Category: Funny

My best Halloween Story…

Since today is Halloween I thought I would add my best Halloween costume story….Enjoy!

It was a few years after I had graduated from Loyola.  I was heading home on Halloween after a very busy weekend of celebrating this crazy holiday down in LA with all my college buds.  I was dared the night before, since I would be traveling on Halloween, to wear my costume to LAX and fly home to Portland with it on.  Now you have to realize that I may have been slightly not very good at making sound decisions at this point, but I shook a hand, and that was that.  So I got up the next day…threw on my costume with the utmost confidence and headed out.

My costume…a giant chicken!  Now you have to realize that I fully expected to not be the only one dressed up.  The airport is full of weirdly dressed people all the time, surely on October 31st the place would be teaming with pirates, sailors, nerds, and suitably dressed Fred Flinstone characters…right?!  WRONG…oh so wrong!  I am pretty sure the entire airport and everyone in it had no idea what day it was, to them it was Sunday and I was dressed like a chicken, on a Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport.

It started off with a strange look from my cab driver, he clearly didn’t celebrate this day whatsoever!  Then we make it to the airport, the line at the counter was epically long, torturous really.  I mean it’s not a spoken rule but I was pretty sure that someone dressed like a chicken would either get really good service right off the bat, or arrested for being insane.  Instead I stood in line with all the other normal people (did I mention I’m still dressed like a life size chicken?!)  I get to the front, and the man behind the computer stares at me and chuckles while taking my information down.  Then he looks back up, clearly trying to be serious, I tell him to rest assured I was hoping people would laugh at me, because I’m not trying to be serious here while standing in an airport dressed like a freaking chicken!!  So he lets loose with a huge laugh, oddly for the first time that day I feel at ease.  Once he gains his composer again, he says there is good and bad news with my flight.  “The bad news” he begins, “…it has been cancelled.  The good news…there is another flight!  Oh wait, one more bad news…it leaves in 20 minutes,” deep breath, “you’re going to have to run…”  I look at him realizing the end of this sentence is just too hilarious to even mutter…”through the extremely crowded airport, dressed like a chicken!”

So I take off…running…probably resembling a chicken more than ever now!  I call my mom, out of breath I’m telling her I will be in early and I’m running to a new flight.  Her only response, “Oh dear, are you really wearing the chicken costume?!”  I hang up and keep sprinting!  Through security, lucky I wasn’t a pirate, I heard one did come through earlier and they had a heck of a time with all the jewelry and metal that is required for that get up!  I fly into the gate area just in time to jump behind the last few people boarding the plane.

I am trying to compose myself and look as cool as possible, like “I know you’re all jealous that I am so brave to be dressed up like this” When inside I’m dying of embarrassment!  Then it happened…the older gentleman in front of me in line, looks at me and says, “Well not to be forward or anything, but you’re the best looking chick I’ve seen all day!”  Out of breath from the run I can hardly respond before the flight attendant turns toward us and says, “Honey if this man is bothering you, just tell him to cluck off!”  That my friends made the whole, terrifying, hilarious, chicken costume experience all worth it!

Happy Halloween from this chick!

1st Dirty Dozen of Homeownership…

Matt and I got the keys to our new home this past Friday!! The house is nice, the surrounding areas are…well…overgrown to say the least!  It’s has some farmable land, and some timber land, and lot of blackberry and weed land.  But being the young energetic couple that we are, we’re looking forward to the challenge!

We have had the place to work on for about 2.5 days now.  And in this time I’m already amazed at how much I’ve learned…so here my friends are the dirty dozen (so far) of homeownership…

1. Always wear closed toed shoes and long pants with long sleeves!  I know it’s 80 degrees out today, but the cuts from the briars aren’t worth it! Neither are the looks from your future husband saying, “I thought I was marrying a farm girl, why do you have shorts on?!”

2. At some point you have to put a machete into use…just fair warning, always keep an eye on the machete, a real close eye when I’m swinging!  I’m effective, but dangerous!

3. Don’t mention lunch, because afterwards it will be all you can think about.

4. When using the weed wacker, stay away from the plants with burrs.  They turn into bullets and shoot out at you.  Then when you complain and your future husband again gives you the “Let’s buck up a little bit here” look, this time tell him he can do it and laugh when afterwards he looks at you and says, “Woah these things feel like bullets!”

5. Take enough breaks that when you’re tired you still remember how much you love the guy next to you, how exciting this is, and how wonderful it will be in the future!

6. When using a blower to clean the house, those big HUGE spiders that live in corners…they will shoot out at you and give you a heart attack, you will dance around on the front porch like a maniac screaming, and once you calm down enough you will step and kill the gigantic creature!

7. Be aware that when your old place was original the owners liked putting up fences, everywhere!  Wirey fences that will either trip the heck out of you, or catch on your mower.

8. If they get caught on your mower like a booby trap, you can’t pull on it and make it better, you can’t go faster to get out of the mess.  No, no, at that point you resign that it’s now going to take an hour to actually remove the mower blades to get them unstuck…oops!

9. When you’re sent into the green house that is covered in briars so much that we didn’t originally know it was there, just to check out if there is anything “worth saving” inside; no one will blame you when you decide not to go through the 32 thick spider webs with fat spiders in them.  Instead just crane your neck from afar…and give the good old, “looks pretty worthless from here” thumbs up.

10. Never let me use the weed wacker with the actual blade vs. the string, I hit my foot three times and my leg twice!  Each time thanking God that I wasn’t using the blade one, I think I would have been a little less than effective if I had cut off my leg or foot yesterday!

11. When you’re just having a ball and you look at each other and say, “Gosh we should start a landscaping business!” 16 hours later…well let’s just say we’re not in the landscape business as of yet!

12. Good things come to those who wait!  I can’t wait for what is yet to come for us!!

Harvest…from the Eyes of Teenagers

Little Francie enjoying some garden time on the farm…the next combine crew!

My cousin Emily came out this week to visit the farm. We worked together for many summers out here on the farm and boy do we have some good memories. She brought her 1 year old little girl for their first combine ride! The whole time I’m thinking, “Yes, the next workforce!”    It was so great having her out in the field again, it really takes you back to those teenage years of long summer days out on the combines. Way back when, I wrote a poem to remember our last summer together out in the dust, heat, and fields. So here it is, and please remember this is about the perspective working 14 hour days, sitting on a combine…all from the head of a teenager.

13 hour days going round and round.
Sitting on our booties gaining a pound.

Eating lunch too early, getting dinner too late
Goin 2 mph, no need to concentrate.

Over the radio no interrupting is allowed.
We just sit and pray for that one rain cloud.

Through the day deep thoughts occupy our minds.
Why are the complicated boys the ones we seem to find?

Blond moments happen a lot out here.
From oops! Oh my! To…Oh Shoot! And Oh Dear!

Making endless lists of things we need to find.
Sending telepathic messages from combine to combine.

Talking of headers in her sleep and kicking her blankets off the bed.
Emily just couldn’t’ get farming out of her head.

Then there was Brenda, lying awake with a sigh
thinking too much of the one dumb guy!

Back in the fields for another long day,
Armed with books on tape, paper and odysseys in our bag.

Not forgetting hairy legs, trashy clothes and not cute hair.
We jump in our cabs cuz we really just don’t care.

A smile and rodeo queen wave as we look each other’s way.
Finally we’re done and we speed home in grey.

Excited to be going 30 times what we’ve gone the 13 hours past;
Flooring the pedal cuz it’s so fun to go so fast!

We’ll never forget those “senior moments” and port-a-potty notes.
Or how because of AC we’d freeze if we forgot a coat.

We’re just two farm girls working day to day.
Making memories that will never fade away.