Thirty Something

In August of 1984, I moved to Washington, DC. My brother, Brian, and his wife lived here, and they invited to stay with them while I decided if this was a good move. “You can get a job here in no time,” they assured me. I did, in fact. Within a week. Within a couple of months, I moved to Arlington. I wonder if my photographer friend, Page, remembers helping me move? I’ll ask him.

The plan was to get some good experience here, build up a nice resume and then move back to Texas, become editor of Texas Monthly magazine and spend my retirement eating barbeque and being invited to Austin City Limits tapings.

So far, I’ve only done the first two, and I’m pretty sure the rest of them are going to stay firmly planted in my fantasies. Still, I’m not complaining. A lot has happened in those 30 years that makes up for it. Some of it good, some of it not. All of it a learning experience shaping me into who I am today, for better or worse.

Since I’m a girl who loves lists, I’ve been making a list of all those things. In no order other than when they popped into my head over the last several weeks:

• Became a licensed DC tour guide (started 9/10/01, less than 24 hours before the DC tourism changed forever), learning copious amounts of arcane DC trivia along the way
• Watched my guide license become practically worthless through some silly legal posturing.
• Dated two Marines, one that turned out well and one where we were both counting the hours until dinner was over on our first date
• Robbed (but only once and that was in my office and I didn’t even realize it until I grabbed my purse to leave at night)
• Learned association tough love when the Challenger exploded and I was working for the Electronic Industries Association. My PR-exec boss, whose office I sat in that day glued to the TV, later became head of the NTSB, and I often wondered if he was still dishing out tough love.
• Bought real furniture—the kind that didn’t involve bricks and boards or an allen wrench
• Got married
• Got divorced
• Lived to tell about it
• Took my first trip overseas—alone no less. Two weeks in Italy, where I quickly developed a love for solo travel.
• Fell in love at first sight with a boy named Colin and a girl named Delia and cried myself to sleep every single night for six months when they moved to Minnesota. Apparently, my brother and sister-in-law thought it was important to take their children with them when they moved.
• Learned to knit
• Walked in the rain in Paris, not even caring that it was raining on my vacation
• Learned to eat raw tuna, use chopsticks and do Jazzercise. (It was the 80s…)
• Taught association sessions on “How to Use the Internet,” which strikes me as ludicrous now. There was a whole page in my workbook on what emoticons meant.
• Took enough Italian classes to speak semi-passable Italian
• Stopped drinking at events where there is a silent auction online. On one hand, it got me to Tahiti; on the other hand, they charge your credit card right away.
• Started four blogs; published two. Well, it will be two when I go public with this one.
• Went to Africa. (Have I mentioned this?)
• Taught 28 classes (so far) of religious education at Holy Trinity, earning a certification along the way
• Have nurtured my possibly unhealthy obsession with blue Bic medium stick pens and Bruce Springsteen
• Discovered how far I can really walk, even when my feet are sore, throbbing and blistered (it’s pretty far)
• Had a full-on epiphany, the kind people have in movies

I think I will keep adding to this list as I think of more things, but for now, I’m going to keep my promise to go public with the blog and hope that going public shames me into regular posting.

Million-Dollar Baby or “They Laughed at The Monkee’s Mother When She Invented Liquid Paper”

I spend a good deal of time working out business plans in my head for my million-dollar ideas. Like my blogging, these ideas rarely go further than my gray matter. I’ve always thought it would be fun to be a business owner, except for the hard work, long hours, financial, legal and business sides of it. I like the idea part, the throwing a grand opening part and the rolling around in wads of cash each night part.

But the hard part with all the work? Not so much. I used to think it would be fun to own a bar. Then I tended bar for about an hour and realized Cheers was not accurate in its portrayal of bar owners. (Apparently in real life, you have to know a lot about drinks and handle money.)

One of my prouder ideas is a place I call “Amnesty.” (I’m still working on the name.) It came about because a few years ago, I got summoned for grand jury duty. I was told to report to the federal courthouse in Alexandria at 10 a.m. on a certain day. Unfortunately, I forgot about it. I remembered it around lunchtime. Oops.

Did you know that the clerk’s office calls you if you don’t show up for jury duty?

I beat them to the punch, calling to tell them I forgot, and that’s when a very stern-voiced woman said, “Umm, yes, Mrs. Butler. We were just about to call you.” Luckily for me, they had a 2 p.m. reporting session that day. Luckily for me, the no-nonsense lady reminded me that no electronics would be allowed in the courthouse. This was back in the day when I had a flip-phone, so I could easily just leave it in my office and dash off to Alexandria on the metro.

The federal courthouse in Alexandria is on one side of large grassy plaza. When I got there, the man in front of me was stopped at the metal detector because of his cell phone. He had taken the metro there as well and asked the security guy what he was supposed to do. He couldn’t come IN with the phone, but he was going to be cited if he DIDN’T show up. The guard told him he’d seen people go bury stuff in the grassy plaza. I don’t know where the guy went, but he left the line. I asked the guard what happened to stuff that people buried. He said, “Homeless guys dig it up.”

BING! What you need near a courthouse is a store full of those hotel-type safes where people could drop all their electronics as they run into the courthouse.  Maybe there’s wireless and some tables where everyone would come and work on breaks. I’ve got some work to do to flesh this idea out, although I do spend some training miles working on it.

Do you know the cupcake store Sprinkles? I was there a couple of years ago. They sell something called a “frosting shot.” It’s exactly what you think it is. A little shooter of buttercream, although they will give you a spoon if you’re not willing to run your tongue around a little plastic container in public. Where’s the fun in that? Frosting shots. What a silly idea. But then I started thinking what other things could be made into shooters?

BING! Gravy shots. Thanksgiving gravy is delicious. I’ve been known to have a gravy sandwich. Nice and flavorful with a hint of turkey. It would be perfection in a shot glass. Maybe there’s chicken gravy or cream gravy. I’m still working on the concept, but I’m open to hearing ideas for names.

I think Heaven is probably full of hammocks. Hammocks are rarely out in the full sun; they’re always in a nice shady place. Nothing bad ever happens to you in a hammock. Maybe you oversleep and miss the beginning of happy hour at the pool bar, but that’s about it. (Once, just as I was relaxing in a hammock, I looked up to see an iguana sauntering down the tree to which my hammock was secured. My relaxing moment effectively ruined, I scampered out of that hammock, cartoon-style. I guess there are one or two things that can ruin hammock time.) In the Amsterdam airport, there’s a darkened area on the second floor of the international arrivals terminal where there are about 20-30 lounge chairs. Just what overnight travelers need while killing time waiting for a connection, a nice, quiet, comfy place to snooze.

BING! A storefront full of hammocks. Hammockland. This isn’t a showroom, but rather a place to come for a nap or time to catch up on your People magazine reading. It would be darkish in there. And quiet. And cool. You could come in, have a nap and leave refreshed and happy. You’d be billed based on your in/out time. Snoring not allowed. Headphones required. Iguana-free zone.

I haven’t trademarked any of these ideas, but try to hear “TM” in Phil Dunphy’s voice as you read this. I feel confident that if any of you make a million dollars with one of my ideas that you’ll be nice enough to share the wealth.

I need enough to buy a hammock.

Runway Fashion with Barbie Millicent Roberts

I am not one of those people who is capable of what is commonly called “linear thinking.” My thoughts bounce around my head like pinballs, occasionally hitting the jackpot bumper where sensible discourse resides. Fortunately, most of my friends are able to follow along when, in the middle of telling some complicated plot twist in a novel I’m reading, I suddenly ask, “How long should you defrost a frozen turkey in cold water?” There’s always some logical synaptic leap, but it can be hard to discern.

I’m telling you this so you’ll know how I made the leap from Vietnam War veterans to Barbies.

Cinderella Church is still on my mind, perhaps because several people commented on that post I put on Facebook. Everyone’s name has a story. So I’ve been thinking about names, which led to me think about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC. All those faceless names, each of them with a story. That led me to think about whether I knew any Vietnam veterans. I could only come up with one, a guy whose name I can’t even remember. He was the boyfriend and later husband of my down-the-street babysitter. (You know which babysitter—the one who twirled fire batons and who willed me her awesomely great Mt. Carmel High School majorette boots with the gold tassels? I wrote about them on the trash blog. See what I mean? Pinball thoughts. Where was I?)

I was the flower girl in their wedding. They later got divorced, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because of me. What I remember was that my mom made my dress—a petal-pink number with a high-waisted maroon sash. Hoo-boy, I thought I was some kind of glamorous at five years old in that outfit. What I remember even more is that my mom made my Barbie a matching outfit.  

My Barbie was not the kind of girl who got to wear couture. She was strictly an off-the-rack Barbie. This was a cause of some dismay since my Barbie BFF had a grandmother who made her Barbie high-fashion Barbie clothes, and I was jealous as hell. Her Barbie had great clothes, and for all I know, her Barbie was taller, thinner, blonder, smarter and richer. Her Barbie was the Charlize Theron of the Barbie fashion, and mine was like some random Olson twin.

At some point, I traded in my Barbie at K-Mart, essentially upgrading to Barbie 2.0. I swapped out my stiff-legged plastic Barbie for one with soft, pliable, bendable legs. I let my Barbie go barefoot. I didn’t care how soft her new little feet were; no Barbie of mine was going to jam her feet into those teeny little shoes. I’m sure CharlizeTheronBarbie was wearing Manolos, living the high life in a Barbie dream house, dancing with Ken at glamorous parties and tweeting* selfies with celebrities while MaryKateAshleyBarbie was trying to pay the light bill, living in a bunch of shoe boxes masking-taped together to create an apartment, waiting for the AOL dial-up to connect.

It didn’t matter though, because she had One. Great. Flower Girl Dress. We both did.

*Barbie has her own Twitter account. This is true.

Live from New York! It’s … LIST-MAKING!

 I love lists. A lot. In fact, I could probably make a list of the reasons I love lists. List-making entertains me when I’m training for the 3-Day Walks and there’s no one to talk to. I create weird lists or top 10s in my head, adding, subtracting, rearranging, justifying their position over the miles and various walks.

For reasons known only to maybe one other person, Stefon, the Club Kid from Saturday Night Live, has been on my mind a lot. I was one of SNL’s early adopters. Back in SNL’s infancy, my high-school boyfriend and I made a point to be back at my house by 10:30 on Saturday nights so we could sit on my parent’s couch and watch it. Without such fancy technology as a Betamax to record it for later, it was the original “must-see” TV.

Lately, I’ve been creating my Top 10 SNL Recurring Characters List. It’s tough to limit it to 10 without cheating by creating ties just to get extra people on there. I had to be ruthless when I didn’t want to. I felt like I was betraying a friend when someone had to be sacrificed. I decided to eliminate “real people” because otherwise, there wouldn’t be room for anyone else. There will never be a Bill Clinton like Phil Hartman’s or a Sarah Palin as good as Tina Fey’s.

 Here’s the top 10 as it stands today, but I warn you, it’s subject to change.

10. Wayne Campbell

I’m leaving Garth off the list for now (no way!), but I reserve the right to add him back in with Wayne at a later date. Mike Meyers just nailed that character, creating a bucketload of catchphrases along the way. If you can’t sing the Wayne’s World theme song, then you should check your pulse. Party on, Wayne.

9. Fr. Guido Sarducci

Come on, who doesn’t love a chain-smoking priest reporting on gossip for the Vatican Enquirer? Don Novello created a whole career for himself with one thrift-store outfit. He even went on talk shows in character; I remember thinking he was really a priest.

(SNL trivia: Fr. Guido Sarducci holds the record for most recurrences on SNL—31 times)

8. Rich, the Copy Guy

So annoying. So funny. Sting! Stingatola! Stingalingadingdong! Makin’ copies. Was there anyone in any office anywhere who wasn’t quoting Rob Schneider’s Richmeister every time they went to the copy machine? The catchphrase-meister.

7. The Spartan Cheerleaders

U-G-L-Y! You ain’t got no alibi! You ugly! Maybe because I never saw the inner workings of cheerleading, I loved Arianna and Craig and their quest for the “perfect cheer.” I read somewhere that Cheri Oteri and Will Ferrell actually went to cheerleading camp to learn how to be cheerleaders. Talk about suffering for your art.

6. Debbie Downer

I love this Rachel Dratch character so much I adopted her name to describe my incessant risk-management techniques at work. In my defense, I’ve never brought up the topic of feline AIDS. Plus, if you’ve ever seen the Disney World episode with Debbie Downer, you’ll know why this is on my top 10.

5. Chris Farley Show

Okay, I’ll admit, I wasn’t a big Chris Farley fan, but his goofily nervous talk show host remains in my stable of quotable quotes. (“Remember….?” “That was awesome.”) I was nervous watching Chris Farley be nervous. There were only three episodes of the Chris Farley show -- with Jeff Daniels, Martin Scorsese and Paul McCartney. The McCartney one is my favorite.

Chris Farley: You remember when everyone said you were dead?

Paul McCartney: Yes.

Chris Farley: That was a hoax, right?

Chris Farley: You remember when you sang, the love you take is equal to the love you make?

Paul McCartney: Yes.

Chris Farley: Ummm, is that true?

4. Lisa Loopner

Gilda Radner could make any character loveable, and she really perfected it with nerdy Lisa Loopner. Bill Murray was her equally nerdy boyfriend, Todd, but it was Lisa and her comebacks to Todd (“The last time I heard that I fell off my dinosaur.”) who stole the show. Who remembers Todd’s BFF, Chaz the Spaz? That was Steve Martin.

3. Brian Fellow

Lord, have mercy, Tracy Morgan as “not an accredited zoologist” cracked me up. Heck, half the time, he didn’t even get his character’s name right.  I would honestly watch Brian Fellow’s Safari Planet on cable if it were possible. “If goats could talk, I’ll bet they would swear!” “Where is that snake’s arms? I’ll bet he’s hiding them behind his back.”

2. Stefon

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It takes a lot to make me laugh out loud when I watch TV, and Bill Hader’s character cracked my snooty exterior. I have a Stefon mashup bookmarked on YouTube, and when I need a laugh, I queue it up. Plus, he gets Anderson Cooper at the end, so what’s not to love? As a bonus, some spontaneous back-and-forth Stefon-worthy repartee at the 2013 3-Day Walk was just the thing after a long day of crewing in the rain, when I really needed something to laugh about. Stefon has “everything.”

1.  The Festrunk Brothers

I was also an early adopter of Steve Martin. I’m pretty sure there’s a photo of me in my high-school yearbook wearing an arrow through my head. I still have my ticket stub from 1977 when I saw Steve Martin in concert at Jones Hall in Houston. $6.75.

For my money, there’s nothing funnier than the “two wild and crazy guys” from Czechoslovakia, played by Steve Martin and Dan Ackroyd. I’ll give a shout-out to Garrett Morris for playing straight-man Cliff (“Slap my hand, black soul man.”), but it was the brothers in those perfect 1970s outfits that makes this my hands-down #1 pick.

I feel like I should apologize to all the great characters I left off: Roseanne Roseannadanna,  The Anal-Retentive Chef, Mary Katherine Gallagher, the Sweeney Sisters, the NPR girls, Kaitlin, The Ladies Man, the Killer Bees, Theodoric of York, David Spade’s receptionist at the Dick Clark office, the list goes on….