Defects of a Generation...or Three

Today, at the fine American institution of Wal Mart, my dad and I were exiting the superstore after his futile search for an electronic, hand-held, Yahtzee game. I warned him that the company likely stopped production in the 1990's, and that he is the only person on the face of this earth who still even donates a brain cell to the world of Yahtzee electronics that was.

After settling for a hand-held Solitare game and I with my prize of Trident Layers gum , we were on our way. (The verdict is still out on the gum. It's been an hour and I'm still chewing it, so longevity is a plus. However, the odd mix between mint and apple falls between painless and somewhat enjoyable in the taste category.)

Anyway, to the main point. My dad and I walk up to a door marked with an exit sign. We both stopped abruptly, and stared quizzically with tilted heads at the door - aghast by the notion that it refused to open automatically.

Coming to the same conclusion that the door was clearly not meant to be used, we walked to the door next to it, and breathed a sigh of relief when it opened on the command of our mere presence.

Once we reentered the outside, I realized how sad and hysterical it was at once that we condemned what was likely a perfectly good door to uselessness simply because it did not open automatically. How many years did it take to train people into laziness - that indoor sidewalks did not require leg movement, and that doors should open without prompting? Clearly not long, if my own father, who, I must admit, does not belong to a generation close to mine, was as fooled - if not more fooled than I - by an ordinary building component.

Whether the fact that I set foot in both a Wal Mart and K Mart in the same week or the fact that I snubbed a manually operated door is more sad, I'm not sure. All I know is that Hawai'i is making me soft.

Gettin' Lei'd

Tate and Terry Take Hawai'i 2011 (Kona Edition)

For my dad's (67th) birthday (and his guilty conscience) he decided he and I should pay a visit to his house in Hawai'i. He is worried we will never have quality time like this again, so I obviously I jumped on the opportunity.

On the flight over, I sat in-between my dad and an Asian girl who I thought was about twelve. She watched Tangled on her portable TV while eating chocolate chip cookies, and was wearing an oversized flower ring and a Hello-Kitty necklace. My claustrophobia aside, I managed to observe her during the last thirty minutes of the flight in which she applied copious amounts of purple and pink sparkly makeup, revealed her Asian character shoulder tattoo, and changed into stripper boots. When we landed, she made a series of phone calls that indicated she, surprisingly enough, calls the shots. One to family on the island "Don't give grandma anything spicy. Or alcohol. You will regret it," and one back to California, "Are you serious? Why isn't that done? I need my f*cking car when I get home! Give the phone to someone who can fix this." This transformation shocked me, and only cemented my theory that Asian girls successfully act 1/2 of their actual age.

The first day, we went grocery shopping and saw a rainbow. Not as good as a double rainbow, but almost. Interestingly enough, the rainbows' end was found in a Costco...

Also, this coffee is from a place called Lava Java. We woke up at 6:30 day one, still on California time, so we spent two hours deciding whether people walking down the street were homeless or not. Nearly impossible to tell, and my dad and I argued over this one guy (who I thought was a woman for a good 30 minutes) reading a newspaper and then some sort of a journal. I decided there was no way he was homeless because he was smoking.

I later checked out the pricing behind the counter at the ABC store, and addiction is incredibly pricey around here - 10 bucks a pack. There is no way someone is wasting 50 cents a cigarette on a homeless dude in penny loafers. (Upon close inspection, you can spot said man perched behind my coffee cup). [Update: Today, I saw same man climb out of a bush, wearing the same outfit. I hereby retract my argument against homelessness.]

It is a bit odd to be reading Lolita on the beach, but lovely nevertheless. True to his word, my dad and I have spent some serious quality time together, mostly conversations about his "bad boy" days in the 70's. The days where he owned a "shag wagon", drank on the beach, dropped out of highschool, and had peroxided hair down to his shoulders to compliment his porn mustache. (Vintage photo update when I get home).

He also told me, on the beach yesterday, that he is thankful he never "got into drugs", besides the fact that he regularly smoked pot. Now, he is retired to edibles. He told me a great little ditty about his company Christmas party where everyone passed around a tray of brownies, and he was trapped inside his own body and therefore unable to stand. Go dad.

P.S. The statistic that about 1/3 of Americans have tattoos is largely contributed to by the beaches of Hawaii. Almost every person in sight had at least one unseemly tattoo. Unseemly because the portion of their body the tattoo is located now busts seams.

Sorry, I have to take my brother to the ER

If I use that excuse one more time I swear it will come true. Used today to get out of a date with a douchebag, it is not the first time I my brother's athleticism and history with injury has come in handy.

Once, my mom and I were meeting with a doctor. We go into her office and it's covered in weird trinkets. She is wearing head-to-toe Pepto-Bismol pink, including an oversized hair bow. She thinks a child-size desk is adequate. My mom, at this point, had just learned to text, and when she looked down and read an invisible text, I knew she was up to something. Suddenly, "Oh my God. My son is at football practice and he just broke his leg. We need to take him to the ER." Like mother like daughter.

This time was necessary because of a stupid, stupid guy. He, for some reason, mistook me for a girl who takes sh*t from anyone. After hanging out once, he stood me up, and then today, an hour after when we were supposed to meet, he texts me, "Hey". Hey? Hey, what? Hey, you were supposed to pick me up an hour ago? Hey, you are really cute, which is probably why you usually get away with this type of behavior? Hey, you suck and your tattoos are stupid?

Safe to say, I was what Amy refers to as "first-date fooled" in this situation. The first time I hung out with this guy he was great. A real charmer. A gentleman. But that was all a game.

Nicole says she has difficulty continuing to like a guy after the second date. Well, at least you can locate the guy to get a second date out of him. I don't possess that ability it seems, and this douchebaggery is just about enough to turn a girl gay.

New York guys, you better impress.

Little Miss Perfect?

Today, I met a little girl. She loved pink and puppies - and happened to have more sophisticated sales techniques than any of the strippers I met last week.

My mom and I renamed her Cinnamon after becoming increasingly jealous of her charisma. Cinnamon had set her sights on my 14-year-old brother. After calling him "Mister" and demanding he follow her outside, she took to rubbing the inside of his thigh - with multiple "accidental" slips into the danger zone. I gave her some slack and figured she was unaware of her geographical location. That is, until she mounted him.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, thats correct. I looked over and she had straddled my brother. His face was priceless. After she realized he wasn't budging from the couch, she moved onto the only other male in the room.

She walked over, and with a subtle shoulder shimmy, said seductively, "I remember you". Yes sweetheart, you probably do. From your family reunion last year. When you were three.

Later, someone wiped the chocolate cake off her upper lip. As a thank you, she seductively glanced over her shoulder and pursed her lips. Seriously?

The more I realized that I was being completely neglected by this four-year-old due to my estrogen levels, the angrier I got with American pop culture. The fact that even a four-year-old knows exactly how to seduce men more than 10 years her elder frightens me. I am not only disappointed, but flat-out intimidated.

I shouldn't really be surprised though, considering I am unable to get any of my female friends to text me back tonight. So much for girls' night.

"You smell like a baby prostitute"

P.S. Sorry no photo. I figured I should protect her from being over-exposed - at least on the Internet.

Piercing With a Purpose

Every time I feel like my mother has served her purpose as my mother and I am one step closer to being an independent adult, she finds a way to prove me wrong.

Today I finally quenched my longtime thirst for a piercing when I went to PB today with Mary. In my insomnia the night before, I had come up with the idea to get a double cartilage piercing, and that was the plan.

After a few hours I finally faced my mother. When I let her know what I had gotten, she did not respond with anger --she rolled her eyes.

She told me she thought cartilage was over-done, and frankly unremarkable. I was crushed. I thought it was special, creative, if you will.

So I spent the next thirty minutes inspecting my ear in the mirror, each second becoming less and less enchanted with it. So I left my house, once again, to have Ironhead Mike take them out.

Turns out Ironhead Mike (should have been a red flag) goes home at 6 pm. I journeyed down Garnet about 7 steps to the next tattoo shop and asked if someone there would do it instead. When he took them out there was plastic all over the steel bars. PLASTIC. I would have been infected beyond my wildest dreams in 24 hours. Thank you God. And Mom.

After the unsatisfactory piercing was removed, I opted for another, very different piercing. Couldn't be happier that I now, as my mom puts it, have "a piercing with a purpose."

How will you remember your St. Paddy's Day? (If at all...)

You only want...

...what you can't have. That seems to be the ruling philosophy of many human actions. Dieting doesn't work because the minute you tell yourself you can't have something you absolutely must have it. Dating doesn't work because the thought of being tied down to one person makes everyone else suddenly seem like a catch. Since I've given up on both men and diets, the one thing I wanted until today was a cupcake.

Not just any cupcake. Sprinkles, the gourmet cupcake bakery that originated in LA recently opened near my house. I, having built up cupcakes in my mind ever since I was young, have been only disappointed by almost every cupcake I've ever eaten (because they always look better than they are. This can be said about many things). This one, I was sure, was going to change everything.

The two weeks after Sprinkles opened, the line was doubled around the building, a 45 minute wait - if you got there before it opened. I was devastated that my impatience would bar me from the cupcake of all cupcakes.

That was until Thursday, when my friend told me that her new job was at the Rubios next door to Sprinkles, and every morning she goes in and orders her cupcakes, then picks them up at the end of the day.

I had a plan. It was go time.

Approximately two hours ago I had my first Sprinkles cupcake. It was good. Only good. ONLY GOOD. Nothing spectacular at all. And 10 minutes after consumption, I was hit with a stomach ache so bad I was convinced I'd been poisoned by the peanut butter-chocolate cake.

Turns out, I'm fine. But still nauseous. I hate cupcakes. I'm never bothering again.

Except I'm pretty sure I had a great one once at the Cookie Lady...maybe she is my salvation.

P.S. Ice cream is underrated. It never disappoints. Why can't I just commit?

"Yo, strippers just need to be more upfront..."

"Wanna go someplace and have some fun?"

"Uhh no."

"Wait, what did she even mean?"

"She was asking you if you wanted a private dance in the back room. It's $20. Do you want one?"

"Why didn't she just say that then? Strippers need to be more upfront."

20 minutes go by, and we realize that particular stripper was the one that got away, as she was the most attractive in the club by far. The rest of them ranged from actually disgusting to possibly attractive -- until you went to the girl's bathroom and saw them in the florescent light.

On one of those trips to the bathroom, a short-haired, big-breasted stripper asked me if I was trying to fix my hair. Apparently my almost-conservative, half-up, style was unacceptable in this establishment. She proceeded to take all my bobby pins out, part my hair on the other side, and tease it at the roots with her fingernails. She goes, "Much better! You should totally work here, you're drop dead gorgeous." I look in the mirror. I look like I just fought a wildebeest. I guess this is the look that sells nowadays. I thank her and exit quickly, making a beeline for my bottomless, non-alcoholic drink tickets (Tip: be wary of strip clubs that don't sell alcohol. They are generally strange and terrifying places).

Another mystery of the night are the stamps they put on your hand for reentry. They feature a cheetah, and say Fa_ Cat above it. All of our stamps had two of the last letters blurred together, so we are arguing between it actually saying "Fatt Cat", "Fast Cat", "Fart Cat", "Face Cat", or "Fact Cat". Either way, I'm not convinced these stamps were made custom for the club.

Besides the stripper with a heart of gold I met in the bathroom, the rest are downright forceful. They walk around the room expecting you to put money in their panties (which they double up, still have yet to discover the reason for doing so) when you are either asleep, like me (I took a total of 6 naps over the 3 hour course of our adventures in Stripperland), or you clearly are traumatized, like my friend Mary. To be honest, I've never felt straighter in my life than at that club. I don't know if too many gross boobs desensitizes you, or if the exact purpose of girls going to those places is to make them want to find a boyfriend to make out with. Safe to say my first - and hopefully last - stripper extravaganza did not make me a believer. I did, however, get proposed to by the bouncer, so I guess that counts for something.

Two and a half hours after stating his feelings about strippers being upfront, my friend is on stage, in a chair against the main stripper pole. He has a 5'1 asian girl with about 2 feet of tattoo coverage and 3 feet of hair extensions on top of him. Her crotch is in her face, and he is about to get on all fours and get hit with a doubled up leather belt. I'm pretty sure it doesn't get any more upfront than that.

Birthday Recipie

The Perfect 18th birthday sh*t show:

Preparation - 3 hours

Cook Time - 6 hours

Ingredients:

1 Birthday Girl

1 Gay

1 Justin Bieber look-alike

7 Body piercings (not counting ears) and 3 tattoos between everyone present

1 Yellow cake with chocolate frosting

1 Champagne slushie (an amazing accident)

1 Tube of Cherry Chapstick

1 Rack of Diet Coke

1 iPod

1 Run to Rigobertos

1 Game of Truth or Dare

Directions:

1. Slowly stir in all body piercings and party guests, preferably in an outdoor setting. Then, introduce (the most amazing) cake. However beautiful the cake is, make sure you smash it to bits while attempting to slice it before serving.

2. After a while, pour in Champagne slushie, make sure it's an accident though, so Birthday Girl eats it off the counter.

3. Let sit for 30 minutes - be sure to pepper in some Justin Bieber remarks.

4. Walk down the street to Rigobertos mexican restaurant 30 minutes before it closes, so it feels like you rented out the classy joint simply for your purposes.

5. After some Cherry Chapstick and dancing, let simmer.

6. Lastly, somehow maneuver 7 people into a queen size bed for a throwback game of truth or dare. (Optional: Have everyone make out with the gay friend. Not sure why, but adds a bit of an extra kick)

7. Make sure no one in the room thinks hickeys are funny. Especially ones that are so large and dark they can actually be passed off as an abuse injury.

8. Finally, Be sure to mock Justin Bieber for snoring like a harpooned baby beluga whale - all night.

Optional - Clean Up

(approx. 2 hours)

Ingredients:

1 Swifter mop

1 Power hose

1 Gigantic trash can

2 Rolls of paper towels

Directions:

1. Spray down deck (be sure to change hose setting to JET)

2. Swifter everything, including countertops. Everything that can't be swiftered, soak up with paper towels.

3. Go to the beach.

Happy Birthday Mary! Hope surviving your childhood was as exciting for you as it was for the rest of us.

8 Simple Rules For Throwing a Drink at Someone

1. That person should not be your ex- best friend.

2. That best-friendship should not have ended because you slept with their boyfriend.

3. You should not call said person a "fat bitch" unless the person is in fact a bitch, and in fact fat.

4. You should not throw stones from a glass house. (View rule number 3).

5. Be aware of innocent bystanders.

6. Be acutely aware of the mutual friend, whose house you are at, and their furniture and walls.

7. Do not say "she threw it" when said "fat bitch" turns around with a look of shock. Especially when "fat bitch" is covered in tequila. I'm sure this "bitch" may be "fat", but hopefully, if she was your friend at some point, she is not stupid enough to throw a drink on herself.

8. Don't throw liquid at leather, that's just inconsiderate.

P.S. Said "fat bitch" shouldn't have invited you to her New Year's party before you threw a drink at her.

VERY EXCITING

I'm not sure what I'm setting myself up for here, but I saw this new commercial for Domino's chicken and almost died.

Also, on that note, my friend told me that a friend of her friend's mom named her children Tate and Caden. What a trip.

That's enough self-indulgence for now.

Dinner Party Etiquette 101

Dinner guests from left: Birthday Boy, Meatball, Innocent bystander, sexter, frazzled hostess, horrible storyteller, over-powered in the element of surprise, head chef, and birthday boy's best friend.

Last night I threw my first dinner party, and it's safe to say we all learned a little something. First and foremost, I'm never throwing another dinner party until everyone is of legal drinking age. Also, gender balance is important, and I'm never throwing another "surprise" party again.

The gender imbalance played a crucial role in the failure of the surprise element of the night. The one female who wasn't in the kitchen at the time of birthday boy's entrance was overpowered by the idea of six males who thought the most surprising surprise would be no surprise at all.

Let me paint a picture for you: five boys (minus the best friend of the surprisee who was 20 minutes late) and one girl are hiding behind my deck. When I sent the surprisee outside to "get something" from the dinner table set for nine, they were supposed to jump out and surprise him. This moment did not occur. Since the party missed this cue, the consensus was that instead, they should all quietly sneak to their places at the table and wait until he saw them through the sliding-glass door. This moment of discovery was so anti-climactic I actually yelled "surprise" myself. Not very exciting at that point, I'm sure.

As for the first lesson, people are awkward at dinner parties. Especially people who all view themselves as somewhat witty. When words are flying around, some people (i.e. me) are easily offended. Dinner guests (i.e. high school boys) who are yet to understand the rules about talking trash about their hosts clearly do not belong at a table. This would have been fine if we weren't all so on edge. And so it goes...

Back to the importance of gender balance. Only 33% of those at the table were female, and this caused some interesting monopolization of conversation. For instance, the dinner guest to my left told a "joke" with a 15 minute set-up, and no punch line. Unacceptable.

Also during this "joke", the birthday boy took to playing a competitive game of Scrabble on his iPhone with someone not even at the table. The man to the right of me simultaneously started sexting, while the rest of us fought over the assortment of cupcakes. (Next time, all one flavor).

I responded to all of this by noticing that this dinner turned out worse than "that one episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills". What...an observation.

On that note, it is of utmost importance to recognize my own failures as hostess. Case in point, the following conversation:

Me: Yeah, that other meatball on Jersey Shore. The one who isn't Snooki. Who is that?

JPK: Deena.

Me: Haha. Takes one to know one.

What was going through my mind, I'm not sure. The choking aroma of failed wit and successful insult in the air briefly cut the cord between my brain and mouth. To be clear, I am very fond of the man I inadvertently called a meatball, and we discussed my affection towards him while he graciously helped me clean up. I still feel awful, though, which is no note to end a dinner party on.

Hopefully my pitfalls will be a fair warning to anyone who chooses to throw a dinner party in the future. And in my opinion, nothing should be a surprise, ever. Turns out I hate making them happen as much as I hate them happening to me.

On a side note: make sure your head chef likes to read the directions before three people simultaneously attempt to prepare a meal. I have no idea why there were onions in the macaroni and cheese, but the chicken was referred to as "90% water" once the word moist was voted out of dinner conversation.

The American Way

Laziness and procrastination, beautifully exhibited by me, here.

Finally, I have multiple things to note, such as the fact that the senior rec room is infested with rats. One galloped by my feet, I screamed like a large-boned little girl, and scurried away. I realize the two verbs would make more sense if swapped, but that's how it happened. Upon this horrifying discovery, someone casually mentioned that there were two others she had seen on the couch. ON THE COUCH.

Girl: Oh, but they're so cuteee!

Me: That's something you can discuss with your therapist. I need to leave now.

No one seems to be as concerned as I am that these rats are living with us. I suspect we will be kicked out of the rec room for extermination, and that, my friends, is unacceptable.

It has also come to my attention that I need to keep up this blog for academic reasons. My journalism teacher handed back my most recent article with one comment: "You need to work harder on what you turn in for class. Case in point: your blog is better." So, if my blog is better than my grades, I should at least keep that to hold on to.

Also in recent news, I had to get a haircut. This seems mundane without pretext. I had a breech in sanity last Tuesday night, and figured "since I am competent at trimming my own side bangs, I should be able to give my whole head a trim." False. I chopped into what I thought would become a medium-length chunk of hair, which turned out to be chin length. To ease the trauma, I made the other side it's twin. This was a horrible idea. After panic struck, I hid the evidence and wore my hair up.

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. I made an appointment at a new salon, and fell in love with my Latvian hair dresser, Ella. She is full of knowledge and wit, and my hair is half-decent looking. I'm not sure why I regressed to the large toddler stage of my life and destroyed my own hair, but hopefully the part of me that enjoys wash-and-go locks will prevail over crazy me in the future.

Moral of the story, it could be worse, but is still a pain to have to blow dry my hair so it doesn't look like a bob. The end.

P.S. The fake dog mysteriously disappeared. Good riddance.