The Little-Known World of Cloverleaf Corners

There is a world. A special and secret world where animals live in peace and harmony. They form relationships, have babies, plan birthday parties, dress their children in stupid outfits, and create picture-perfect 2.4 child families. That's right folks, animals are becoming more and more like people.

Posable animal figures, that is. I found these little gems on a toy shop shelf in a quaint seaside town. Because my feelings about these "toys" were so strong, I thought I might share my amazement-tinged horror with the world.

Here is what happened: I was on a day trip to this tourist town with some friends. Many of the activities turned out to be somewhat "girly." In order to accommodate the male-folk, we went into a toy store. When I wandered into the first aisle, I was planning on amusing myself by checking out the newest in mind-numbing toys. I only made it a few steps when my eyes forcibly shot from their sockets and I vomited a little in my own mouth.

The Wilder Panda Family, miniature animal family playset:

It turns out these guys are part of a whole line called, "Calico Critters of Cloverleaf Corners," which infers that all these stupidly dressed animal families live in a subdivision or something.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that there were more. Many, many more. Each family has one dad, one mom, and a son and daughter. (Talk about boring, mainstream, heteronormative toys! What about all the kids with two mommies? Or a single dad? That, however, is for another day.)

To be fair, I remember having posable animal figures as a child. Not only was their attire limited to a bowtie or an apron, they only did cool things. They went on adventures, lived in dollhouse mansions and had miniature McDonald's Happy Meal Beanie Babies as their children. They most certainly never, EVER had twin posable hedgehog babies named Hazel and Henry Pickleweed.

Yes, friends. They now make crawling posable animal figures.

But that isn't even the scariest thing of all. I was already so horrified that when I saw these next guys, I almost peed my pants.

COSTUME CRITTERS?!?! Why would animals EVER need to dress up as animals? AND, I can only assume that they are wearing the skins of their former neighbors in Cloverleaf Corners. What kind of example are we setting for American children? From what I can tell, we are saying: It is okay to murder your classmate and wear their skin as a costume to a birthday party. Seriously! Those Costume Critters are children! Posable animal figure children! And they're already murderers.

Secret Bird Meeting

I have a real full-time job now (!) and so I do things like drive to work every day. Now that I am driving all around, I see even more cool things. The main problem is that I am not always able to take a picture in time to capture the coolness that is occurring all around me. In this case, I was just leaving the parking lot at work and was able to stop momentarily to document this momentous event:

SECRET BIRD MEETING!!!!

That's right friends. All of those little black things in the grass and on the sidewalk are birds! There they are, 100 ft from my office, having a snack, shooting the shit and planning their unified worldwide attack on the human race.

I have known about these meetings for a while, but have yet to see them occur. I have seen the birds getting ready for them and I have obviously seen the Alfred Hitchcock movie, but this was a real-life experience!

Don't look at me like that. You know it's true. You've seen it coming all along in the beady eyes of songbirds, the creepy yellow irises of seagulls and the strangely poignant remarks of parrots. But don't worry -- they could never beat us alone. Now, if they formed a coalition with those devious squirrels, that would be another story.

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Yesterday at breakfast, I ate two fortune cookies along with some dried fruit. It has been brought to my attention by my coworkers that eating fortune cookies is ridiculous anytime, let alone eating them for breakfast. One person even said she would be happy to feed me a folded manila folder since it probably tastes the same.

Beyond that, I had a very strange experience. Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of my fortunes, so you will just have to believe me. I am at work right now*, looking directly at them, so I'm a pretty trustworthy source.

*disclaimer: Yes, I am at work, but our email system is down. That basically means I have nothing to do. Stop judging me!

Anyway, I have these two fortunes.

The first one says: Do you see difficulty behind every opportunity, or opportunity behind every difficulty?

Standard. Not really a fortune but standard.

The second one, on the other hand, says: If your cookie still in one piece, buy lotto.

Yes. It literally says that. Nope, no typos on my end. That's right, they are missing a verb, among other things.

Also, if I am interpreting the meaning of the message correctly, how in the hell would I get the fortune without breaking the cookie? I mean, maybe the chances of not breaking the cookie and still getting the fortune are also 1 in 1 million bajillion, which is why you may as well try out the lotto.

Also again, it is not very specific. Telling me to "buy lotto" is not helpful. If I could win the lotto because of this fortune, I need to know how. Which game should I play? If it's a scratch off, do I choose the one in the middle or the one on the right? If it involves choosing numbers, what numbers should I choose? Am I supposed to use the ones on the back of the fortune? (If YOU want to try it, go for 4, 54, 39, 52, 51, 56).

Most importantly, if I use those numbers, will I find myself on a Pacific island populated by sketchy characters ranging from polar bears to smoke monsters to Evangeline Lily after a dramatic plane crash?

In the end, it probably doesn't matter. I didn't even read the fortune until after I'd eaten half of the cookie. Oh the opportunities I miss when I'm hungry...

Kids Don't Know Anything About Anything

I was doing a LEGO birthday party one weekend and discovered, once again, that kids don't know anything about anything.

Most of the kids weren't there yet, so I was building with the couple of kids that were already there, including the little jerk turning 7. I'm feeling creative, and the kids are just building boring houses, so I get started on an awesome project:

It's a dinosaur swimming pool, duh.

As you can see, I have thought of all the details. There are large stairs so the dinosaurs can climb up to the diving board, multiple cretaceous plants to make them feel at home and ensure privacy for those late-night skinny dips, and a shallow depth to the pool for all of the dinosaurs' short-legged friends.

So then, the birthday jerk says to me, "What is that?" I answer in my most serious and important-sounding voice, "A dinosaur swimming pool, duh." The kid actually looks at me and says "Dinosaurs are for babies. I don't like dinosaurs. No one likes dinosaurs."

WHAT!? Who does this kid think he is? He then asked all the other kids as they came whether they liked dinosaurs. Each of the kids said that dinosaurs are dumb and for babies. He actually got all the kids to team up on me.

Even though it's relatively obvious, here is a brief list of reasons why I am better than a 7-year-old:

1. 7-year-olds are 7 and I am not.

2. I have a blog.

3. I have a job.

4. I know that picking your nose is gross.

5. My girlfriend doesn't watch Hannah Montana.

6. My parents don't have to drive me to the movies.

7. I am smarter than a 7-year-old.

And, I only need 7 examples to prove that I am better. Or 8, if that one counts.

The Makings of a Good Man

One of my last weeks of LEGO camp this summer I was at a YMCA day camp. This camp was epic in regards to good stories about ridiculous children. Some of you have already heard the tales of Andrew Panda and I-Just-Went-to-the-Bathroom-in-My-Pants-It-Smells-Bad kid. If you have not, I will tell you right now that they are classics. They made my week on the second floor of a wooden shack in 95 degree heat bearable. But those stories are for another time.

Today I would just like to show you something I saw at YMCA camp. I seem to have a knack for finding cool things posted on walls.

One wall of the shack was covered with art projects. In one project, each kid got a piece of construction paper where they made a collage of things they liked. One kid in particular is going to be an especially good boyfriend one day:

Basketball, golf, good food and teeth clean!? What more could a self-respecting girl ask for?

Seriously though, the first time I saw this sign I was like "wow, this little guy is going to be very popular one day with interests like that."

Then I looked again. This time I only saw "Ug want breakfast Hot Pocket." Then I thought to myself, "Standard."

What was that? I didn't hear anything.

The Gathering of the Vibes

A couple of weekends ago my not for profit org worked a huge music festival that took over our park and closed down our program for 5 days. We were waterfront security, seeing as we are a waterfront organization, and we basically sat under a tent with binoculars and watched for people boating, swimming or walking ashore into the festival illegally. As you might imagine, one of our other primary objectives as waterfront security was to prevent drunk and high people from drowning.

The Vibes festival is supposed to be a new version of Woodstock in honor of Jerry Garcia's death a few years back (aka it is a bunch of young people trying out the whole free-love thing and burnt out older people). It's the most hippie-tastic and ridiculous thing I have ever seen. In order to help you fully understand the experience, I have included a few pictures below.

I saw many strange and nonsensical chalkings about. This one was my favorite because there's not even a purpose.

This one is so you can see one of the most common sights at the festival: the hula hoop dancer. Now, don't be confused and think this is your run-of-the-mill hula hooping that any of us did as children. Oh no. These are HUGE hula hoops with fabric wrapped around them into patterns. And most of these people have no shoes and are extremely dirty because it is Sunday at this point, and they have been here since Wednesday without showering.

Anyway, they dance to the rhythm of the music while hula hooping. They stick their arms out, they move the hoop up and down, they do silly things with their legs. Whatever. Point is, they are dancing with the hoop and, apparently, having a spiritual experience. I was told that I they like when you watch them because it means that you are connecting on a deep level and meeting them in their spiritual hula hooping dancing experience.

Hula Hooping may be spiritual for you, Dexter the chicken who says moomoo, but for me, I can't stop staring at you because you keep hooping for hours! And because you are very dirty.

Boyful

Is that like joyful? Or full of boys?

And is that supposed to mean a van full of boys? Even so, is there anyway that this vanity plate does not sound creepy? Did no one tell this person what that sounds like? How this got past the vanity plate censors, I will never know.

I only know that there are censors because my sister's bf has a plate that says: 2GS1C

As in "two girls one cup" (If you don't know what that means, pretend you never heard this.)

It would be creepy except that he wears tshirts with piles of kittens on them and mallard duck sweaters. ...I'm not sure that statement helps with the not-creepy case, but whatever.

Oh the places donuts can lead you

Sometimes when I have a small class and they are busy building, I get to build things. The number one problem I have is that I can never think of anything to build. What started as an idea to build a LEGO donut ended in this:

Really, I tried to make a donut and instead made a tower. Then I decided it had to be part of a castle. If you don't really do LEGOs, you won't be impressed with the feat of building a round tower. Aka, if you're cool, you understand how cool I was on Friday.

Also, note the moat. The only thing that could have made this better would be if I had a LEGO shark.

$10 should definitely buy me sound

The gym is inherently evil.

I say this as a frequent gym-goer and membership-payer. I say this as someone who will continue to be both of those things at least until the next time I move. Still, the gym is just evil.

My reasoning may be very different than you are expecting. It's not that I hate exercise or that the gym makes me feel crappy about myself. Actually, every time I leave the gym I feel at least relatively accomplished, which should make it a good experience.

2 main reasons why the gym is evil and is, therefore, not a good experience: the machines and the TVs.

Before I go into those, I should insert a disclaimer. I pay only $10 per month and paid $1 to join. That means that I've spent about $61 so far getting back into shape, sitting in A/C and watching cable, all of which are obviously important and worthy expenditures.

Even so, no matter how little or how much I pay, the gym remains an indoor activity where I spend approximately an hour on my own road to nowhere. I know that the whole "running and going nowhere" and "ellipticals are for weenies" thing is totally overdone, but really. It's true. And I use the elliptical almost every day. (sidenote: I am a weenie)

More importantly, the TV situation was the bane of my existence today. Every once in a while I come across a TV that temporarily isn't working. But today I came into contact with not one, not two, but THREE TVs that were out to ruin my workout. Is it too much to ask to make sure that the channels change? There was no way that I was going to be stuck watching Reba for 3 minutes, let alone 30. (You may say "Hey, don't watch!" But let me tell you how this nightmare ends -- the TV wouldn't turn off! And asking someone to look away from a sitcom is like asking someone in advance not to slow down and look at the terrible accident on their left while their driving on the highway!) And can't the sound just work? What is the point of watching America's Next Top Model on the bike if you can't even hear what Tyra is saying? Well let me tell you...there isn't one!

Point is, I pay good (cough) money to go to the gym and watch TV while I lazily pedal away. And today, that privilege was revoked. And I will never forget that burn.

Teaching the youth of America important truths

I was teaching an after-school program at this elementary school in Easton in their gym. First of all, Easton is very picturesque and full of wealthy white people. One time I tried to grab lunch before my class and found that there are exactly 0 gas stations and 0 fast food establishments, if that gives you any idea of the kind of community we are talking about here.

Anyway, I'm getting ready for my class, aka putting out LEGOs, when I see that there are a bunch of posters on the wall. They are, of course, about gym-related things like "There's no I in TEAM" and "Winning is trying your hardest." The posters all feature these "diverse" cartoonish children fulfilling the mantra stated above their heads. The more I looked at these lessons in sportsmanship, however, the more disturbed I got.

I have included the most disturbing poster of all here:

I have to start by pointing out how unrealistic and ridiculous this is for multiple reasons.

1. What children play golf? Especially without their parents forcing them to.
2. What black people play golf? (Besides Tiger Woods)
3. What black people play golf with Asian people?
4. Why is the black child wearing a low-cut v-neck shirt when he has no chest hair yet to creepily force the world to stare at with disgust?
5. Who bothers to go golfing but also needs a book of rules with them?
6. What children read sports rules? As far as I remember, we just made up our own. Like, "That's cheating because you stepped first with your left foot instead of your right after you spun three times around the oak tree" (read: that's cheating because I'm losing)
7. Is this a gay golf tournament? Oh, I just realized that they are members of the rainbow connection.

Beyond these pressing questions I have to ask the obvious:

Why is the Asian girl yellow?

All the other children were more realistic colors. For instance, the white children were peachy-beige, not white. Maybe I just missed the memo that Asian people are actually yellow.

All the other children also have rosy cheeks. Asian people don't have cheeks? OR EYEBALLS? This girl is the only kid on any of the posters without whites of her eyes.

So the truths we are teaching our children through these posters include (but are not limited to)

• Everyone has the means and motivation to play golf.
• Black children wish only for chest hair.
• Asian children are zombies.

My life with a personal secretary

Something you should know: I am obsessed with my cat, Tuba. I'm not a crazy cat lady--I don't even like cats in general. Tuba is just the coolest cat in all existence.

(I'm so sorry to my other cat-owning friends, but I'm sure you can agree that 1. Tuba is a total cool-pants and 2. You feel similarly about your own cat.)

Anyway, I'm sure that many posts will include or revolve around Tuba, so it seems fitting to begin by telling you about her new job.

Tuba is my new personal secretary!

Pros: quiet, adorable, freakishly devoted

Cons: falls asleep on the job, can't read, chews cords

Pros clearly outweigh the cons. I can tell this is going to be a great working relationship.