December 13, 2007

You Think YOU Have It Hard?

Do you remember getting up off the floor and walking up to the television to change the channel to one of the other two options - the 1970’s version of “channel surfing?”

Did your mom heat hot dogs in boiling water on the stove?

If so, I think you’ll find this as funny as I did. I don’t know who wrote it; it’s one of the endless forwarded emails I received that was actually worth reading.

Hey- add your own memories in the comments!

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When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning … uphill BOTH ways ..

I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it! But now that I’m over the ripe old age of thirty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You’ve got it so easy! Compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!
1. When I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog.

2. There was no email. We had to actually write somebody a letter … with a pen. Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there.
3. There were no MP3’s or Napsters. You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!
4. We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that was it. Can you say emergency break-thru’s..until the operators caught on.

5. And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID boxes either. When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was. It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn’t know. You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister.

6. We didn’t have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics. We had the Atari with games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘asteroids.’ The graphics were horrible. Your guy was a little square. You actually had to use your imagination. There were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever. And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died. Just like LIFE.

7. When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating. All the seats were the same height. If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn’t see, you were just screwed.

8. Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu. You had to decode a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on.
9. There was no Cartoon Network either. You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning. We had to wait ALL WEEK for Land of the Lost.

10. We didn’t have microwaves. if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a fire. If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing or a pan with HOT oil and real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove forever like an
idiot.

11. When we were on the phone with our friends and our parents walked in, we were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7 foot cord that ran to the phone - not the phone base, the actual phone. We barely had enough length to sit on the floor and still be able to twirl the phone cord in our fingers. If you suddenly had to go to the bathroom you were forced to hang up and talk to them later.
You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980!
Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

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I bet those of us 40 and over can think of more. My kids couldn’t figure out why I referred to music as “records” or “albums.” Sigh.

One year ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Who Needs Expedia When I’ve Got You?

(especially apropos, as we’re heading back this year, so bring on your suggestions - we need some falafel, Spanish food, Jewish food– Drew’s craving latkes–and ideas for activities.  We’re thinking bronze doors, Statue of Liberty, William Steig cartoons, but we can always make time for other things!)

December 12, 2007

Last Night, At The Band Concert

I was a dismal failure as a spectator at Finn’s Holiday Band Concert last night, earning at best a D in my latest rite of passage into teen parenthood.

Up until the concert began, the information I’d received from the band had been sparse: mandatory attendance at concert rehearsal on Thursday (check), strongly encouraged “donation” to band account (check written), and reporting to auditorium for concert in black pants and solid shirt, with instrument, at 6:40 for 7 pm concert.

I was under the impression that the concert was going to be sixth-graders only, and this seemed to be  confirmed by the casual dress code.  Finn assured me that collars weren’t required.  We focused on the “Band” portion of the Holiday Band Concert, and he chose a long-sleeved black T-shirt that whispered, “CBGB may be defunct, but this ass will see plenty of other smoky bars before my drumming career is over.”

CBGB apparently wasn’t factored in the fashion choices of any other band members, all of whom concentrated on the “Holiday” aspect of the event, and sported bright green or red shirts (mostly collared) or the traditional band (and waiter) costume of black pants and white shirt.  Finn looked cool but suspicious.

The concert took place at the high school auditorium, which is a beautiful facility except for the omission of a center aisle running from bottom to top, a problem I didn’t discover until Porter and I had walked across the seats and stood looking at a row of four seats together with no way to reach them, other than to mountaineer over, which is what I did.

My seat climbing skills are somewhat rusty, and I garnered a fair bit of attention, but soon Porter and I were settled in primo seats.  I saw that many audience members were obviously much older than I.  I deduced that they were present to hear their high-school children perform, teens whose antics have caused their parents to gray and wrinkle, and it was all extremely distressing to behold.

My neighbor confirmed that the elementary schools would perform, followed by the junior high and then the high school, and the entire concert could last two hours.  Knowledgeable parents of elementary students sit on the aisles for easy escape after their offspring’s final note.

It was too late for me.  The aisle were filled, the center was empty, and the lights were dimming.  Bill and Drew walked in just in time to jump into the seats I’d wasted so much energy claiming.

The band director kicked the show off with a tepid welcoming speech, then added, “I’ve
noticed a disturbing trend of parents leaving after their pupil has performed, and we discourage that.  We ask that you enjoy this lovely auditorium and hear all the players perform.”

That was fine for him to say, but had he left a hastily purchased Stouffer’s Lasagna cooking in his oven at home?  It is one thing to sit through a concert played by strangers when you plan on doing it, but another thing entirely to land in the middle of a two-hour concert
unprepared.  If the director needed me for two hours, he should have told me that much sooner, so plans could be made.

My stomach was grumbly, unsoothed by gin.  My temperament was, too.
I weighed the embarrassment of getting up from the middle of the auditorium during
the concert, despite the conductor’s plaintive directions, against the humiliation of burning my house down with frozen food, and it wasn’t even close.

But when the music began, I perked up.  The sixth-graders played their first song, and Finn’s bells rang out truer and sweeter than the rest.  He switched to drums for the second tune, and his beat was steady and firm.  At the end everyone clapped and I yelled, “Go drums!” and Bill elbowed me.  No one else was shouting,”Horns Rule” or “Toot that flute, baby!” but doesn’t everyone appreciate positive feedback?

The duo and I snuck out after Finn’s part was over (”Excuse me, pardon me, we’re new at this”) and made it home to enjoy a succulent Stouffer’s chicken, noodle and chemical combination and head for bed.

As I drifted to sleep, the thumping drum beat of The Hannukah Song rang pleasantly in my ears.

Drums Rule!

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This next post got lots of attention when I first published it on iVillage– apparently y’all are better at laundry than I am.

Two Years Ago in My Tiny Kingdom: What I Haven’t Been Doing

December 10, 2007

Gutter or Stars?

I have one twin firmly planted in the gutter, while the other is looking at the stars. The weekend revealed the vast disparity between their personalities once again, as if we needed any reminding.

Bill was driving with Porter and Drew and asked them if they had any ideas about what to get me for Christmas.

“Me me me me me! I do I do I do! Call on me!” Porter screeched, waving his hand in the air wildly.

“Okay, Porter, what’s your idea?”

“An Auburn thong! She’d love it! She’d wear it every day! She doesn’t have one. She doesn’t. We should buy her one.”

Perhaps you are wondering, as Bill was, how Porter knew about thongs at all, much less a college football version.

No, Porter wasn’t in the Bible Club riding group that became obsessed with the pink thong discarded by the side of the road.

Last week I was careless with my laundry and Finn found a recreational thong while sorting the clothes. He immediately called his brothers in for an impromptu summit on the finer points of ladies’ underwear. He included an aside on feminine insanity (”Who wants to wear underwear with no butt?” and there was a rejoinder by Drew: “Indians wrapped napkins around their fronts for underwear but you could see their fannies”) before I terminated the session, repossessed the thong, and moved all my undergarments to a more secure location.

“I have an idea for Mom, but it’s different,” Drew said.

“Let’s hear it,” Bill said, fearing the worst.

“Do you know what her birthstone is?”

“No.”

“Well, we could find out and then get her a necklace with her birthstone on it.”

For those of you with girls in the 8 to 9-year-old range, my advice is to let them party with Porter, (he’ll have a strict curfew) then fight to be the one who settles down with Drew.

One year ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Anne Glamore’s Roundup of Little-Known Holiday Songs

December 5, 2007

G-Strings & Tube Socks

Apparently “Weagel Weagle” isn’t the only nonsensical verse of a football fight song out there.

When I wrote about the animus good-natured rivalry between Alabama and Auburn fans, I quoted the Auburn fight song, part of which causes many a confused Alabamian to ask, “What the hell is a weagle?”

Bodygetta Bodygetta Bodygetta Bah
Rah Rah Rah
Sis Boom Bah
Weagle Weagle
War Damn Eagle
Kick ‘Em In the Butt Big Blue!!
Hey!!!

Joy wrote in to say that she’d been taught to say “Regal eagle,” and she surmised that years of drunkenly attempting such linguistics had morphed the phrase into “weagle,” which seems a good explanation.

Kelly then pointed out that at Ole Miss the fans proudly yell a ditty which makes them seem confused, if not amnesiac:

Hotty Toddy, godalmighty,

Who the hell are we?

Flim, flam, bim bam,

Ole Miss, by damn!

As she said, “Flim flam? Also, we wonder who the hell they are too.”

That led me to wonder what else is being screamed in stadia* across the nation in the name of team spirit. Do share.

If you can beat “bodygetta bah,” Tiny Kingdom readers want to know about it!

*So excited to use my high school Latin. Thanks, Mr. Velotas!

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Many of you have insisted that I cannot technically be neutral between Alabama and Auburn, and you are correct. My parents were in a mixed marriage, commonly denoted by the license plate you see here:

Generally my parents sat on the Alabama side, but one year my mom got pissed and said she was tired of sitting with the enemy, so my dad bought two tickets on the Auburn side and two on the Alabama side. I sat with my mom, Aunt Su sat with my dad, and Aunt Lulu stayed home with the ancient babysitter who gave her half a candied orange slice as a super-special treat. If she was really lucky they watched Hee-Haw instead of the game.

Although I went to college out of state, I married a man who grew up in Auburn, and that sealed my fate. When pressed, marital harmony compels me to proclaim allegiance to Auburn.

While I don’t have a problem giving my children unusual names, I’ve taken a resolute stand against double first names (heretical in the South). My main activity as an Auburn fan is to revel in the fact that at least Auburn’s quarterback doesn’t have three names. John Parker Wilson is making it difficult on the announcers who have to spit out all those syllables every time he throws the ball.

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The night before the Iron Bowl we layered up to brave the weather and visited some tailgating friends. It was a large affair, complete with heated tent and guitarist, located improbably about ten feet from the parking lot, but whatever. As the musician tuned up to play, someone in the back of the crowd yelled, “Don’t you break that G-string!”

“That’s what all the girls say,” another man hollered.

I cringed and glanced at the boys. Finn gave me a knowing look while managing to seem a bit embarrassed, Drew was confused, and Porter was pissed.

“That’s not the G-string, it’s a B. I should tell that man that you remember the strings by saying ‘Easter Bunny Got Drunk At Easter.’”

This from my fervent guitarist who once responded to a man who said, “Anybody got a request?” by asking, “Can you play an E?”

He takes his notes seriously.

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Bill saw some childhood friends he hadn’t seen in ages. A guy named David told me that Bill was the first kid in town to wear tube socks, thus assuring himself a place in Auburn fashion history.

I was pleased to know that Bill was sexy long before Justin Timberlake was even born, much less driven to bring sexy back.

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I don’t know that I’ve ever written so much about sports in so short a time.

Those of you who are still looking for gift ideas can look at all my gift guides for easy shopping: Boy Toys, Teachers and Babies, the Hard to Buy For, and Tolerable Kids.

Those of you in town who are interested, I have a friend who makes the yummiest chocolate roulage! (You know, the flourless chocolate cake filled with whipped cream that’s rolled like a jellyroll).

You can give them as gifts or buy for yourself to serve as a holiday dessert. Each is $35 and serve 12-15 people each. They come frozen. This is not a mail thing, so unless you are planning to drive to Vestavia, you are out of luck. She bakes and freezes constantly between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it’s first-come, first-served. Email me if you’re interested.

December 3, 2007

Iron Bowl: Fighting Words & Face Paint

My boys went to their first Alabama-Auburn football game Thanksgiving weekend, and they were fired up.  I don’t give two hoots about football so first I resisted these obnoxious flags and stickers, but later I relented and let the boys decorate the minivan for the drive from Birmingham to Auburn.

You can’t see the tiger tail hanging out the trunk, but you get the general orange and blue tiger motif.  Though the van may look somewhat gaudy to those of you from outside the state, in fact the adornments helped us blend in with all the other cars traveling southeast on highway 280.

My sons weren’t done showing their spirit.  Thanks to Bill’s purchase of some oily (and certainly not non-comedogenic) facepaint, they carefully applied orange and blue until they looked like goofballs true Auburn fans.

Auburn won (I forgot the score) so that was fun for the guys, but their big news was that they had seen plenty of drunk people and heard prime cuss words during the game.

During the second quarter the Auburn fans shouted a favorite (yet nonsensical) cheer:

Bodygetta Bodygetta Bodygetta Bah
Rah Rah Rah
Sis Boom Bah
Weagle Weagle
War Damn Eagle
Kick ‘Em In the Butt Big Blue!!
Hey!!!

The boys were exulting in the coolness of being able to shout “damn” in the name of team loyalty.  Then the situation got even better.  Behind them a slurring Bama fan shouted, “What the f*ck is a weagle?  That’s a f*ckin’ stupid cheer.”

The boys turned and stared.  No one answered the fan’s question.  (My mom, an Auburn graduate, could never give me a satisfactory response either.)

The boys weren’t looking for answers, though.  They were mesmerized by the drunkard’s foul language and nearly empty Jim Beam bottle.  Eventually the fan was evicted by the police, and Porter reported every cuss, sip and instance of littering to me in detail when they got home.

They had a marvelous time, and then it was over.  For us, that is.

For die-hard Alabama and Auburn fans, the Iron Bowl is never finished.  The rivalry thrives on controversy and talking smack, and fans can always identify something that happened before, during or after the game to get riled up about.  I’ll let you Google “Fear The Thumb” to see how silly this stuff gets, if the following isn’t enough to convince you.

This year’s controversy was about jewelry.  Actually, it began with one store’s attempt to sell jewelry, and has since descended into the usual mire of name-calling and trading insults.  Here are the advertisements the jewelry store put in the paper before the game:

(click to enlarge)

While it was apparent that both ads were intended to poke fun at the schools, the Auburn fans felt that  Bromberg’s went too far in when it insulted its grandmothers and accused its women of burping.  Sensing a marketing misfire, Bromberg’s Vice President apologized, saying, “If we had known this would be so offensive, we wouldn’t have run the ad.”

He could have been accusing Auburn fans of slapping their mamas for all the good that apology did.  The ads were gasoline poured on the heated competition, and fans couldn’t wait for the resulting explosion.

Auburn fans at Tiger Tales  worked themselves into a lather:

Steve: Brombergs is a vanishing retailer in Birmingham, and they are true/blue
Alabummer Fans and alumni. Who gives a damned what they think of Auburn. They are not at that high a level of class to even comment on Auburn. They will be closing their doors soon, as people like them are dying out. Good riddance!

Jane: I am offended anytime someone refers to Auburn as a Cow College. I am a college graduate (registered nurse) and my father farmed (cattle) all his life. I guess some Bammer fans are too stupid to realize where their food comes from. Fred, I am an Auburn fan and have plenty of money–€” more than enough to shop at Bromberg’s, but will spend my money elsewhere.

Lynn: After listening to Nick Saban compare the Alabama football teams’€™ losses to several national tragedies, followed by the Brombergs’€™ classless, tasteless advertisement, it has become apparent that Saban, U of Alabama and Bromberg’s Jewelers are a perfect fit. Obviously, a person does not have to have class, nor the IQ of a houseplant to coach Alabama football or work for Bromberg’s…the mental giant that came up with idea sounds like an Alabama grad to me.

Meanwhile, at the TideFans website, the Bama folks were hooting:

TiderB: Although it’s downright hilarious, I don’t know why Bromberg’s thought it would go over okay with the barn.

Leeroy:  I’m not surprised Barners are offended. They have been, for as long as I can remember (that’s a long time), walking around with a chip on their shoulder. I heard em’ Monday bright and early on talk radio here.  They pretty much companied (complained?) about everything Bama per usual. They just won their sixth straight Iron Bowl and all they could talk about was our touchdown(they disputed it), and that Coach Saban didn’t give em’ enough props in his presser. Very sad folks, the lot of them.

dvldog: They are offended by people wearing shoes.

Leeroy: I think indoor plumbing fires em’ up too.

NativeTider: Barners can’t afford to shop at Bromberg’s anyway so what does it matter??

Tider@GW_Law: I wonder who read the ad to them.

As someone who couldn’t tell you from one year to the next who won last year’s game, it’s astonishing to look at the number of people who live and breath college football in this state all year long.  They’ve raised the art of insult to new heights.  The fervor won’t level off once the season is finished, because here football season never ends.  It will be time to think about recruiting, and training, and then it’s time for the games again.  The message boards will be full of Alabama fans calling Auburn a hick college, and Auburn fans accusing Alabama of being low class.

If you’re thinking about attending an Iron Bowl, pick a team, and remember to bring your supplies: fighting words and face paint.

(courtesy Jack Kratoville)