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!!!

Product Improvement: Coffee Mugs

I got some fun (and only somewhat judgmental) feedback from y'all after my last post, I figured I'd follow up with a double whammy of a blog post that covers both Pinterest AND coffee-- two of my favorite things. 

Color change coffee mugs? Now that's just like MAGIC. (My #3 favorite thing!) I love when people send me pins of such things, but they're just so CUTE. And I hate it. My need for coffee isn't CUTE. It isn't adorable. It is REAL, INTENSE, and SOMEWHAT DISTURBING. Get it right.

I mean, really. You're not doing it right. Make me a mug that goes from full-out Walking Dead, three-months in the Atlanta heat zombie to rainbow-farting, I-don't-sweat-I-sparkle Care Bear sweetness and I'm in. All I'm looking for is a coffee mug I can relate to. Is that too much to ask?

Make it for me, pinners. Make it happen.

I do own this mug, which I love and I feel as though comes pretty close-- so thanks for this, internet:


It took me FOREVER (aka all of 5 minutes... which is like 5 internet years) to find the original source for the mug from Pinterest, so click away and buy it if you're willing to settle for less. And pinners, shame on you for linking to photos and not to original links. You're ruining the point of Pinterest! If I just wanted to look at a bunch of photos, I'd get on Facebook!!

Product Improvement: Etsy Wine Glass

I'm an avid pinner-- I'm a huge fan of Pinterest and its ability to introduce me to some pretty fantastic, witty stuff that's floating around the internet. (I visit the "Humor" boards everyday!) The problem is that Pinterest doesn't have a very user-friendly way of responding to those pins. (Comments? Please.) So here I am, blogging. Setting the record straight. Today's pin? This misinformed wine glass.

If I weren't lazy, I'd sell it on my own. But as it is, I am-- so you can visit Sherry's Lane Etsy Shop to see if she's making any more of the glass from the original pin I was sent or visit any of these other shops with similar products. (Yes, each of those words links to a DIFFERENT Etsy shop, and yes, I could have kept going. Copyright these days.)

Maybe someday I'll get my stuff together and open an Etsy shop. Until then, enjoy these crudely drawn comics, spurred on and inspired by good chats with good friends. Til next time!

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

Bacon: A Love Story

A few weeks (months? I don't know. I'm behind the times.) ago, Oscar Mayer introduced a new app to "Transform Your iPhone into a Bacon Scent Alarm Clock" and a Wake Up & Smell the Bacon Campaign. True to self, I didn't really read the parameters and thought that if I tweeted funny things to @oscarmayer, they'd be so enamored by my wit that they would surely send me the bacon device! (Moot point: I don't own an iPhone and wouldn't be able to use it.) Thus began my portfolio of bacon-related haiku.

Unfortunately, what they REALLY wanted me to do was send their stock tweets from their website so they could instantly tell me that I was a loser. That bored me instantly (and I knew my followers didn't want to read that drivel), so I immediately gave up on that.

My love affair with bacon, however, remains true and untainted by Oscar Mayer's blatant disregard for the passion we share. You may have crushed my dreams, Oscar, but not my love.

To you I present a few samples of smoky, crispy poetry.

Haiku #1: Bacon is the family you choose for yourself.

Haiku #2: Revenge is a great marinade for bacon. (AKA Sometimes I lie take poetic license because I think it's funny.)

Haiku #3: Sometimes it's okay to be clingy in a relationship.

Haiku #4: Pork Heaven - preferable to pork hell.

Haiku #5: Because bacon should know its place.

Haiku #6: True love is timeless.

I officially have written more love poetry to bacon than to any human being (except for maybe Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys back when I was 13... little evidence of that remains, so the comparison is inconclusive). Mark this date in history. And sorry, boo boo, but bacon came first.

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.