Category: Funtimes

I Take My Green Very Seriously

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

cloverMy love of St. Patrick’s Day is pretty limited to wearing green. I take that very seriously. I don’t take it so seriously that I’ll make a nuisance of myself pinching and/or chastising people for not wearing green. But for me, myself, the fun of the holiday begins and ends with me finding something green to wear.

This takes some planning on my part because I don’t wear green as part of my every day wardrobe much. I wear a lot of red and blue, black and white and gray, but some colors, like green and purple and orange and brown are in limited supply in my closet (there is almost no yellow as that is my worst color, which makes me sad because I do love it).

So in addition to my limited green to choose from, I also don’t like to wear the same thing every year. That’s just dull. I should be able to come up with something different, even if I’m the only one that’s going to know. Why should I bore myself? I mean, really.

There’s also the little matter of making sure that whatever green I pick, there’s no debate that it is, indeed, green. Remember that in school? If someone wore something that might be more teal or aqua than green, a fight would erupt about whether or not it qualified as green? Yeah, I refuse to be put in that position, whether anyone else is playing this game or not. It matters to me, man.

So keep your green beer and pub crawls and corned beef and cabbage (especially the cooked cabbage because it makes me gag). Just leave me my Irish music and my green.

 

**It’s worth noting that my short story “Wearing of the Green” in the Yearly anthology is based, at least a little bit, on my dedication to wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not quite so…intense about it, though.**

…And Then the Coke Exploded

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Soda explosionFor those of you playing the home game, one of my day jobs involves minding the neighbor’s grandson before and after school on the days that she works. Last week, he had a rough couple of days.

Tuesday, he accidentally spilled a glass of grape juice on the only carpeted portion of the entire living room. It was a real fluke, too. He’d set the glass on the floor next to the couch like he’d done countless other mornings and the remote control slipped off the couch, hit the glass, and knocked it over.

So we had a nice little bonding time before and after school learning how to properly clean up grape juice.

The next day, he didn’t even bother bringing his juice into the living room. Lesson learned.

That afternoon, he got a plastic bottle of soda from the fridge. The Coke was frozen so he opened it over the sink, underestimating the hidden volatility of a frozen soda.

It exploded.

He yells for help and I hurry into the kitchen to find chunks of frozen Coke dripping from the ceiling. It was everywhere. It covered the curtains and the windows above the sink, dripped down the cabinets, somehow sprayed INSIDE the cabinets, covered the countertop and everything on it.

The boy looked like he was going to cry.

I laughed.

He was not pleased with this.

I told him not to freak out, grab some paper towels and get the ceiling first. We mopped up all of the soda we could find, all the while him saying that that his grandma was going to kill him and me repeatedly telling him that she wouldn’t. I made him take down the curtains and throw them in the washer before the soda had a chance to stain them and then we spent some time going over everything to make sure we de-stickied what had been splattered.

The poor kid couldn’t understand why I kept laughing every time we found soda in a new, hidden place. He didn’t see any humor in the situation.

I explained to him that it was all a matter of experience. He’s young. To him the mess is huge and the consequences are dire. I’m old. I’ve experienced worse. Sure, it’s a big mess, but it can be cleaned. And there’s chunks of Coke dripping from the CEILING. That’s pretty hilarious.

Also, it wasn’t my neck on the line.

He was so traumatized, that when he got a second soda, he took it outside to the very edge of the patio to open it, even though it wasn’t frozen.

Our second day of mess-cleaning quality time ended with twenty minutes of us wrestling the curtains back onto their rods and hanging them up again. I’m happy to report that all of the soda came out of the curtains.

I’m also happy to report that the boy was not killed by his grandmother, just like I said he wouldn’t be.

The Good Things Jar

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Good things jarI realize the month is about half-way over, but I think there’s still time for folks to start doing this, if they are so inclined.

This idea came across my Facebook at the very end of 2012. A friend of mine posted it saying that she was going to do it and I thought it might be a fun idea, so I also gave it a try.

All you have to do is take a jar and every day add a “good thing” to it, written on a slip of paper. The good thing can be anything you deem good: a blessing, a funny conversation, some kind of win, an observation of nature…really, anything. There’s no limit. There’s no definition of “good”. Just whatever you think needs to go in the jar. I dated all of mine, but I suppose you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to. It’s your jar. Rock it your way.

So, every day of 2013 I came up with something “good” to put in the jar. Several days featured more than one thing. For a few the best I could do was that I was still “vertical and ventilating”. Many are out of context and some I can’t remember exactly what brought them about. But the point of the challenge was to find, even on the worst of days, ONE good thing to put in the jar.

On January 1st, I read every slip of paper in the jar. I smiled the whole time. It was really neat to see all of the good things that had happened in 2013 that I chose to put in the jar. Some of them I’d forgotten about until I read them again.

I’m doing the jar again for 2014. Now that I’ve seen the results of it, I’m sort of hooked on it. And I encourage everyone else to give it a try.

There’s still time.

2013 Blog Stats

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Stats of SD in jawp

I’m sharing this not to brag, but because I think it’s funny. I’ve talked about certain blog stats of mine before and it’s always because it entertains me to see how and why people are attracted to my blog.

 

So here are some highlights.

 

Once again my most popular blog post was written in 2011. For the second straight year, my Rerun Junkie post on Starsky and Hutch has been number one.

 

In that same vein, of my top five posts of 2013, four were Rerun Junkie posts: Starsky and Hutch; Little House on the Prairie; Emergency!; and Barney Miller (please note that only one of them…Emergency!…was written and posted IN 2013).

 

The odd post out was my Megalomania–A Boobies Birthday Story. I imagine a whole lot of people were disappointed when they clicked on that link from their Google search.

 

Speaking of which, my top five search terms: Kiki Writes (whoohoo! I’m famous!); Starsky and Hutch; Adam and Mary Little House on the Prairie; Kim DeJesus; and Barney Miller cast. I’m pretty sure that everyone that searched Kim DeJesus was disappointed, too.

 

I think that’s what I like best about looking at these year-end stats. There’s actual data of how many people came to this blog with high hopes and left crushed.

 

It warms my black heart.

 

I look forward to continuing that trend in 2014.

 

2014 Resolutions

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

English: New Year's Resolutions postcard

It’s that time of year again when I make my not-exactly-serious New Year resolutions and see if I end up taking them seriously and actually doing them.

I’ll have you know that I kept most of the ones I made last year with the exception of choreographing an entire belly dance. Instead I ended up finding songs that were great to do belly dancing drills to, so close enough.

Anyway, here are my resolutions for 2014, including my two permanent resolutions because screw you, this is my list.

1. Don’t get dead.

2. Have a good time.

3. Go on vacation. Even if it’s staying in a hotel a couple of towns away, I’d like to take a proper rest somewhere else.  It’s a money dependent resolution, but if I can swing it, I need to be swinging it.

4. Drink more. I actually don’t drink very often (and when I drink, I don’t drink much). Perhaps my life could be improved if I imbibed just a touch more frequently.

5. Maybe this will be the year I choreograph a full belly dance.

Five Fun-Bad Horror Movies

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Cover of "The Return of the Living Dead"

If there’s one thing I love, it’s a bad horror movie. I’ve said repeatedly that most days I’d rather watch Friday the 13th Part III or Halloween IV over most Oscar winners, but I admit some of those bad flicks are more fun than others. Well, fun for me anyway (and this list could probably be used as an indictment on what I find “fun”).

So here are five of my favorite fun-bad horror movies.

1. The Return of the Living Dead (1985)-Clu Gulager Alert! In this zombie flick, containers carrying zombies are accidentally ruptured by two medical warehouse employees. When a reanimated body is burned, the resulting smoke causes a rainstorm that re-animates the local cemetery. Naturally, this results in many people killed, like most horror flicks. But really, the whole film can be summed up by a zombie using a police radio. “Send more cops.”

2. Jason X (2001)- I could probably put a few Friday the 13th movies on this list, but if I’m going to pick one, it’ll be this one because it’s the most fun. It’s Jason in space in the fuuuuuture. He and one of his intended victims were cryogenically frozen and revived something like 400 years later by space-school kids that found them. Of course when Jason wakes up, he has to go killing folks and there’s a whole bunch of people on this ship, lucky him. It’s fun because the kids are snarky, right up until death.

3. C.H.U.D. II-Bud the CHUD (1989)- A childhood favorite. A couple of high schoolers break into a government science lab to steal a corpse for a prank and SURPRISE! It’s a CHUD named Bud. Naturally, hijinks ensue. CHUDs aren’t zombies. They’re Cannibalistic Human Underground Dwellers. And they’re a lot of fun. This film has a lot of intentional humor, including one of the CHUDs that can’t keep his head attached and at one point is kicking it down the road trying to pick it up. My dad has been quoting it since I was a kid, most often before dinner. “Eat ’em up! Eat ’em up! Yum yum yum!”

4. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)- Afraid of clowns? Well, this flick won’t help, but I still feel compelled to watch it every time it’s on. Just like it says, clowns from outer space invade a town and proceed to eat a bunch of humans, encasing them in what looks like cotton candy and then stabbing the cocoons with crazy straws and sucking out the contents. Of course, it’s up to three teenagers to stop them. The clowns are all doughy looking, their ship is like a fun house, and there’s a popcorn gun. It’s the fair from hell, fun but without the funnel cake.

5. Tremors (1990)- Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward lead a quirky little group of townspeople (basically the whole town) against giant, underground worms. It’s fun because the people are fun. The folks in Perfection act and react a lot like actual people might, from the gun nuts to the mother to the money-making grocery store owner. Val and Earl (Bacon and Ward) are big on coming up with plans, but their plans aren’t always the best.  Remember, running’s not a plan. Running is what you do when a plan fails.

I’m That Kind of Ghoul

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Happy Halloween

I know I’ve said it more than once and in more than one place, but I adore Halloween. The movie and the holiday. I like to spend the whole month of October indulging in it. This is why I spent most of the day on October 1st customizing my phone to a full-on Halloween theme.

Yes. I’m one of those people.

I don’t do it for every holiday. Hell, I don’t do it for any holiday. I’m usually rocking a Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett wallpaper, Power Rangers message tone for my texts, Mr. T telling fools to shut up to alert me to Twitter mentions, Crow giving his email address for my emails, Peanut Butter Jelly time as an alarm, and the radio tone from Emergency! to let me know about impending appointments.

But come October, I feel the urge to shelve my geekery for 31 days and go over to the dark side.

First thing I do is change my default ringtone to the Halloween theme. I also have a live Halloween wallpaper that includes lightning, flashing lights in windows, and Michael Myers popping up randomly. It also features blood that runs down the screen when I get texts and emails.

Speaking of those…

My text messages are now signaled by a werewolf howl. The suspense note from Halloween signals my emails.

Little Carol Anne from Poltergeist tells me “They’re here” when I get a mention on Twitter.

The Jaws theme is my wake-up call and Jason’s ki-ki-ki lets me know I have an appointment.

Okay, yes, this is all still very geeky. But it’s the dark side of geeky.

I love this time of year and this month.

I go all in for spooky.

Apple and Pork Festival 2013

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment
The Homestead.
The Homestead.

This past weekend was The Apple and Pork Festival and of course I went because there were some apple doughnuts with my name on them. Also some nacho-flavored kettlecorn and a lemon shake-up.

Anyway, with the nice weather the grounds were packed, the whole town was packed. I only went up on Saturday for a little while, walking up instead of taking the tram, and didn’t even bother going down to the flea market. A little bit was enough for me this year. Considering I never go out to the high school or antique mall or the country mall or the flea market that pops up in the old Cedar Square parking lot, it’s a very little bit.

Beyond those porta-potties lies the flea market.
Beyond those porta-potties lies the flea market.

Every year, it feels like it gets bigger, but it’s kind of neat to see how many of the same vendors and sellers show up and set up in the same spots. I appreciate that kind of consistency. For example, I bought something for my mom’s birthday on the Homestead grounds. I knew exactly what I wanted and knew exactly where the guy would be. And he had exactly what I wanted. Handy!

I love Apple and Pork, but only for the couple of hours I’m up there. Once I come home, I don’t leave my house again until Monday because with 100,000 extra people crammed in this tiny space, getting around is nearly impossible.

This is not an exaggeration.

Beyond that teepee they’re throwing tomahawks. I don’t know what you people do at YOUR festivals.

CornBelters vs. Otters 7/20/13

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Normal CornBelters

I don’t know how you work your girls nights, but ours have a tendency to involve baseball. This time we went to see the CornBelters play the Evansville Otters.

Despite Mike Mobbs losing the battle with the sun early in the game (he dropped two catches), some hits, and a few walks, the only run the Otters scored was on a home run that tipped off the glove of Keoni Manago. The CornBelters managed to come from behind, manufacturing a couple of runs to win the game.

The Otters manager got ejected at one point. I’m pretty sure it was for commenting loudly on balls and strikes since the ump’s zone was rather inconsistent. After he got the boot, he came out to let the ump know exactly how he felt. His feelings were long-winded and he took his sweet time walking back to the clubhouse. We were all disappointed when he didn’t stop at the corn they have planted on the berm to grab an ear and chuck it out on the field in protest.

The pitching was pretty stellar on both sides despite the ump. Aside from that home run and a few walks and hits, Ryan Demmin was on it. Jose Trinidad and Alan Oaks were fabulous in relief. It was a really great game.

I’m happy to see Mike Mobbs  back with the Belters. He was a favorite during the 2011 season and I missed his face last year. He also has the best walk-up music, Tom Petty’s “Last Dance with Mary Jane”. You can’t beat that, though I wish some of the guys would try.

It was a gorgeous night for baseball and our seats were superb. The win was just the icing on the cake. We couldn’t ask for a better girls night, really.

Let’s go Corn!