My very first blog post! I feel like we should start this off with a quick, shall we say, introduction, to who I am and why I want to begin on this blogging journey.
DISCLAIMER —
Before we take off, there are some things I feel that you should know:
- I am by nature slightly inappropriate and enjoy frequent linguistic expression of four-letter words. Please don’t take offense to a less-than-strategically placed F-Bomb. Sticks and stones, right?
- I am very empathetic and passionate about a vast array of topics and encourage friendly discussion. Please refrain from trolling, writing negative/hateful comments, or passing judgements.
- My pets are my children. Sorry I’m not sorry for posting the occasional adorable picture of them just existing. And being awesome.
- I love Science… Science is my favorite!
Now, the Inspiration…
As my bio explains, I am an East Coast transplant currently living in the Denver, Colorado area. We left North Carolina on New Year’s Eve 2015 and arrived to our new state on January 1st; a nice fresh start to the year 2016! But flashback to New Year’s Day, as we were making the ascent over the flat pancake that is eastern Colorado, with the Rocky Mountains just coming into view, a feeling came across me that was one of excitement, fascination, exploit, and grab-life-by-the-balls intensity that is hard to describe but impossible to forget. See featured image… I used this picture I took driving down I-70 coming out of the Rockies for this post because the open road, blue skies, and endless possibilities was so striking to me that day and I feel it’s perfect for my “new beginnings”, my entrance into a new world of blogging, storytelling and recipe sharing.
I want to remind you that a 1600 mile reflection is NO. JOKE. Y’ALL.
Over the course of 1600 miles, you begin questioning your sanity.
Your patience.
Whether your eyelids can stay open for 14 more hours.
Your bladder’s inherent abilities (just how much longer can you hold it?!)
Your future children’s names and why spelling it with a “y” instead of an “i” is not a possibility.
Your cat that just peed in her carrier….. WAIT, THE CAT JUST PEED IN THE CARRIER?????
You also spend some time thinking about your life purpose.
In light of my new endeavors and general A.D.D. in all things that strike me as interesting, I decided that writing is a strong suit of mine and I have plenty to write about really. In addition to cooking, exploring, and working on our home projects, I also have the fortune (misfortune? luck? who the hell really knows) of generally wandering haphazardly into hilarity and this, my friends, is what I want to share with you the MOST.
Remember the Zoloft commercial with the lumpy thing that by someone’s UBER detailed sketch was supposed to be a depressed person? It was basically an oval with eyes and a sad little mouth that pouted in his unhappiness with a dark cloud of depression that followed him around. While we are on this subject, I’d like to point out that I wholeheartedly believe that I could have possibly assisted in the graphics development for Zoloft’s marketing, no matter the age in life, but hey, everyone starts somewhere.
Back to the dark cloud. Picture mine as a rabid, crazed, frantic magician in rainbow colors that’s running circles around me, planting hidden booby traps for me to step on, sending out military aerial bomber birds on covert missions to crap on my head, and other poo-related things such as poking holes in the bottom of the dog waste pickup bags ensuring that fresh poop drips and smears all over my jacket during my dog walk while I am unsuspecting. This is real life, folks. You can’t make this shit up. I have learned to appreciate this totally mad and deceptive Houdini-cloud because it sure makes my life interesting and gives me great content to share with you fine people.
Last October, a stranger surely must have sensed my Houdini-cloud which I was apparently carrying around that day like a kite hovering 6 feet above my head with a skull and crossbones on it in blood-red, size 8 billion font. We were in Colorado visiting friends, taking in the sights, and our last day here we attended the first annual Rocky Mountain Oktoberfest. This was an interesting event. To keep with the Oktoberfest theme, there were little boys dressed up in these elf-like outfits (I understand that more civilized, cultured people would refer to them as “lederhosen”) and they were forced to parade around as part of what I took to be some sort of courting ceremonies. I could NOT stop thinking of them as Bowerbirds in courtship from BBC’s “Life” where the male birds built up their houses, presented rich treasures to the females to include, but not limited to, trash, plastic wrappers, nuts, and sticks, to get noticed, and then, THEN they perform dances in front of their [truly impressive] garbage palaces to seal the deal.
What. is. sexier. than. that?
Back at Oktoberfest, we had our very own young boys with their little chests puffed out in their fancy Lederhosen coming out performing some manly wood chopping in tune to the music (swoon!), what looked to me to be river dance-like numbers, and just general good sportsmanship for participation at this tender and sensitive age of tweenage male.
But to me, this was some serious Demonstration of Value (remember the D.E.N.N.I.S. System, anyone?) and I chuckled a little on the inside of the irony of their young age and being forced to perform and show off to get a lady’s attention. I know they were told this was cultural. I know they were told this was important and to do their best! I just find it hilarious that once upon a time this behavior was measured a success by the culmination in essentially, sex. Are we really THAT different from our animal friends?
Back to the story at hand. My participation in this madness comes about when they announced the yodeling contest.
Because who doesn’t have mad yodeling skillz?
I went up there with maybe five men and six females and literally acted a fool. I yodeled gibberish for 20 seconds, and I shouted “RIIIIIIIIIII-COLAAAAAAAA!”, the ONLY other thing I have truly learned about yodeling from pop culture and Swedish cough drop commercials. I changed it to “OKTOOOOOO-BERFEST!” and the most ridiculous part that I regret is not on film (at least not that I’ve located) was my emulation of that courtship dance. Now, my hand-eye coordination has never been one of those things I add to the “Strengths” column on my application to tryout for sports or, say, to drive a vehicle. So, as I was trying to coordinate my legs in their river dance, my mind to make up words that resemble a yodel in any way, shape, or form, and my arms flailing around in a bumbling motion to say the least, I somehow gave the crowd the absolute absurdity and general ridiculousness that they apparently wanted to see.
For some crazy-ass reason that I’m just going to refer to as “superior awesomeness”, the crowd voted me the winner.
I won free beer for a year and a refillable growler to a local brewery in Denver!
…But I didn’t have the heart to tell them I lived in North Carolina.
Good thing I moved here and didn’t let all that beer go to waste. That would just be a freaking crime.
Carpe diem, biotch!
The crazy part (believe it or not, THIS was the crazy part to me) was that a complete stranger walked up to me and patted me on the back, said congratulations, and then said, ‘You should write a book!” Then she disappeared into the crowd.
She did not know that this was something I had already been considering for quite some time.
She did not know that she helped me to see this through.
She did not know that to me, that felt like some BIG MAGIC and I wouldn’t soon be forgetting it.
So, thank you stranger-lady in the crowd who boosted my ego more than a seriously sidetracked interpretation of river dancing could do. More than a year’s worth of craft beer could inspire. More than all the poo-stories combined (aren’t you just pumped to hear about them?)
She caused me to question whether my writing was really where I wanted to go in life and based on recent discoveries that writing is truly a way to get your emotions out of your chest and move on, that you can be funny, crafty, creative or serious, but most of all, that you can endlessly take writing to the final bounds of your imagination.
I accept the challenge. Let’s just hope it doesn’t involve a river dance.
This stranger-in-the-crowd is not the first person to tell me to write about these ridiculous circumstances, so friends and family, if you’d like to see any stories in particular, let me know in the comments! I would also love to hear about any similar instances you may have experienced to let me know that my somehow-successful display of embarrassment is not alone in the world 😉 Please feel free to share!
P.S. To be clear, I totally understand the cultural value of the German dancing and appreciate the hard work and GUTS these kids had to go up on stage and do this! I know it’s not a river dance and I do not intend to make fun of what they were doing but rather I like to add comedic value. It was totally awesome in it’s own way.
