Oh it's that time of year again...time to shamelessly listen to the Harry Connick Jr. Christmas Album non-stop...over and over again... (key word shamelessly).
The holidays are just around the corner and that means its time to give the gift of money to the airline companies. Airplanes are expensive folks...especially around the holidays. I still don't understand how they get off the ground with hundreds of people and literally tons of suitcases. But here's my money airplane companies.... See you in Jersey.
In one of my usual whine fests at work I was fussing over the costs of flights when a co-worker told me that she had hundreds of thousands of frequent flyer points saved up and had been meaning to use them but didn't get around to it until after a couple weeks and in between the time she originally thought of it and when she finally go to looking them up....they all expired.
AHHHHHHhhhhhh vicariously frustrated!
Note to self: go home and check airline miles immediately.
Coincidentally when I arrived home that evening I had a letter in the mail saying my 10,000 Hilton rewards points were expiring in the next few days if I didn't use them. Oh heck no! I am using them right now! The pamphlet says I can use my points to sign up for some magazine subscriptions. Going through the list I pick out AFAR (my friend's new awesome travel magazine--check it out!) for myself and The Economist for my economist-to-be husband-to-be.
That was easy!
Buuuuuuut that only took up 3,000 points... Crud. What else am I going to get?!
Then I notice you can also send them as gifts. Perfect! That's fun! Well.... I guess it's a nice idea, but now I have to think about who to give them to or not give them to? That seems like a lot of work. Might take a lot of time. Don't really want to think too much...Plus once I figure who to send them to .... then I'll need addresses! I don't even know where anybody lives anymore... honestly no idea. You think I'd have everyone's address all in one place? I think not. Too much work. Don't want to think about other people or look for addresses right now. Will just pick out magazines for me.
Self
Health
Allure
Fast Company
Sports Illustrated
Wow so many gifts for me! The tally gets up to 8 magazines... close to fulfilling my 10,000 point quota. Seems like a lot of magazines. I wonder what else I could get with my points. Just magazines? Or do they want you to think you can only get magazines when in reality you can get an ipad or a digital camera or a trip to Sea World?
I check the Hilton rewards website. Screw you magazine offers, I'm getting something good!!!
They have all the above mentioned options plus many, many, many more! Computers, TVs, patio furniture, jewelry, baby toys, you name it they got it....for like 500,000 points!
Seriously the only thing I could afford with my 10,000 points was a magnet or a crappy bracelet, or picture frame coasters. How are either one of those things similar in value to 7 one year magazine subscriptions?! 7 magazines once a month for a year ...at $4 a magazine that's worth like what? $336?!! (I used a calculator)
But forget their cheap-o merchandise. I'm getting my money's worth....back to magazine subscriptions.
I pick out the subscriptions again. I'm doing mental math every time I rearrange combinations of subscriptions so I can get every last cent our of my points. And by "doing mental math" I mean I'm adding 1500 +1500 = 3000 then +1800 = 4800 then +1500= losing my mind!! AHH grrr I can't do this mental math!! Where's a calculator?! Oh forget it I don't even want the magazines! Then Trevor chimes in and says "What? what's wrong? Just tell me the numbers. 1500+1500+1800+1500+2000+1700 = 10000 obviously... there, there now...." We finally settle the tally at 10,000 and I cannot wait to check out and be done with this whole process...then I look back over my list....
Seriously what am I going to do with all these magazines?! Just the thought of knowing they're coming... The thought that I am going to have to read them or will feel guilty for not reading them...the thought that if I don't read them before I get the next issue (which I won't), I won't read the next issue either because everything should be read in chronological order...and I will feel all the more guilty that I have stacks and stacks of unread magazines that I must sit down and read some day and....I'll be drowning in magazines.... and drowning in guilt... and omg our recycling bin would be overflowing...I can't do this!!!!!
But I can't just throw out my points. Must get my money's worth. Must chill out. Must give magazines away. Now to find some addresses... Fret, fret, fret... I have no idea where to find everyone's addresses!? I never sent them anything from amazon, nor ebay. I check old text messages, zoom in on areas in google maps. It's too late to call cause they're all east coast. Grrrrr. Then the voice of reason (and by reason I mean Trevor) chimes in..."Didn't you start a wedding guest list with everyone's addresses?"....oh why yes I did thank you very much!
Magazines are on their way. Now I can relax.
Today, Trevor gets a letter in the mail from American Airlines. Another warning letter that his 15,000 points are about to expire and would he like to exchange them for magazine subscriptions before it's too late?
Write the first thing that comes to your head. Now, go!
"I am 29 years old and I have done nothing,
discovered nothing, been nothing, and there are absolutely no thoughts
in my head that anyone would ever want to read about."
There. Standards lowered!
And what do you know? Those beautiful black silhouettes of letters and words appear on the page once again!
Where does writer's block come from? Insecurity? Lack of inspiration? Over-aspiration? Stinky perspiration? Thinking things like "hey, someone thought what I wrote was funny!..maybe I should write more funny things?!" and then the overwhelming, overbearing task of simply thinking about what else someone might think is funny seems too much to handle...
My belt fell off today at work when I sneezed. That was pretty funny. That's it though....
Hmm... I made up a song today about having a moldy nose that stinks? Yea that was it also...
Well, I've been listening to John Denver a lot lately. He's pretty funny...looking. I even changed the words in Colorado Rocky Mountain High from "And they say that he got crazy once and he tried to touch the sun" to "And then his mom got crazy once, and tried to touch his bum..."
Ahhhh, I can't make a funny story anymore! Why do I even blog anyway?
Well like most all adult insecurities...the roots of their cause often stems from childhood. Growing up in a very family-centric household, we used to have "family meetings" every Friday night. We would rotate who would get to pick the snack for the meeting (I would always choose vanilla pudding... but we would never get fancy swiss miss snack packs, we would always have the mix-it-with-milk-and-let -it-sit-in-the-fridge-powder pudding and I could never wait until it was fully set... it was more like pudding flavored sugar milk in the end). Meeting topics would include who has what chores to do for the next week (the following 4 chores were in constant rotation: emptying the dishwasher, taking out the trash, feeding the dog, and vacuuming). We would also discuss what we were thankful for (topics ranged from our sisters, cousins, candy, and toys to curtains, chairs, lamps and other non-interesting items we could find around the room when we were lacking inspiration).
The exciting part was the distribution of allowance. My older sisters received $3 a week while me and my little sister received $2 a week. I do not recall ever receiving more than $2 a week, despite me being the exact same age as (and older than my older sister was) when she received $3 a week (yes, I had that fight, and yes I lost...I may still be bitter...but, hey that's what middle children are for, trying to keep you dang adults fair! You get angel-child, Bridgey, a stuffed animal seal? You better get me and Nancy the exact same one or we will raise hell!).
We would also go around the room and say what we wanted to be when we grew up. I think we normally said doctors or teachers or nurses. I remember my little sister would always say she wanted to be a cash register lady.... I don't think she ever achieved that dream, poor girl. But I remember one time I said I wanted to be a comedian. I thought that would be a real funny thing to want to be and thought that was very creative and how very outside the box for me to come up with an occupation that my sisters hadn't thought of before. I thought my sisters would be supportive, "wow Julie that is exactly what you should be!!! Cause you're so funny!!" Well it was funny alright. My sisters' laughed their butts off to the tune of "der Julie you have to be funny to be a comedian! No one thinks you're funny!!!!"
And whenever I feel unfunny this pleasant visual creeps into my brain of my pig-tailed sisters in their onsie pajamas synchronously singing "you're-not fuuunn-ny, you're-not fuuunn-ny!"
That might not have been exactly how it went down in reality, and I know my sisters think I'm pretty funny (even though
they may not like to admit it), but that's my mental image every time I
get writer's block and start feeling unfunny.
Although my older sisters (and one in particular) may have been my toughest critics, I could always make my little sister laugh relatively easy. I could burp or fart and she'd be off her rocker in no time. I remember oftentimes embellishing stories to get a laugh out of her. I could never sleep at night afterward, because I also grew up
as a Catholic. And I knew all the stories I was telling her weren't
completely true and the fear of going to hell for telling lies was
always a very strong and a very real concern in my childhood world.
But if we were ever going to hell for one incident, it was the time we saw the man with the major wedgie in church. As kids in church we often had a hard time sitting still. We might giggle to ourselves and get a scolding from my mom or one of my older sisters who would give us the stink eye or an elbow in the side to get us to shut up. But then it happened. It was time to stand up for prayer. And the slightly overweight, middle aged man in front of us was wearing sweatpants. When he stood up he had the biggest wedgie either of us had ever laid eyes on. I caught one glimpse of it and immediately turned to my sister and gave her a wide eyed nod toward the direction of his butt crack. We both just lost it. Shaking so hard we were nearly convulsing, snot nearly busting out our noses, snorting, gurgling, suffocating for christ's sake, we needed help!!! We got a furious stink eye from our mother. We would close our eyes and pray the other would stop giggling and shaking. Even 10-15 minutes later after we had calmed down, one of us would pick up the mental image of that man's pants and start blubbering and contorting and it would send us both back over the edge again. This went on for the entire ceremony (and still goes on to this day every time we think of wedgie man). There were no donuts for us after that mass.
Wikipedia "wedgie" entry:
A wedgie occurs when a person's underwear or other garments are wedged between the buttocks.
While a wedgie can be created naturally, the term is usually associated
with a prank or as a form of bullying.
When a person is on the receiving end of a wedgie, his or her underwear
is forcibly pulled up by a second person.
I leave you with the following bad lip reading video:
Halloween is usually my second favorite holiday (next to Thanksgiving). This year I didn't have a costume in mind. So leading up to the big day, I hit up our trusty costume box...
Davie Crockett?.....no
80's wrestler?....no
hmm. comboy?....no
So I settled for Rainbow Bright...
The sad news? I didn't even dress up for Halloween because I was sick. Sorry about my problems?
Now I know this is supposed to be jolly bloggin, but hasn't been a the most jolly week. In case you live under a rock and have no clue what's going on in the outside world, before Halloween hit a monster hurricane washed ashore in New Jersey and utterly destroyed the state I grew up in.
Now this whole hurricane destruction thing just doesn't feel real to me yet. I I know it looks sad, it sounds sad, and sure it makes me feel sad, but I am in California where the closest thing we get to weather is a warm breeze and morning fog. I can't even begin to imagine how it looks, and sounds, and feels and smells to the people who are actually seeing and hearing and feeling and smelling the destruction firsthand. I think about how much it must suck to not have electricity as I get my food out of my fridge and watch TV and take a hot shower. I don't have to wait in line for 3 hours for gas. There isn't a lake in the street that smalls like crap. There isn't a tree on top of my house or my car. And I still have a home. I have no idea how it feels, no. But I know how it looks....Bad.
Sooooooo many of my friends and family are hurting right now. Every one of the following photos were taken from friends' facebook pages documenting their experiences of the storm and what they have to deal with now:
If you can spare 10 bucks, please consider donating to the Red Cross by texting "REDCROSS" to the number 90999. Every little bit helps.
