Something Warm and Cuddly

I don’t know about you guys, but where I come from, we have heating and cooling units in every room. Oh… Don’t get your hopes up–it’s just a window.

Too hot? Open the window. Too cold? Close it! I guess if you want a bit of both, you could have it open half-way, but that only leaves three settings: hot, cold, or eh…

In beautiful Kula, Maui, you leave your window open just a crack through the night to let in the cool mountain air, and you wake up in the morning shivering in your bunny slippers saying, “Oh my gosh! Turn the damn heater on!!!” So you close the window, make your breakfast, start sipping on scalding hot coffee, and then you say, “Oh my gosh! It’s too damn hot! AC! AC!” You open the window again, go about your daily routine, and then 5pm comes… The Hour of Doom. The sun pounds down on the roof, there’s not a trade wind to be found, and you are dying. Open all the windows, open all the doors, crank those fans on high, and enjoy an iced coffee instead. And by the time you’re ready for bed, you’re thinking, “Holy crap! How can it be this hot!?” But by morning…

The interesting thing about this whole situation is that in Hawaii, temperatures range from about 50-90 on a fluctuating day… Still relatively hot, right? Oh… you haven’t lived there like I have…

Enter Lacey, Washington. We too have heaters in every room, and this time, it’s a REAL heater! …And we also have windows, in case anyone’s wondering…

And while we’re at it… Enter Katie. Who, for the first month of last year, was afraid of the heater and refused to use it no matter how cold it got. Yeah, laugh all you want–I survived…

I’m not kidding either– I would pile my blankets on top of myself, dress in layer upon layer of clothes, and shiver my little toesies off until one day I finally broke down and turned the heater on… in order to dry some clothes that couldn’t go in the dryer… I ran my clothes up to my room, cranked the heater up to 80, and when I brought the rest of my laundry up to fold, my room was nice and toasty. So toasty that I had to open the window to even it out.

Needless to say, I never really figured out how to use my heater until second semester, and I still left my window open just a crack, no matter how cold it got. Oh it’s a wonder how I’ve made it this far without freezing to death.

This year, though. It’s going to be different! I’m naming my heater, something cute and fluffy, like Bubbles or Mocha or something so it seems less threatening. And I’m not going to wait until it snows to turn it on. This time, I’ve got my desk set up right next to the heater, and one cold morning when I was studying, I let Bubbles do his magic from the cool temperature of 70 degrees. I still kept my blanket (after all, I am used to 90), but I was nice and warm without feeling like a lobster cooking in a pot.

That’s right, after one year of education, I have mastered the heater! Took me long enough…

I Don’t Usually Say This

Hey y’all!

If you’re joining us from the Tumblr press, you know that this newspaper publishes its funnies on the first fourth of every month. But!

Did you know that there is a special publication on the third thursday of each month too??

“Oh, yeah! I remember that! What ever happened to those stupidly glorious posts full of satire and sub-par comedy?”

Here’s the deal guys… I’m a college student! I work a few jobs depending on when and where I am! I’m human! And sometimes, Miss Katie over here needs a break.

“But–”

Oh, quit your whining! It’s my blog after all, I can do whatever I want!

“But–”

Okay, fine.

As Frizzy Sister Number Two, AKA, the FUN one, I hearby institute the rule of the Third Thursday… (Authorization pending student workload, fun-loving tendencies, and general tomfoolery of Katie, the fun one.)

For those of you just joining us, third thursdays are reserved for the cruel, the unusual, the national days of the month. This month we have: National Ice Cream day (Mmmm), National Watermelon Day (Double Mmmm), National Underwear Day (Um… Okay), and National Sneak Some Zucchini Into Your Neighbor’s Porch Day (WHAT!?!?). And no, I am not making any of this up.

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/august/

See? (That’s right, I do my research like everybody else! Google is my best friend…)

Despite all of these outrageously August days full of summer sun, school time stress, and general craziness, August 16th, the third thursday of August, is National Tell a Joke Day!

Should be easy right? After all, I am the fun one… That’s right folks–you are looking at the words of the great creator of Bubbles Come Home, So… Ah… What Do We Call This Thing?, and the ever-popular, Death By Squirrel.

But guys, gals, ladies, gentelmans (and no, it’s not a typo), I’m getting OLD! I’m tired! I go back to Washington in a week, and boy, I do not have the energy to sit here and come up with a joke for your entertainment (And seriously guys, the dinosaur joke is old. I’mma lookin’ at you, Dad!).

So… Like all good comedians (*cough* like me *cough*), I am going to use a joke that I found on Facebook. And… I’ll just tweak it…

Oh yeah… commence your eye-rolling now please! It’s about to get real!

I love SMU. It’s got beautiful trees, wonderfully vicious squirrels, and the fridged cold that I have come to enjoy. Ah… Feels just like home (Really! Once you hit the 50’s it all feels the same!). But I must admit that there’s something that I hate.

Every single time I have to introduce myself at SMU, there is a custom… You must say your name, your year, your major, and one interesting fact about yourself (*gasps* Interesting!?! I’ve NEVER been interesting in my life!).

This should be easy, right? For example: I am the writer of not one, but two blogs. I love horses. I hate Valentine’s Day (No, seriously, go check it out. And here’s another one if you still don’t believe me…) I’m from Hawaii. I have the abnormal and completely useless superpower of keeping a solid Maui sun tan for oh… an hour. See? Lots to choose from (Oh, right! I AM interesting!).

But. Every single time I come to this stinkin’ question/prompt/idiocy, my mind goes absolutely blank and I have no idea what to say (Huh!? But we just went over all those interesting things…). Lovely isn’t it.

So. Whenever I come to this question/prompt/idiocy this semester, here’s my new response, coming to you directly from the Minions of Facebook. And I don’t just have one response… I’ve got three (Overachiever!!!):

I was born… On my birthday
I am human… No, seriously
And… I don’t usually say this but… *Whispers* I’m naked under these very clothes

The House of Crappy Cards

This is my mother:

Her favorite summer show is American Ninja Warrior. And let me tell you–she gets into it. Real into it. To the point that she can tell you which obstacle each contestant will inevitably fall from. Holy crap! She’s got like a sixth-sense or something!

This is me:

Katie and Mom Swings

My favorite summer show is World of Dance. And I get into it too. I’m so into it, that after working a full eight-hour shift, I came home and took a nap so that I could stay awake to watch World of Dance at 9:00. Don’t laugh at me! I’m not a night person!

Together, we make up the Frizzy Sisters, as you know. And as you now know, we are obsessed this summer with things we cannot have. For my mom, super human strength. For me, just an ounce of grace.

If you were following along for our Tumblr days, you know that miss Katie over here dances like a chicken with her too-long legs, too-long arms, and a stupid grin on her face to cover the fact that she’s got no idea what the hell she’s doing. Yeah, it ain’t pretty. But have you watched World of Dance?! They make it look so easy! So effortless! So completely beautiful! And it reminds me every time of how inadequate my Cupid Shuffle must be compared to theirs. Oh gosh…

If you were following along with our life stories, you also know that miss Annie’s got a messed-up wrist after breaking it because of an encounter from THE MONSTER-MUTANT CENTIPEDE FROM HELL. Oh yeah, it’s a thing. Anyway, Mom’s messed-up wrist and hand has since been named Alice, and because of Alice, my dear mama will not be performing any of those badass tricks those Ninjas do every week. I mean, have you seen it!? They’re amazing crime fighting super heroes with jogging shorts and crappy haircuts. And just like with World of Dance, every week these Ninjas remind my mom of the fact that she could never do that. Nor would she want to…

Why do we watch these shows just to remind ourselves of our faults? Gee… I don’t really know… But here’s one answer: Because it’s fun!

Sometimes the world throws you a bad hand and all you need to do is laugh. So I’ll never be a dancer, so Mom will never be a ninja. But what’s stopping us? I could still be a dancer, just not a very good one. So… I’ll stick to watching it on TV before I break a hip one of these days… And Mom, well, she’s already a ninja–she’s a mom! That’s one of the hardest jobs there is! And she’s great at it!

So here’s to the ninjas all over the world, playing on your kid’s jungle gyms like my Dad would’ve done if we had one. Here’s to you dancers who only perform when you think no one’s watching. So what if you’re not a national hero? You’re a hero to someone all the same.

Here’s my final word of advice:

When life throws you a bad hand, don’t fold. Make something out of it. Maybe even a card house! At the end of the day, we’re all just one laugh away from falling over. But guess what? If you fall, you can always rebuild!

Quotable Quotes From Quotable Kids

Hey Y’all!

So, this little gal spent her summer hanging out with kids. Big kids, little kids, sweet kids, and sour kids. I had a blast! Two months worth of take-aways from pint-sized little minions with sass the size of a Montana sky! Here are some of our favorite sayings from my kiddos…

I’m gonna set the stage with this one from the last day of the program:

“Are you angry at us? You’re yelling more than usual…”

And my response a few hours later, when I had a major headache, ten girls playing in the bathroom, and a kid that refused to stop hanging on me:

“Why do you guys choose the last day to act so crazy?”

Okay, I do yell at the kids, but let’s face it… they don’t like to listen! But, I guess if I was in a room full of my friends, and had a bunch of teenagers as my leaders, I’d be pretty crazy too.

Here’s the thing though: I never got to go to summer fun. Nope. I had Mommy Day Care instead. That’s right, one hour of TV per day, two pages of school work, cooking lessons, exercises in the pasture with the dog, and the occasional adventure down town. I told this to the kids one day as I tried to get them to see how lucky they were to spend their whole summer with their friends. It did stop the complaining, but this is the sympathy I got from eight-year-olds:

“Couldn’t you just watch YouTube on your phone?”

“We didn’t have phones then.”

“Then you could’ve used your iPad…”

“We didn’t have iPads either!”

“Well then HOW OLD ARE YOU!?!?!”

Which, I suppose, brings me to another quote about my age.

So, I wear glasses, but just reading glasses… for now. I traded in my frames for a new pair of lenses earlier this summer and oh, my gosh, I feel so blind. And so, I made a comment about this one day to the kiddos, and this was their response:

“You wear glasses?! But you’re not old enough to wear glasses!”

The irony of this is that several of my kiddos wear glasses. Are they too young then?

“But they need them!”

So… yeah. According to Dr. Young, I am either too old, or not old enough. And no, there is no in between.

Oh but wait! There’s more!

“How old are you?” another kid asked the other day.

“Ah… Nineteen?”

“Do you have any kids?”

“Ah… Haha…” Need I go any further?

And yet another ironic point, made by the same six-year-old who called me out for yelling:

“I wish you were my mom. I like my mom, but I wish you could be my mom too.”

Yes, this kid is adorable.

I’m gonna switch gears a bit here, and talk about the older kids, the eleven-year-olds, who have some pretty creative things to say. Such as…

“Why are you yelling at us? You’ve said that twice already and you weren’t yelling then!”

“Okay, then why didn’t you do what I said the first time?”

“Because we didn’t want to!”

And here’s another one…

They were working on the project I had set up for them, and it was taking a bit longer than I had anticipated. When the kids figured this out, they were a bit upset, and I told them that I would give them the supplies to finish it at home. But even with my promise, this is what I got:

“I can’t finish this at home! I have more important things to do, like play games on my phone!”

I rolled my eyes, “Playing games on your phone is not THAT important.”

But then again, I’m old, remember. So old that one kid even asked me this:

“Have you ever seen a real live dinosaur?”

Ah… I may be old, ancient even in the eyes of these kiddos, but I am not old enough to be extinct. Not yet, at least.

Shania Maria… The Dog Cat

This is Shania, my cat… I mean dog…

She’s a beautiful calico kitty that we rescued years and years ago. But guys? I’ve got to tell you a little secret…

She’s broken…

Shania Truck — Enjoying a nice nap on the tailgate

Don’t get me wrong, Shania is a masterful kitty, full of sass and hunger. Her favorite thing to do is to pass judgement on evil onlookers while she flicks her tail. Oh yeah–and to attack your pant leg as you pass by. Her favorite place to hang out is the tailgate of my brother’s work truck, and her favorite snack is Kit-N-Kabootle munchies… but she will NOT eat the X’s…

Sounds pretty normal, right? Wrong.

My cat, the beautiful Shania, is trained.

Yup!

She knows no, get down, and also, don’t you dare. I trained her not to climb on the screen door after she fell off of it as a kitten. We trained her to pull a toy wagon when Daniel and I were little. We even trained her to come when we call–no matter how far into the pasture she is, whenever we call out her name, she’ll come running up the driveway.

See? She’s more like a dog than my actual dog…

Yes indeed, for all of Shania’s wonderfully dogish qualities, I cannot, for the life of me, train her to stop licking people!

It started when I left for college… She would cuddle up to my dad for much-needed attention and my father would happily oblige. But then, she got too comfortable.

Before long, Dad’s affection was not enough for Miss Shania, and she moved on to try to win my mother’s heart instead. But… the great Annie does not like cats.

Shania though, has a mind of her own and no regard for personal space. So, every day, while my mom is watering the plants, Shania winds her way through each of my mom’s steps. She’s almost tripped her a couple of times, and after getting yelled at so much, the cat-dog had to come up with a new tactic.

Now, instead of just winding around people’s feet, Little Miss Shania, stops in the middle of a twirl to lick her victim’s feet. She even licked my best friend when she dropped me off after an adventure together–Shania followed her right to the car and licked her cherry-red toesies. What. A. Brat.

Shania Grass — The farm cat, hiding in the grass

It would be fine if she was a dog, with a floppy tongue and a cute smile, but the cat has killer teeth, and claws, and a tongue that feels more like sandpaper and less like a soft flower. Not cute at all. I told her that the other day too…

She was twirling around my legs endlessly, and no matter what I did, the stinker would not stop. So I told her:

Shania. You are not cute. You are annoying.

Bubbles Come Home

I’ve got a funny story… well… I’ve got a funny story that hasn’t happened yet…

It starts with Mom and I driving out of the post office to see a printed flyer declaring a missing parrot who answers to the name of “Paco.” Cool. So Paco’s missing, and all I can picture is a bunch of kids running around a Maui neighborhood on their skateboards and dirt bikes and little push carts going up and down the streets shouting, “Paco! Paco! Come home Paco!”

But here’s the thing… If you’ve got a missing parrot, and said parrot can fly… I’d hate to break it to you kids, but Paco’s probably down in Huelo with his parrot friends by now… So for all our friends in Huelo, please keep a look out for a gray parrot with yellow tail feathers who answers to the name Paco. Just… you know… keep your eyes out…

This got me thinking though…

I want kids. For this purpose and nothing else:

Buy kids a pet fish
Wait for pet fish to die
When fish dies and kids come home saying, “Mom! Where’s Bubbles?” answer this: “Oh no! He must have swam away!”

Yes. You read that right, I want kids so that we can hang missing fish signs around the neighborhood and run around town shouting “Bubbles! Bubbles! Swim home little buddy!” We will look for him at the beach, in the toilet bowl, and in the cat’s litter box. And poor little Bubbles will not be found.

I want the neighbors to join in the search just so that I can see the look on their face when they find out that we’re looking for a FISH! And I want video of all of it.

And now, because I have said this, my mother claims that I will be cursed with the fish that never dies as she was, and I will have to forever clean its tank because the stinker has survived walks in the yard, hunger strikes, and even old age. Know what I say… we’ll see, Mom, we’ll see. I’ll give the fish a year, and then it gets to live with Grandma and Grandpa so that I can have my wish.

Best parenting awards are right around the corner with these stunts!

And P.S. Every word of this is 100% true…

Introducing… The Frizzy Sisters

Hey y’all! Katie here to let you know that The Frizzy Sisters are BACK!!

That’s right, fresh off the Tumblr press comes the Frizzy Sisters you love and adore! Get your fancy socks out, slick back your hair, grab yourself a cup of coffee and relax as we bring you our own signature brand of mother-daughter love.

Reporting to you live, this has been the Frizzy Sisters. We bid you good night.

Katie and Mom Swings — The Frizzy Sisters, Annie and Katie

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

post