Official Gameplay Guide: SKITTLES

Skittles is a roadtrip game an obsession that my nephews introduced me to a few years ago on a family vacation. (For legal reasons, I suppose I should clarify that, to my knowledge, Skittles and Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company have absolutely nothing to do with this game and even less to do with my blog. Also, the Skittles.com website is probably the trippiest thing I've ever seen come from a candy corporation, so click there and enjoy that some other time.) This game is highly addictive, so proceed at your own risk.

I should also say that the rules that I'm about to explain to you are strictly my nephews' rules-- they are my judges and parliamentarians. If ever there is a question regarding gameplay, I text my sister to ask the boys for clarification. (We take skittles very seriously.)

At first glance, the game is very simple.

Who can't do that? Well, my colorblind boyfriend has some trouble with lime green cars, so I guess SOME people can't do that, but you get my point: this game is easy for most people to pick up. (*Don't worry about his colorblindness affecting his score-- my extremely short attention span is my handicap. He kicks my butt. Maybe also because he can pretend he thinks everything is yellow and I know nothing about colorblindness.)

Why is it fun? Well, you don't see many yellow cars on the road-- or at least not as many as you see other cars. Thus the search begins.

There are, however, restrictions:

These rules are mostly to keep people from monopolizing the game-- or from shouting too much. (Really, once you start looking, you'll want to shout "SKITTLES!" at every yellow thing you see. You'll start cursing Waffle House signs and parking dividers and every other unnecessarily yellow thing in society.)

Other clarifying notes from my nephews:

• Hovercraft, boats, lawnmowers, and motorcycles all are considered skittles.
• One may choose whether or not Penske moving trucks count at the beginning of a new game.
• Cars on cinder blocks that have no engine in them do NOT count.
• Cars that are parked DO count.
• Yellow-orange is NOT yellow.
• It is often necessary to denote which skittle one is calling. For example, "SKITTLES! MOTORCYCLE!" This eliminates confusion if more than one skittle is present.

There is a lot of debate in the family as to when the game ends. When someone gets out of the car? The next day? Whenever someone says so? My nephews, being the empowering type, let me know that I can decide for myself whenever I play the game.

So I did.

On the way to the beach one day, my friends and I were in the middle of an intense round of skittles. Being huge Harry Potter nerds, we decided the game should end in a Quidditch-like fashion.

That's right. The Holy Grail of skittles-- a person eating Skittles in a yellow car.

I immediately called my nephews and received their unanimous approval. (To be thorough, that's four (4) yea's and zero (0) nay's.) We had taken skittles to the next level. And now I proudly present it to you.

If you come up with questions while you're playing, let me know. I'll text the boys and have an answer for you soon.

Happy skittle hunting!!!

Words That Mean Something Very Different in NOLA

As a transplant in NOLA (2+ years and going strong!), I'm especially conscious of how much dialect affects what words mean. I've finally stopped asking what people down here are saying-- 1. because I've probably picked up on it by now, 2. because sometimes that's just easier, and/or 3. because if I don't know it by now, it can't be all that common so stop saying that, I don't want to hear it! 

Not to mention people in New Orleans make fun of how I talk all the time (e.g., my hard A's like when I'm wagging around a saggy bag, my occasional "you guys" instead of "y'all," or talking about cheese all the time). 

Welcome to the Midwest! Where words mean exactly what the dictionary says they mean! 

Lessons learned here? For one thing, people in New Orleans are jerks for their weird words and for making fun of ME for being normal. (I mean, seriously. National news anchors base their delivery off of Columbus, OH speech patterns. HELLO. I should cite that, but I won't because you can Google it or assume I'm lying.)

For another, I have to be very conscious of how I'm speaking if I want to fit in, because there is a LOT of room for misunderstanding. 

So here I am, a gal who doesn't talk like she's from New Orleans OR from the Midwest, who will try to explain to all you people exactly what my struggle has been.

Example #1: Snowball

This is a no-brainer in the Midwest. However, it's completely foreign to people in New Orleans. And shut up, you NOLA local who swears you made a snowball once in 2008 and it was glorious. NO. That was pathetic. This is a snowball to you:

The yummier, smoother, fancier version of the Icee of the rest of the world. New Orleans: the one place in the world where eating yellow snowballs is not only appropriate but also encouraged.

2. Example #2: Shotgun

In the Midwest: Your God-given and Constitution-protected right to bear arms and spend a lot of money on ammunition. We have that in NOLA, too, but when you talk "shotgun" here, THIS is the first thing to come to mind:

A New Orleans shotgun is a house. You live in it. You paint it crazy colors. You don't use it to take out targets, animals, or people.

On a related note, example 2b: camelback. In the Midwest: a brand of water bottle or an actual camel's hump. In New Orleans? A shotgun house with a second story added to the back end. I could explain to you why, but I won't.

Example #3: Cold drink

In the Midwest: quite literally and unimaginatively, a drink that is cold. Any drink that is cold.

In New Orleans: quite irrationally and very specifically, a soda or pop or coke or whatever you choose to call a sugary, carbonated beverage. Probably cold. I am sure that I will NEVER understand this.

Example #4: Dressed

In the Midwest: Again, literally it means being dressed. Having clothes on. (We're not creative? Or maybe we just like for our words to MAKE SENSE.) Extra points for dressing in a dress.

In New Orleans: Putting everything on your sandwich. Like your sandwich is getting dressed up? I guess. I guess I can embrace this. When I go home to see the family, I will just ask for my sandwiches with everything on it. Sorry. "Fully dressed" will only get me strange stares at the deli in Ohio.

Example #5: Suck the head, pinch the tail

Um, excuse me? This is a family-friendly blog and I will NOT have the kind of dirty talk.

 

Oooooooooh, wait. You're in New Orleans, so you're eating crawfish. Yep, this sexually charged phrase is a set of instructions for eating mudbugs. They're delicious, and this is the best way to enjoy them, so cheers, y'all! I'll be suck 'dem heads until dere ain' no more to suck!

And a note to my Midwestern friends: Just don't bother saying this. It's not worth it. #badpickuplines

Riding Down Relationship River

So I have this metaphor about relationships that I'm pretty proud of (translation: that I talk about ALL the time). My friends and co-workers are probably pretty tired of hearing about it, so now I'm sharing it with everyone else-- and with them again, but this time with ILLUSTRATIONS! 

Relationship River is more of a journey than a destination. Like any river, it can be fun, relaxing, terrifying, or anything else all at some point as it runs its course. Or so I assume rivers go. I've watched a lot of "Pocahontas" in my day, and I hear that the great thing about rivers is that you can't step in the same river twice-- a river's always changing, always flowing. The point is: you never know what's around the riverbend. (See what I did there? If not, shame on you. Stop reading this blog. You don't deserve to read anymore.)

The point is, people have different methods for going down Relationship River.

Some people actively navigate Relationship River, steering around obstacles and generally having a good time.

Other people whitewater raft down Relationship River, actively seeking out drama and loving life. Good for them.

Even others speed through relationships, zooming through anyone who can't keep up.

Not me. I am none of those people.

If you're unfamiliar with "cabrewing," that's when people canoe or tube down a lazy river with a cooler full of booze in tow. (*Otherwise merely referred by some as "canoeing" or "tubing." To-may-to, to-mah-to, I say.)

I don't make this comparison to say that I have a drinking problem (though I live in New Orleans, so my perspective on healthy drinking habits may be a bit skewed). What I mean is that I am quite possibly the most passive person I know when it comes to relationships. I thoroughly enjoy just floating along, doing my thing and having a good time. If someone comes along, well that's just dandy! But otherwise, I'm good. 

That sounds awesome in theory, but often not in practice.

The biggest problem is that I don't really ever stop being passive. If someone bops into me on Relationship River, I'll tie on with them. Why not? Let's roll down the river together!

If I'm coupled with someone who actively works our way down the river, great. I just float along and see where he takes me! Usually that's to some great places. Eventually, though, he gets tired of doing all the work (Oops, sorry!) and cuts me off to go our separate ways down the river. It's inevitable. I'm over it.

Sometimes, though, I couple up with another cabrew-er.

Usually it's awesome at first. I'm down with relaxing and seeing wherever the river takes us. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!

Well, rivers are pretty awful places, that's what could go wrong! SO MANY HAZARDS TO NAVIGATE! When two cabrew-ers float along, they get caught up on rocks, flip over in rapids, and end up stranded on the shoreline and shriveling up in the sun.

It makes sense that time getting sunburnt and miserable on shore and outside of Relationship River ultimately kills the relationship. My problem? I'm lazy. And happy in my little ol' inner-tube. And, being with another cabrew-er, my partner usually ends up doing the same thing. So ultimately, we end up being miserable together for a while before we realize it and one of us eventually rolls away. 

I usually end up alone and sad on the shoreline for a few days, but I roll back into the river eventually, though, and get rehydrated and back to my old self. 

Moral of the story: I may stink at relationships, but I sure have a good time floating down Relationship River anyway! I still have hope that I'll find somebody to roll down the river with me before I plummet off of Crazy-Cat-Lady Falls!!!

Happy sailing, y'all!

My Gift to You: The All-Purpose Holiday Card

Pumped to see people are still reading this (even if it's only to read what I have to say about bar skanks)-- in gratitude, I've made a holiday card for y'all to use. 

Being in the middle of Hanukkah and on the heels of Festivus/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Boxing Day/etc, I'm in the giving mood. In the name of inclusivity, I've made the card so that you can personalize it for your holiday needs.

(Card Front)

(Card Interior)

I did my best to express whatever sentiments you may be feeling this holiday season. Sending a card to your Jewish schoolteacher? Print this card and check off the "Happy" and the "Hanukkah". Stewing over your terrible break-up? Write in "Horrifying" and check "Apocalypse" and you're set. Need something for that co-worker who you don't know very well? Wish them "Festive" "Holidays." That's how truly versatile this card is.

Think of all the money you're saving, printing just one card instead of buying a variety of them. (If you want to go fancy with this, you can print custom 5"x7" cards at Vistaprint at 20 for $14.99. Yes, of course I checked.)

You're welcome.

(*Like this card? I also made a newsletter for singles to send to their families before holiday gatherings. I'll be sending them together this year.)

Why Life in New Orleans is Like a Sitcom

I've always wanted my life to be like a sitcom. I can already hear some of you decrying sitcoms as the lowest form of televised entertainment, and I say to you: Shut up, hipster. Sitcoms are delightful little 22 minute packages of laughter, wrapped up nicely each week to make you feel better for watching it. Sometimes there are even moral lessons sprinkled in, but not always. Not everything has to be life changing, you know.

I've been saying for a while now that I think that the writers for "Happy Endings" actually just follow me around and then write up Penny's plot line for the week. (If you don't watch the show, I suggest you do. But maybe give it a few goes round-- just like life, not every episode is a-mah-zing, but in general: I love it.) Penny's hijinks have my friends (and myself) saying "Gee, this sounds an awful lot like LeeAnne," which has always brought me some joy that my life is at least a LITTLE bit like a sitcom, and I'm the comic relief.

But then I moved to New Orleans. 

In the few months I've been here, my life has become more and more like a sitcom with each passing day. Of course, I'm about to tell you why:

We're all familiar with the scenario: the main character has a conversation that the writers don't know how to wrap up, then thankfully the neighbor barges in and the laugh track starts rolling. Just watch an episode of "Seinfeld." Jerry is inevitably ranting about something and just when you're wondering how much longer he can go on, cue Kramer sliding in the door with some ridiculous comment or plan for them to carry out. Or in "Will & Grace." The banter gets less and less witty and then BOOM! Jack is running through the door!

In my life, I have my roommate/landlord: Bill. He is wonderful, but positively cuckoo bananas. In the otherwise stressful storyline of LeeAnne's first hurricane, Bill pops in and has me help him "purify and protect" the house. I can walk around burning sage and repeating mumbo jumbo with the best of them, so I did it. And it made me feel better, just realizing that ridiculousness was happening. Or I'm cooking dinner (not a particularly thrilling chore), when he pops in to explain to me that the feral cats in our backyard are more human than we are and that we can learn so much from them. Maybe he's got the onset of dementia, but it brings me a lot of joy.

In the sitcom formula, the show always centers on a group of friends, usually a trio, because then there's always the awkward sexual tension of two of the friends liking one another and the other being left out. Oooh, drama!

Well, I don't really have that. I serve as third wheel to my friend Nicole and her fiance, Michael, so it's not really a mystery to me as to which two in this trio has feelings for each other, but the similarity still stands. We are a group of friends who have adventures together. (Adventures you'll read about if you keep reading.)

What about sitcoms with larger casts, like "Friends" or "Happy Endings" or "How I Met Your Mother?" I can fill out those casts, too. Between our co-workers and the awkwardness that ensues, we're an entertaining bunch at any number.

Speaking of co-workers... They are often a source of hilarity in sitcoms. Obviously "The Office" (original British or spin-off American version) is the best example of this: work places are rife with situations you don't encounter in other parts of your life and also full of awkward people forced into interacting with one another.

I work in a campus activities office, so the number of bizarre work experiences I have are especially abundant. You've heard me talk about that before, so I won't go on (rather, you should read my other posts). But I will say this: Any job that involves working with magicians and inflatable fly guys as much as mine does = sitcom comedy gold.

Any sitcom worth its salt is chock full of shenanigans. Fortunately, so is my life. Going hipster isn't so much a storyline as an ongoing joke (I live around a bunch of hippies and I use Instagram), but that's still common to sitcoms.

I won't tell the whole story to the following shenanigans as that's the job for future posts, but here is a list of for-true adventures I've had since I moved here in August:

• I got free front row tickets to a Brad Paisley concert just because I was sitting and eating and looking generally friendly. (We didn't go because we decided to buy tulle instead, but that's another story.)
• We dressed up as giant loofahs and went out on the town. People loved us, and we're floating around in Facebook albums by people we don't know and probably won't see again. Also, a woman's necklace got stuck in my loofah and she took it off and decided just to leave it there. FREEBIES! (We gave it back.)
• We crashed a party at Muriel's celebrating the best restaurants in New Orleans-- which, if you know anything about New Orleans, means these were hoity toity people we were hob nobbing with. We gorged ourselves on pate and lox and top shelf liquor, all the while fawning over John Besh and some lady who was in Treme and acting like we belonged. 
• I pretended to be engaged to a friend of ours (who happens to be gay-- Penny and Max from "Happy Endings," anyone?) so that we could crash a rehearsal dinner tasting. It was delish.

All of this happened as the aforementioned comedic trio, of course.

You'll notice if you've ever watched a sitcom that they usually wrap up with all of the characters getting together in their usual spot to discuss the happenings of the episode and end the episode laughing so that we on the outside know that they're ALWAYS having fun, not just for 30 minutes a week. There are a million examples of this: "Friends" had the Central Perk, "Seinfeld" had the diner, "Cheers" had, well, Cheers, and "Saved by the Bell" had The Max.

I have happy hour. The location changes each week, but it serves the same purpose: my friends and I get together at the end of the week to discuss our happenings and leave laughing so we know we're fun people.

Sitcoms always have cameos, too! Watch "Glee" on any given week and you'll think to yourself, "Oh, [some actor/actress far too talented for network television] is on this week! Who knew s/he could sing?!"

Well, living in New Orleans, I also have cameos of famous actors. Personally, I've run into Justin Long and Noah Wyle. My friend Nicole saw Morgan Freeman at a restaurant once, and it's a well known fact that Leo DiCaprio jogs in Audubon Park at 5am on the daily.

I also have people who serve the cameos' role in my life; my friend Nicole says no one else does this, but I often have people I call "friend-for-a-day." I hang out with them for a day or so and then I never talk to them again. I met a girl on the bus who got me into a Trombone Shorty concert for free and we had a grand ol' time. I have no idea what her name is. After Isaac, when I was hot as all get out and escaped to the Quarter during the day, I hung out with the same people at an artists' co-op everyday, shooting the shit and painting and complaining about the heat. I haven't seen them since. It happens. They're my cameos!

But mostly when I think of cameos, I think of the sitcom king who I want dearly to cameo in the sitcom of my life: 

I love this man. And it's a cameo that could potentially happen as he lives here in New Orleans. Then my sitcom would be PERFECT. 

I might as well just plan on that happening and pitch my story to some network execs ASAP. I even have my promo worked out. Show's logo is a unique font so it's immediately recognizable. Main character highlighted front and center. Cheesy smile and awkward pose so people know it's a comedy. Generic photo of the show's locale to attract mainstream viewers. Primetime time slot so people know there's some adult content.

I'll update this with a network logo as soon as someone picks it up. I feel pretty good about this.

Identity Crisis

Alright folks, it looks as though many of you anticipate an identity crisis in my future. New Orleans is going to make me an entirely different person?! That's news to me!

For those of you who don't know me well, let me paint you a picture (or crudely draw you a stick figure):

That's me. Pretty average, I know, but I like me a lot, so I'm happy with this picture.

What everyone else pictures, however, is a little more seedy (or depressing):

To be fair, my family also pictures me as this:

Copyright the History Channel

I have something else in mind:

Adventures in Moving

First and foremost, I'm spoiling you, you know. Don't get used to this posting-on-a-regular-basis business, because it's just not going to happen. I'll fall off the face of the planet again soon, don't worry! Mostly because:

I'm MOVING!

That's right, folks, I really am moving to New Orleans! I'm very excited for this life change!! 

Yay! Sunshine and rainbows and daisies!

...But the reality of moving has definitely set in.

Ugh. Sunshine and rainbows and daisies take up a lot of boxes. 

Don't worry too much about me, though. I'm very quickly approaching the final stage of moving: apathy.

Don't worry. Mostly I donate it all. Everything but the clothes on my back.

This whole process is definitely an emotional whirlwind (mostly because I am moving and all my favorite things about Ohio are not), but it's also been a great learning process for me. Even just looking for places to live, I've noticed how much I've grown over the past few years.

Who cares?! IT'S MY FIRST PLACE!!!

Ah. There's the bitterness of experience right there.

Overall, I'm proud of myself. What a relatively responsible way of looking at renting, right? (I did not use that spreadsheet by the way, but I did think of those things! I still get points for good intentions!)

But, of course, moving has also led me to intense judgement. What kind of person am I? So many questions...

Seriously. I've never smoked ANYTHING. How could I possibly like Pink Floyd THAT much?!

No. I don't have a drinking problem. I have a storage problem.

Five or six pounds of beads.

Not everything has been left a mystery to me, though. I've learned some things, too!

Every piece of trash has a story, dang it!

This shouldn't be in past tense. It's still on my fridge.

Ha cha cha.

Please don't actually nominate me for that show.

Hoarding's not so bad though, is it? Look for updates with more fun facts I'm learning about myself... who knew moving was such a developmental process?!