Thursday, November 22, 2012

I'm Thankful for Al Roker & Good Music

Oh, Al. You're my favorite.

One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is watching Al Roker bumble around, frantically trying to dodge floats and giant balloons while Matt Lauer sits in some kind of VIP lounge. It’s not at all fair, yet Al is so entertaining and animated that it’s almost like watching an endearing cartoon character narrate the parade.

This year will be no different, I’m sure. And then afterward, I’ll watch the dog show and LOLz big time at all the dogs whose fur is so fluffy you can’t see their feet. I mean, it’s hilarious—they look like little roombas gliding across the floor.

All of this while my mother buzzes around in the kitchen and I stand outside of it like I’m still five years old, unsure of where to jump in at.

This Thanksgiving will be a quiet one for my family, which I’m appreciative of. I’m in the process of moving and working and trying not to be freaked out by creepy older men who have asked to help me move (I mean, come on old guys! Resist the urge to freak young women out) so to just be able to celebrate with my parents (and of course, at some point in the day, Tinkham) is nice.

To compliment the simple, quiet Thanksgiving I’ll be having, I’m yet again posting a Thanksgiving mix. I’ve posted this same mix for a few years, but it’s still my favorite and I hope it becomes your favorite, too.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

1. Great Pumpkin Waltz -- Vince Guaraldi Trio
2. Orange Colored Sky -- Nat King Cole
3. Sweet Potato Pie -- Ray Charles & James Taylor
4. Rock of Ages -- Ben Kweller
6. Young Pilgrims -- The Shins
7. Mushaboom -- Feist
8. Shine on Harvest Moon -- Betty Carter
9. Thanksgiving Theme -- Vince Guaraldi Trio
10. Stuffy Turkey -- Thelonious Monk


Thursday, November 1, 2012

The Tell-Tale Frog


Poe, impressed by my scary story.
It was all Hallow’s afternoon and despite the intentionally menacing way I started this sentence, it was actually not creepy out at all. The weather was pleasant, I was wearing a fun costume, and on my way to lunch with some of my favorite people. But don’t horrifying stories always start out semi-innocent?

Keep reading, if you dare.

As I open the door to the backseat of my vehicle, a lunatic frog maniacally lunges at me.

“Ahhh!” I scream, then jump back, because that’s what you do when frogs try to touch you. The frog, because it is a mentally deranged kind of frog, doesn’t jump out into the fresh air, but instead hops further into the car and under some cup holder compartment that’s impossible to see into.

Everyone decides that our hunger is enough to give us the courage to ride in what has become a mobile haunted house. There’s danger lurking somewhere in the shadows and you know it will jump out on your face and once this happens, you know you will crash the car and die.

This luckily doesn’t go down at lunch. The frog stays hidden. It is clearly just here to torture me.

So now I’m left alone to deal with the frog on my way home.  Once I get to my car later that afternoon, I fling open the door dramatically and stomp randomly around the vehicle.

But, it doesn’t come out. So I climb inside and shut the door, looking out the window pleadingly like people in horror movies who just entered some weirdo’s house and they know in their hearts life will never be the same for them.

Plagued with paranoia, the entire way home I think everything is the frog.

“OH MY GOD, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? WAS THAT THE FROG FLYING THROUGH THE AIR TOWARD MY FACE?!”
No. It was the reflection of a leaf blowing past the window in my peripheral vision.

“WHAT’S THAT RUSTLING? THE FUCKING FROG AND ITS FROG LEGS READY TO JUMP ON MY FACE?!”
No. It was my purse strap gently grazing my coffee thermos.

“WHAT’S THAT ON MY LEG?? THE FUCKING FROG AND ITS FROG FEET STURDYING ITS FROG BODY FOR WHEN IT LEAPS INTO THE AIR AND JUMPS ON MY FACE?!”
No. It was a Starbucks straw wrapper that got caught on my tights.

In my lunacy, my senses have been heightened to superhero levels.

I think about relaxing—maybe listen to some music because riding in silence is making me crazy--but I just know it will only be for the worst. There’s nothing more ridiculous than when you see someone in horror movies acting carefree one second then screaming psychotically the next. I imagine it:

“La la la singing along to my favorite song, la la la, OH MY GOD THERE’S A FUCKING FROG ON MY FACE AHHH I’M SO GROSSED OUT AND I CAN’T PAY ATTENTION TO THE ROAD!! I KNEW I SHOULDN’T HAVE RELAXED! FROGS ARE SO WEIRD!”

But none of that happens. I make it home alive and feel confident the frog will die overnight. I do not feel guilty about this, since the frog has chosen this fate.

THE NEXT DAY (AKA, TODAY)

After work, my coworker Jennifer offers to see if she can get the frog out since there was no sight of it all day. She is not a baby like me. I assume this will just be a mission to find the frog’s remains and then lay them to rest in the office’s shrubbery.

Until…

“Oh, there he is! He’s a squirmy one,” I hear Jennifer say as she crawls half way into the backseat.

UH, WHAT?

It’s alive. And I catch a glimpse of its weird pale, gross, weak but still alive, zombie looking self for a second before it leaps under the passenger seat. I scream and start giggling like a kid who’s scared but then also sort of excited by the prospect of adventure. I run around to the passenger side with Jennifer and while she’s peering into the backseat, I look under the front.

And there it is, staring at me. At my face. Like he wants to jump on it. For a moment, I’m almost sad and just wish he would jump out and be free. But then he moves a little and it’s “death to the frog” again.

“Jennifer!” I yell and jump back because, again, that’s what you do when frogs try to touch you.

She runs to the front, but the frog has disappeared. This time, under the floorboard.

She can’t reach it at all and it looks like it seriously can't get out. So I turn to Jennifer and say goodbye and climb into my car. It is hopeless.

I didn’t want the frog to die from starvation because it was trapped—I just wanted it to never jump on my face.

As I'm driving, I think I hear the frog under the floor trying to get out. It’s scary and sad and horrifying.

I get home and hurry into the house. And even here, from my desk, I can still hear the faint whisper of a frog with its frog legs trying to get out and jump on my face. The thumping against the floorboard seems to syncopate in time with the flicker of candlelight near the windowsill. A dog howls in the distance and I realize I will forever be haunted by the events of this autumnal afternoon. I shiver and wrap my shawl tightly around my shoulders, then blow the candle out. A second before the room goes dark, I see the reflection of a frog’s—this frog’s—haunting gaze. I jump back, startled, and when I light the candle again all I see is the frosted windowpane.

(Not really, but that seemed like an appropriate way to wrap this story up. But seriously, let’s hope he finds out how to vacate the vehicle tonight. Or sadly, just dies.)