Regrets of 1992

2010 was a pretty even-keeled year. I doubt there would be much drama in a 2010 recap. You know what year was full of misfortune and regret? 1992.

SPRING - 8 years old. On the walk home from school, pair of bully boys start teasing my older sister. Throw rocks at them. Called one an "asshole." Ran home with sister and made teary confession to Mom that I said "the A-word." Eat some homemade bread.

SPRING - 8 years old. School is over, chilled Midwestern March. Rainstorm. My ride has not arrived. Wait underneath awning outside school for an hour. Finally walk home. Soaking upon arrival, locked out. Sit in a lawn chair outside house for an hour in the rain, shivering. Play it tough. Like I want to sit in the rain. Mom arrives home, feels terrible. Warm up in the bath, Mom fixes bean burrito.

SUMMER - 8 years old. Summon courage, finally dive off high-dive at public pool in Geneva. Over-rotate and land on my back.

FALL - 8 years old. Fawn over Michael Pentek all year, even though as an adult I will find him kind of funny-looking. Draw hearts over his 2nd-grade yearbook picture, write "mea mora" in red pen (thinking my secret will remain safe from my non Spanish-speaking sisters). Square dance with him in gym class. Act relatively uninterested with him during gym, though I have carefully selected outfits on gym days for his benefit. Never tell him I write songs about him at home. Never, ever talk to him. Regret this decision for more than a few years.

FALL - 9 years old. Mrs. Keen promises 3rd grade class cookies to accommodate Geology units - Igneous (angel crisps), Sedimentary (brownie bars) Metamorphic (who knows). Keen never delivers on Metamorphic cookies. Remember this broken promise till this day. Harbor vendetta against all elementary teachers.

WINTER - 9 years old. Ask for a "poet's blouse" for Christmas. Also ask for Marvin the Martian stickers. Receive both. Wear poet's blouse weekly. Write a lot of poetry, mostly woeful stuff about Michael Pentek.

Happy 1992 Everyone!

Mythological Holiday Creatures

Because I'm the type of person who takes on way more projects and freelance work than I can handle, of course I insisted on making some kind of video Christmas card this year. And with my filmmaker husband's assistance, we did.

Merry Christmas from the Cardons.



Sorry for the puns. Oh wait, no I'm not.

Experiment: Laser Tag

First of all, the place smells like bad pizza.

A pizza cooked days ago, kept lukewarm under a heatlamp. Like worse than a Hot-n-Ready smell. A sweaty, public pool pizza.

This is because they have one of these pizzas (pepperoni) under a sallow heatlamp, sitting next to the cash-register. From the looks, a consumer-grade heatlamp. You might buy something similar from SkyMall, to accompany the Old Fashioned Looking Popcorn Machine you keep in your "game den." And the $2.50-a-slice pizza looks completely desaturated. Ninja Turtles would cry.

Speaking of Ninja Turtles, the whole place is actually sort of sewerlike. The walls are black and foamy with low ceilings. Accents of neon green and pink. It's humid. Teenage-boy-voice frequency. Which mostly means lots of awkward laughter that sounds like it's being choked out of them. They are excited. They occupy every last seat on the opposing benches. Team Green and Team Red. They throw taunts to each other, though friends. They are remarkably different in size, some still pushing 100 pounds, others like newborn giants. (Were teenage boys always so strange?)

We are the oldest people in the place by at least ten years. It is my first time playing laser tag.

The guy running the register is dressed in all black and I don't even think that's part of his work uniform. I bet he is 15. We ask him for two tickets for one 30-minute game of laser tag. He says we can't pay him for another 10 minutes. We don't understand but comply and wander back into the arcade area to kill time.

There is a birthday party going on. It's seems like a big downer, even for the 13-year old birthday boy. Maybe next year, kid.

We finally pay, get split up as a couple and join our respective teammates. Jared gets greeted by his team. I get a scan and a nod from mine. I am the only female in the whole place. They offer to let Jared select the game music since he is new (which will be blasted from the stereo system during play). He looks through the options and selects Star Wars. They quickly veto that ("no way" "stupid" "lame"), and instead pick something that sounds like it'd be under the "angry" filter on Killer Tracks.

This snobbery and shunning of Star Wars makes me upset. I conspire to rub up against them and make them nervous during play, or whisper sultry things into their ears to disarm them, then go for the kill.

I never get the chance. I am completely blindsided by the game.

The second I slip on the still-sweaty vest and grab the gun, I'm the last to get up the stairs. Upon entering the warehouse section, I'm memorized by the artwork, the black lights and the insane neon. Part dorm room, part glow-in-the-dark-gang-scene from Batman Forever, if you saw that.)

My first plan of action is to strategically survey the land. I want to know exactly how the passageways connect. I do this with zero interference. Then I hear some yelling and follow the noise, keeping my distance. I duck behind an old barrel labeled TOXIC. I get in position. I wait for someone to walk by.

I wait for someone to walk by.

Wait.

No one is coming. I am a useless sniper.

I strategically take the perimeter route to where I hear voices. I see some red flashes (indicating gunfire). I crouch down and follow the lights. I run (against the rules, absurdly) towards the silhouette. I take aim at his right shoulder blade and fire. HIT!

The tiny teenager just laughs at me.

I turn around. The entire Red Team is perched on a landing above me. I walked right into an ambush. It's a turkey shoot.

When you get hit by the other team, you have three seconds of immunity. After I get hit, I take about 2 of those 3 and run (against the rules) out of harm's way.

Where are my Green comrades? Why is it so humid in here?

Did I mention I am wearing a silk blouse (surprise date).

The remaining 20 minutes are just as disappointing. No one is playing strategically. They are only using 5 percent of the warehouse. No sneak attack. No snipery. Just teenage boys being irritating and smelling up the place.

I still manage to make about 20 hits in the next ten minutes.

I run into Jared the one and only time. We stop and give each other a quick kiss.

I turn a corner in haste and hit a guy in the face with my gun (accident).

I overhear a guy say, "Don't go after that guy's girlfriend. He'll probably kick your ass."

I get pissed off overhearing this. I can play dirty. I can play reckless. And I do for the last 10 minutes of the game. I run the whole time, sweating up my very stylish outfit.

I hit another guy in the head with my gun (accident?)

And then, just as fast as it starts, it's over. 30 minutes down.

I make my way downstairs, find Jared waiting at the bottom, remove the even-sweatier vest.

We get our scores. Jared comes in 4th overall. I come in 14th. Out of 19.

I am completed outraged by this as any natural athlete would be. I vow then and there never to play again. Not so much because of the humidity, the lack of respect for one of the great movies of our time, the CHEATER behavior of the teenage boys. Not even because of the pizza smell.

But because I was terrible at laser tag. Call me a snob or a pessimist or a bad loser but it's not worth playing if you can't win.

Experiment: BLT TIME

Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato
- Texturally complex
- Salty and Tangy
- Good on many breads
- Lettuce is an under-performer

Bearnaise, Lettuce, Tomato
- Memorable, for all the wrong reasons

Bacon, Lamb, Tomato
- Lamb adds a nice substance
- Bacon is still dominant flavor
- Tomato succeeds

Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato Juice
- Tomato Juice does not work the same as au jus
- Mushy

Bacon, Lettuce, Turkey Bacon
- Dare to be great

Experiment: Raccoon Handling

Is it wrong to pick a favorite married couple?

Because Paul and Jamie from Mad About You are so it.

Oh hey, Leah & Brandon. What are you two doing in this blog post about favorite married couples? Weird.

 . .


Leah's the kind of girl who will crack an egg over the shower curtain (and onto your head) when you are taking a shower and then come back minutes later to toss over a piece of toast. Buttered. She will coerce you to try some new "candy" that turns out to be turtle food. Leah calls her English mom “the Juice Box,” and her dad invented the Snickers Ice Cream Bar. The Snickers Ice Cream Bar.

And Brandon? Brandon is the Werner Herzog to her Klaus Kinski. He also, I recently learned, goes by the nickname “Pip.” Together they fake fight at the top of their lungs to convince their strait-laced neighbors they are in a Jerry-Springer type relationship.

 In other words, I love them.

They are also the caretakers of three baby raccoons. Raccoons who were abandoned in their infancy and need TLC before they are re released into the wild.

Is it legal to keep baby raccoons in your 300 square foot apartment? Probably not. But kicking three homeless raccoons back out on the rough streets of Provo? I’ll not abide it. 



It was a lovely summer night and they invited us over for some good old neighborly raccoon-greeting.

I'll be honest. I was terrified to touch one. Tiny human hands!

Brandon opened the front door and three kitten sized raccoons fell out. He was carrying a baby bottle full of reddish stuff.

“They just woke up – they’re a little drunk.”

The three of them wobbled along like they had learned to walk (crawl?) that very day. He proceeded to feed them, one by one, the smoothie looking concoction.


Nothing will make you feel more Emersonian than seeing a man with a beautiful red beard suckle a raccoon.

After they were fed they had an even harder time walking. The fat-bellied raccoons became less scary and more cute. I bent over to pick one up. They were soft. They were nuzzly. You could grab them by their skin on their back and just toss them around like pancakes.

They also are very well trained. All three of them galloped through the grass to play follow the leader.



It was beautiful. Just four neighborly neighbors sitting around in wicker chairs on the porch, having some beards, wearing some plaid, feedin some raccoons.

And I could not have been more wrong. I totally misjudged raccoons. (I still have a vendetta out for moles – prove me wrong, internet-active mole community).


SAD SURPRISE TWIST ENDING WITH NO POPCORN:

Leah and Pip have just moved to paradise, aka, Oregon. (Just another reason for me to move to the Pearl District?)

I am in need of a new favorite married couple who are caretakers of unexpectedly well-behaved wild animals. Banjo-playing is a bonus. Is there a couple out there like this? Or am I just chasing waterfalls?

(I worked two TLC references into this post, I am incredible.)