Funtalia (fun-tal-ya)

After a one month hiatus from all things Internet excluding Gmail, my bank account, and an occasional check-up on Facebook, I’m back!  I logged into Google Reader last night and had 488 new posts awaiting me.  Talk about make-up work - I’m gonna be busy this week!

Now let me warn you that the past month has been somewhat taxing, so please be patient with me as I try to garner the strength to become relatively funny/clever once more.  I dreaded coming back for this very reason, but I have come to the realization that I missed the relaxing shores of Funtalia far too much.  I’m ready to pretend I’m a teenager again.  Welcome back me!

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” - Margaret Atwood

Translation: Kids should smell like puppies and teenagers should smell like Teen Spirit.
(I felt the need to pay homage to Nirvana and the greatest song of the ’90s.)

Never underestimate the importance of good hygiene in warm weather.
Welcome Spring!

Today is March 14th (3/14), which only means one thing…it’s Pi Day!  (Pi is roughly equal to 3.14, get it?)  This was first publicly observed at field trip hotspot/coolest place ever - the San Francisco Exploratorium!  That was over 20 years ago.  Since then, a lot of people (okay, math geeks) like to celebrate Pi Day by reciting as many digits of pi as possible (boring!) and by eating as many pies as possible (fun!).

Since the show, Pushing Daisies, is literally pushing up daisies now, you won’t be able to have Ned, “The Pie Maker,” bake you up anything special to celebrate this seemingly infinite number at the Pie Hole where everything is bright and lovely.  Instead, you’ll just have to hit up your slightly-more-drab Marie Callender’s to honor this relationship between a circle’s circumference and diameter with your friends tonight.  Have fun!  Happy Pi Day!

I want to linger a little longer on the topic of Pushing Daisies.  I liked this show initially because I found the concept original, the writing clever, and the cinematography gorgeous.  However, when the star-crossed lovers cannot even hold hands?, things can get a little frustrating to say the least.  I had to stop watching out of sake for my own peace of mind.  Because of this, I have no idea how it ended.  I’m really just curious about one thing: Did Chuck (pictured above) and Ned ever get to embrace?  (I am pretty much relying on K to answer this.  I am sure she watched until the bitter end since she went on a personal crusade to save the show. )

How about the rest of you?  Are you sad this ABC dramedy was canceled?  Do you care?  Do you even know what I’m talking about?

Here’s to ten years of adulthood!

A lot has happened since high school.  Within the last ten years, I have:

• Graduated from the college I always wanted to
• Found the man I always dreamed of
• Gotten married in the place I always aimed for
• Vacationed in Hawaii for the first time
• Volunteered at the Olympics for the last time
• Voted for President three times
• Lived in a foreign country
• Learned a foreign language
• Loved a foreign culture
• Stood up for my beliefs
• Stood by my family
• Stood out in my job
• Lost a grandfather
• Lost my father
• Not lost faith
• Gained perspective
• Gained friends
• Gained weight
• Bought a house
• Renovated a house
• Rented a bought and renovated house
• Gotten pregnant
• Gotten an epidural
• Gotten a little best friend
• Moved to a new state
• Moved to a new house
• Moved toward the future with optimism!

I’m especially optimistic this birthday will be better than my last one.  (That shouldn’t be hard.)  Now, go put on a little purple in my honor (see previous post) and think of me today.

Oh yeah, one more thing…Happy birthday to my two-years-younger, little red-headed birthday twin, C.H., with whom I have shared many birthday extravaganzas!  Try to have fun without me this year!

Today is Mardi Gras, which (and I sadly didn’t put this together until my early 20s) means “Fat Tuesday” in French.  It’s the “feast before the fast” - a time to live it up before the sober time of temperance known as Lent that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Easter Sunday.  This period before Lent is usually marked with huge street celebrations you’ve heard of, such as Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnaval in Brazil, the likes of which are undoubtedly defined by acts of debauchery.

Some older kids at my high school (which was located nowhere near New Orleans) liked to celebrate Fat Tuesday by giving each other Mardi Gras beads and then hanging them from their rear view mirrors as proof of their popularity to themselves for months to come.  I thought this whole charade was silly.  It seemed so copycat, so wannabe to me.  I have recently become aware of a tradition I wish I had known about during high school that blows the whole bead thing out of the water.

Pancake Day, or Pancake Tuesday, takes place on Shrove Tuesday (the same day as Fat Tuesday) in the UK, Ireland, Australia, and some parts of Canada.  As a way to use up all of their dairy, eggs, and fat (foods that were typically abstained from during Lent), original observers began making pancakes on the day before Ash Wednesday, and hence, Pancake Tuesday was born .  With so many pancakes flying about, it seemed only obvious to use the excess for such activities as pancake races and tossing games, in which participants presently range from housewives to vicars.  How had I never heard of this before?  Pancake Day is tops, no?

So this year, I suggest abandoning the beads that only remind you of where you most likely (and hopefully) AREN’T and throw your own pancake party with your family and/or friends tonight.  Admit it.  Breakfast for dinner has never seemed so cool.

Having a hard time imagining this foreign tradition?  Watch the clip above and (along with loving the narrator) enjoy watching clergymen race in their robes while flipping pancakes.  And no, this is not made up.