Best and Worst of 2k8

Here it is, dear readers: the summary of the year that was (at least in my life). It's time to give out the best and worst awards for the 2008 season. Events: just be honored you were remembered. A lot of events don't even get that chance.

Worst/Weirdest Holiday: New Years 2008.

Key: A night meant to be low key starts with martinis and SNL review and then shifts to “WHAT!?” night with a South African UN pilot, a literal party bus and a stop at Jacks. Whadda way to start a year.

Best Hungover Activity: New Years Day 2008.
Key: Wes invites Robin, Jane and I to play on the segways at the chamber of commerce.

Best ending to the best ruse I've ever managed to pull off:
Preface: Hatcher never wanted to meet my friend Paul. She'd heard so many wonderful stories about him that she thought he'd never live up to the hype and thus chose to actively try to not meet him, even while they lived in the same town and had a few friends in common. Paul and I thought this could not be. So in November 2005 I secretly had Hatcher and Paul hang out for an entire night without Hatcher ever realizing who he was (we gave him the alias “Pete Griffin” from 'Family Guy') and had an entire room of our friends play along (big shout out to KK, Maskey, Grafto, and Hollaback), calling him “Pete” the whole night. Poor KK met him as Pete and we didn't get to tell her the truth til after Hatch left. At one point during the night Hatch said, “Spooner, your friend Pete is hilarious! Why haven't I hung out with him sooner?” I told her it was because he was only in town for one night. Giggle. By the next summer Paul had moved to Wisconsin and Hatch thought herself victorious, never meeting Paul.

Jump ahead to the very tail end of 2007, two years later. I finally get the courage to tell Hatcher the truth, that she had actually met, hung out and LIKED Paul, that we introduced him under an alias and it had gone swimmingly. She burst out laughing. She didn't remember the night but was so impressed that the ruse had lasted as long as it did. In the long run I guess we both won. Hatch doesn't remember actually meeting him and I can say for certain that they did meet and she liked him. All's well that ends well. Best ruse ever.

Worst Wardrobe Malfunction: Alana and David's wedding, Weaverville, NC May.
Key: My strapless dresses zipper breaks as I step out of the car to walk into the wedding. Leslie tries to fix it and instead makes it worse. “Run. Run, Spooner. Run home and change; there is no hope for this dress.” (and I loved Natalie Knauer's “You don't have a spare dress in your car?”) and thus I speed out the front door of the church holding my dress together. Awesome.

Best “That's what she said” moment: Margarita's couch, Asheville, November.
Key: Margarita had wedged her beer bottle into the couch cushions and it was listing slightly, we both grabbed the bottle at the same time to keep it from spilling only to have it spill all over me. I said, “That's what I was trying to prevent and that's what just went all over my butt” and she fell off the couch laughing.

Best Concert Experience: Three Girls and Their Buddy, Asheville, January
Key: Robin and I splurge and see Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin and Buddy Miller play an acoustic round-robin set that sent shivers down my spine. Such beauty.

Best Team Name: The No Talent Ass Clowns, Nate and Anthony's dart team at Barley's Tap Room, March.
Key: It was about 6 hours into the 11 hour tour and they did end up defeating the Hot Bizzos quite handily.

Best Holiday: Fourth of July, Asheville.
Key: BBQ and water balloon fight at Clark and Nancy's house followed by a trip to the Shop to sit on the roof and feel the fireworks rumple. The night didn't end until past 1am and it was just one of those times where life gets perfect for a moment.

Best Spontaneous Trip: Fleeing to Charleston, SC for one day, April.
Key: Katie, Margarita and I forgo other obligations to spend 8 hours in the car to lay on the beach for 5. Standing at the Battery, smelling the ocean after dinner with Squirrel...then guilty Liz Phair sing-a-long on the way home.

Best Not-Holiday Holiday: Valentines, Schmalentines with Doug, The Biltmore Estate.
Key: Doug and I have not-Valentines Day fun tooling around the Biltmore Estate before a picnic at the lagoon (no wine corker so...leatherman! Floating cork!) and then the wine tour. The day doesn't end until 10pm and I'm reminded how much fun we have.

Best Competition: Sangria-palooza, West Asheville, June.
Key: Four kinds of sangria, four kinds of liquor for each, taste tests and everyone wins. Margarita gets double points for making hers with moonshine. Also: I bring giant steak that almost kills me.

Worst Weird Injury: My Lifetime Movie Channel bruise, Asheville, May.
Key: Playing cups with friends and frisbee strikes my left forearm so forcefully I had a literal welt and kept a bag of frozen peas on it the rest of the party. Looked like I was beaten.

Best/Worst Project: The tiling of the floor, Jane's House, Asheville, most of the year.
Key: Started the kitchen and hall in June. Finished in December. Speed isn't a strong suit of my home improvement skills.

Best Visitors: Murphy and Caroline come to AVL, March.
Key: Oh jeez. Bad Idea Girls take on the dirty soouf. “Woohoo! This will not suck!” “Good ol' Muffintop! Muffintop, Tennessee!” Gunticles. The 22oz of PBR for Kings. The 11 Hour Beer Tour with Nate, Cara, Anthony and Margarita and the other characters who roamed in and out.

Best Not Celebrity Run in: The Eli Manning Doppelganger, Jack of the Wood, March
Key: Caroline, while blatantly flashing her engagement ring, getting hit on relentlessly by Eli Manning look-a-like during the final 2-3 hours of the 11 hour beer tour.

Worst Departure, Person: Rita Marroquin moves back to Austin, September.
Key: After 8 years Rita goes home and all of AVL wonders what to do in her place. She is sorely missed!

Best Futile Effort to Get Adults to Focus: Attempting Trivial Pursuit at Rita's Martini Party, Asheville, July.
Key: The group was several martinis in, Rita didn't know what was going on, Nate looked like a J.Crew model and Margarita did eventually lose her pants.

Best span of 48 hours: Running around Paris with Erin, France, October.
Key: “We are young and happy!”, Jeff in IT and Stacey, “Escargot? More like Escar-GREAT!”, surrendering to the French Police when he just wanted to give us roses, the Cafe in the Tuleries, Satire doesn't translate well into Hebrew, Pulling on a wine bottle on our picnic at the Rodan, The bunkbed of death. That whole trip could be it's own page of bests.

Best Wedding Moment: Bridesmaids and Jess, Liz and Phil's Flat, London, October.
Key: Three bridesmaids sitting on the edge of a bathtub, soaking our tired feet and passing around a bottle of champagne.

Best Day: August 5, Hot Springs, NC and Cradle of Forestry, NC.

Key: Katherine and I head to Hot Springs, to lay in the river for the afternoon. Go home, change, and head out on a trip with Jonathan to Mt. Pisgah where we sipped wine, talked, watched the sunset then put the cushions on the ground and looked at the stars. It was close to perfect.

Worst Ending of a Streak: My first speeding ticket, Albemarle County, VA, September.

Key: I had never even been pulled over before and I was actually excited. Then the cop and I talked about weddings and baby showers for five minutes. Also: managed to get another speeding ticket on Christmas Eve. Super.

Best New Tradition: Bouchon All You Can Eat Mussels night, Asheville, Summer.

Key: Delicious mussels, Nate and Margarita, a bottle of muscadet, summer in the city.

Best Lists:

Dangerous Breakfast Cereals (Alpha Bits-of-broken-glass)

Potentially Embarrassing Songs on your iPod

Dramatic Movies made funnier had they starred Tom Cruise in place of Tom Hanks (think: Philadelphia)

American Car or American Gladiator (Woohoo McSweeneys)

Best Moment During Endless Presidential Campaign: VP Debate Drinking game, all over, September.
Key: Friends from across the country texting and drinking on words and phrases like, “You betcha”, “Maverick”, “Joe Six-Pack”, “Scranton” and “Ya know”.

Best Homemade gift: My birthday cards from the Birch girls, Paris VA, May.
Key: two phrases: “I know Spanish OK” and, of course, “Tony I am Tony”.

Moment I was proudest of my country: November 4^th, 2008.
Key: Watching people of all ages be that inspired and hopeful and teary-eyed, dancing in the streets, hugging, yelling in joy. Also: it as Andrew's birthday so that was a fun too.

Most Improved Holiday: My Birthday, West Asheville, May.
Key: playing cups, grilling out, laughing at my friends, a bag of bugles, a secret side trip, feeling loved.

Best Idea that actually became a reality: Road trip to Canada with Jonathan, August.
Key: over 20 hours in the Westy to spend two days in Canada. The afternoon spent wandering around Pittsburgh, the campsite on the shore of Lake Ontario, waking up to the New River Gorge, laughing hysterically while getting soaked on the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls, just one of the best trips I've ever taken. Also seeing the sign “Christian Warho” and then joking about what a Wareho would be.

Best Text Message (tie): “I think of Taps every time I eat popcorn or throw up in a bush.” -Caroline.
“I kinda just want to get drunk, dress up like a fairy and throw glitter on people. But I want to do that pretty much every day.” --Margarita, talking about Halloween.

Best Story That Didn't Happen to Me but is Nonetheless Hilarious: Doug's bicycle road-rage incident.
Key: Just read it here. Amazing.

Benign and Yet Incredibly Odd Moment of the Year: The gas crisis in September, waiting in the queue for 45 minutes to pay almost $5/gal, the creepiness of seeing cars abandoned for want of gasoline. All of Asheville shut down because no one had gasoline.

Favorite Daily Entertainment: Prank War at Work with Andrea and Andrew, all year.
Key: started with stickers, then went to bigger stickers, then involved cars, then involved a plastic dinosaur, then involved wrapping a car in seran wrap, fake birthdays and a loaf of bread I am still a little bitter about.

I'd have to say that the almost weekly camping trips I took with Jonathan over the summer were also a huge highlight of my year, as was getting to know Katie Baker, Kelly Lynch's quick AVL stop, having Slappy the weiner-dog for over a month, wandering around London with Stephanie, getting my ass handed to me in Scrabble by Beth Williams, nights spent at the guitar shop playing darts and talking, and much more. I had probably the best year of my life so far in 2008 and I can't wait to see where 2009 takes me.

Quotes:
“I'm gonna eat the shit out of these pickles.” --Margarita to herself, Quizzo, January (about her fried pickles)
“Hold my coat, he loves Jesus.”--New Years
“Isn't your email address Ihaveaclawfoottub@ashevillesingles.com?” Wait...a conflict tub? What is a conflict tub? --Me and Nate
“Why does it have to be the American Indians? Why can't it be the Mexican Indians? I mean we wore shoes...” --Margarita, on Moccasins.
“Fine. They are playing your favorite song right now but if they play “She's like the wind” you are dead.” --Doug trying to psyche me out while playing darts in newspaper pirate hats.
Frumpy is the new black
32 is the new 25
Ham: It's like meat cake.

A Pocket of Skipping Stones

The party on Saturday was hilarious and late and dance-filled and memorable and a bit fuzzy and I still can't hear out of my right ear so it was, to me, in mono. It is like half of my head is in a constant state of sinking, like my brain is threatening to capsize. Every sound is underwater. I've found I am engaging less as I hear less; I fear I'll miss a conversation or don't want the attention that comes from asking people to speak up or repeat a comment.
Also: I've stopped singing in the car. I always sing in the car, but what I hear now is tinny and distant and my voice isn't familiar and I quit singing.
Yesterday I finally began my Christmas shopping and I traveled around town, collecting gifts like they were skipping stones. All are small and thoughtful, as they should be. Once again the whole family will be in town so my sister is in overdrive organizing the duel holidays that come with duel houses. I hope my hearing will improve before next week; I'll be disappointed if Christmas came to be merely a spectator event for me. I am detached enough as is.

Do You Hear What I Hear

If you do hear what I hear, it is incessant ringing and it isn't fun, is it?

Wednesday morning I woke up to a horrible ear ache. I haven't had an ear infection since I was probably 10 or 11 but I remember the pain well. I hate going to doctors and avoid them if all possible but as the day progressed the pain got worse. The pain got distractingly, excruciatingly worse. I gave up, called my doctor friend and had him look at it. "You have an ear infection," he said and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. At this point I could hardly see straight from pain (good time to be driving around town) but I made it home fine. I took my antibiotic and lay down with a warm rice pack on my ear (it really does help, or is comforting enough to make me believe it helps) when the pain started to abate. Hallelujah. Then stuff starting flowing out of my ear.

Ewww.

The next morning I knew my ear drum had ruptured. The pain had eased drastically but the stuff kept coming out and the ringing had started. I couldn't hear anything out of my right ear except that damn ringing. I went to work. I couldn't keep my head up very long, the vertigo was too severe. I walked around with my head cocked to the side, like I was quizzing everyone and everything. I went home early. I slept for almost four hours.
Today I went to work. And today I still can't hear anything and the sloshing in my head has worsened, I feel like I may pass out or vomit at any time. Woohoo!

Here's to you, Tympanic membrane! Thank you for the worse pain I've experienced in recent memory! And your timing has been impeccable, because you know I have absolutely nothing happening this weekend...oh wait.

Grrr.

Aguafiesta

I've been a dreadful blogger lately.
I haven't called, I haven't written. If I actually sent Christmas cards, I probably would have forgotten to send one to my blog, or I would have spelled her name wrong, I'm that bad of a blogger as of late.
There are reasons for these things; it isn't you, Blog, it's me.
And the fact that the neighbors figured out I was borrowing from their WiFi and locked it.
And then there was the issue of putting the finishing touches on what became a six-month flooring project (the last shoe molding and thresholds were installed this weekend! I'm all done!)Thanks to Zack for letting me borrow his nail guns...makes things go so much quicker.
I am back in the mode of being a storyteller. Sometimes I feel like I live stories so often I forget to live presently and as I am falling asleep I regret this.
I am able to go home for Christmas; I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to swing it but it looks like a go. My mother is once again on her Hanukkah kick and I have a strange feeling my sisters are getting behind it, even as I remind them that we aren't actually Jewish. We are Swedish. And Scotch-Irish. And Cherokee. I point this out and they act a little hurt that i stifle this. I'd say I don't like being the Scrooge but then I remember I've always been the Scrooge.
In Spanish, the word for party pooper is Aguafiesta: literally throwing the water on the party.
I believe there are some parties that probably need a little water thrown on them.
Speaking of parties, Saturday is the yearly swanky party at the Harmon House. I'm going to apologize in advance for whatever happens.

Deck Us All With Boston Charlie

I grew up listening to the Indigo Girls and quite often they used words in their lyrics that I did not know and thus I made up words to compensate. For example, “Everybody loves a melodrama and the scandal of a lie” became “Everybody loves a mellow drummer” and it wasn't until several years later that I learned that melodrama was an actual word. I still like to think that the world does love a mellow drummer though.
These misheard or misunderstood lyrics are called mondegreens, a word only recently added to the dictionary (it is a play on the lyric “and laid him on the green” which was heard “Lady Mondegreen”) but I find it useful as a source of constant entertainment. My friend's husband thought the Eagles were singing about having an “East coast easy feelin” and couldn't figure out why someone would think the east coast was so much more chill than the west. I once dated a guy who was totally convinced that Rusted Root was singing a song about “Siemion the Whale” even as I pointed out to him that the song was called “Send Me On My Way”. For years I sincerely thought Janet Jackson wanted to get away and take me on the Ice Capades. Ask a friend to sing to you the lyrics to “Benny and the Jets” or most REM songs and chances are you will hear some odd explanations as to the words. This summer John and I were listening to old REM and it sounded like Michael Stipe was singing about a love kiosk and we were cracking up laughing just thinking about what a love kiosk would look like; I kept seeing a little stand located outside of an Auntie Annies in some mall. Clearly he was singing about love chaos. Only later on did we find out that the song really was called “Love Kiosk” and so what we thought was an obvious mondegreen totally wasn't.
I love that we do this. I love that “Oh Tannenbaum” sounds like “Oh Cannonball” to a five year old; how is she to know what a tannenbaum is? I'd like to think of mondegreens as our own personal Rorschach tests of our sonic selves. Like our imaginations have the absolute best mix of silliness and profundity and it spills out in what we hear. Very often what the lyrics end up being aren't nearly as good as our imaginations have made them.

There are the blatant examples of “there's a bathroom on the right” and “excuse me while I kiss this guy” and, of course, “Revved up like a douche another runner in the night”

Some examples:

Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer—Hold me closer, Tony Danza
Rock the Casbah—Rock the Cat Box
Killing me softly with his song—killing me softly with insults
She's got a ticket to ride—She's got a chicken to ride (MARGARITA) or She's got a tick in her eye
Para bilar la bamba—Bla Bla Bla Bla la bamba (Hatcher's version)
Keep on rockin' in the freeworld—keep on rockin' at Marine World

If you have examples I'd love to hear 'em!

(The title of the post is taken from a character in the Pogo comic series who had a tendency to make up his own lyrics to songs. Churchy's “Deck Us All with Boston Charlie” is probably the most famous.)