Monday, April 18, 2011

Happy Passover.

This evening, upon sitting on the couch with my mother while she watched Judge Judy, we realized that tonight starts Passover. We are Jews, and so we figured we should probably be doing a seder. So I went into the dining room and I looked around on the shelves and I dug out our copies of the Haggadot. Then, I went to the pantry and took out some chocolate-covered matzoh, and I took it back to the couch.

ME: Mom, close your eyes! I'm going to hide the Afikomen!!
MOM: Okay.
ME: Mom, you have to close your eyes.
MOM: Okay.

So I hid it underneath the blanket that was folded quite nicely on the top of the back of the couch behind where I was sitting.

Nextly, we moved on to... THE FOUR QUESTIONS.

ME: [flips through Haggadot, looking for the four questions] OKAYokayokayokayokay, here we go. On all other nights we eat either bread or matzoh. Why is it that on this night we only eat Matzoh?
MOM: To remember how the Jews couldn't make bread when they were leaving Egypt.
ME: Good. Okay. On all other nights we eat all kinds of vegetables. Why is it that on this night we only eat [insert Hebrew word for horse raddish]?
MOM: To remember the pain.
ME: On all other nights we do not have to dip our vegetables but once. Why is it that on this night we must dip them twice?
MOM: To remember the salt in the tears.
ME: On all other nights we simply sit. Why is it that on this night we recline on cushions?
MOM: Because it's over.
ME: WOOH! LET'S FIND THE AFIKOMEN!

She ripped the blanket off the couch and--

MOM: You got the coated stuff?!
ME: Yeah. It was in the pantry.

Then we ate some matzoh.

MOM: It's not the best chocolate I've ever had.
ME: It's not the best matzah I've ever had.
MOM: True!

Deciding our ceremony was just about over, I began The Song.

ME: DAY DAYENU! DAY DAYENU! DAY DAYENU! DAYENUDAYENUDAYENU DAY DAYENU! DAY DAYENU! DAY DAYENU! DAYENUDAYENUDAYENU-- COME ON, MOM, SING ALONG!

Her rendition of the song was something like...

MOM: Day dayenu. Day dayenu. Day dayenu. Dayenudayenu. OKAY, WE'RE DONE.

So then I came back to the computer because Passover Seder Super-Reform-Style was supposedly done, but then I remembered...

THE GRAPE JUICE.

ME: MOM, WE FORGOT TO DRINK GRAPE JUICE.
MOM: Okay, there's some on the table if you really want it.

So I went into the kitchen and I got two glasses and I filled them up with grape juice and then I brought them back to the couch.

MOM: Oh, no, wait, we're not going to have to recite all the plagues, are we?
ME: Oh, yes, we are. Okay. Uhhh... Locusts.
MOM: Uhh... uhh... uhhh... 40 days and 40 nights? No, wait, that's a different story.
ME: Yeah. Uh, Plague of the First Born.
MOM: That was, like, number ten, wasn't it?
ME: It has to go in order?

I had already put away the Haggadot and didn't want to get it back out, so we just rattled off a few more ("Illness, sickness, death! Uhh, darkness! Frogs!") and then clinked our glasses, said something in Hebrew I don't know how to spell but it means, "To life!" and we drank our juice.

ME: It was nice doing Passover with you! Let's do this again next year.
MOM: Yeah.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Hey, guys...

Not that anybody reads this anymore since I haven't posted in ages, but... I am considering doing some sort of story series on here, that will be a bunch of silly stories, like maybe a zombies-eating-your-arms book, or a girl who has a strange obsession with bread. I don't know. If you have any ideas, let me know, and I'll try to work on it. I haven't written anything silly in a while.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Why?

"I knew I was wrong."

Y U NO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

Sunday, February 13, 2011

What to Do on Valentine's Day If You Don't Have Anything to Do

I guess this year I'll be joining the population of the world who doesn't actually spend Valentine's Day kissing off his/her face in a wave of passion. I don't think I've ever taken part in that festive activity. But that's okay, because I won't be alone! You see, it was somebody's stupid idea to not synchronize the February Breaks of all the schools in the world, or at least the country, and so I don't get to spend my day off frolicking down the snowy streets. But I'm not here to complain at you! I'm here to list things that we can all do to make ourselves feel better about not having anything love-filled and smushy-lovey-gooy to do tomorrow.

One: Eat chocolate. Eat one piece of chocolate for every thought of your crush/lover. [Size of pieces may have to vary for health reasons.] Did you know that the human brain expresses more pleasure when eating chocolate than when kissing? I saw it on television. So while everybody else is off kissing behind a waterfall while the sun sets, freezing off their bare butts, you can say, "Hah. I'm happier than you are. I have chocolate in my system. Hah." They probably won't hear you from behind the rushing water or the loud sexy-music they may be playing at home while they lie together on the couch, but you won't hear them either because you will be moaning your own beautiful song that goes:
I'm eating chocolate
And I feel freaking fantastic
And I am feeling more pleasure than you are
Because it's all scientific
And I'm a freaking scientist!

Two: Play with stickers! Don't have any stickers? Fix that. Go to the department store or the craft store right now and get some stickers before finishing reading this. Or don't. It's your choice, really.
Okay, now that you have your stickers, survey the stickers you have brought home. Did you grab the sparkly red heart ones, to stay in the theme of the holiday? Did you grab the puffy giraffe-and-other-cool-animal ones, to show your non-Valentine's Day pride? Did you grab the dinosaurs because you didn't give a cracker what else was there because dinosaurs are just awesome and you needed something and you figured that the most awesome thing would do the job just right? Or did you get "basic shapes?" I love those ones. I used them on a card yesterday. They're rainbow.
Next, select the stickers you would like to use.
Final step: Stick those stickers all. over. everything. Or, if you don't live alone or you're in a place where if you do anything to the walls your landlord will destroy you, put them all over everything where it wouldn't be a permanent fixture, depending on whether you want to make your landlord or housemates angry with you. This project should take lots of deep, educated thought and you should try to make a game out of it, if possible. Let's see how many basic geometric shapes I can get onto the refrigerator! Let's see how many giraffes I can fit on the back of my calculator! Oh! Oh! Oh! Elephants on the oven? I think so. Enjoy yourself. [Activity should last no longer than 3-4 hours.]

Three: Get out your camera because you are going on a creeping expedition. I dare you. I've done it. It wasn't on Valentine's Day, but my friend and I went on a trip to Central Park to take pictures, and ended up just-- you guessed it --taking pictures of all the couples we saw. While this might make you sad and want to go run across the world to your lover, it also might make you start rolling on the ground, saying, "It's too much! It's too cute!" This activity may also lead to, if you are not careful to be discreet, embarrassed or angry couples coming up and asking you to delete the pictures you took.
WARNING: DO NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, go up to the couples and ask if they want you to take their picture. The point of the game is to catch them being adorable.
If you think that this activity would make you too sad, just don't do it! There are lots of other things you can do.
So, if you are doing it, head out with your camera to a spot where you think there would be a lot of babies (Confused by what "babies" means in this context? Click here.) strolling about and being all cute. Pull out your camera. Get a good angle for looking at them. Pretend to be taking a picture of something else, if they might be able to see you. Take the picture(s). Move on.
Pro tip: You have to be quick when taking pictures of babies. This is because they are not posing for you, but rather sharing a romantic moment. So, keep taking a bit of a RADAR sweep of the area, every minute or so, but DO NOT look conspicuous. A good idea is to keep moving around. Have a story for if someone asks what you're doing. Bring a friend so you don't look as though you're waiting for someone and being stood up.
If you do this, please feel free to post your pictures somewhere, and comment with a link to your photos! I'd love to see that somebody is doing this.
Note: When posting your pictures on a website, it is a good idea to include a short explanation that you don't know who these people are (or maybe you do, but if you don't...) and if the person seeing the picture is in the picture and wishes for it to be taken down and is offended or something, then you will take it down.
Websites I suggest using are Deviant Art and Flickr.
Example: Click here! Haha, these two were actually posing for somebody else who was taking pictures of them... I couldn't help take a quality shot of that, since I knew they'd be posed for a while while somebody takes the real picture. So, yeah, that's the idea!

Four: Write a gushy romance story that's (well, it's more fun to do it this way) awful on purpose. Make the details so sappy that it's no longer romantic and sweet.
Example: Marianita and I were enjoying our favorite snack (cheesecake and red wine) when her "friend" Bretstein burst through the door. Oh, how I hated that man. He was just looking to steal Marianita from me. Oh, but I knew that Marianita was my ladylover, and not his bisexual girlfriend. But, against my will, he swept Marianita into a boa constrictor-like hug, opening his mouth so wide over hers that I thought the poem by Shel Silverstein would come true-- the one about the boa constrictor.
Just make the story suck as much as possible, and you've got hours of endless sappy fun. You can post your stories on other sites and comment with a link, for this one, too.

Hopefully these activities will keep you busy for the duration of Valentine's Day, my fellow spending-the-day-without-our-crushes/lovers! And, if you get bored, maybe you'll come up with your own ideas! Good fun! Good luck! And happy Valentine's Day (or, for the people who'd rather not call it that, Single Appreciation Day).

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Wasabi-Covered Chocolate?!

My mother was reading a blog by an actor. The blog post she was reading was about food on the sets where he acts. One strange thing he mentioned having eaten is wasabi-covered chocolate. As soon as I heard this my face screwed up with horror and I thought, "Why would you want to eat that?!"

I looked up the strange invention on Google, but I didn't find any matches. I only found wasabi peas, which I unfortunately already knew exist. Similarly, there were no images. However, there were a few pictures of green-and-brown handbags. Maybe that's what they were eating.
Fiber.

My Brother

I guess it's about time I blog about my brother. When he wants to show me something on the computer, whether it be a video or a blog or a website of some other sort, he will come up from behind me, stretch his arms and torso over my head, and exert much pressure downwards upon me, which usually is undesirable, so I'll attempt to struggle my head into a position where it can bite him. But he sees this coming and evades it, while typing and clicking on the computer screen and keyboard.

Usually, as was said before, he just wants to show me a silly video. Usually, I'll attempt to gnaw at his arm. It doesn't really work (the gnawing at his arm part). Other times, if I'm drawing using the tablet, I'll make it so that he messes up while typing in the URL by clicking on a spot at some other point where he's already typed. Or I'll just close out of the new tab. I'm pretty clever like that. It then becomes mouse wars and then I give in and watch or see whatever he wants me to watch or see. He always wins.

I'm Not Jesus.

And I can't walk on water, even if it's frozen snow.