Tag Archives: humor

Aug 24 2011
111 Comments
Best blog posts, Travelling, Two minute read

If You Love Something, Strap Your Feet Into It

My shoes in repose.

More info about my Italy trip:

Before leaving, it crossed my mind that I might not stand out as much in Italy since the people look more Caucasian and I would be wearing black shirts, which I heard the Italians are prone to do. I could not have begun to fathom the depths of my ignorance.

First of all, Italians (in the regions I visited) are a people who have adapted to the sun by developing more melanin in their skin, giving it a nice tan color. I, in contrast, am of Northern European descent where people are still actively debating whether or not the sun exists more than 3 months a year. I was the pale needle in a bronzed haystack.

Second of all, mimicking Italian fashion requires more than wearing a black shirt purchased at TJ Maxx. The first problem was the fact it was just a frilly black shirt and not a tight tank top. The second problem is that I paired it either with jeans or  business casual slacks (Old Navy) instead of shorts, skinny jeans, or leggings. My backpack was also problematic, since it indicated I was either an elementary school student or a dirty hippy backpacker. Yet despite all these flagrant violations of well known fashion rules, the real deal breaker in my quest to blend in was my adventure sandals, also known as Chacos, that are so supportive the arch that can be seen from the moon. Only a sloppy tourist would dare be seen wearing something close to practical footwear, not including elderly people that have a prescription for their shoes and can’t fight off their nurse.

I proudly admit without shame that I am such a sloppy tourist, and I spent almost my entire European adventure in Chaco’s. These shoes, unlike humans, have never let me down. They lift me 1.5 inches above mysterious ground moisture. They keep my feet comfortable even after walking for hours on ancient Roman streets. They dry quickly should they become wet. They don’t bill me for therapy sessions. I am so dedicated to these shoes that I even wore them when I knew the occasion might call for something more formal, such a fancy dinner with my Italian host’s family. She donned an elegant coral dress and gold jewelry, her sister sparkled in a well tailored black cocktail number and fancy black flats, and I stood out in my wrinkled purple sundress and adventure sandals. I’m almost certain a group of Italian men was mocking me on my way to the bathroom, but I harbor no regrets especially because of what followed.

After dinner, we visited a medieval city full of steep pathways and slippery cobblestone lanes and aimed to climb to the highest point in order see yet another breathtaking view of the Italian countryside. While the others were inching gingerly along in their chic but impractical footware, I sprinted past them and left little puffs of adventure sandal dust in their faces. That night, I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt to myself and the entire world that fashion is never a substitute for functionality. A rib might break, and an ankle might roll, but my arches will forever remain supported. I don’t care what anyone else says; I love my adventure sandals.

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Aug 23 2011
4 Comments
Best blog posts, Fiction, Humorous, Three minute read, Travelling

Please Send Lactation Cookies

Despite the glistening fountain water the only moisture you’ll get is a tourist’s back sweat.

More content inspired by my trip to Italy:

Postcards to Mother

While lazing about the Italian countryside, I thought constantly of mother and how much she would have liked everything I was doing, so I took to writing little fake postcards to her in order to bridge the miles between us. Of course, they never got sent and oftentimes do not describe “reality,” but it’s the blog that counts.

Rome

Tonight we ate ham, so that was good. I’m staying at a stranger’s house. Hope she doesn’t kill us. It feels so empty here, so sometimes I close my eyes and cross the street. It’s very peaceful. Miss you.

I walked around in Rome with my backpack on today. Do salt stains bleach shirts? Everyone here seems to know I’m not Italian even though you said I looked European. Were you lying to me?

Saw a dumb fountain but was distracted by the writhing mass of human flesh worshiping it. You wouldn’t have liked it very much. The weather was hot and it didn’t look like a mountain.

My vest doesn’t have enough pockets in it to hold all of my allergy medication. Please send me a new one?  And Major Milk Makin’ Lactation Cookies?

Our couchsurfing host was very nice. She didn’t kill us and even gave us a key to her place. I wish the guy I am traveling with were you. Please send cookies.

San Benedetto Del Tronto

I’m at the beach. The only way to not fit in here is to be pale. I felt like I was in middle school again except for I was wearing pale skin and adventure sandals instead of purple every day of the week. You always appreciated my fashion and pastiness.

Saw a field full of dead sunflowers today and thought of you.

Our friend’s parents don’t speak much English and they remind me of you when you speak Spanish. They make up for it in kindness though, just like you, except that you usually have lactation cookies. Please send some.

There are a lot of tattooed and other “weird” people in Italy. You’ll have to ignore them if you come. I saw old men in speedos today and it was more jarring than watching a Lady Gaga performance. You might just avoid the beach altogether.

People here eat Italian food every day. I miss your meatloaves.

I bought an earring, a tank top, and some hair gel for Dad so he can look more Italian. I got you and the sisters matching snakeskin string bikinis. Brother already looks Euro enough. Hope you like everything. It all cost 50 Euro. Pay me when I get back.

My host’s dad was making penis jokes at dinner about the phallic bread we had. You would have disapproved just like his mother. Wish you were here to scold.

Bologna

Traveling companion has fallen ill. I’m feeling weak too. Both very hungry. Please send lactation cookies/medicine.

Mom, I dangled over the side of a cliff today, my feet barely scraping the side of a very deep ravine. I didn’t even want to do it but no one would tell me no. Wish you were here.

Do you remember the check Grandma sent me for my birthday? Could you put the money in my account? Italy is great.

Despite your reassurances that “everyone will know what I’m talking about” no one knows this kind of cheese you want. Are you sure it’s Italian?

Italy is wonderful. I’m not coming back to the states. I didn’t think I hated my family enough to stay abroad forever but it’s just that beautiful. I know you’ll understand. Email me with questions.

Egypt Again

Back in Egypt. Food turns to ash in my mouth. I’m hallucinating that I can hear crickets and didn’t even have the energy to kill the cockroach that was preening itself on the wall for an hour. Please send money and cookies. Sorry I said that I’d never be coming back to the states. What I meant was I am never coming back to Oklahoma.

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Aug 22 2011
8 Comments
Humorous, Lists, Three minute read, Travelling

A Failing Grade for Italian Tourism

This is the sun setting over the Italian countryside near San Benedetto del Tronto. You may now weep from the beauty.

I returned from my Italian adventure at the ripe hour of 2:30 on Sunday morning, Cairo’s hazy smog clouds welcoming me in an open cough to its crowded haphazard streets. Upon evaluating to what extent my trip was a failure or a success based upon a numerical gradation of the number of goals I accomplished, I found that even with partial credit given, I only achieved a raw score of 45.45%, otherwise known as an F. Unfortunately this means I will have to go to Italy once again in the spring in order to try to achieve a passing score and graduate onto other countries.

Below I will evaluate the success of my trip objective by objective:

1. Eat Italian food. SUCCESS

Accomplished with surprising ease. In direct defiance of variety, Italians tend to eat Italian food every day, even eschewing other respectable ethnic cuisines like Mexican or Chinese.

2. Drink fermented Italian beverages. SUCCESS

I made my own Italian wine by stealing some grapes from a neighbor’s vineyard, mashing them up, putting yeast in my sock, throwing it all in an empty 7 UP bottle and letting it sit in the sun. When it was nice and bubbly I passed it an a bottle of Tylenol around and we had ourselves a great time.

3. Sit in a meadow and breathe. SUCCESS

After panting up a rather steep hill, I and companion came upon an old villa that overlooked the city and right in front of it was a steep decline that led into a meadow. I scrambled down it and sat in the shade of a tree for a few moments while my travel companion, who is not the meadow sitting sort, opted to wait for me. I could smell fresh mint around me and had almost achieved spiritual revelation when I remembered my companion and I crawled back up and we got on with our lives.

4. Nap on the beach in a one piece bathing suit. SUCCESS

My ten dollar public-swimming-pool-blue swimsuit I bought in Ecuador is not holding up great, but it sure does accent my pasty white flesh. When I arrived at the beach and stripped down to my swimwear, my Italian host’s parents asked me if it was my first time at the beach, and I grabbed her mother by her shoulders, stared at her with desperate eyes and said “In the sun…it’s my first time in the sun…”

5. Find something with little blue flowers on it to purchase and call my own. Place in someone else’s bag and claim they stole it. FAIL

Lots of crap to buy, nothing I wanted with little blue flowers.

6. Find cool gifts for the family to replace what I originally planned to bring back for them: pyramid keychains and little piles of sand. FAIL

Gifts are way too expensive in Italy. For the price of one scarf for my sister in Italy I could buy her an entire loom and weaving lessons in Egypt.

7. Get in as many people’s photos as possible while at touristy sites like the Colosseum and the Pope’s wax museum. HALF CREDIT

We tried getting in people’s pictures, but the angles proved fairly awkward so we settled for taking pictures of the tourists themselves. Vouyeristic? Possibly. Sue me.

8. Go to a hair salon and get my bangs cut. Refuse to pay and see what happens. HALF CREDIT

I didn’t go to hair salon since, as stated previously, it would have been expensive and the language barrier would have made the “not paying” thing more difficult to explain. I did, however, cut my bangs myself. Since no one notices I cut them, I believe  I have avoided a case of awkward bangs for the first time since I started cutting my bangs myself. Great success.

9. Speak with an Italian accent the whole time and see how many best friends I make. FAIL 

I opted to speak fake Italian and Spanish mixed together. I really felt I could speak Italian after having even one glass of wine, but it was interesting to note that Italians themselves continued to not understand me.

10. Verify my hypothesis that Spanish and Italian are actually the same language. HALF CREDIT

I’m giving myself half credit for this since if I spoke Spanish with people, they would usually understand what I was saying. However, these interactions were usually accompanied by wild hand gestures that corresponded to what flavors of ice cream I wanted, so I can’t say the theory was widely tested outside of ice cream shops.

11. Take a nap at least once. SUCCESS

Napped once in the bungalow, once on the beach, once in the hotel room, and once under a tree.

12. Claim I am the direct descendant of the last emperor and declare my rule over Italy via public service announcement. FAIL

13. Pretend to be German and wear socks with my sandals. HALF CREDIT

Though I did not pretend to be German, I did wear my adventure sandals everywhere. Italians do not wear adventure sandals. If it weren’t already painfully obvious by the pallor of my skin and hair that I was not Italian, my disgustingly practical footware gave it away even before I got to speaking fake Italian.

14. Coat myself in glue and then roll in macaroni. Run through the streets screaming like the famous Italian macaroni monster. HALF CREDIT

My colleague still managed to scare a child by almost running him over on a bike. The bike was unharmed.

15. Say “Mamma mia!” as many times as possible. FAIL

I only said it once and no one even heard me. They do say it a lot though.

16. Stare at my travel companion on the train when he’s not looking at me and then look away quickly when he suspects something. Repeat continually. HALF CREDIT

Instead of staring, I would fall asleep right as we boarded any form of transportation and my mouth would instantly gape open, something equally disconcerting.

17. Politely ask flight attendants to not make eye contact with me and explain I usually sit in the first class but there was a misunderstanding with my company and they booked the wrong ticket. FAIL

18. Blend in with the locals by covering my face in pizza sauce. HALF CREDIT

I unwittingly walked around for a while with some food bits on my face, though I don’t think it helped me blend in with any locals.

19. Pick and eat my own wild mushrooms. HALF CREDIT

My companion and I stumbled upon a park/orchard and we ate figs and plums right off of the trees. We called it foraging but I’m not sure if that term is properly used if one is gathering fruit in an orchard.

20. Make a new facebook friend. SUCCESS

My Italian host friended me on facebook and I accepted and her family has insisted on us coming again next year for a week. I don’t know if they are sincere but I, for one, am sincerely not ashamed of taking them up on the offer. I have proclaimed them welcome to my home in Oklahoma, but I don’t think I’m in any real danger of them accepting.

21. Fight a wild boar to the death. Eat its flesh. HALF CREDIT

I did eat boar on a bed of polenta in a medieval city, washed it down with a beer and was then married off to someone against my will, just like a real medieval lass.

22. Purchase a new spear and go truffle hunting. HALF CREDIT

I ate something with truffle oil on it and it was delicious. It was the food equivalent of being hugged on the mouth by a mushroom.

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Aug 11 2011
5 Comments
Modern Life, Three minute read

Birthdays Mean Facebook Notification Overdose

This was the cake at a birthday party. My name is on it, and so are other people’s.

Roughly 22 years ago on a 24 hour day kind of like this, I and my triplet sisters emerged from my mother’s womb. That makes today my birthday.

My birthday this year round has been surprisingly good, and I say surprisingly because with a new group of people there’s always the chance that everyone will be awful and hate each other and celebrating their birthdays. But thank goodness I have made great friends who, though neglecting to gift me with a giant teddy bear as I had requested time and time again, provided appropriate levels of attention that I need to survive much like a plant needs the sun or some cheeses need to be refrigerated.

Though I think birthdays are great, they can also a little awkward.  I love spoiling other people on their birthday, when it comes to receiving said attention in kind, I always feel a little bashful, a little “aw shucks, me? All I did was exhibit the five signs of a thriving baby for the last 22 years.”

For us slightly birthday-shy types, thanks to modern technology there is a new delight that I and my sister, Frank, were discussing recently: the avalanche of facebook notifications that one can enjoy in the privacy of ones’ cave. Call me vain, self-centered, superficial, and crazy but I love love love seeing my notification count tick upward as the birthday rolls on.

I may have been out all day today looking for an apartment in the searing heat, escaping from the sun in an Armenian church, attending a belly dancing class, eating McDonald’s ice cream, or smoking sheesha on the Nile, but all I was thinking about was the boatload of notifications I was going to have when I got back to my apartment and did what I really wanted to do: look at my facebook.

The day before my birthday, there’s a little bit of apprehension: who’s going to be the first one to post? Will it be a cheeky friend trying to have an ironic day-before post or one of my friends from my many world travels (obnoxiousness intended)?  And then it happens, the first “happy birthday!” Just like spotting of the new moon, it’s a harbinger of brilliant things to come. Though it’s a complete mystery when they begin, one thing is for sure: once the notifications start, they don’t stop. They burst out of the starting gate with an initial rush of posts from your diehard fans who watched the clock to be sure to enter their good wishes right at 12:00 am. Afterwards there are usually lulls in the early morning and late afternoon, but the notifications never stop and eventually explode in the evening hours as most young people surf their webs and complete social media tasks.

One can also observe a shocking variety among the birthday posts.  Many friends are content with saying a simple “happy birthday!” However, some would rather die than posting something so obvious: instead they post in different languages, attempt to be witty, sarcastic, thoughtful, thoughtless, wistful, nostalgic, etc., all in order to distinguish themselves from the other birthday posts on your wall and prove themselves to be better, funnier, or more thoughtful friends. Friends you have not heard from in years will pay their dues to a friendship whose embers died out long ago. Those you would have liked to post neglect to do so, causing mild disappointment made up for by five posts from random high school friends.

Regardless of the manner of posting, I love them all.  In fact, I like to save all my notifications until I feel the birthday ones have about run their course and then I go through them and thank people one by one, responding as I see fit in order to ensure another happy birthday greeting the following year. Withdrawal from the facebook birthday high is one of the hardest parts of moving past your special day since you know you will not be this popular until next year, and then you’ll also be older so the expectation is slightly tinged with sadness as are all things of beauty.

Footnotes:

1. Facebook this year has not been tallying up all of my wall posts properly so I’m not sure as to the exact amount of “happy birthdays” I have. I think it’s over 5.

2. I realize that in many ways this is pathetic. There are real humans present who wished me happy birthday and that should be enough. I also realize this blog post will completely alienate some readers.

3. I don’t get that many notifications. This was a plea for attention in the facebook realm.

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Aug 10 2011
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Anecdotes, Best blog posts, Humorous, Two minute read

Remembering the Frenchman Who Showed Us His Apartment Today

Here was the bed he slept in. And this was the kitchen he would always make his instant coffee in. Do you remember how much he loved instant coffee? He would always offer us some even though we never accepted. And do you remember how he would let us wander in his apartment as we examined it, awkwardly standing by as I took a few haphazard photos? His complete lack of facial expressions was so disconcerting!

This was the bathroom he showered in and the toilet he used, the sink he sometimes shaved over and the black-splotched mirror he would look into as he brushed his teeth.

These were the books he read, and oh! There was the one he was currently reading: Modern Trends in Post-Colonial Interpretations of Revolutionary Artwork. He was such a scholar, getting his PhD I believe.

Remember when he told us in his endearing French accent about the crazy lady who lived in the vacant building across from his apartment and how she would scream at the people in the subsidized bread line as they were fighting? How we nervously laughed and laughed! We were so unsure of what the proper response should be!

And when, right after meeting him at Hardees, I asked him what his wife does and it turned out she was the lady sitting right next to you? Wasn’t that funny!

The way he asked us whether or not we wanted the apartment was certainly charming as well. He inhaled deeply and said, “So, do you think this is something like what you are looking for,” and as we looked at each other we both knew that there was no way we would ever want to live somewhere the kitchen is the size of the bathtub.

As soon as we’d seen the kitchen, we heard the death knell of our relationship. There would be no second meeting to sign the contract or determine the final details of the lease. There would be no exchange of phone numbers with the real estate agent or the bowab, and no other semi-firm handshakes.

And so it is with fondness I remember those awkward moments we spent in his tiny apartment, examining his home and finding it wanting. Though our friendship, and I hope we can call it friendship, lasted only a painful 30 minutes, I know I will be unable to forget the complete lack of comfort I felt while in his presence. It may have been the fact we were not speaking in his native tongue, or perhaps he had forgotten how to interact with humans other than his wife and research subjects because of his time spent buried under PhD work. Whatever the reason for his particular brand of charm, his company was priceless. I do hope he finds someone else to rent his apartment quite soon.

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