Thursday, June 28, 2012

You White. You Hair Gold.

In case you don't know already, I had to move back in with my parents.  I got a job up in Elizabeth, but from my old house in the south part of Colorado Springs, it would have been over an hour drive each way.  I like living in my car as much as the next person (you can tell by all the empty Diet Cokes and trash on the floor), but that's just a bit much for me.  So we decided to put the house up for sale and move in with the parental units so we wouldn't have to do it frantically in 6 days if the house sells.  Also, they live in Black Forest, which is a bit closer to Elizabeth (just in case we don't find a house to buy soon). 


My adorable house.  Wanna buy it?

I've lived in my house on the Southsiiiide for over three years now.  That's definitely enough time for me to turn gangsta, which is of course, awesome, and for me to realize that the white folk up here are super different than my white trash ways.  I am accustomed to falling asleep to the lulling sound of fireworks being set off in the cul-de-sac well before the Fourth of July, this one guy's laugh that sounds like this: "huh huh huh" "huh" "huh," and the occasional Gatorate-bottle-whipping extravaganza (We poe, we can't afford no guns.).  Yes, you heard it.  Whipping.  Let me enlighten you.


You're welcome.  Anyway, so I'm totally used to leaving my grocery cart in the middle of the aisle at King Soopers, where I am also no longer shocked to see multiple thongs and/or back boobs, be harrassed to buy someone's extra food stamps so he can buy crack rocks, and walk past the 3 security guards at the door without realizing they are even there.  If that isn't hood, I don't know what is.  One time my mom went shopping with me at the dollar store off of Academy and there was a line that had 4 or 5 people in it waiting to check out.  Let it be known that my mother has lived in White American Suburbia since 1991 and finds it rude that people leave their carts in the middle of the aisle at King Soopers.  So Mother Dearest did not want to wait in line.  In Monument, one does not wait in line.  They open up more lines for you in Monument and you still look at them condescendingly, like, "why didn't you do that before I had to sigh in distaste?"  She looked at me and whispered conspiratorally, "Maybe if I can make eye contact with the checker they will realize they should open up another line."  I laughed.  HAH.  This be the southside.  Yo.  Oh, Mother.  That doesn't work in these here parts.  I watched as Mom tried to make eye contact with the checker.  It was a little uncomfortable.  I think she finally did, so of course, as expected, the checker did not call to have another line opened.  I think she actually started checking slower.  It really was a learning oppotunity. 

I have learned in the past 3 years that if I don't want to be judged at my King Soopers or Dollar Store, that I need to be unwashed, wear sweatpants, and drag my 2 children who do not look like they have the same father to the store.  If I did go to the store, say, after work, with nice clothes, hair fixed, and no bastard-looking children, that's when I got the crusty stink eyes.  Why this white girl be buyin' our food? they'd say with their eyes.  I mean this in the least racist way possible.  That's just my southside accent.  Although I've never seen an Asian with back boobs.  I digress.

I went to King Soopers in Monument a few days ago.  I was unwashed and wearing sweatpants.  No -better - sweatSHORTS!  I know!  I knew I'd be judged, but OMG I just did not want to take a shower that day.  I had it coming.  I walked into the store.  The aisles were wider, the produce brighter, they had an ENTIRE AISLE OF ORGANIC CEREAL.  UP FRONT!  I didn't even have to go all the way back to the prescription reading glasses next to the old magazine rack in the back to find my Peanut Butter Puffins.  The ladies with their perfectly cut soccer mom hair looked classic and hoity in their perfect-for-grocery-shopping low-heeled shoes.  My flip-flops with holes in them began to cower in fear, which was weird for shoes, and I could swear my adult acne became more noticeable.  The ladies looked at my sweatshorts, my greasy hair, my adult acne, my personified shoes, and I could hear them calling their HOA's about why they were letting poor people in.  But maybe I just made that up.  Actually, instead of running her cart into mine and then blaming me for poor cart driving skills, when one lady accidentally bumped me SHE APOLOGIZED.  Where is this place? I thought while swinging my cart in circles in the giant aisle singing The Hills Are Alive.

I SWEET LOVE the old bread on sale section.  My dad calls it the Used Bread Section.  It's, like, the best part of any store, ever.  You can get rolls that are only 4 hours older than the other rolls for 14 cents!  They had pita bread, which is usually $4 a pack, for 79 cents.  You can't not buy every single pack when they are only 79 cents.  Even if that does make you seem like a homeless person.  So I bought them all.  It's seriously still such a great deal that I would re-deal with the embarrassing mockery of the checker just for more 79 cent pita bread.  He was all 19 years old and consescending, like, "looks like you hit that sale section pretty hard," and I was like, "huh, yeah." <--Brilliant retort.  Because when I don't have makeup on, I have low self-esteem when normally I'd be like, whatever 19 year old, you'd totally be hitting on my old ass in a club.  If I had makeup on.  And it was dark.  And they let 19 year olds in clubs.  What was I talking about?  So then I guiltilly bought a scratch ticket because rich people don't buy scratch tickets and I could feel the judgement burning into my back, and I zoomed out of the store and into the parking lot, where of course I couldn't find my car because it had camoflaged itself with dirt and I couldn't see it next to all the shiny Mercedezez.  The one redeeming thing about the parking lot was I heard an old guy say "shit" to his wife (which Monumenteers don't say in public because WWJD.) and I wrote "shit in the lot" into the note section of my phone so I wouldn't forget to write about it.  I got in my car and promptly forgot how to drive because I regressed into my 16 year old self buying groceries at the Monument King Soopers who just got her license and I drove like a sofaking weetahded teenager until I found the parking lot exit, and drove away breathing heavily and grasping the steering wheel because that was INTENSE.

Moral of the story?  It's hard being white no matter where you live. 

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Leo the Rooster

Today we said goodbye to our friend Leo.  Leo is a rooster who used to be a girl chicken named Leah.  We bought her/him from a lady on craigslist along with a few other fine feathered friends.  But things were different with Leah.  She grew so fast.  She was a freak-spaz when you tried to hold her.  We thought, "awww look at Leah, she's such a big girl!"  If she was a lady person, she would have retorted, "Mmmhmm well I like my curves!" but she was merely a chicken and could only say "bok" and peck at our rings. 

About a month ago, girl Leah began to crow.  I was in the office, drinking my coffee and checking my email.  Zach was still asleep.  And I heard it.  It was not quiet.  And it was unmistakable.  I yelled across the hall, "Zach!  Leah is crowing!"  He answered, "muuuuuung."  I yelled again (heaven forbid I get up.  Seriously, coffee time is MY time.), "You have to get him; he'll wake the neighbors!"  And after this statement, all the neighbor dogs began to bark.  And there are, like, 300 of them.  So Zach sleepily bounded (contradiction?) out of bed, threw on some shorts but no shoes, and ran outside to get Leah from the coop.  He then brought the bewildered poultry into the house and with wild eyes, asked, "What do I do with him?"  "I don't know!" I answered, pretending like I was going to get out of my chair.  "Put him in the dog crate!"  It was, and still is, a brilliant idea.  So Zach kicked his dog out of her crate in the garage and put a chicken in it instead.  We were all a little confused then, especially Leah/Leo, I'm assuming.  In the other dog crate across the garage, dumb boy dog, Jasper, was also confused.  But we all had a good laugh as we realized that the garage was now for the dumb boy animals.  Har har har <---- good laugh. 

This is when we finally allowed ourselves to admit that, yes, in fact, Leah was a boy, and her/his name was changed to Leo.  Leo only crowed a few times, and when he did, we would race outside and grab him from the makeshift chicken coop and throw him into the dog crate.  It worked for a while because Leo was not yet a giant freak, so his crows were little and adorable and we would say things like, "It's so nice to have the rooster wake us up instead of an alarm clock!"  But then Leo and his chicken craps began to grow larger and smellier and he was still being man-handled unwillingly into a dog crate every evening and letting us know how unhappy he was about it by CROWING SO FREAKING LOUD ALL THE FREAKING TIME and although Leo was a sweet boy chicken and we all loved him dearly, he tried to claw Blake's face off from ear to mouth like a gang cutting, and then we knew it was time.

My dad reasoned that we could let Leo free and let nature have its way with him.  Maybe he'd survive to populate the forest with crow-chickens, a new species not unlike a mockingjay from Hunger Games.  Or perhaps he'd die by coyote, but we wouldn't know, and that makes it ok.  But I wondered if maybe we'd release him and he'd just stay there and hang out.  Completely defeating the purpose.  So Dad suggested we release him at Weikel Elementary School, the school that I "just wasn't a good fit" for, because probably Leo would be a good fit, and also that's hilarious.  Maybe they'd make him the mascot when he populated the playground with mockingjays.  But I, ever the humanitarian, decided to craigslist him instead (after some very inhumane tactics that I cannot make public for fear of imprisonment for cruelty to animals.  Just kidding.  Kind of.)  Many people responded to the ad.  Lovely farmers from Calhan and Falcon, some with chickens and some who needed a new family pet.  Awww how sweet.  But because I am lazy, I decided to reply to the dude who lived in Black Forest, because we were already going up there, and that's just easier.  So Dude pulls up.  He's like 12 and smoking a cigarette and the first thought in my mind is COCKFIGHTS.  Poor Leo is going to have to Hunger Game for the rest of his life.  But I am a nice person who does not like to judge a book by its cover (I know, right?), so I went to find a box to send Leo packing in.  No box and 5 minutes later, Zach hands Leo over to Dude who just puts him in the back of his car.  Not something you see every day. 

But Dude seemed happy with his random backseat rooster and I am happy that my son will get to keep his eyes, and also that I get to hear the lovely ringing of my alarm clock every morning, so we all win.

And this concludes the epic tale of Leo the rooster!

<----- Bok Bok Bok.













P.S. Blake says his next rooster will be named TreShawn. 

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Ray Liotta and Crotch Pockets

I was exiting my Facebook page just a moment ago and I saw the most terribly ugly person in the whole wide world looking at me with that smug, horseface grin and a Subway sandwich in hand:  Michael Phelps.  Arggghh!  I don't know why I despise him so much.  Maybe it's because of this:


I don't know what's up with that crotch pocket, but I'm disturbed and you should be, too.  Also, he's freakishly ginormica, which isn't fair because small people should be allowed to swim quickly to win medals and from sharks.  I think the reason I hate Michael Phelps the most is because I'm pretty sure my husband, Zach, could kick his ass if he'd just practice a little more.  I'm always like, "Zach, go swimming!"  "Faster, Zach, faster!" "Shouldn't you practice again today, honey?"  I tell him things such as, "You are just so graceful in the water, like you could be a professional swimmer!" and "Do that very special dolphin swim kick that does not make you look like a freak," and "You look sexy in that Speedo! (Uck, no!)" because SOMEONE MUST BEAT MICHAEL PHELPS!  And that someone should be my husband.  If anyone can pull off a crotch pocket, it's Zach. 

But someone should tell him that you're supposed to dive into the water, not just up.  Oh well, he's pretty.
Something funny about Zach and also about hating people is how much Zach randomly hates Ray Liotta.  I mean, what's not to love?  I think he was in a movie once where he played a dude and another movie where Hannibal ate his brains.  I have no problem with Ray Liotta.  But seriously, Zach would cut him if he even got near him.  I'm going to call Zach right now so I can repeat what he says.  Hold on.
"Zach, I need you to tell me why you hate Ray Liotta."
"I don't like his little nose, and I don't like, his like, voice.  And I don't like his acting: it's really bad.  And he icks me out when he walks... and moves around.  And I've made assumptions about maybe the way he smells and how he might treat people badly.  Ray Liotta, I just want to know why you're in movies.  How did you get this job?  I want this job. I  want to make money.  So that's why I hate Ray Liotta."
I don't think I can top that.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Introduction

Oh, hey.  My name is Beckie.  I'm that one ^.  Those are my besties: Sarah and Brittany.  Yes I airbrushed us, but otherwise you wouldn't think I was twenty-one, would you?!?
I am new to this blogging narcissistic nonsense.  I always wanted to write a book.  I've started, like, 200 million of them, literally.  Literally.  And finished none because I can't complet

So I figured if I do this I will get my writer-y-ness out and I can have this online journey-telling/bitching/schtuff no one cares about (whatever, you're reading it, you know it's true.  Why are you reading this?)  forum and maybe you will laugh and maybe you will cry and maybe you will be offended and maybe you will come back to read the next day and maybe you will ask me why my sentences are so long.

Well, to tell you a little about myself, I could give you a PowerPoint presentation full of swooshy effects and inspiring music and maybe some quotes about how majestic and brave eagles are, except that I hate those and I will leave them to Professional Development at Weikel Elementary School.  And also you are reading this because you already know me.  In case you forgot, here are a few lil' tidbits:
1) I am not really 21 (I know, right?!)
2) I am an artist and an art teacher. 
3) I am a painting instructor at the best job of all time.  See picture:
4) I have 2 children and they are better than yours, so don't even deny it because you're wrong.  Side note: Blake just came in saying he wanted to run laps in his new shoes.  I said, "but it rained; you'll get your new shoes all muddy."  He replies,"It's dry already.  Earthpower."  Duh. 
5) I have 1 husband, 7 chickens, 1 rooster, 2 dogs.
6) I will start my diet tomorrow.  Mmm Blue Moon Summer Honey Wheat.

I'm sure more details will come up in the near future.  Hold on to your butts. <-- Jurassic Park reference.