Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Reach for sky, don't assume it's too high.

Well, this is just ridiculous.
Here I go again with a post, after I said I was going to be gone for awhile. Only the most capricious of souls could break such a mighty promise.
Capricious, that's me.

Anyway, I went to Sky High today with some chums. Do you know what Sky High is? It's three trampolines with slanted walls shoved into a warehouse, with vending machines and game gadgets jammed in the empty spaces. The entire place smells like feet, and there are constantly small children capering about underfoot to trip over.
Sounds like just loads of fun, eh?
It actually was pretty gosh-darned fun, once we started boinging. It's hard to bounce off the walls and be bored at the same time; that borders on being an oxymoron. I mean, sure, there was the occasional kid bouncing into your legs or tripping onto you, but it was a fine experience.
We were the only people there who were above the age of eight. The "staff" guys, each one lanky and zitty and blond and looking exactly the same as every other "staff" guy who worked there, making me ponder the possibility that they were all clones of each other, wandered over to make sure we were following all the rules far too often. The rules included no sitting, no standing on these red pads that were all over the floor, no touching the yellow pads on the walls, no wearing shoes without laces, no talking too loud, etc. One of them would always be a few feet away, ready to pounce and say "EXCUSE ME LADEEZ BUT THAT'S NOT ALLOWED."
Just because we're not six years old and adorable, they think we've come to tear the place down. I've grown out of innocence; now I am discredited by the world.
Well, maybe not the WORLD. But at least the staff guys at Sky High.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

BACK. *poof*

She sneaks back onto her blog, suddenly drawn to it now that she's admitted defeat and abandoned it.
Funny how that works, isn't it?
I do have something to blog about, luckily. Last night I went to a hockey arena to watch hockey players play a hockey game. I was not anticipating any amount of fun, let me tell you. I have never been a huge aficionado of crowded sports arenas with big sweaty men in jerseys waving their jumbo cokes and greasy buffalo wings around as they shout bits of advice at the players. "PUT IT IN THE NET, THORNTON!" "MAKE THE FRIGGIN' SHOT!"
The only reason I can describe a hockey game so vividly is because I have actually attended one before. One of my mother's "teacher-friends" (She's a first-grade teacher, and apparently all the teachers at the school she works at are real good pals.) had four tickets that she was supposed to sell to a guy through craigslist or something. But then the guy decided he didn't want to go, or something. He just never showed up. She wasn't a hockey fan, but knew that my dad and sister were through my mom, so gave them to us.
This was a couple years ago. I was a young and vulnerable child, at the tender age of eleven, totally unprepared for the wild mayhem of a packed hockey arena. I clung to my father's sleeve as he excitedly maneuvered the family through the fit-to-bust passing areas of the pavilion. During the game, huge screens situated all around the ice rink flashed between bright advertisements and encouragements to "MAKE SOME NOISE!"
Believe me, the audience fully took the screen up on that offer. People shouted and clapped and hollered and belched and stomped and cheered and booed and screamed and applauded and cried out until the entire arena was one big atrium of excited cacophony.
If I were a hockey player, which I will never be, but still, if I were a hockey player, I would not be able to concentrate in the middle of all that obstreperous bedlam.
But then, maybe it's quieter down on the ice, like being in the eye of a hurricane. But I will never know, because I wasn't on the ice. I was one cell in a sea of pandemonium, and it nearly drove me out of my eleven-year-old mind.
I really tried to appreciate the hockey game, but it was difficult when I had no idea what was going on down there. Every once in a while people would start whooping extra-loud for no apparent reason. I always knew when they had scored a goal, because the entire sea always leapt up out of their seats in a grand rollicking wave. Plus, I knew what a goal was, even if I understood no other aspect of the game. I would obediently stand up until the thrill had died and people returned to their seats.
My mom got my dad four tickets for Christmas this year, so we all went again. It was basically the same thing last night, except I am no longer an impressionable child, and I could easily handle the mad turbulence of the arena. I tried to enjoy it, because hockey tickets are expensive, and I knew it was probably the last time I would attend a game. But I think one visit every couple of years is enough of that kind of environment that I will ever require.

Today I woke up with the wisps of a nightmare holding fast in my mind. I wrote everything down as quickly as I could, before the memory made like a winter dove and fluttered away.
It made me think of somebody. I don't know if you read my blog, but if you do, I miss you.
I don't think anybody reads my blog anymore. One of my former readers abandoned her blog, one I never knew in person but seems to have disappeared into thin air, and one is gone from my real life and hasn't left footsteps on my blog-life.

Hello, nobody.

Oh. I just looked at my blog, and somebody checked the "Jeni sucks" box. Not exactly exemplary feedback, but at least that means somebody is still reading this thing.
Don't expect me to keep updating because I've ended my hiatus so briefly. I don't know if this blog dead or alive. Maybe it's a flower seed that just needs some coaxing to bloom; or maybe it was buried too deep under the surface and is destined to ferment until the end of time.

Monday, December 28, 2009

GONE. *poof*

So, I will be taking an extended hiatus from the blogosphere.
I decided this a while ago, but just today I realized that I never actually posted a warning of hiatus-ness. So, this is it.
This blog has really been going downhill for a long time, and I don't think I can stretch its tenuous existence any more than I have already. At one point I've got to admit that I have nothing to write about and put a stop to the burbling posts full of space sentences and rambling.
Even if I did have something to say, I can't get on the computer to post because it is constantly being used by somebody or another. Usually my dad.
I don't know if this blog is on a break, or just broken. I might be back, or maybe not; I'm not going to make any promises.

Friday, December 11, 2009

The Grand Fiasco.

I just came back from baking cookies at my friend's house.
It was a disaster.
She has apparently never made cookies or cake or anything from scratch before in her entire life, a great worshipper of the boxed cake mixes and refrigerated slice-and-bake cookie dough rolls.

Earlier today, discussing whether homemade or storebought cookies are better:
Me: "Homemade cookies taste better."
Judy: "You can't even tell if you don't taste them side by side."
Me: "People will be impressed if you tell them you made cookies yourself."
Judy: "If you don't mention it, nobody will even think about it."
Me: "Homemade cookies are more thoughtful to give to people."
Judy: "Storebought cookies are more convenient."
Etc, etc, etc.
There was no baking soda or vanilla extract in her house, so we made a quick stop at mi casa for me to dash into my kitchen and retrieve the necessary ingredients. She was unsure of the purpose of baking soda. I told her it was so the cookies would rise. She was unsure of what rising was.
She only had one egg in her fridge, so we sent her dad to get another carton. Then I couldn't find any butter in there.
Me: "You don't have any butter..."
Judy: "Yeah I do... right here."
And then she pulls out this big tub of fake-vegetable-oil-butter-flavored-spread.
Me: "...that's not butter."
Judy: "Yes it is, look."
And then she points at the word "butter" in the phrase "butter flavored spread."
Me: "Well okay then we'll see how this goes."
And then I open the tub.
Me: "Um. It's empty."
Judy: "Oh. Whoops."
So she calls her dad at the store and tells him to get more butter. Guess what he brings back? Another tub of 48% vegetable oil "butter flavored" spread.
Me: "Sigh. Okay, I guess we'll just put in a little more flour."
So we're sticking all the ingredients in a bowl and beating it all into a fine greasy mess, thanks to the oily fake-butter concoction.
Judy: "This beater feels really hot."
Me: *adds sugar*
Judy: "I think it's overheating."
Me: "Okay, we better hurry before it breaks, then."
So we throw the rest of the stuff in and she flicks the beater on high speed.
Me: "Hurry gogogogogo the top is starting to smoke I think hurry gogogogo!!"
I smash a couple eggs into the bowl, glug in the vanilla, and dump in the flour.
Beater: *breaks*
We dumped the smoking, useless appliance in the backyard and stir the rest of the ingredients in by hand. It is a slow, grueling process, but we are finally ready to plop greasy balls of dough onto trays. We stick them in the oven for ten minutes, then check to see if they're done.
Me: "Ehhh they could use a couple more minutes."
Judy: "Okay!" *punches button*
I didn't see that she entered FIFTEEN more minutes of baking time, when I had meant just two or three. And I didn't realize until it had been quite a while...
Me: "Hey, the oven hasn't beeped yet."
Judy: "Well it still has five minutes to go."
Me: "??? How much more time did you put it in for???"
Judy: "Fifteen minutes..."
The cookies are almost completely blackened.
The next few batches come out looking fine... but then we tasted them.
Us: "EW."
That butter spread stuff really messed up the cookies. They tasted like dry, dense lumps of ickiness that even her little brother wouldn't eat.

I don't think I convinced her that homemade cookies are better than storebought ones.