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I am convinced this was posted purely as reblog bait for me. And I am in compliance, mostly because I just looked at my “GUN” tag and got the amusements. It’s a mix of actual firearms and muscle shots. How can you go wrong with that?
(Also, I’d rather a pink Walther P22 but everyone KNOWS that already right, Guns & Santas?)
(via colleenbarrett)
Yeah, I’m that person. I’ll read over your shoulder. In fact when my brother showed up for a flight with the same book I’d brought, I just read his with him. (Wise Advice might say that’s because we’re the creepy-psychic-witch twins from The Shining, I just say it’s efficient.)
So when a business-y lady sat down next to me on the bus last night and cracked a book, I glanced idly at the title. It was clearly a tome from the horror genre. Titled?
THE OBEDIENT WIFE.
I stifled screams. Tiny bit.
Obviously one needs to know what kind of words fill up such a book. Oh yeah. I took notes.
“Arabella looked up at him and bit her lip. She felt an alarming urge to confide in him and pour out all her woes…He feathered tiny kisses along her jawline.”
I’m a terrible person. It gave me the guffaws. Then just as quickly, the giggles were replaced with memories. My grandma probably (no, definitely) would have read just such a book. She’s the only person on the planet who ever read as voraciously as me, and it was always books where lips are bitten and kisses are feathered. And I then I remembered long car trips, bored and out of my seat belt (I KNOW) doing dramatic readings of such passages outloud, hanging over the back of the front seat while she laughed and tried to swat at me for my obnoxiousness with the self-same book.
And I missed her.
Bad. Romance. Times 50. (Approximate number of times listened to yesterday…)
You and me could write a bad romance :))
Check, I’ll wait. No? Go ahead and put your day in the “WIN” category, then. Four hours people. Up to his chest. Did I say sewage?
At least he wasn’t selling moonshine at a daycare or arrested for a DUI in a horse and buggy, or asleep on a stranger’s couch with a teddy bear. What is going ON today?
OMG. Why are these shoes not the entirety of my Christmas list?
I believe the Second Amendment says something about the “Right to bear AWESOMES,” right?
I am wildly sorry to state the OBVS, but did you guys know wrestling is kind of good again? It is a long story as to how I came to that conclusion, but I must say it makes for a wonderful Monday night pairing with Gossip Girl. Go ahead, I’ll let you get a pencil and paper to work that one out.
That said: since when is KICKING okay in wrestling? Am I that old? I do not remember Nature Boy Ric Flair, NOR any type of Piper KICKING as a “move.”
Please correct my misapprehensions on the matter. My collection of G.L.O.W figurines awaits your response.
“Run to hear your thoughts. Run faster, so you can’t.”
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation, December 8, 1941.
(If you read the whole shebang, the part in the middle where he says, “Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.” And “Last night…,” “Last night,” and again and again? That gaspy chill it gives you is anaphora at its most powerful.)
“Infamy”, Bike messengers leaving the White House, December 7, 1941
“A lady does not wear pearls or diamonds in the morning.” (Checking.) CHECK.
“If unmarried and under thirty, she is never to be in the company of a man without a chaperone.” (Checking driver’s license.) CHECK (while guessing the combination of fulfilling the first criteria and not the second means “hang it up Victorian sad sack.”
Curious that the title itself sets up a similar gender role relationship — which I’m fine with because a) I don’t need a chaperone; and b) get a load of this rule for Victorian dudes:
“Meeting a lady in the street or in the park whom you know only slightly, you wait for her acknowledging bow — then and only then may you tip your hat to her… If you meet a lady who is a good friend and signifies that she wants to talk to you, you turn and walk with her if you wish to converse. It is not “done” to make a lady stand talking in the street.”
Hear that? Not “done.”
Okay then. I have been known to tipple a Dickens or two in my day despite my War On Fiction, and quote my favorite nod to religion and overbearing women often, “My sister having so much to do, was going to church vicariously; that is to say, Joe and I were going.” But no one, not Dickens, not this book explaining in great detail that a Duke’s eldest sons have preference over the Lord High Constable, can riddle me this:
If the Victorian England currency schema included a guinea, worth 21 shillings, and a half-crown worth 2 and a half — how was there time for an empire? Shouldn’t they have all been home working on their 21s multiplication tables and fractions?
Well now. I was looking for a picture of “christmas shopping” as that’s what’s a-happening today, and Google auto-filled in “christmas shower curtain.” Huh.
I was unaware that one’s shower curtain must be seasonally appropriate. And I remain unconvinced that’s actually the case but! Merry Christmas Shower Curtain!
Also as quickly as possible. Apple Pie Sundae, people. Vegan. Wait, read the part about the cake batter to me again. Outloud. Go ahead, listening.
So if you know anything about New York City vegan food, you know about Lula’s Sweet Apothecary a.k.a. the most delicious ye-olde-fashioned-ice-cream-shoppe of the vegan persuasion…
I made a trip to my favorite ice-creamery last night to find that Lula’s has this amazing holiday special. Called “Apple Pie Sundae,” this delectable treat is composed of cake batter and apple-cider soft-serve swirl, with a layer of maple syrup (I subbed Lula’s homemade caramel sauce), crushed graham crackers, a dollop of coconut whipped cream, and finished off with a sprinkling of crumbled pecans. 516 E. 6th Street between Avenues A & B.
Yes, I read a lot when I was younger. A super-super-super lot. So much so, that I read while I brushed my teeth, and wished I could figure out how to read with my eyes closed so when I got sleepy, I didn’t have to put in the bookmark. (Though I didn’t actually use them, I just remembered the page number. Still do.)
I don’t actually like books until I’ve read them once already — and then, well they’re fair game for abuse. Thinking about Encyclopedia Brown this morning, I wondered which books I reckoned I’d actually read the most. The first four were easy-peasy. Five had to share, (and there are too many Honorable Mentions to actually mention,) but here goes:
Looking at the list, it’s all based on cozy descriptions, structured lives, mystery and adventure, kids acting as adults…I bet you could have taken this list and figured out what kind of grown up I’d turn out to be based on this alone. And there are so, so many more. Harriet the Spy. RAMONA. Pippi Longstocking. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. OH. The Sideways Stories of Wayside School! All amazing.
What did you all read to pieces?
Parents Are the Best Santa's Helpers... -
My fourth Christmas Eve, I realized in horror that I’d forgotten to ask Santa for a Huckleberry Pie doll. There is no devastation like thinking you’ve blown your shot at pure Santasmic happiness. I must have been busy resigning myself to a lifetime of misery when the phone rang. It was “Santa,” (one of my parents’ older friends.) He wanted to talk to me. I asked for the doll, and he delivered the next morning.
So cute. (Of course then Huckleberry Pie became a stand-in for a Ken doll the next year when Santa brought my first Barbie, but deemed she must be chaste, so…maybe that was my one/only year off the Naughty list…)
After the post, I did some research and found that this toy falls a apart. a lot. I opted to make up an elaborate story to tell Jolie about how Santa called me and said the elves were very apologetic but the Polly Pocket Roller Coaster kept falling a part as they made it, and they asked if she could come up with a new list. Well, Jolie went around telling anyone and everyone how Polly Pocket kept breaking on the elves so she had to ask for other toys, and how she didn’t know what else to ask for. Keep in mind she had the most saddest of faces when retelling the story. My mom took her to a parade last Saturday that included Santa. When Santa walked past Jolie she told him she needed to talk to him about the elves and how they can’t fix Polly Pocket. That was the final straw. I couldn’t be an a**hole. Upon hearing this I went home and ordered the $50-plus piece of crap and included a special note from Santa. I’m sure my parents purchased lots of pieces of crap for me.
This is beyond adorable, for real.
“Contemporary scholars have inserted liberal views and ahistorical passages into the Bible, turning Jesus into little more than a well-meaning social worker with a store of watered-down platitudes.” —
Yes, but how does the Conservative Bible Project compare to the NASCAR version of the Bible? If it’s a conservative translation, does it still mean on the fifth day God created piston rings, connecting rods, crankshafts, and sumps? Or are teehee-dirty-car-part words not allowed in this strict new liturgy?
And in the Garden, lo, Adam was tempted by the snake to look under Eve’s hood. WHAT? Do not leave me alone with the NASCAR Bible and my imagination. You guys started this.
Also, wasn’t he kind of like a social worker? Curiously, the story doesn’t say what the Conservative Bible Project would rather Jesus be like. Maybe instead of platitudes, they’d rather he had a fanny pack full of fire and brimstone. That must be it.
Portable penance.
