Best text message EVER

Originally posted: Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 9:58pm

While I was in Egypt I left Skype on for a few hours and found this message from my brother when I returned. Anyone who doesn't think this is the best message ever--I will fight you.

Enjoy. I sure did.
PS I kept the original formatting so as to preserve the streamofconsciousness nature of the thing.

"Caitlin! I had the craziest dream that you and I made a flying van/spaceship/airplane that we used to send down the west coast of central and south america and drop lobster traps and pick them up and bring them back to us. Only we also caught a princess and her dad and they came back to our home - which for some reason was in the midwest somewhere among crops and stuff and we were operating out of a treehouse. The US government was getting super curious about our little craft and thought it was an enemy vessel. Luckily it was small enough to fly below the radar and fast enough not to get caught. Somehow we got it to run off of corn oil and it also used solar power. It was new technology that you developed - you developed the technology and I built it into a van that could fly real fast and drop and pick up lobster traps. We brought home one lobster, a princess and her father, garnered the attention of the US government/military, and developed a new technology... awesome. It kinda crash landed when it got home and for some reason we could fly it from our tree house so it was also remote controled. Our dad was there when it landed but he wasn't all that impressed because we only caught one lobster and it wasn't big enough to eat so I put it in a pot of salt water in the sink. Turns out the lobster was some sort of pet to the princess. Oh, and our flying lobstering van worked perfectly when it dropped the lobster traps and picked them up pretty good too - we just fished in the wrong place i guess. ok - thats it - can't wait to see you!"

Bwahahahahaha! That's the most ridiculous dream ever! I love my siblings.

Cheese Balls: The Snack (not a medical condition)

Originally posted: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 10:35am

Alternate title: My selfish alter-ego

For Halloween my mom gave Husband and I a ONE POUND drum of cheese balls/puffs (meant to resemble pumpkins or something). One pound doesn't sound like much, but think of how light those things are. It's like the size of a sparkletts jug.

We have so many we've been using them to barter with. Ex: We gave a friend a baggy of cheese puffs to borrow two of her movies. Cheese balls could be the currency of the future, should the economy continue in a downslide...

And people get really excited about cheese puffs. Like everybody wants one or two as soon as they see that you've got some. But you look like a selfish jerk if you only give someone one or two cheese balls even if they only ask for one or two (I mean, who can't spare a handful of a cheap snack?), but I'm REALLY covetous of certain food. Luckily, cheese balls are the kind of thing that I realize I will get sick of pretty quickly. As soon as all that processed cheese dust and the deep-fried dough puffs start to build a layer of glutinous, sodium-filled jelly in my stomach... I'm done and ready to share. But sometimes I don't want to share food.

Like, usually, I love to feed people. I will give you tons of home-cooked food. I'll make several dishes and want you to stuff yourself on them, but if I go to the store and find some snack food that I REALLY want, and then I get it... I'm like freaking Golum hiding in some cave with the "One Snack." I think everybody else wants it, too, so I eat it secretly where no one will see and ask for some.

I try and keep this covetousness a secret. Husband only recently found this out with grape juice. It's a guilty pleasure, since it's kinda expensive as far as juice goes. I have to limit how much I drink or I will make myself disgustingly ill on it. And like I said, I get kinda manic about it, like, even *how* I drink it. Grape juice must be sipped. Must. Otherwise you miss the full spectrum of delicious flavor. Well, a few weeks back, we got two 64oz containers of grape juice from Costco. I thought I was going to cry I was so happy about all that juice. I quickly imagined how, if I paced myself, I could make it last a long time.

When we got it home, I immediately poured myself a glass; so did Husband. I hadn't calculated his consumption into my grape juice forecast. I tried to let it go, thinking of how silly it was wanting to have all the grape juice for myself. I sipped my cup of juice: it was fantastic; incredibly flavorful; like an old friend it was familiar and yet I hadn't had any in a while, so the taste was refreshing. Slowly sipping and savoring, I was entering a sort of meditation with my grape juice. Then I heard a horrifying noise: *glumph**glorb**glumph*

"NO!" I cried out unexpectedly. Husband was GULPING down his glass of grape juice. That oaf was reverse-vomiting the precious nectar of my delight. I snatched his glass from him before he could finish off what little juice remained in it. I was another person, it seemed.

"What are you DOING?!" my mouth surprised me by talking, "You can't CHUG the grape juice!"

I must have really shocked Husband because he just stood there with his eyes popped open about as big as I've seen them. He was biting his lips together and his hand was still curled around some phantom cup in midair-- everything had happened so fast, and surely he hadn't expected to be attacked just then.

I explained how it needed to be sipped, savored, about the spectrum of delicious flavor, the nirvana... I started to hear how ridiculous I was. And Husband was still standing there looking really sheepish before he burst out laughing and promised that he would "sip from now on." While he conceded that it was unquestionably better when sipped, I felt bad enough about letting my Golum alter-ego surface that I told him he could chug it if he wanted to and I wouldn't attack him again... He still seems too afraid to do that, though, because whenever he drinks the grape juice now, he always casts furtive glances my way as he sips. Secretly, I am pleased.

Now you know more about my selfish alter-ego.

If I write 25 things will you people stop tagging me?

Originally posted: Friday, February 13, 2009 at 4:59am
Context: For a while college facebookers were all "tagging" each other in these chain messages. In an act of pure procrastination and insomnia, I played along.

Alright, I've been tagged in these things a few times now, so I figured I'd take the time all early in the morning to go ahead and bare my soul to you all in a bullet point fashion. Because soul-bearing should be well organized if done at all.

1. When I was little I collected really weird things, and really half-heartledly:

• erasers (mostly Lisa Frank garbage, for those of you who remember that stuff)
• rocks
• my teeth (I waited for them to fall out naturally)
• stickers
• pencils
• letters and cards that people sent me
• baseball cards  (I have a ton of worthless cards. I was a big Daryl Strawberry fan. Ouch.)
• coins (when I say "half-heartedly" it means that there are Chuck-e-cheese tokens in there)
• hairballs (this collection didn't last long. My mom found out I was stealing the hair from everyone's brushes and got really freaked out. Made me stop.)
• diaries/journals (I pity the poor person who ever tries to write my biography. I've always kept at least two journals going simultaneously.)

2. I added a new collection about 2 years ago: bouncy balls. I think I wrote about it in another note.

3. I can't do math. Can't. Do. Math. I'm not being humble, people. It's bad. Yesterday I had to ask someone what 4+5 was. I would've gotten it eventually...

5. I can't count, either.

6. Almost all of my earliest memories of my brother Connor involve him getting me to ride on a bike/scooter/wagon/sled/skateboard with him down some big hill and then crashing. That and him laughing whenever my sister Reagan or I would get mad at him.

7. When I was in elementary school Reagan would babysit us when we got home, and Connor would get me to mutiny with him against her and lock her in her room so we could watch tv instead of do homework.

8. I've never really belonged to a group of friends that I hang out with every day. I'm more of a drifter who has friends in different groups of people and spends time with them randomly.
* I will make a slight correction here, as I definitely had best friends in Cairo who I saw ALL the time. Ya'll know who you are.

9. Whenever people find out that my parents met in the circus (no, not *at* the circus) they almost always feel compelled to be witty and say something like, "Well that explains some things."

10. I'm pretty indecisive on most things. When people ask me about my favorites I usually make something up for that moment. Sorry if that makes you all question whether you really know me.

11. I am prone to becoming a part of strange stories. A few weeks into my semester in Egypt, I accidentally dyed most of my clothing *pink* in a terrible, terrible decision-making process.

12. I recently followed up on room-for-rent ad at a house only to find 6 dogs named Doodle, Doo-dah, Two-toe, Maximoose, Small thing, and Smaller thing ... and 5 cats. One cat "helps" a guy who lives there (he goes by the name Meow--the man does) composing music by "telling him when it's right on."

13. Last semester I rented an apartment in Egypt from the ex Egyptian Ambassador to China. Craziest time there had to be when we had 8 girls living in an apt meant for three: Me and Daphne from USC; Lindsey from Michigan; Karla from El Salvador, but living in Israel; Dina a Russian-Israeli; Armen, Samah, and Juliet from Jordan. IHOM - International House of Mormons (minus Daphne, but she's kinda Mormon by association).

12. In Cairo, I got addicted to soda. Me + soda is as close to drunk as you'll ever see me. Under the influence of soda I composed a number of impromptu songs about people and other stuff.

13. I'm not allowed to make fun of Uggs or people who wear them after I had to wear a pair of pink Uggs for about a month straight in my senior year of high school. Bone spurs in my achilles tendons necessitated loose boots.

14. I had a pet lobster and crawdad and some fish until the crawdad, Gilligan, ate the feelers and all but one leg off the lobster, Fivel. I fed Fivel with chopsticks for a few days and watched in horror as he could only push himself in circles. And then he died. Gilligan laster slightly longer until I trusted him to Elisa while I was in Cairo. He made a few attempts at escape and then died of a broken heart. Even ruthless lobster-mauling machines have teeny-tiny, gross little hearts, people.

15. When I was in Egypt, men would always ask if I was German and I'd say yes so they couldn't talk to me anymore. Until I realized that there are quite a few Egyptians who can speak German...so I switched my story and told people that I was from Argentina so I'd be safe if anyone tried to call my bluff.

16. I can sing with my mouth closed. No, not humming, it's singing.

17. I procrastinate. Last semester I had a book review due, woke up at (Lindsey, correct me here) 6am, read the whole book and took notes, wrote a 12 page review, and got it in to class by 4pm. Favorite quote during that episode as I crouched over my laptop in our dining room: "Lindsey, if I pull this one off I won't learn my lesson, but I sure will be happy."

18. I stop at stop signs.

19. My elementary school had a milk program where they'd leave a crate of milk sitting outside each classroom, and you picked one up on your way out to recess. Well, some days they'd leave them out too long, or re-use the unopened milks the next day, and there'd be bad milk with chunks in it. So now I've got this strange compulsion to smell all milk before drinking it, and I'm always asking for a second opinion on it.

20. I can eat a lot more than people assume.

21. I'm surprised that I've been able to focus long enough to write this many things. Ummm... I love the internet or interweb or blogosphere, or blogonet, or whatever else it goes by.

22. Oh! I like nerdy games. My friend Stephanie Shin and I used to give each other hard words to spell in an attempt to stump one another. And Juli Kiyan and I were once reduced to playing 'Guess the Historical Figure' while waiting for Mr. Atchley to open the Hobachi room for us.

23. I love quirky websites that are useful and fun to peruse:
www.freerice.com
www.flashcardexchange.com
http://www.bored.com/getannoyed/general.htm -- A list of ways to annoy people. Some good ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXpYk7WGN5Y -- Most awkward Letterman interview EVER
http://www.virtual-bubblewrap.com/popnow.shtml
http://bored.com/dumb/ -- really dumb
http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=cool%2C+huh%3F+-+Caitlin
http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

24. I really like learning new languages. So far I can converse in English and Spanish, get by in Egyptian Arabic, greet people in Mandarin, and say animals, colors, greetings, and days of the week in Hungarian. I'm always up for learning more if you want to teach me!

25. If you really want to get to know anything else about me, just ask. I'm too tired to think up any more things. (yeah, I know I cheated with that whole "I can't count" trick up in #5, but whatever.)

Say Wha--? (great moments this week)

Originally posted: Saturday, February 9, 2008 at 9:03am
Context: I was in college and, hence, more likely to be in strange places at odd hours with eccentric people.

Firstly, I have to say that I honestly believe that people wait to do/say weird things until they're around me. Seriously. I believe that people are pretty normal until they get within a certain distance, and then they turn weird, because I swear I hear and see the strangest things all the time. It's like I attract it. Or maybe I encourage it.

With that, I heard some good ones in the past few days. So enjoy.

1:30 this morningReally drunk girl: *walking by outside, shouting* I'm a freaking DIVA!
Guy walking with her: Really? Because you just threw up back there.

---------

Girl in my office: I hear that CostCo has some pretty good opta-- ops--- obstetricians...
Me: Do you mean "optometrists?"
Girl: No, obsta...*eyes get wide* ...yeah, optometrists.

---------

12:15 A.M. at a taco stand in South Los Angeles with friends
Homeless man: Hey guys, I don't wanna tell you my whole life story or anything, but lemme tell you what: I'm going to try to surprise you, and if you're not surprised you don't have to give me anything.
Carlos: *whispering to us* Please don't let him pull his pants down.
Homeless man: Here I go...
*all of us start edging backwards*
Homeless man: (singing) Je-e-e-e-e-e-e-sus! Y-o-o-o-u are-- *waves had around* m-i-i-i-i-ne!
Another guy nearby: Hey! He sang that last night --and he was better then! Tonight's version smells like beer...
---------
Sitting for lunch in one of the university dining halls
Friend who I shall call "Sean": What's wrong with that guy's HAIR?
Me: I don't know.
Sean: But LOOK at it! Why is it like that?
Me: I don't know --I'm not a hair specialist.
Sean: But it's all... it's gone in some parts but really long on the other side. Do you think it's some religious hair cut?
Me: Seriously? Let it go.
Sean: ... there's something wrong. I'm going to find out.