You Can Call Me Squeegee Beckenheim

I think I should start by saying that I have what some may consider to be an unnatural LOVE for Gilmore Girls. I think love of this proportion is totally legit and everyone should feel the never ending joy which is Gilmore banter. Needless to say, if I could, I would grow up to be Lorelai Gilmore and move to Stars Hollow and marry Luke Danes (like she should have) and continue to pester Taylor Dosey simply for the sport of it.

However, I am not Lorelai Gilmore and I do not live in Stars Hollow, so I have settled for the next best thing....I will master the Gilmore banter. I already talk at approximately 17112 words per minute and I have absorbed a great deal of potentially useless socially obligatory knowledge. I think its obvious that I am splendidly quick witted and have no problem telling it like I see it. I think Gilmore style repartee is destined to be mine at some point....it just has to be!....or my evil plan to become the most talkative person on the planet will fall by the waste side! (this would be a No No).

How does one develop a desire to be Gilmored? Well, its a lengthy application process that I began when I was in elementary school. When I was just a wee little 6th grader I flipped on the entertainment box of magical stupendousness and BAM there they were...the Gilmore Girls in all there glory. While I didn't catch 90% of the fabulously crafted references I was captivated by the small town charm and endless chatter that is the Gilmore way. So I guess it is safe to assume I was a fan from the start and years of faithful thurday night viewing ensued.

Flash forward to my early 20 somethings and a fateful trip to Costco. There I was getting my economy sized shopping on and sampling some sort of fajitas dish when I beheld the sale of all sales; a sale to put all other sales to shame. Seven glorious season of witty banter and small town charm on SALE. As a beyond broke college student the Costco trip alone was a carefully calculated expense but how could I  resist? It would be like saying no to 7 neatly wrapped boxes of my youth and humor....it was simply not an option. 

=

On that fateful day I not only completed the collection that I now refer to as the Holy Grail but I also simultaneously opened Pandora's box. How could purchasing the Holy Grail lead to Pandora's Box? Well, roommate had never watch much Gilmore in her day....a travesty in which I had to correct before the world threw itself off kilter from sadness and dismay. So slowly but surely we began watching our way through all 7 seasons. We even paused every so often to Google the shitnitz out of all the amazing references and so that I could bone up on the social commentary which I hoped to some day to call my own.

Eventually, the last episode flashed across the screen and the months worth of Gilmore Marathons had come to close. A bittersweet moment it was, but thanks to that fateful trip to Costco (where p.s. they still don't know how to pack a freaking box!) I have every drop of Gilmore that the world has to offer. Now I pop a disc in from time to time and submerge myself in a Stars Hollow town meeting or a Cup of coffee at Luke's and all is right with the world.

So I shall now leave you with a few of my favorite Gilmore Quotes:

Rory: We're fondue Purists, Grandma.

Lorelai: Yea we dip old school.

Rory: Do something to make me hate you!

Lorelai: Um, go Hitler?

Logan: Rory, you're special.

Rory: Like "stop-eating-the-paste" special?

Sookie: Swear. Raise your right hand and say, 'May Destiny's Child break up if I count these blueberries.'

Michel: ....Pick another group.

Lorelai: Mom, its just a pretend wedding. J-Lo has them all them time.

Lorelai: Give me a burger, onion rings, and a list of people who killed their parents and got away with it. I need some heroes.

Lorelai: okay, I think we just found the first room in the history of the world that would've made Liberace say 'Whoa, step back. No one's that gay.'

Lorelai: oy with the poodles already....I'm telling you, it's knocking "whatchu talkin bout Willis" right out of first place.

Lorelai: Okay, so, don't wait up and remember only 2 or 3 crack heads at the most, they eat all the good cereal.

Rory: Squeegee Beckenheim?

Lorelai: I once told a store my name was Squeegee Beckenheim just to see how many magazines I would get.

....The list could go on and on and on, but i'll spare you!

XOXO

Have I Told You How Spectacular I Am???

In case the last several blog entries haven't hit home for you yet i'll catch you up.....blah blah blah I am AWESOME! To prove this I thought I would show off this stupendous blogging award that I was given.

You see up until yesterday I  was not really sure what the heck this thing was but I discovered that there is a whole big world of bloggers out there and they give awards to others to recognize them for their awesomeness....I am all for this! In receiving this award I have been asked to share 10 things about myself which is great because this blog is nothing but talking about myself so now I can kill two birds with one stone.

1. Pandora is my sole mate. It knows me better then I know myself and continuously plays the soundtrack to my life.
2.I made it through 3 years at a state university before I had to take out a loan or pay anything out of pocket.
3.I have access to the Pentagon and if you don't know what this means I am sorry for you....really I'll give you a hug later.
4.I thought my name was unique until a year ago when there was a bunch of people who had my name coming out of the woodwork...that was a blow to my ego!
5.I can sit still but I can't sit alone.
6.I have no athletic skills whatsoever....seriously! I am epically bad at all sporting events.
7.My biggest fear is that I will lose my youthful idealism and become a terrible teacher who given worksheets and watches soap operas on the computer.
8.I live a highly planned, structured, and organized life Monday through Friday and then the weekend arrives and I lose all ability to plan ahead. This is fabulous until 7 pm roles around and I realize its Saturday and I am on the couch...another momentary blow to my ego and then I have to make plans in hyper drive.
9.I have complete faith in my ability to sustain long distance friendships and Zero faith in long distance relationships. Actually, I suck at relationships in general. I should probably take a class...like charm school but girl friend school. I am a really good student.
10. I firmly believe that true happiness lies within you.

Soon I will find another deserving blogger to pass this award onto. Hmmm perhaps this will be incentive/peer pressure to get B.MO's blogging butt moving!

....ok B.Mo is officially on the blogging band wagon so I dumb her an official Sugar Doll award recipient!

XOXO

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I may have been raised like the oldest child but I am not. I have a big brother who is 11 years older than me and was plenty big enough to appreciate the sheer awesomeness of my arrival on the planet. However, this also means that he was old enough to realize that small children are basically parrots and will repeat nearly anything they are asked to....especially if you are as adorable as I was. (see!)

Not only was he old enough to recognize that I had human parrot potential, he was also a boy who loved sports and had perfected the art of armpit farts. So soon he began to teach me things like who his favorite athletes were and I would proceed to jumping off the bed screaming things like "LUC ROBITAILLE!" or "DARYL STRAWBERRY!" I, of course, did this with a lot of emphasis and plenty of gusto. I am sure this was endlessly entertaining for the both of us or why the heck would I have done it repeatedly? I also remember having and affinity for the letter B so from time to time i'd shake things up and throw in a "LETTER B" while hurling myself from my mattress top launching pad. You see, at the ripe old age of 2 the letter B and a big shot athlete were basically all the same thing and obviously of equal importance. Nonetheless, this was brother sister bonding time and I was going to make sure to ham it up and really get the most out of this undivided attention.

As I grew older my desire to repeat things like some sort of fabulous feather friend dwindled and we moved on to bigger and better things...like Yahtzee (naturally)! Of course there were other adventures in the world of big sister little brother entertainment. For example, if you older brother happens to be a football player or at least in decent shape beat the crap out of him. I was 11 years younger how much damage could I do? Well, I didn't have the answer to that one either so i figured i'd punch him till I found out. I have a sneaking suspicion that this was far less entertaining for him than my days as a squawking acrobat were, for me however, it was fabulous! Nonetheless, he found a way to even the score, like using me and my sisters incredible good looks to lure in the ladies. Our chubby cheeks and charismatic personalities were just to adorable to resist...smart fellow this brother of mine.

However, our days as chick magnets came and went, but in the end, I applaud my brothers ability to seize the rare monkey see, monkey do opportunity that flashed before him. It takes a stroke of genius and probably a little guts to take on the challenge of having a sister (as cute as me) and he has done it with grace and little personal pizzaz. Nonetheless, when it's all said and done he can at least be thankful we didn't force him into the endless rounds of pretty pretty princess that our dad endured! So for old time's sake LUUUUUC ROBITAILLE!

XOXO

Be Quiet Like Little Turkeys!?

For some in explicable reason everything is funnier at 2am and if you combine severe jet lag with a 2am conversation its three times as funny as it should be. I know this because of personal experience, you see it all started when I was 16 and embraced a once in a life time opportunity to travel Europe with my best friend.

My best friend, beccalove, is a military brat and was exiled...i mean stationed over seas in Italia! Of course the military being the military decided Italy can be conquered in a year and so she was set to move to Germany. All this was to take place during my whirlwind 3 week vacay.

The Trip....

It started out at an ungodly hour at LAX. After hugs and kisses I said adios to the pops and boarded a flight to JKF in the big apple. Upon arriving in JFK I made my way to the international terminal where I would wait for the next four hours. However, the international terminal in 2005 was under construction and reminded me of some sort of third world market place. I say this because there were pigeons flying around inside the building...classy I know. Several hours later I made my way onto my next flight and oh so soundly slept my way across the Atlantic. When I woke up the Swiss alps were outside my window and I was fairly sure the plane had crashed, I had died and entered Heaven. Who new Heaven looked so much like Europe!

I spent the next two weeks sipping wine ( I was legal YAY), eating gelato, taking pictures, and laughing till I cried. Then came the trip to Germany. The "beautiful" green suburban beast was packed and ready to hit the road, unfortunately, rocky the cat wasn't quite as prepared for the journey. This led to approximately an hour of meowing and having the back of my head mauled by an angry feline. I finally gave in and took him out of the cage and set him in my lap. The cat then proceeded to shed what I assume is 112 pounds of fur onto my black sweat pants. Thanks Rocky! I looked like a cat lady at every rest stop in Austria and Germany!

After arriving in Germany and discovering that beccalovee had  her very own apartment (the entire third floor of there new home) to herself we went straight into unpacking mode....thats when I discovered the greatest invention in the history of EVER! ...Rolladens. They are basically black out curtains times 77.

As you can clearly see they are amazing! Thanks to these bad boys I had 14 hours of blissfully uninterrupted sleep on our first night in Ramstein. The next week in Germany was fairly fabulous. We celebrated 4th of July which turned into firework hunting. You figure they are high up in the sky so you will see them...HA...not so much. After several locations were attempted we stood in the street and watched with pride for our country and elation at our ability to have located these elusive beasts! Fireworks were not the only highlight of my fourth of July abroad, you see, this was also the day that I discovered hot coco comes in "big how'ya doin" size. Apparently when words fail you sizes can be converted by simple mathematical conversion into the lesser know "how'ya doin" system. The rest of the rip revolved around braving the cold weather (its warmer in AZ in December than Germany is in July) and soaking up the history of each place we visited. Soon it was time for me and beccalove to traverse the globe and venture back to LA.

The Trip Home....

When we arrived at Frankfurt we discovered that there was a good chance we were being punk'd. Our gate literally could not have been located any further from the security check point ... seriously! After what felt like an eternity crossing the Sahara we  reached our gate and began begging a pleading to get our seats changed next to one another. Mission accomplished on that one...One small step for Delta air one Giant leap for single female passengers.

After boarding we discovered that our flight attendant was older than Santa Claus himself....actually he looked a lot like the old guy who plays chess with himself before one of the Toy Story movies. He kept offering us newspapers written in languages I don't speak and cautiously trotting at a snails pace down the aisle. 

            

Soon we landed back in the foreign Bazaar known as the International Terminal of JFK and somehow made it to our connecting flight on time. The next flight was less eventful and these flight attendants were not old enough to have seen the Titanic sink.

Back in LA....

Buy no we were not sure what time zone we were in and calculus was required to try and unearth how many hours we had spent wide awake chatting with strangers and eating peanuts. But none of that really mattered because I got to reunite with my lil sis and pops! The three of us girls started chatting at a million miles an hour and hilarity obviously ensued (poor pops!). Looking back I realize it was delirium and not hilarity but at that point who cares! Not I.

Several hours later we made our way to bed...or so I thought. The hilarity and incessant chatter had not concluded you see, and after several attempts to stop talking and find our way into neverland someone would inevitably break the silence and laughter would, again, be reverberating off the walls. Finally, enough was enough! So my sister in her infinite wisdom whispers "Shhhhhh guys! Be quiet like little Turkeys!" 

So the next time you are jet lagged, sleep deprived, and have crossed 232 time zones please remember to be quiet like little turkeys.

XOXO

Silly Rabbit....Tricks Are For Kids

Most of us have pulled a few pranks in our lives. I, of course, am no exception to this rule. However, I showed up on the scene a little later then most. You see I was a good kid; what one might call a goody too shoes. I did as I was told for the most part and avoided dangerous tomfoolery like the plague. I therefore escaped elementary school with very few scars, no fillings, and no broken bones. While I was adorable and quite precocious I was not the mischievous type and no one really expected me to pull an Ashton Kutcher and start punking people for a living. So for many years I lived up to my good looks and went about being sweet and nice and forgetting all about the sugar and spice.

THEN...

I had to be a grown up and get a job. The great thing about hourly employee's is their youth. Business owners all over the place hand the keys over to the most responsible "kids" in the house and hope that their business will live to tell the tale....Or at least this was my experience working at Starbucks. You see I was the young-in being a whole 17 years old and always worked at night with the boys who were fun loving 20 somethings. All the other women who worked there at the time worked in the mornings and usually complained that we hadn't done this or that the night before. You know how ladies can be nag nag nag bitch nag nag. So slowly but surely we decided to start pulling harmless but hilarious pranks so that the morning ladies would have a real reason to have their panties in a bunch.

It started off innocently enough....

Directly below the espresso bar in our store was a double door refrigerator. The right side had assorted types of 1 gallon milk cartons. The left side had whip cream canisters, soy milk, and apple juice. When you work in a fast paced environment you start to work on auto-pilot and that fact that everything has a place makes life convenient. Its almost like doing a dance. So we decided to change the beat. We switched everything from the left side of the refrigerator to right side. So every time you reached for 2% you got soy milk and so on and so forth. Needless, to say we took there Samba to a Rave.

Then one night things were taken to up a notch...

Our store had more timers then is even remotely necessary and the nearly incessant beeping from one timer or another was the bane of our working existence. That day in particular there had been a great deal of nagging about the night crew not properly using the timers to know when coffee was expired etc. So we figured we would let them know that we were well aware of how the timers worked. A timer was set to go off at 5:50 am just before the doors were to open the next morning and then the timer was hidden. Oh but not hidden just anywhere. Those clever boys hid it in the rafters of the store up high and out of site. The next morning at the ass crack of dawn.....BEEP BEEP  BEEP BEEP BEEP..... began resonating from what I assume sounded like the heavens. What makes it twice as devious was that these particular timers will never stop beeping unless the little red button is pressed. So these ladies scoured the store and after a great deal of hunting high and low and probably going insane from all the beeping they located our secret timer hiding spot.

I am sure it goes without saying that this was nearly equivalent to a declaration of war and for the next several weeks you slept...or rather worked with one eye open. Several weak attempts at retaliation were made and eventually, the shenanigans came to a rest. However, we always new that waiting around  the corner there could be a delightfully obnoxious surprise of some sort....and every so often a caramel bottle sword fight would erupt but never to the magnitude of our glory days. Looking back I will always remember how much fun it was being 17...because you see the BEST tricks are for kids.

XOXO

The Longest Sleepover Ever

Having a little sister is kind of like becoming the most popular girl in school when you are only 4 years old...or at least that's how it was for me. You see when I was a few months shy of my 4th birthday my parents for some reason had another child. I was obviously cute and entertaining but I guess they needed a little something more and thus my little sister was born.

At first this was very exciting and I proudly wore my "I'm a BIG sister" T-shirt everywhere. However, about a week past and I realized this sleepover wasn't ending anytime soon. Her crib occupied a crucial play time corner of my room and she cried a lot. I figured that something had to be done about this noise ordinance violator and being the clever tot that I was I had a few tricks up my sleeves. which led to...

OPERATION TOY BOX
The way that I saw it she looked like a baby doll and acted like a baby doll, so maybe, just maybe, if I treated her like a baby doll this whole business would be resolved. Soon I found my window of opportunity and so I drug her by her poor little baby arms across the house as fast as my little legs would carry me. Somehow I hoisted the small bundle of dead weight into my Playskool toy chest and closed the lid. Surprisingly, there was not objection on her part and so I went about my day. Until about 30 seconds of silence passed and my mother realized it was SILENT (p.s. children are never quiet unless something mischievous is taking place). She quickly realized my sister was not in her baby seat and said "Where is your baby sister?" with fright in her voice. Realizing that the jig might be up I decided to take the denial route and said "I don't know mommy". Soon baby noises were heard emanating from the toy chest and my mother discovered her infant calmly resting a top a heaping pile of hard plastic children's toys. Obviously, operation toy box was not a success.

Soon I realized that she was hear to stay and so I settled into the idea of having a little sister. I began to realize that from then on I had a playmate and an enemy, a captive audience, a second closet, and a new best friend. When we were little it was bickering and laughter, dress up and dump trucks. Now its bickering and laughter, dress up and drivers licences but whatever may come I can always say it's been the longest sleepover ever and I hope it never ends.

 XOXO

Adventures in Obsessive Compulsive Behavior

While I have no medical proof I am certain I have at least a mild form of OCD or at least some sort of obsessive organizational disorder. Either way this has led to many interesting encounters with strangers who think I am insane. Among those strangers is the entire staff at my local Costco. You see Costco likes to go green and put your economy sized purchases in old boxes. I am all for this concept, however, they do this day in and day out and not once has the practice made perfect. Every time I shop there I inevitably repack my box in order to maximize the amount of food that can reasonably fit in the box. In my obviously twisted mind this is not a difficult concept. You see a box, usually an oddly shaped box with only 3 out of 4 sides, and you place the gargantuan grocery items in said box with efficiency. Key word here is efficiency! Am I the only person who see's the sense in this sort of organizational compulsion?

However....

Not all of my obsessive tendencies make as much logical sense. For example, I cannot handle hangers chillin amongst the clothes if they are not hard at work holding my clothes up. These lazy unused hangers cannot simply fraternize with their friends on there day off! So I take my empty hangers and put them in a special part of the closet. But, oh the madness does not stop there, I then color coordinate and categorize these lonely hangers for further use. Is this at all necessary? NO! Do I feel an unending need to do this? YES!

However.....

This does not mean that my room is particularly clean. While I cannot allow the unused hanger to stay in the closet I often lose gusto after I remove the offending object from the closet and they land on the floor in a designated spot at the foot of my bed. YES, my warped and twisted OCD has contingency plans! I cannot leave the hangers just anywhere on the floor there is a special place for these discards. Obviously!

I am willing to acknowledge that none of this is logical to the average human, but to me it all makes perfect sense. While I expect no one else to uphold my ridiculous standards of organization I cannot simply abandon them and move on...that would be CRAZY!

.....and so I go forth confusing the Costco employs, entertaining my roommate with refrigerator organization antics, and discarding the unused hangers. Such is life.

XOXO

Great Narcissists Throughout History

With my deep seeded love and nerdy affection for history I cannot help but pay homage to the great narcissists that came before ME. Therefore, I have compiled a list of the 10 most influential narcissists throughout time:

10. Justin Timberlake...Thank you for announcing that you, and you alone, were bringing sexy back. We are all very thankful for your contributions on that one.

9.Oprah Winfrey...This fabulous mogul billionaire extroardinaire simply has but to slap her signature "O" on things and -BAM- she's making coin! (aspire to this financialy productive form of narcissism).

8. Queen Elizabeth I (aka The Virgin Queen)...She was enough of a narcissist to be well aware that no man was good enough for her. I appreciate this sort of blatant hubris. You Go Girl!

7.Marilyn Monroe...As America's favorite blonde bombshell she proudly sang Happy Birthday Mr.President to her not so secret lover John F. Kennedy. What makes this a great narcissist moment is that Ms. Monroe did this with audio rolling knowing full well that Mrs. Kennedy would be able hear it, every sultry word, for word.

6. George W. Bush...He was confident enough to lead a country which during his presidency began the "English Only Movement" all the while, he him self is yet to have fully mastered the English language. Now thats some narcissistic Strategery!

5.Frida Kahlo....Is one of the last centuries better known painter's, as she should be given that most of her painting are of herself. I never forget a face....that I have seen 50 times before!

4.Henry Ford....This motor god is known for having revolutionized the automotive industry in America and thanks to his narcissism it is true. They say that necessity is the mother of invention and he soooooo badly needed to keep every penny he could for himself that he was forced to invent the assembly line production system which forever changed the world of transportation.

3.Christopher Columbus...On his search for the new world he so believed in his own horrible navigational skills that he took an incredibly wrong turn and landed in the America's during his attempt to reach India by sea. Like any truly great narcissist he was not prepared to admit any fault so he simply named the people's he discovered Indians. Simple and incredibly narcissistic answer to that little mix up.

2. Sigmund Freud...with very little time and effort it can be uncovered that most of the "brilliant" psychological revelations of Freud's are merely an explanation of how his own twisted mind worked; but thanks Freud for telling us that sexual desire is a primary motivation for human life. (we may never have figured it out without him!)

1. Eve....as in Adam&Eve. This fabulous narcissist is quite literally the mother of narcissism. Believing so fervently in her own impenetrable fabulousness that she brought SIN and all it's glory to God's green earth.

I must say thank you to these fabulous forefather's of narcissism. Without them the world as we know it would not be the same, and I dare say it would be a very boring place to be.

XOXO

The Beginning is the End and the Middle

I have recently become aware of the increasing number of things in my world that are all beginning and ending at once. As a senior in college I cannot help but focus on graduation and the scary prospect of finding gainful employment in lean economic times. However, I am also in the beginning stages of new friendships and very much in the middle of old lifelong friendships. I am nearing the end of my current job and headed into the beginning of my semester of student teaching.

....and the list goes on like this. It's all beginning, and ending, and complacently settling in the middle somewhere.

Therefore, my obviously massive brain has spent a great deal of time contemplating this unique station of life in which I am currently occupying. I have found it curious that with so much new, old, first, last, and somewhere in betweens I am not a wreck! Granted I am cool under pressure (not!) and am deeply in tune with the ways of the world (pssh! yeah right). So how is it that I got here to this place and why does it not stress me out and cause me to go grey prematurely and look like a hobbit? ( I am gorgeous in case you were wondering ...hehe)

....hmmm deep thoughts and pondering.....

I've decided it is because I am 21 years old. I am single, unattached, friendly, hard working, intelligent, introspective, and completely narcissistic. Which altogether should explain that none of this is at all uncharacteristic of a person who resembles these marvelous qualities. That isn't to say that I am the only person to ever ponder these swift moving currents of change but more to suggest that I am in this beginning and ending conundrum because I am living on the precipice of monumental life changes. I am embracing and releasing my childhood as well as my adulthood. I am saying goodbye to over 20 solid years as a student and opening the door to 20 plus years as a teacher. I am planning my journey and embarking into a world that I can only partially control and create. This is a time in which it has to be all about me. I have the power to direct my life in the directions of my choosing based (almost solely) on ME ME ME!

...So yes! I am a narcissist. I love myself. I love my life.

..............and because of all of that I can blissfully dance through the many opening and closing doorways in which my life currently has to offer.

XOXO