Dances with Sticks: What is Yashu?

It rained during my entire drive home on Tuesday (the WHOLE thing!). But it was okay.

There was a mini-van in front of me for a while. There were at least three kids in the back (maybe four). We both got in the left lane to pass a tut. But this was not any tut. This was a tut that carries C-A-Rs. This particular tut was full of Volkswagen Beetles. I look through the windshield and see fists FLYING ALL OVER THE PLACE in the mini-van. Ultimate punch buggy opportunity? I think so. I laughed.

It made driving in the rain totally worth it.

My mother and I watched giant slugs race through an obstacle course when I got home. That was nice. They were climbing over and through all kinds of obstacles! And sharp things! Their slime prevents them from getting impaled by a bed of nails! Think about that one. Visualize it.

My dad gets +10 points for not letting the turkey bag touch the heating element of the oven this year. I appreciated the lack of burning plastic. No fires this year!

Nack went to this computer place (it has a name) for some ridiculous Black Friday stuff at 5am. I did not join him. I did have to look for a hidden sticker though. I didn't even get a prize when I found it.

We got a new Christmas light 3-D thing. It's an igloo and two penguins. Now my dad wants a polar bear so we can put one of the penguins in its mouth.

Now on to the story you're all here for!

My dad had to go to Walgreens to get chocolate Advent calendars on Sunday. My mother and I were hanging ornaments on the tree (she hangs normal ones, I hang the ugly handmade ones, she takes the ugly ones down, I hang the ones with missing limbs, she takes the ones with missing limbs down and throws them at me, etc.) when the house phone rang. I went to answer it. I saw it was my Dad's cell phone number and proceeded to hand it to my mother. It's not unusual for him to call us from the driveway. Especially if he's on his way to the airport. But he wasn't on his way to the airport; he was on his way to Walgreens. I figured he probably forgot why he went to Walgreens and was calling to ask why he was there.

My mother answers the phone. I hear her say, "What? You what? Are you in the driveway?"

He is not in the driveway. He is at Walgreens, duh.

I only hear one end of this conversation but I know it's a good one because at one point she says, "Do you need me to send your daughter? She has small hands."

Oh, yes. This is going to be a HELL of a story.

Mensa Mama ends the conversation. I look up at her and ask, "Uhh...why do we need my hands and where am I going?"

I have to wait a few minutes for an answer because she's laughing so hard she can't breathe, much less speak.

My father was preparing to exit his vehicle. He unbuckled the seat belt and took his keys out of the ignition. Somehow, he dropped his keys between hit seat and the middle thingie (it has a name but the name is irrelephant). Okay. When he went to try to stick his hand between the seat and the thingie, he accidentally locked the doors. He had yet to open his door, so he just locked himself into his car. And because he locked it, if he tried to unlock it from the inside and open the door, he would set off his alarm. And if he set off the alarm, he couldn't make it stop because his keys are stuck between the seat and the thingie.

So he strugglebusses to reach the keys and ends up pushing them farther into the crevasse where everyone loses important things like pen caps and coins and eyeliner and Marshmallow Mateys.

So he decides to call my mother.

She asks him if she should just bring him the extra keys. That would be a genius idea.

Except that the extra keys are in about 17 pieces on the counter because something was hinky and Nack was going to "fix" them. Months ago. So the extra keys are not an option.

She asks him if she should send ME to Walgreens so I can use my small hands and get the keys. That does not solve the whole setting-off-the-incredibly-loud alarm problem. He would still have to open the door from the inside and set off the alarm.

She asks him if he has any hangers in his car. He doesn't.

She makes him hang up and not call the police to help him because all they're going to do is laugh at him.

Did I mention that now all the windows are fogged up?

He ends up using a pen and some creative profanity to free the keys. He calls us back to tell us he got them and I don't have to go to Walgreens with a hanger and a stick of butter.

The best part?

Walgreens didn't even have any f***ing Advent calendars.


Out-of-Context Quotes from the Past Few Days

"I'll be there in 20. Not that it matters because we sleep in separate beds..."

"So there's a girl behind you wearing a red shirt."
"Okay."
"I need you to look over there..."
"And?"
"And tell me if she combed her hair today."

"Oh. This is Grandma-ma's umbrella. I should give it back to him."
"Maybe that's why he's so insecure!"

"Eyebrows. Eyebrows are weird."

"It smells like candy corn and cat pee over here. What the hell happened?!"

"And THAT is how you lay a mofo OUT." (Karl!)

Yashuglyphica

I don't really have any epic stories from this week.

I'm trying out a new nickname for Yashu. We'll see how it goes.

I drew a wreath on our schedule board and that was apparently not allowed and I had to wear a "WREATH MAKER" dunce hat (made of green paper with a star on top) and sit on the barstool with my guilty dog face. Glyph will upload the picture eventually. I WAS JUST FEELING SOME CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, OKAY?

I may have had coffee too late in the day yesterday so I was up late. But it ended up being good because Nitty needed help with analyzing a poem and my caffeine-induced, late-night Crazy came out and we ended up with a pretty bitchin' extended metaphor. Then I started crashing and telling him that haters gonna hate and critics gonna criticize and may have used a Ke$ha song title to explain myself. But before that it was good.

One of my Kindergarteners asked me why I was wearing "kid shoes." I had my pink floral tennis shoes on.

"Am I too old to wear kid shoes?"

"How old are you?"

"20"

"Yep. You're a teacher; you can't wear kid shoes!"

"But I know how to tie the laces!"

"Yeah because you're not allowed to be a teacher if you don't know how to tie your shoes! That's one of the first things of being a big kid."

Whatever, dude.

I just have a lot of stellar Out of Context Quotes for this week.

"She's like, 'This sucks. Imma try to fix it I guess. Wash thy face.' then later she's all like 'Well, I'm too poor anyway so f*** it, send thee out the door, critics gonna criticize (haters gonna hate) this is my shit.' She can't change her work just like she can't change a child; We R Who We R."

"You’re tired."

"You know what is a f***ing good song? Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston."

"I hate humans! My butt is so sore!"

"You need to study! You can’t spend all your time hunting humans!"

"It looks like a double-ended penis."

"Hey Nack is it bad if Tiva feels hot to the touch on the sides?"

"Yes."

"Can you fix it?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"I'm like a hundred and fifty miles away."

"...accepted."

"Do you know how to clean the fan?"

"Yeah. You flip it over,"

"Okay,"

"And then unscrew the screws,"

"Nope. Not happening."

"Didn't think so."

"Where's your iPod?"

"It's syncing."

"You know what you should name...

"THE TITANIC."

"YOU RUINED IT."

*Molly sticks her unshaven leg out for Yashu to see*

Yashu: "OH MY GOD. I'M EATING!"

"Did you hear Yashu's latest insult? She called her 'White Girl.' It was almost as good as when she called me 'Lemon Shorts.'"

"We can go to the paint place!"

"CHINATOWN!"

"What's the difference between 'affect' and 'effect'"?

"Affect- action. Effect- thing."

"No one has ever explained it that simply before."

"Boom. Roasted."

"Sometimes when you're writing something all of a sudden it derails and turns to something else and you just decide to roll with it instead of fixing it. Like a Pandora station gone horribly wrong. Anne Bradstreet = hinky Pandora station."

Like a Skyscraper

Sometimes I listen to a song, decide I don't really like it, and switch to something else.

Sometimes I listen to a song, decide I don't really like it, yet continue to listen to it.

Sometimes I listen to a song, decide I don't really like it, but become helplessly addicted to it for no good reason.

When Situation Number 3 happens, I usually feel the need to drag others down with me so I don't have to suffer alone.

This is how we ended up with the events of this weekend. 

What happened this weekend? Yashu sang Skyscraper in an insane Indian accent while I accompanied her on an electric keyboard. At an open mic night. In front of actual people. In between actual performers. On a stage. At U of I. In a bar.

How did we get to this point?

It all started when I first heard Skyscraper sometime in September. It was Situation Number 3 until it all went horribly, horribly wrong. Somehow I used my powers for evil instead of good and introduced the ridiculousness to Yashu, Bex, and Kristen. When Bex was gone for a while, I learned the hard way that my weirdness gets a little out of hand. I put the song and the lyrics on Yashu's wall. We continuously listened to Skyscraper and Yashu began to sing along. There was one problem: the highest note in the song was really f***ing high and Yashu (and the rest of us) couldn't come close to hitting it without pulling something and breaking a few windows. So I had a brilliant idea.Get the sheet music and transpose it!

I bought the sheet music and transposed it so it was moved down a little. We had to find a key where the high note was still okay and the lowest parts weren't too low. Done.

I started practicing. Yashu started practicing. We weren't practicing for anything in particular; we just wanted to be able to to this because...actually I have no idea why. We just had to.

Bex returns. Suddenly, I have the song almost down, Yashu knows almost all the words, and Kristen and I choreographed an unnecessarily interpretive dance. It had officially reached about an 8 or a 9 on the ridiculous scale. 

By mid-October, I had the song down and even rewrote and added to it because I'm lazy and tend to half-ass what's in front of me and play what seems close yet not write it down because I'm convinced I'll remember it and then I don't. I wrote down the bridge this time, though.

We performed an early version for Mensa Mama and Nack at m house over Fall Break. This was about the time when we decided it would be much better if Yashu sang in an Indian accent. At first, we thought maybe she could start out without an accent and when the song started to build up, her accent could just suddenly come out. But it was easier for her to just sing the whole thing in the accent instead of switching into it. Even better.

The open mic night came up. We suddenly had a reason to practice. There was an event! We could do it at the event! It all started coming together.

Yashu and I practiced. Separately, of course.

The day of the event, we decided it was probably a good idea to legitimately practice together. We ran through it a few times. It was ridiculous. 

And then we went to U of I. We got up on stage, I faked her out by playing a few notes to test the keyboard, and then it started. She did her crazy eyes, her crazy accent, and some surprise crazy gesturing. It was wonderful. Especially because everyone in the bar had NO IDEA WHAT WAS HAPPENING. Yashu hadn't spoken at all, so everyone there who didn't know her had no idea if it was serious or not. Everyone from our group of friends and her group of friends were laughing their asses off but the people there for the open mic night looked a little dazed and confused. It was perfect.

The best part? We thought ahead and had people get video. There's a shaky one and a still one (good foresight, Sam). They're on Facebook.

It went all the way to 11.

What else went all the way to 11? The rest of my weekend (minus right now because I'm procrastinating).

Post-ridiculousness, I brilliantly decided to stay with Trixie so I didn't have to drive back. I mostly wanted to see her and rationalized it by thinking it would be smarter to just stay there instead of driving back at night.

I pick her up and we decide we need some snackage. We go to the grocery store and realize we have no idea what we want to eat and kind of browse a little bit. We walk through the aisle with rice and I see arborio rice. OMG we're totally going to make risotto. It's no longer a want; it's a need. We grab all the necessary ingredients (including Rachael Ray chicken stock because Rachael Ray is a need) and some less necessary ingredients like pineapple and ice cream and garlic bread and make our way back to her apartment.

Making risotto from scratch at 10pm on a Friday night? Don't mind if I do!

I successfully wung (winged? wung? I like wung) my way through the risotto, Trixie heated up the garlic bread in the bag that we weren't completely confident wasn't going to burst into flames, and we started the DVD player. Did I mention we were going to have a mini-House marathon? We ate our derishious, classic Principi food (and honored Mensa Mama by drinking her favorite beverage) and watched 5 episodes of House. 

Well, 4. We both kind of food coma-ed our way through the fifth episode.

I woke up partway through the 5th episode, saw Tritter on the screen (10 points if you can tell me what season we watched), shuddered, and went back to sleep. He's scary scary  like doot-da-doos and pool balls.

We slept in until 11 the next morning (duh) and went to Starbucks (duh) because Christmas Cups started on November 1st (duh).

We were sitting at a table and I was facing the windows. We were almost done when I suddenly felt like I had to look out the window.

Sidebar: These things happen sometimes. Junior year I was in APLAC (I think) when I suddenly felt like I had to look out the window. I walked over to the windows, looked outside, and saw my mother walking up through the parking lot and into the front doors. This was before she volunteered in Campus Ministry so she had no reason to be there and I had no reason to know she was there. It was creepy. My cousin called his mother to go home sick but because she was working, my mother went to get him instead. I couldn't have known that. I just felt like I had to look out the window and I did and it was weird. Twilight Zone theme!

Back on track.

I looked out the window at Starbucks. There's a group of people walking by. I saw the side of a girl's face and said, "Wow she looks like Caroline!" I kept staring at her. The group stopped to talk to someone so I kept creepily staring at her. She didn't turn toward the window, though, so I couldn't see her face straight on. It totally looked like Caroline, though! The face was right, the hair was right, the outfit was right, the body was right (I know my wife, people) but it couldn't be because Caroline doesn't go to U of I! I even asked Trixie if she thought the girl looked like Caroline. I decided to humor myself and call her. I watch bizzarro-world Caroline as the phone rings and I don't see her move to pick up her phone or anything. But Caroline answers her phone.

Molly: "Uhh...are you at U of I right now?"

Caro: "...Yes? Why?"

Molly: "HOLY F*** TURN AROUND AND LOOK IN THE WINDOW OF THE STARBUCKS."

Caro: "WHAT?!"

She whips around and I run out the door. Holy shit. IT IS CAROLINE. MY WIFE IS OUTSIDE THE STARBUCKS. WHAT THE PISS?! NEITHER ONE OF US GOES TO THIS SCHOOL YET WE'RE BOTH HERE ON THE SAME STREET AT THE SAME TIME AT THE SAME ESTABLISHMENT AND I HAPPENED TO LOOK UP AS SHE WAS WALKING BY. HOLY PISS.

We screamed a little bit (lotta bit), hugged, and then went our separate ways. She had to be somewhere with the rest of her group and I had to go back to Trixie because I had to take her back and leave because I had to be back on campus to give a tour.

Twilight Zone theme again!

Best weekend ever?

I think so.

Out-of-Context Quotes from the Past Few Days:

"Were you go run run running?"

"I was rowing with one paddle!"

"Now there's a car in my garage with no brakes."

"I thought the car was in Casey's mailbox."

"Hey, do you need any penis animals?"

"Nope I'm all set for now."

*Molly drops her keys*

*Molly drops her keys again*

"It's because they're blue."

"I'M GLAD YOU UNDERSTAND ME, YASHU."