Thin Mints?

A box of Thin Mints contains 28 cookies.  14 per sleeve.  The cookie box claims that four Thin Mints equals a serving.

I'm not saying how many Thin Mints that I consider to be a serving but it sure as heck isn't four.  I can accidentally inhale four Thin Mints just while opening the box.

So what do you think?  How many Thin Mints make up a reasonable, normal person sized serving?  (And if you leave me a comment lecturing me about calories or trans fats then I'm just going to delete it because you're being a creep and for the love of pete, I just want to talk to the nice people about Thin Mints.)

Two years ago today Jesse and I were awesome.
Five years ago today I said something I swore I never would.

Three questions

Friends, I have some very important questions for you!

1. What is your favorite traditional Thanksgiving food?

2. What is one traditional Thanksgiving food that you hate?

3. Do you like wet, mushy stuffing or dryer stuffing?

And a bonus question for those of you who have rodents as pets:

1. How stinky are they? Honestly?  If I buy one hamster are people going to be able to smell it the second they walk into my house?  Because I've sort of fallen in love with a crazy little white hamster at the pet store and she's so cute but also I suspect that she's sort of deranged and I just want to buy her and bring her home and feed her raisins.  Assuming you can give raisins to hamsters that is.  But we just got Elle a fish AND a snail and as a family Christmas present we're going to buy a big fish tank and I don't want to get a hamster if that's going to tip us over in to the "crazy animal people" category where people will be afraid to come to our house and they'll be able to pick us out in a crowd by our odor and by the wood shavings in our hair.  So be honest!  The fate of a nutty little hamster hangs in the balance!

 

One year ago today I liked youtube.

New York questions I need the answers to RIGHT NOW

I'm packing for my trip to New York and I have a couple of questions that I thought you, my wise and well traveled friends, might be able to answer.

1. If Elle wears handmade dresses in New York will people laugh at her?

2. If I wear maxi-skirts in New York will people laugh at me?
2.a. If people do laugh at me can I distract them by pointing out how my clothes might be dorky but at least they're not handmade like those belonging to a certain kid who's name I will not mention.
2.b. Aren't maxi-skirts the best?  I like to put them on and then go out and work in my garden.  I pretend I'm Laura Ingalls.  This isn't so much a question as it is ... something else.

3. Am I the most neurotic person on the planet?

One year ago today Jesse was afraid of everything.
Three years ago today no one would rub my nuts.
Five years ago today I craved something odd.

Please don't allow idiots near the mirophone

Last night I went to see Angela Davis speak at St Cloud State University. It was really, really interesting. She's a very powerful, compelling speaker and although I didn't agree with everything she said (especially regarding some of her thoughts on the prison system) I found her talk thought provoking.

If you're the sort of person who enjoys watching other people make idiots out of themselves then you should go to events like this one and then stick around for the question and answer segment. Get a large group of people together in a room and I guarantee that that were be several morons who just can't want to use that open mic to broadcast their particular brand of moronishness to the whole room.

Last night one guy stood up the microphone and instead of asking a question (like we were specifically instructed to do!) started rambling on with his own thoughts about the problems with the prison system. His main complaint seemed to be that we don't do enough to keep pedophiles safe while they are in prison. He went on and on about it. It was kind of fascinating. All I could think was "Dude! Way to out yourself as a sex offender!"

I mean, I suppose it's possible that this guy wasn't a pedophile. I guess. I don't know though. You don't see a lot of non-pedophiles tearing at their hair and crying "Won't someone please think of the child molesters!" I may be biased here. I for one don't give a flying flip about the safety of child molesters. In my opinion, you do something like that to a child and you kind of deserve whatever you get after that.

If anything surpassed that moment in pure OMG inducement it was the white woman who stood up at the microphone and sobbed as she asked her question. She stood there and asked Angela Davis, former Black Panther, how to help the minorities around her who just seemed to give up so easily when faced with difficulties. "I just *sob* see them and I *sob* feel so bad because they *sob* just don't try as hard as I do *sob* and I want to help them *sob* but I don't know how because *sob* they just don't have it in them to *sob sob sob* try as hard as I do."

Here is my reaction rendered in glorious emoticon form: <:^O

Somehow Angela Davis managed to give an answer that was smart, gentle, informed, compassionate and just a wee bit of a smack down. If it was just me standing up there the best I would have been able to come up with is "Did you really just say that to me? Really? What part of your brain thought it was ok to let those words leak out of your mouth?"

I wondered what answer this woman was looking for. Was Angela Davis going to tell her just the right thing to say to inspire the people around her to try harder? As my dear friend Emily said "What is she going to do? Go up to people and say 'Excuse me, I noticed that you're a person of color and that you seem to give up easier than I do. I would like to help you with that.'?"

(I am aware that the punctuation in that last sentence was totally messed up but I'm not sure how to fix it and I'm too lazy to figure it out. If only there was someone around to give me a condescending pep talk.)

Anyway, the talk was really interesting but the question and answer period just confirmed for me what I have long suspected. Idiots are drawn to open mics and captive audiences. Has anyone else ever had an experience like this?

Two years ago today Spring Break left me feeling confused and I took part in an epic battle.

A fun girl to be around

A real conversation with Jesse:

Me: I wish I had more friends.
Jesse: You just need to find a group of people who have the same interests as you.
Me: ......... I wish I had more interests.

Poor Jesse. Whenever I'm feeling lonely he has to try and do his best to prop me up and make me feel better. It's not that I want to be a big sad sack, it's that I don't know what else to do.

How do you make friends when you're an adult? I know it's pathetic that I'm even asking that but I'm serious. I don't work. I didn't go to school here so I can't call up old school friends. I'm horribly shy. I have a hard time doing new things unless I'm with someone I already know and that kind works against the purpose of meeting new people. My previous attempts at meeting people with similar interests and similar lives have been less than successful.

It's not like I have no friends at all. I have a few and I value them very much but I guess I just wish I had more. I wish my evenings had more "I think I'll call up soandso and see if they want to blah blah blah whatever it is people do together" and less "I think I'll see if my brother's on Facebook tonight."

So come on interent people, sitting there in your bathrobe with the Cheetos stain on it, tell me how I make friends! Or else I will be forced to ask Jesse to spend yet another evening rubbing my feet and telling me how awesome I am.

What should I have said?

Last week Jesse and I wend out to dinner with a co-worker of Jesse's and his wife. Um, the co-workers wife, not Jesse's. Anyway. They were very nice and we had a really good time with them. It's so rare that I get to go out with other adults so it was very nice for me. Mostly. Except for one part.

At one point the topic of my surrogacy came up and they were curious about it, asking lots of questions. I'm pretty used to that and at this point I figure I've heard just about everything anyone is going to ask. I guess I haven't heard it all though because after I told them that I was carrying the baby for a gay couple they proceeded to ask me which one was the woman in the relationship.

I'm ashamed to admit that my answer was not as good as it could have been. I blame this on the fact that I was so taken aback by the question that a good 50% of my brain had to be devoted to keeping my mouth from blurting out "Holy crap! There are still people out there that think like that!?!" I think I kind of mumbled something about neither of them being the woman but it was a cop out answer and I could have done a lot better.

I think what made it hard was that they question wasn't asked in a mean way. I mean, these were nice people asking an amazingly stupid question. I know that they weren't trying to be hateful but they just really had no idea about how ignorant and offensive that question was. If they had been rude about it I could have been rude right back and that wouldn't have been a problem for me. The problem for me came because I didn't know how to respond to such cheerful cluelessness.

How do you tell two very nice people "Wow, that's the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. Have you been out of the house in like, the last 20 years or so?"