Category Archives: Family

My Mom & The Rogue Hair

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I subscribe to many blogs, and today one of them posted this link to Wisdom Teeth, a short film by Don Hertzfeldt:

Personally, I find this video rather entertaining.  Disturbing and totally random, yes–but enjoyable nonetheless. I am a big fan of off-beat humor and creativity, so I was amused by it.  Make sure you wait for the end to see the odd and somewhat unexpected ending.  (P.S. the Scandinavian accents are completely fake, and the stick figures are actually talking in gibberish–or at least that’s what I read online…).

While this video is entertaining in its own right, I couldn’t help but recall one of my favorite stories of my mother while watching it.

For those of you who are lucky enough to know my mother, you know that she is incredible.  You know that she’s one of the most giving and loving people that you’ll ever meet.  And, most endearingly, you know that she’s adorably crazy.

You could say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree when it comes to my mom and me, as we both tend to get ourselves into the most embarrassingly awkward situations.

For example.

I grew up in a small town in New York.  Everyone knew everyone, and it was a common occurrence to run into someone you knew while running errands.

One day, my mom was shopping at the p.x. (the post exchange, or military catch-all store, for you non-military folks out there) when she ran into our church priest.  He was an older gentleman, and my mom knew him fairly well, as she was quite involved in the church.

As they were visiting, my mom noticed that he had a loose thread hanging on his shirt.  Always the helpful one, she nonchalantly reached up and pulled on the thread during the course of their conversation.  Assuming that the thread would immediately come loose, she was a little surprised when it remained attached to the shirt.  Determined, she kept pulling, while our priest kept talking.  Soon, the priest started smirking, and my mom, feeling embarrassed (yet still pulling), said, “gosh, this thread just won’t come off.”  His response?

“That’s because it’s connected to my chest.”

Realizing that she had just spent the better part of five minutes pulling on a priest’s chest hair in the middle of a store, my mom was understandably mortified.  Luckily, the priest had a sense of humor and all was fine.

I just love that story.

And yes, I realize that it’s a bit of a jump to go from the wisdom teeth video to my mom’s chest-hair pulling incident, but that’s just the way my mind works.

Clyde & Curly

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For as long as I can remember, my grandpa has had a collection of unusual pets.  We’ve had sheep and deer, elk and turkeys, quail and buffalo, miniature donkeys and llamas, dogs and cats, horses and camels.  While I’m pretty sure that I could write many posts about each of these animals, tonight’s post will focus on our camels.

I honestly don’t remember how long we’ve had Clyde–I believe my grandpa bought him at an exotic animal auction about 12-15 years ago.  He’s a two-hump camel, and he’s positively crazy.  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a camel run, but if not, then you must put it on your bucket list.  It’s hilarious.  We got Curly, our one-hump, a year or so after Curly.  They got along well, and they hung out half the year at my grandpa’s farm and half the year with their “trainer.”

Another thing I’m not quite sure of is how we discovered that they like to drink beer.  I’m pretty sure it was a combination of my cousins and my grandpa who figured that one out, but boy, they do love the beer.  No worries, we never gave them more than a can or two at a time.  Interestingly, beer is the only canned beverage they like; once when we pulled up, Clyde came running over to the car, stuck his head in the driver’s side window, reached to the console and grabbed a can of Pepsi sitting there.  Upon drinking a sip, he immediately spit it out.  The jury’s still out as to his taste of Dr. Pepper.

The other day I randomly decided to google our camel, and lo and behold the following video popped up.  I have no idea who took this video, and the fact that they let Clyde chew on the can concerns me, but this is a recent clip of our baby Clyde (at the trainer’s house):

Surprisingly, my youtube search delivered quite a few other beer drinking camels around the world.  In fact, there’s even a song out there about beer drinking camels (see http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/davidmkidd3).  How random!

Sadly, my grandpa sold his piece of land (and almost all the animals that were living there) a few years ago, but we kept our camels.  Technically, Clyde now lives full time with his trainer (who has the acreage and the desire to take care of him).  The trainer is also their social planner, so Clyde and Curly have been involved in a bunch of different events and parades.  As a result, there have been multiple times when I was caught off guard by their appearance in random situations.

For example, last year around this time my mom and I were wrapping presents and randomly had the television tuned to E!.  At some point in the night, the show Wildest Weddings came on, but, busy with wrapping and catching up, we weren’t really paying attention.  This instantly changed when the show cut to commercial and said something along the lines of “and when we come back, you’ll see a wedding featuring the famous beer drinking camels of Oklahoma.”  What?!  Of course we paid full attention, and, sure enough, there were Clyde and Curly, the stars at the reception of someone who got married in our hometown.

Another time I was back home visiting my parents and went out with one of my high school friends.  We were out at a bar, and I met a bunch of his friends.  At some point, a girl came up to us and said “you HAVE to see these pictures I have on my phone.  You won’t believe it!”  I had no idea what to expect, but I cracked up when the pictures were of Clyde and Curly.  I don’t know what she expected me to say, but I can tell you that she did not expect me to tell her that they’re members of my family.

I’m very sad about Curly, but I’m grateful that he was with our family for so long and provided us with lots of joy.  I plan on going to visit Clyde while I’m home over the holidays, so hopefully I can get some updated pictures.  Mostly, I’m just grateful that I have the kind of family in which pet camels are just part of the norm.

On a somewhat related note, my grandpa also used to have a Zedonk (half zebra/half donkey) named Zed.  When I was about 23, I was watching Jimmy Kimmel, and he had a segment about the “World’s First Half Donkey/Half Zebra.”  I can remember sitting there getting my panties in a wad that Jimmy was leading the world to think that these people in California had the first Zedonk, when we had been the proud owner of Zed for years.  So, I did what any sane rational person would do–I immediately e-mailed the show and told them all about Zed.

I never heard back.

I’m sure there are plenty of other Zedonks out there, but here’s a picture of me with our Zed (again, old pictures!):

You can also see some of our Jacks and Jills.  Oh, I miss those animals and that land…

When I was looking through old pictures, I also found this random picture of some of the elk that used to wander around on our land–so pretty!

My dryer is beeping, so I suppose it’s time for me to go and finish doing laundry.

Until next time!

And yes, I realize that technically this is a Sunday not a Saturday post.  I’m hoping if I post something short and sweet after I finish this load of laundry, most of you won’t notice that I actually missed a day of posting…

Got Camels?

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The other day I was having a conversation with a friend about pick up lines/conversation starters.  In a dating world where most guys can’t do better than something along the lines of the cheesy “Is heaven missing an angel?,” it’s refreshing when you hear something original and unexpected.

This conversation got me thinking—do I have a go-to conversation starter? My first inclination was to say no, but then tonight I signed onto match (yes, I’m still on that thing–stories to come) and, after reading an e-mail from a nice man, realized that I do indeed have a go-to line of sorts: my beer drinking camels.

You see, I come from quite the eccentric family, and among our various claims to fame is the fact that we own beer drinking camels.  Yes, our pet camel lives right smack in the middle of southwestern Oklahoma.  While it’s not common for me to blurt this fact out upon meeting someone, I have found that it proves to be a great conversation starter whenever a great conversation starter is needed (whether it’s during a date, meeting new friends, or telling stories with old friends).

When I was filling out my match profile back in July, I absolutely could not bring myself to create the prototypical profile with things like, “Hi, I’m Erin.  I’m a super genius.  I have a body that’s comparable to a Victoria’s Secret’s model.  I make oodles of money at my incredibly impressive job.  When it comes to homemaking, I’m a perfect mix between Martha Stewart and Betty Crocker.  In my free time, I like to build houses for the homeless while nursing orphaned baby birds back to health.” Because, you know, even though those statements are all completely accurate (haha), I don’t like to be a braggart.

Instead, I opted for a “10 Random Things About Erin” kind of profile in which I tell them 10 things that, while telling them nothing of great significance about me, allow them to get a glimpse into my personality.  Of the 10 things, #3′s “I’ve got two beer drinking camels” gets the most responses by far.  I knew that this would be a good thing to include, of course, because in my “real” life, anytime I bring up my camels, it always brings about a fairly good conversation.  What I didn’t realize was just how much this statement would spark other match-ers curiosity.  (Incidentally, my number #8 random fact involving the way I prefer my toilet paper roll to hang brings in the second highest number of comments, followed closely by my # 6 love of math.)

Just to provide a sampling of the kinds of comments my camels inspire, I’ve copied the camel part of the five most recent e-mails that I’ve received:

I must say I found your list of ten things rather intriguing. I couldn’t help but chuckle about your #8 (this is my toilet paper comment). That’s always been a pet peeve of mine, too! Your #3, of course, obviously begs for follow-up questions, so I guess my first ones are – how in the world did you come about having two camels, and how did you find out they like drinking beer??

Your profile was a very fun read. The 10 random facts was a refreshing read and provides more insight than the usual hollow information from most everybody. At the risk of sounding somewhat gullible, do you really have two camels? I figure the camels are a euphemism for large dogs or some such thing.

Say what? Camels? That’s a hell of a thing to only make #3 on your list. Definitely did a double take on that one. Can you ride them? I guess they have to be sober for that.

Can camels get beer bellies? Do they live with you?

Interesting 10 random things about me list, especially the 2 beer drinking camels.

This last line is the one that came from tonight’s e-mail.  After reading these e-mails, and responding to many of them, I thought it might be time to introduce my camels to the blogosphere.  It breaks my heart to tell you that Curly, our one-hump camel, recently died due to a broken leg and infection (turns out there’s not a lot of vets who specialize in camel infections).  We now only have Clyde, our two-hump camel (he’s been with us the longest), but they’re both so dear to my heart.  Even though Curly’s gone, I want to share pictures and introduce them both.

Without further ado, here’s Curly:

And here’s Clyde (you’ll have to excuse these pictures–they were taken more than 10 years ago!):

That’s my arm holding onto Clyde, by the way.  I would have left the picture uncropped, but I was afraid I’d break the computer.

Anyway, those are my camels!  They’re somewhat famous around these parts.  In fact, they’ve been featured on E!’s show Wildest Weddings.

I’d tell you that story now, but a big pile of gen psych exams is calling my name, so I’m going to get to grading and save that story (as well as the details of my camels) for tomorrow’s post.

Happy 9th Day Before Christmas, Everyone!

Erin


Halloween

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Halloween’s this weekend, and my Facebook newsfeed is full of updates about the exciting costumes that everyone’s putting together for Halloween parties and adventures.  Again and again I hear friends make mention of the fact that Halloween is their favorite holiday, and often times their costume-preparation starts weeks in advance.

While I don’t dislike Halloween, I do not share this unbridled enthusiasm for dressing up and for celebrating this holiday.  Don’t get me wrong, as a child I lived for a night of trick-or-treating with friends.  As an adult, I’ve loved living in places where little kids come trick-or-treating at my door, and I get to ooh and aah over the pretty princesses or cower in fear at the sight of the swamp monsters.  I’m also fairly certain that when I one day have kids of my own, I’ll be as passionate about adorable children’s costumes as the next person, and Halloween will once again become an exciting holiday for me.  At this point in my life, however, my excitement for Halloween is limited to the constant availability of bite-size candy and the opportunity to spend an evening with some of my best friends listening to the monster mash while carving gourds.

So why am I somewhat indifferent to this spooky holiday?  Well, I can’t say for sure, but I have a feeling that it may be due to my childhood costume experiences.  You see, while my childhood was pretty dang spectacular and my parents made every effort to give us a great life, they may have been a little lacking in the Halloween costume department.

While other kids were decked out in costumes resembling superheroes, witches, or cartoon characters, I was generally decked out in random clothing items pulled straight from my mother’s dresser drawers and accessorized with random finds from the family linen closet. Case in point: the other day I was looking through old photo albums and came across a picture from Halloween 1986.  All of the kids in my neighborhood were gathered together for a group picture.  There was my friend Nancy who dressed up as Rainbow Brite in a head-to-toe commercially made costume.  Then there were the two little girls from across the street who were dressed up as Dorothy and the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. I’m pretty sure their mom made their costumes, and she made sure that not a detail was amiss.  The rest of the neighborhood kids had on various masks and were dressed up as monsters, skeletons, or princesses.  And then there was me.  To this day, I’m not quite sure who I was trying to be, but I’m thinking that my mom and I decided that I would be an angel.  I stood tall among the other kids wearing an old red shirt of my mom’s with a random scarf slung around the waist.  The shirt came down to my knees, so I guess it was a dress of sorts?  The outfit was made complete with some homemade angel wings and a magical wand made out of a hanger and a pipe cleaner.

The next year I wanted to go as a rock star, so my mom gathered my hair into a side ponytail, hairsprayed in some glitter, put me in one of her more colorful sweaters, and sent me on my way.  What a rockstar!  A few years later, I hit the streets wearing a random ugly man mask (which we must have found somewhere, because I’m pretty sure we never bought it) and draped in my dad’s army blanket.  I’m not sure what look I was going for with that outfit, but if it was of an uncreative dorky girl, I’d say I pretty much nailed it.  The year I went as a witch, I think we actually did buy me a real mask, but, again, I dressed in one of my mom’s black shirts.

My mother/linen/paper look didn’t end with trick-or-treating either.  Oh no—it seeped into my school activities as well.  In my Catholic school, we didn’t celebrate Halloween.  Instead, we celebrated All Saints Day (Nov. 1) by dressing up as our favorite saints. I’m pretty sure I went as Mary every year.  My mom wrapped me in a blue sheet and put a blue towel over my head.  I think one year we went a little crazy and switched it up a bit with a white towel instead of a blue one.  I don’t even think we secured it with anything; I’m pretty sure we literally just draped it over my head.  To be fair, dressing up as a saint doesn’t leave much room for super-exciting costumes, but I do remember that many of my classmates went a little further than a sheet/towel combo in their choice of outfits.  For example, there was one classmate that came as St. Joan of Arc wearing full body armor and carrying an awesome shield.  Another classmate came as St. Patrick and wore a green robe and carried a giant staff.  Another was St. Francis of Assisi and wore a friar’s robe and carried around a bunch of stuffed animals.  Me, though, I just showed up year after year in my sheet.

Despite my less-than-stellar costumes, I always ended up having a great time on Halloween, and I never really noticed that my costumes were rather lacking.  I mean, I was the girl who went through a phase in which I repeatedly wore an oversized sweatshirt, tights, and patent leather shoes as an outfit because I thought I looked absolutely adorable in my homemade sweatshirt dress (which, as a family picture will attest, had a huge picture of Garfield covering the front).  And I was also the girl who, despite waking up at times with crazy tangles in my hair, only brushed the front of her hair because “no one could see the back.”  Talk about the inability to see another’s perspective.

Not noticing that my costumes were somewhat lacking, however, did not mean that I spent all of October quaking with anticipation at the thought of dressing up on Halloween night.  No, for me, it was always about a fun night with friends and never about the costumes.  And so, as everyone else gets all dolled up in their creative and crazy costumes this weekend, I plan on having a great costume-free evening with friends.

Although, now that I think about it, my mom did accidentally leave a shirt here the last time she visited, and my linen closet is filled to the brim with towels and sheets, so maybe I’ll dress up after all.