from Kacey Musgraves and Lennon & Maisy to Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn — crowd this double-disc set to honor the late Nashville songwriter best known for the oft-covered “King of the Road.” (Some non-country types show up too, including Ringo Starr and, uh, Toad the Wet Sprocket.) If anybody was worried about being overshadowed, though, you can hardly tell: What distinguishes the project is the care each act takes to respectfully showcase Miller’s top-shelf wordplay. The result is the rare tribute album with class to spare.”
Sounds like the perfect soundtrack for my autumn. Couldn’t we all use a little “Do-Wacka-Do,” and “You Can’t Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd,” in our lives right now? I certainly could.
Peace, people.
The Offering Plate
In my little blogging world one random idea often leads to another, and soon a theme emerges. After I posted “Choosing My Religion” on Monday, a piece prompted by a sun beam shining through clouds on a stormy day, the feedback I received here and on Facebook dredged up some long buried church-related memories.
As I recounted in “Choosing My Religion” I grew up attending three varieties of Protestant churches: Pentecostal, Primitive Baptist, and Southern Baptist. While the three were quite different in terms of worship volume and decorum, ranging from the jubilant, yet often apocalyptic tone of the Pentecostals to the solemn certainty of the Primitive Baptists, they all three shared one thing in common–the offering plate.
At some point in every service the preacher would intone an offertory prayer and the choir and/or the congregation would commence singing an offertory hymn while the deacons passed the plates. There was a rhythm to the plate passing and an order to it that made this one of my favorite parts of the service.
A person sitting on the end of an aisle would take the plate from the deacon in one hand, deposit money with his or her free hand and then pass the plate on to the next person and so on until the plate was handed to another deacon at the end of the pew. It was a beautiful thing to behold.
No matter which church I happened to be attending on any given Sunday I always had a bit of money to contribute, either from my own allowance or from one of the adults in my life. Usually I had a quarter, sometimes only a nickel, but occasionally I was able to give a whole dollar. Those were proud days indeed, although, we were taught that excessive pride was a sin, so I squelched the chest puffing and smile that went with placing a buck in the bucket.
One Sunday when I was five or so I was with my Grandma and Grandpa Hall at their little Pentecostal Church in Floydada, Texas. Just before the service started my bladder told me urgently that I needed to potty. My no-nonsense Grandma took me firmly by the hand and marched me back to the ladies’ room, accompanying me inside so as to hurry me up. I might have had a reputation for lollygagging, and she was having none of that on her watch.
I placed the two quarters I had for the offering plate on the back of the toilet, did my business, and went to flush, accidentally knocking my money into the toilet. Thankfully I hadn’t pressed the handle, so a tsk-tsking Grandma had me pull a handful of toilet paper off the roll to keep my hands dry while I retrieved the coins, all the time trying to get me to hurry.
When I bent to pick up the coins with one hand using the toilet paper as a shield, I leveraged my free hand on the side of the toilet and accidentally pushed the handle, flushing the quarters. I started crying, but Grandma Hall got tickled. This stern woman laughed as she dried my tears. She laughed until tears of her own rolled down her cheeks.
I washed my hands and walked solemnly back to my seat, chagrined at having nothing for the offering plate that week. Seeing my Grandma laugh that hard, though, more than compensated for the lack of funds. It’s still one of my best memories of her.
Peace, people.
Langston Hughes’s “Salvation”
Yesterday I published a piece called “Choosing My Religion.” My friend, Luri read it on Facebook and asked if I’d ever read “Salvation” by Langston Hughes. I hadn’t, but rectified that mistake immediately. Mr. Hughes has always been one of my favorite poets, this piece I’ve linked to just makes him more so.
http://www.spiritwatch.org/firelangsave.htm
Here are some more of my favorite pieces by Langston Hughes. His words are as timely as ever.
This first one’s my favorite:
The next one needs a fervent “amen!”
Weird
I published a blog post this morning. It’s garnered a few likes. Folks have commented on it, and I’ve responded. However, it’s not showing up on my site. I realized I needed to edit the piece a bit (Thanks, Marty!), but when I went to do so, the post wasn’t there. This isn’t the first time this has happened. Any suggestions?
Below: Totally irrelevant photo of the back of truck I saw in Tallahassee today. Funeral Solutions? Weird name for a company. I guess it’s not that irrelevant after all.
Praying for Eyebrowz 