Plants, Polka, and Persistent Chaos // a cup of randomness

Top o’ the morning to ya, friends! Guess whose birthday is in two days?

*gasp* Me! My birthday is in two days!

(If you said Benedict Cumberbatch, you are also correct, but between the two of us I’m clearly more important.)

Birthdays aside, be ye warned — this post has neither structure or purpose. It simply exists. Because it can. Here is a brief smattering of life happenings I found amusing.

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For whatever reason (read: neglect), the head rotted off my little cactus Spinebert.  Where once he looked like this—

Now he looked like a sad dead parakeet. But was Spinebert to be overcome by this tribulation? Oh no. He came back swinging.

We should all learn a lesson from Spinebert: When life rots your head off, grow something creepy out of the scar.

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On the subject of plants, I have a new beast to add to my collection!

I will feed him with my enemies’ souls.

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We were at the lake one day doing lake-ish things, and I was trying to capture a lovely moment with my parents.

Anna had other ideas.

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Just a normal conversation between writers…

 

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Last month my mom, sister and I traveled down to Ohio to attend a wedding. (Dad stayed behind to man the homestead, which wasn’t a great sacrifice for the poor little introvert.)

(She says snidely, though she knows full well she’s worse than he is.)

After a five-hour drive, we arrived at our hotel and started unpacking. I tried opening my suitcase, but the zipper was stuck. I tugged harder, to no avail. Giving it a yank of bestial rage, I finally wrenched the thing open and sat back, feeling pleased.

And that’s when I saw it: My shirt. My nice shirt I’d intended to wear to the wedding. My nice shirt. Had been stuck. In the zipper.

And was now ripped.

Had I been an intelligent human and brought an extra pair of wedding clothes, just in case? Had I done that? Was this entire dilemma solved before it’d even begun by my superior foresight?

Nope.

And this is how my mom and I ended up driving across creation in a panicked state the night before a wedding, searching every clothes store and thrift shop for another shirt that would match the rest of my outfit.

I’m pleased to announce we succeeded.

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Anna attempted homemade tortillas.

Keyword: Attempted. They turned out looking like an over-zealous flamethrower had gotten hold of them.

Which, coincidentally, is a fairly accurate description of my sister.

 

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I started painting my room! A crispy crisp white! It’s very nice!

The only downside is all my furniture is piled in the center of my floor until the project’s done and I feel like a twisted little cave troll presiding over her hoard of treasure.

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For the 4th of July, my family went to a hokey little German town called Frankenmuth where we were bombarded with schnitzel and polka music and every kind of tourist cheesiness imaginable. (I’m almost convinced the guy who invented polka music was possessed. There’s no other explanation for the abject horribleness of the genre.)

(No offense to polka lovers.)

We sat down in a little (polka-free, thank the Lord) cafe, and two minutes into the experience I managed to spill my drink. Did I spill it on myself, like a normal person would? Did I spill it on the table, which would’ve been the respectable thing to do?

Oh no.

I somehow managed to spill it on the table and my father.

Here you see him cleaning it up like the saintly being he is.

Anna and mom were far more enthusiastic to look like a demented little German cutout than I was.

“Look, Sarah!” he said. “You can get a clock with your face on it!”

…I think I’ll pass.

We went down to the river, where Anna and I had the gloriously stupid idea to try and cross on those big rocks. We were halfway across when we came to a rock that was partly submerged. Being too big to jump over, and since it was only a few inches under water, we took off our shoes and decided to wade.

You know where this is going.

“I feel like an elf,” I said, bounding nimbly toward the point of upcoming doom. Radiating queenly vibes, feeling the grace and power of being one with nature, I stepped onto the underwater rock.

There were two things I hadn’t included in my calculations:

Moss.

Current.

Both of these things exist. One is slippery. The other is forceful. Put your foot on an unnaturally slick surface and have a body of water slam against your already dubious balance and see what happens.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day soaking wet.

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Anna: “When I get nervous, my lip twitches. It’s like Restless Leg Syndrome, except in my LIP!”

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Dad’s birthday was yesterday, but due to a couple factors (namely, he has weird food regulations so we couldn’t get him ice cream or take him out to eat), we didn’t end up doing much. He and I were lamenting it, but being the sport that he is, he wasn’t terribly bothered.

“Ah well,” he said mildly, when discussing the subject of disappointment. “I suppose we’ll all just have to fall on our swords!”

And that’s how I discovered he’d been reading too much of the Old Testament.

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You haven’t experienced life until you spend the night at a friend’s house and watch something sickeningly fluffy while eating fruit and fake Japanese food.

 

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Anna: “Life is a journey! And sometimes, the journey doesn’t give you very many strawberries.”

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And there you go. Life happenings. Baran adventures. Photobombs. Anime.

I’m taking next week off from blogging because it’s my birthweek (also, I’m traveling and don’t want to spend the entire trip agonizing about those things), but stay tuned for the 30th because I have a very special blog surprise brewing.

See you soon, guys!

~Sarah