Friday, April 29, 2011

Of Course I'm Poor and Leaving for Europe Next Week

Blog. I've been trying so hard to save money and it's just not working. Right when I get a handle on building up my savings, the United States of America comes in and is all "GIVE ME MONEY. AMERICA HUNGRY FOR CASH." and I'm suddenly wiped out of all the progress I've made over the past three months. So now I start over.

Sure I didn't need to get that coffee at Starbucks this morning. Nor did I need to eat that Jimmy John's sandwich for lunch. And you know what? Calling overseas tends to be expensive and a fun fact is that expensive things tend to drain my bank account faster than necessary. I can only imagine how rich I would be if I wasn't looking for excuses to call England all the time.

Rein it in Samantha. Rein it in.

I mean, I'm not completely broke, but I'm certainly not gaining any ground here. I was getting so motivated by seeing the number in my savings rise to a point where I was getting excited about the growing possibilities before me. But now that number has been slashed in half, and as much as I can blame myself for irresponsible spending, I'm also going to just go there and throw America under the bus while I'm at it since it just took $438 from me... and for what? No. Don't tell me. I'd rather not know what stupid shit my money is going to. I'd rather fabricate some story of it giving orphaned children a mansion with a swimming pool and playground in the back yard so they can have all the joys that the rich, unorphaned children have.

Isn't that the way though? Every time I go overseas, I'm broke. Last time I had a whole $50 in my account when I landed in England. This time it's going to be more like $200. I'll get paid while I'm over there... after 5 days. Good thing my brother revealed to my mom and I today that we can stay in his spare apartment for free. I don't know what that means, but if it's not costing me anything I'm going to roll with it.

I guess if I had to find a bright side in all of this it would be that the day I do get paid, I'll be in England where the dollar is worth even less than when in Italy. This means one thing: ENGLISH SPENDING SPREE.

Samantha. Remember? Rein it in.

I guess I should stop being a spoiled brat and acknowledge that the other bright side to this situation is that I get to go to Europe at no cost to myself. I'll just be responsible for food, alcohol, and whatever useless crap I want to buy. It's a pretty sweet gig when you put it that way and having $200 in Europe seems to be less awful.

Yoga time blog!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

It's a Strange Island, but I'm Willing to Look Past It

Blog. If you live on the island pictured below, underwear are pants and pants are trousers. Fries are chips and chips are crisps. Pounds are money and stones are weight. God takes a back seat to the Queen and no questions are asked. Most importantly though, you are the luckiest because if you live on the island pictured below, despite of the backwards language and weird politics, you are within driving distance of a guy named Clive.

This island is called England, BTW.

Even if you have to drive on the left side of the road to get to him, it's totally worth it. And blog, three weeks from now I get to go to this island and not only teach Clive that pants are what you wear on the outside of your underwear (obviously), but I also get to see him in person once again. Finally. After five long and cold months of waiting from the moment I left him in a hotel stairwell back in December. Doesn't that make us sound like a classy duo...

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Video Embedding for the Win!

Ok blog, I'm not one who is savvy with pop culture by any means, especially music. I like music. I listen to music. But I know nothing about music nor do I know about the people who make said music. I don't even know words to songs. I just know the songs that I like, the songs I can have on in the background, and the songs that I despise.

So it comes as a surprise to me when I make a musical connection like I did tonight. I have my grooveshark up, which if you are like me and like music, you should totally grooveshark it since it is the best thing ever. Anyway, my grooveshark is groovin', playing tunes and jamming out and some Nina Simone comes on. Now the only reason I know about Nina Simone is the same reason I know about pretty much any other music I have on my grooveshark. I heard a song of hers once on The Current and then looked up her name on Grooveshark and randomly added a bunch of her songs to my playlist. Done and done. I know she tends to sound like a man, can play the piano like a bitch, and is no longer alive. That's about it.

So tonight when this song of hers, Sinnerman, came on I was surprised because suddenly I wanted to buy a cell phone. HTC (and I don't even know what HTC is) totally stole the main lick of this song for some stupid ad campaign of theirs! The funny part is I always liked the little tune they used in their commercials and always wished I could find the actual song they were playing for it. But alas, I accepted the fact that I'm pop culturally illiterate and would never even know where to begin with obtaining such precious knowledge. The end.

And here I am knowing a whole three things about the woman who made up and even played said lick! I continue to amaze myself with this shit time and time again.

Anyway, take a look (or perhaps just a listen) for yourself, blog.

HTC's catchy commercial:

 

And Ms. Simone's 10 minute masterpiece complete with clapping!




I was going to write about how I successfully unclogged my drain tonight, but I'll save that nastiness for another day. Speaking of nastiness though (and for my new found ability to embed videos into you blog), here's a gem that I have no one else but Trisha Grover to thank for:


Monday, April 11, 2011

Monday Night has Turned Unproductive

Blog, I want to write so much to you right now, but all I can think about is that a month from now I'll be in England and the feeling I have about that can't be put into words. Unfortunately. So here's a picture of my adorable yet unphotogenic niece:

 Don't worry y'all. She's with it.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Here's Some Stuff...

Listening to Wye Oak and drinking Gazela is probably the best thing ever right now. Even if the Gazela smells a little bit like feet. It totally tastes like rainbows and magic so I'm willing to look beyond it.

I just realized two things, blog. The first is that the next time I go shopping at Heartbreaker in Uptown, I want to bring a flask filled with some sort of alcohol and take a sip every time I hear the word "cute" as I stand in line for the dressing rooms.

I had nothing to do tonight, so I decided to shop for some fun spring clothes since it's like fucking summer outside (which reminds me; I graciously accept the loss of my bet that I had stated only a month ago when I went slightly crazy and was convinced the snow would hang around until May... though we're not out of the woods yet as it is April y'all). I'm finding my wardrobe is suddenly non existent because I've been wearing the same three sweaters since November and this isn't going to work out if it's going to be 60 degrees outside. I mean, I damn near got a sunburn on my lunch break today. It is time for some fun spring sassiness! So this is why I found myself standing in line at Heartbreaker this evening waiting for a fitting room, all the while being bombarded from all directions with "well that's cute", "oh the back of that is so cute", "yeah, just pull it over the belt a little bit, so cute". Cutecutecutecutecutecutecute. CUTE. The word doesn't even sound like a word anymore.

I'm guilty of this along with every other English speaking female who has ever commented on anything aesthetic that another female (English speaking or no) is wearing/presenting/has within a 10 foot radius of her. And maybe it was because I was by myself and just wanted to see if these tops that were rocked by hangers had any potential of being rocked by me. I didn't have any desire to comment or judge what others were trying on, but I wanted to punch everyone in the face; save this one sassy black woman who came out to look at this little lace number she had tried on without a bra underneath. Now that's entertainment folks. The best part was when she exclaimed from within the fitting room "oh now I look like a broke ass stripper". Perfection.

The second thing I've realized tonight is that I'm currently wearing my shorts inside out. Oops. I initially was going to just write about this, but that's about all there is to it, so I thought back to my Heartbreaker experience and threw that in there for some substance, because that's exactly what it is blog. Substance.

Time for bed. This has been a crazy Friday night for sure!!! PARTY.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Midwest Mommy

Blog, the cheddar bay biscuits are going down way too easily. Let's drink some wine.

Oddly enough, I'm feeling tipsier this Monday evening than I did during my entire weekend in North Dakota. I call this fact odd because as you may or may not know, blog, North Dakota is a place where drinking is the pastime as there is really nothing else to do there. I'd love to counter that statement with something about awesome water parks or awesome historical majesties as local attractions within the Dakota of the North. But all they've got for water parks is field runoff and all they've got for history are random dugouts made by pioneers a hundred years ago. Either way it's boring and therefore it leads to drinking. Lots of it. It's ironic I'm a couple glasses of wine in on this Monday and already further along with my buzz than I was up in Grand Forks with my mom on Saturday afternoon. So it goes, I guess.

It felt good to finally get out of the city, and out into the open plains of the midwest. I feel like it's a reset button for me. Being out there for some reason makes sense. Being able to see every star in the sky at night and having the horizon surround me gives me a break from the city. I never thought I'd need a break from the city when I was living out there as the thought of living in a city amounted to me living in a place with something more than a four way stop. But now I get the emotion behind getting away for a weekend. The city can certainly be stifling. I love Minneapolis. It's a great town with lots to see and do, but day to day it can be exhausting. Uptown to downtown, uptown to downtown. Just like anywhere you live I guess. But the long and short of it is that it's nice to go out in the open and reset yourself a little bit. For me it's familiar and brings me back to not only awkward times but also coming of age times. There's something painful and sentimental about it out there. I've grown to like it enough to actually look forward to it and enjoy it while I'm visiting (perhaps it's because I'm visiting and not living permantly).

But home is home and Finley is Finley. I have a tradition of when I drive into town (and it's usually late at night) where I will speed down the street my mom lives on because, well, I'm in town and no one's around. I did this even when I was in high school and drove on this street every day. I in fact had a habit in the winter of taking a certain corner a certain way so my car would fishtail right around it on the ice. I would do it so much I wouldn't even notice it. God Samantha...

Anyway, my mind is still sometimes set in the Finley of 2001 rather than the Finley of 2011, so when I opened it up down Main Street on Friday night, I didn't realize the pavement had started to collapse in front of Dwight Norgaard's  place (Dwight who Kerin and I both know full well has a crush on my mom and is enamored enough by me being her daughter that he'll kiss my hand whenever he sees me in the bar). I bottomed my car out something fierce. It's amazing I was able to get the thing back to Minneapolis in one piece. But I must admit it was pretty fun for the most part to jump that bitch off the incline that the dip made in the street. If my mom hadn't sold my brother's car to the neighbors, I might have just taken the old Buick out for a spin...

I had planned on taking a bottle of wine out by the golf ball to ponder and meditate, but I forgot that there are no April showers in North Dakota. April is just another month of winter up there and everything was either brown or covered in snow. The sun shone for awhile on Saturday, but by that evening it was gray and looking outside you would have thought you were viewing a black and white photo rather than a countryside in color. That would be because there's no color, obviously. But that's ok. There's summer. I was reminded that summer is the best time to take a drive down gravel roads and wade through the prairie grasses in the ditch. Summer smells like teen angst to me out there, but it's still a romantic smell. And on a clear night in August you can see all the shooting stars you could ever want to see. I used to think I was from the lamest place ever (and sometimes I still do, in fact, I usually think it's stupid there), but Kerin reminds me that the nature of Steele county is what is worthwhile about it. Not that trash and extreme passive aggressiveness that inhabits the small houses on the dippy streets within Finley and the surrounding towns.


A black and white Sunday morning behind my adolescent home. How vibrant.

Anyway, my mom is a riot and Finley ought call itself lucky to be the home of the one Mary Veldhouse. First things first she cornered me in the kitchen when I got in on Friday night and said that she had something to tell me. She turned somber with this statement and I couldn't help but let my heart sink like it did the day she told me she and my father were getting a divorce. I was 11, but I knew that my parents' break up was inevitable. The somber news was news I knew I would hear sooner or later, and when my brother and I found out, it was like the band aid was ripped off. Life went on, happiness eventually crept back into our day to day experiences, we got through it.

Friday night Mary again put on a face of seriousness as I stood in the kitchen chewing on an overbaked brownie she had so kindly prepared for me and my arrival. "I have something to tell you". Oh Jesus. Who died. It's all I can think of when she gets like this. Last time it was Joan Wicker, my cousins' grandma. Who is it this time? It's someone I really know, isn't it? Oh god.

"Your dad and I are getting back together."

My crazy dad had just left me a message a few days before, and I hadn't listened to it yet because he's, well, crazy. Was it something more than his normal slurred message of narrating how he was wondering how I was and he thought he'd give me a "ringy dingy"? Had my father called me to tell me that my mother finally gave in and decided to give Dennis another shot? Every thought of what kind of fucked-up my life would be if my parents got back together went through my mind. Where are they going to live? How's she going to put up with the smoking? Further, how's she going to put up with him? Will there be moments where they actually... oh God, I can't even write it... show affection to one another? My heart fluttered (not in a good way), my eyes grew wide, I wanted to throw up the brownie I had been savoring all over my very own mother.

"What?!"

I don't think I was even able to prounce the "t" at the end of that word/sentence.

And then she said it. I should have known. I had been telling Kerin how she would do this to me as a kid. Every year. And every year I fell for it. Even if it was a hippopatamous in the back yard...

"April Fools!!"

OMG mom, you're glad I respect you enough for giving me life not to call you a bitch right now. I was just about to divorce both you and dad for deciding not to be divorced yourselves.

That Mary. She's a trickster! No wonder Dwight lusts after her so. Sometimes I'm terrified as to how much I resemble her (Unfortunately in personality and not looks. My mom was super hot back in her day... I was only lucky enough to inherit her weird sense of humor, inflection, mannerisms, and giant ass). Other times though, it's fun to know that I'm her (and my dad's (as long as I don't think too hard about the process involved of creating me... eek)) spawn. It's almost as if I get to hang out with myself when I'm around her. And yes, that was slightly painful to write and then proofread and then decide to keep in this post.


It was her idea to have me make out with myself. Oh Mom!

Ok blog. I did a very exciting thing today. I accepted the fact that I'm turning into my mother and I also booked a flight to England to meet a boy I spent three hours with way back in December. It's the most romantic and crazy thing that's happened to me yet. It's also the best story in the world and unfortunately it's late, I'm full of wine, and the story is too long at this point (4 months long now) to review in a single entry. Maybe I'll just write a book.

Adieu, adieu! Until the next time I sit down with wine on a Monday...