Fitting the bill

There is a supreme level of intellect on display in my work parking garage. Case in point:

Memory Lane Monday: Troll Mates

Growing up in a family where my only brother was a basketball star and my dad's hunting/fishing/drinking buddy, I didn't find it appropriate to ask for Barbies. But I did make up for lost time at my cousins' house in Bountiful, probably much to their bore. Like a fat kid at a pastry buffet, I had to stockpile my Barbie time to get me through the dry spells. Luckily, blocks and Matchbox cars kept me entertained until I returned to the glory of the miniature fashions, the be-spackled Barbie motorhome and the teal '57 Chevy.

I did, however, try to abide my Barbie longing by, shall we say, more gender-neutral substitutes. Like Trolls (insert laughter sound byte here). I was a fairly worldly child-- interested in other cultures, languages and, of course, ethnic costume. So when I started collecting Around the World Trolls (to loosely correspond to my rival collection of mini flags of many nations), I found the perfect symbolic fusion of diversity and unisexual normalcy (again with the sound byte).

I kind of repressed, er, forgot about my 15 trolls that I shoved in a shoe box and buried in the closet when I hit junior high. This was until mother dropped off my Rubbermaid-encased childhood a few weeks ago (her 6-bedroom, childless home just didn't have room). I was pruning the excess memorabilia yesterday and there they were. I adorned the box with colored markers, listing each Troll's origin, lest I forget.

As I was finishing up my organizing, The Olympic closing ceremony was just beginning upstairs. Paul and I clocked in some record Olympic viewing this year (we calculated it at around 40 total hours), and I thought, "What a fitting tribute to a briefly unified world celebrating our similarities. Here I am, 15 years later on the other side of shame...that's it, you're making your comeback, Trollies!"

I headed upstairs and staged the Trolls atop our wine cabinet. I had to do a little primping, but the Trolls were essentially in mint condition. Paul and Billy walked in just as I was putting the finishing touch on placements, and of course found another source of mockery which I clearly anticipated and totally welcomed.


But I can take it now. My Trolls were, are and always will be with me. They've weathered shame, denial and outright neglect. But they'll always be in that shoe box (I put them back before bed) with a friendly smirk, over-processed and extremely dry hair and their trademark jewel bellies.

And that comforts me.

Separated at birth

I love the boundlessly talented Tracey Ullman. I love her Tracey Takes On character Linda Granger, the has-been network star of "VIP Lounge" and recovering alcoholic, sexaholic and cult gay idol. She's 100% glamorous, and her twin happens to be my eldest sister, Holly.

The gift that gift gave

Ok. Fine. I'll just admit it. I was a gifted child.

I don't talk much about it because there are only a few gifted children born every generation. Plus it makes ungifted people feel awkward and treat you like a freak even though it's masked gift envy.

As far as my mom's concerned, I was always gifted. But I do remember at about age 4, I recognized the gift. It didn't come in ribbons or bows; gifted people are able to see beyond the tangent obvious. Often what separates ungifted from the gifted is the gift of abstraction. It was definitely a figurative gift. A Child of God? I pondered the (unlikely) theological possibility at like age 6. But definitely a Child of Gift.


Through brief empirical observation, I concluded I was the only gifted child around in small-town Utah. I then used my exceptionally developed aptitude for a priori reasoning to speculate that I may be the only gifted child in America. I definitely sensed there were Japanese and Korean children of gifted extraction. But they attended school like 13 hours a day, so in the end it was probably hard to distinguish the gifteds from the hard workers.

Then in 2nd grade my mom volunteered to lead a group called Odyssey of the Mind. Turned out, there were like 8 gifted children in my class alone, which is extremely unusual to have such a concentration of gift in the same topographical region. They (the Gift Guiders) would separate us an hour a week and we would outperform each other with crosswords, cryptograms, deductive reasoning puzzles and trying to get objects disentangled by using our advanced sense of geometry and spatial reasoning. Another activity involved ping pong balls too, but I don't remember the specifics. I think I was too gifted to actually waste energy excelling at that particular "challenge."

After an hour of touching the gift (that's the day single, 30ish but oddly-living-in-a-small-town Mr. Brown subbed), we would return to the normal class and breeze through rudimentary spelling exercises, laughable times tables and your run-of-the-mill art projects that would consume those without gift.

Of course, gifted children turn into gifted adults, with or without the capitalistic education model formality (though I did go on to excel in college, my gift wasn't recognized by the Ivy League. But I've come to understand their Myopic predisposition). These days, I've learned to relate on a surface level with the non-gifted.

And see, you probably didn't even notice (though I'm sure in some ungifted way, you did).

Let's keep it in the closet

Last week I celebrated my 26th birthday. Not a particular milestone year, but it was a nice, relaxed multi-day proceeding (are there any other kind?). Yes, I am on the backslide of my 20s, but I think 27 sounds a lot worse (no offense).

Paul had been holding out on me as to what my gift would be. All I knew was that I was going to receive it a few days before the big day, which of course sent my mind reeling. I had limited it down to either a DVR instillation or a second dog. Of course, the latter would probably be a Paul present rather than mine.

I came home from work one evening and the doorway to our dining room --which really is a transformed second bedroom (and also known as the room that contains my closet)-- was wrapped like so...


Of course it still didn't occur to me after unwrapping the door, but then it finally clicked. It was a new, professionally-installed closet to hold all my deeply discounted (but still brand name) fashions. Anyone who has been on our home tour knows my disdain for the post-War tiny closets. Carrie Bradshaw would have a coronary, while I was just bugged by the single, 3-foot rod spanning the closet. Such wardrobe management inefficiency! But now, thanks to my darling darling, it now looks something like this:

Ooh!

Ahh!

Mmm-hmm!

We celebrated the actual day (ok it was Sat. Aug. 2; apparently I'm very good at slipping in my birthday into everyday conversation) with a small-gathering, predictably delicious lunch al fresco courtesy of Paul, followed by a wonderful lemon tres-leches cake with caramel layer (per my request). Yes, that's a 3 candle from Paul's 30th birthday earlier this year, but the deliciousness more than made up for that particular oversight (also, my cheek looks fat but it's just air).


We then proceeded to an evening wedding and bountiful reception, then wrapped up the night with some drinks at home before transitioning to an unfortunate hour at a dance club.

All in all, a varied fun day.

If ever a truth was told...

This past Sunday afternoon was bliss.

Mr. Cumy? Is there a Mr. Cumy? Your Swiss ball is now ready

Either Gold's Gym billing department is dense, my "member advisor" cannot write legibly, or everyone just has a sense of humor.


But you can imagine how two r's written in succession and closed up by the y could produce a last name like Cumy. Right?


I thought about calling up to, er, rectify the problem, but then realized what the imagined conversation would sound like. I then decided it was just best for a blog post. I'm just glad they didn't leave the n out of my first name. Now THAT would be one for the books.