Saturday, January 14, 2012

Of Blogs and Frogs and One More Elephant

http://webandofmothers.blogspot.com/p/leap-blog-dog-join-now.html

This year is one of those years where we mess with the time-space continuum and add a random day to the calendar. (I learned in science class why we do this, but it's still weird.) Do you have plans for Leap Day? How will you spend your extra day in February? Why not spend it playing Leap Blog?

Some really fantastic bloggers got together and decided it would be fun to use this bonus day to share guest posts on each others' blogs and they've let me tag along, too. It's not too late to sign up. Just click on the link under the frog picture and it will bring you to the sign-up page and perhaps a clearer explanation of what's going on.

This also means that if you should click this way on February 29th, you will not find my usual nonsense, you will find a guest blogger to peruse and enjoy and you must promise me now that should you choose to follow them (which you should), you must not forget about me. Now go sign up so we can mix it up good.

Also, another elephant. Last month, Kelly over at Southern Fried Children - don't click there now, you won't want to stop reading and then you'll forget what I was saying and it's vitally important - wrote an hilarious post about her mom called The Linguist wherein she describes her mom's penchant for picking up accents from people. I commented at the time that my dad used to do the same thing, much to my chagrin. To further mortify entire countries of people, he would often purchase and then wear "native" hats in an attempt to "go local". This obviously had the opposite effect of what was intended and was somewhat the same (or worse) than a tour company T-shirt and a fanny pack. This was especially true in Asian countries where my white, red-haired father could in no way be mistaken for "native" - even if he was wearing the traditional bamboo hat favored by 18th century indigenous peasants.

The only person in my family not to be embarrassed by this phenomenon was my little sister. She was always a Daddy's girl and this was no exception. So we have pictures of our family in Austria where the two of them are sporting jaunty mountain-climbing yodel-ay-hee-hoo hats, in Hawaii with (I kid you not) hats woven from grass, and in China with Chairman Mao hats, and so on, while my mom, brother and I are all just sporting perms and pained expressions. My all time favorite, though, is of just my sister. A tall and skinny 10-year-old with a giant bamboo lampshade hat in Thailand. The hat is too big for her and sits down on top of her glasses. Utterly un-self conscious and thoroughly absorbed in her activity, she (and the hat) are tottering atop an Asian elephant.

It's a picture that makes me laugh and makes me proud.* While I was lurking around with a camera and big bangs trying to disappear, she just fully embraced the whole experience and hopped on that elephant. Because of the way we grew up, I always kind of assumed that everyone just traveled the whole entire world and that I would do it forever. That I would be able to go back to Thailand any time and hop on an elephant. It hasn't happened yet. And it may never happen.

I had the opportunity once to ride an elephant, but I didn't. I was too busy trying to be cool.


*Sadly, I have searched and searched for this photo and can't find it. I believe it may have been kidnapped by my sister. She's not as proud of the picture as I am.

21 comments:

  1. Here I go, I'm about to write a post of a comment, please bear with me:
    1st, I can't wait to check out the frog link.
    2nd, I can't wait to check out The Linguist link because I can sooo relate. My father ends up picking up on people's accents (unconsciously) but obviously it doesn't sound natural, and he also tries to Englishize Portuguese words, (much to my horror).
    3rd. I rode an elephant once. In a zoo. It was..weird.
    4th. Going to go check out what the whole Leap Blog is about!

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  2. I am writing this down: (1): Always ride the elephant; and (2): Take pictures. That is great advice both literally and figuratively. Nice blog by the way!

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    1. Hey, thanks! I think by following those two rules, you could get through just about anything.

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  3. Haha

    Your little sister must have had a premonition
    that one day you'd be a brilliant blogger and
    wanted to spare herself any future embarrassment. :)

    I had no idea this was a leap year.
    Imagine being born on that day...

    Talk about getting rooked.
    That's probably even worse than being born on Christmas.

    Elephants are wonderful majestic creatures, so gentle until stirred.
    I rode one once.. in Orlando of all places!
    This is why you keep writing about elephants...
    You must ride one prontissimo & get it out of your psyche. Haha
    xox

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    1. Well, I did go to the zoo this past week and stopped by the elephants to say hi. It was cold and they were unhappy. The she-elephant just kept shaking her head back and forth. Imagine! Being scolded by an elephant.

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    2. Aww... Zoos make me sad, too.

      Living in China must have been a challenge for you as a teenager...
      I was there for a month in August of 1991. It included a Yangtze River cruise from Wuhan to Chonqing & was before the Three River Gorges Dam project destroyed all those cities in the Chonqing municipality.
      I was in my early twenties & loved the trip, but I couldn't even drink the bottled water in China, it tasted of sulfur to me & the soft drinks & juices were unpotable... so sweet. God! I drank beer the whole time because it seemed the safest bet, plus every town was so proud of their brew, haha, but prior to that trip I had never had beer before. Made for interesting times...

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  4. We should all always ride the elephant. I rode a camel once while vacationing with my family the summer before 6th grade. We'd gone to Spain and Africa (which was the only time the family vacation wasn't a U.S. road trip) and my older sister had to pretty much drag my up on the thing, but I did it. I still have the pic and just as I'd envisioned when she was trying to talk me into getting up there, I looked like an idiot. Nerdy girl in a weird, ill-fitted cowboy hat, perched on a camel. Yep. But I'm glad I did it.

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    1. I agree. We should always ride the elephant. I did ride a camel a little later on in the trip. Sadly, the photos of that have been lost, too.

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  5. I agree with Word Nerd- we should ALWAYS ride the elephant. I was a bit terrified of riding a camel when in Egypt last year, but I am so glad I did. It's kind of hard to get a flattering shot of oneself on a camel, especially when one is 5 months pregnant but trying to hide that fact because of political unrest and tension toward foreigners, so I made those photos disappear. I hope to one day not care what I looked like so I can show my kids, in case they are hesitant:)

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    1. You should really relish those pregnant photos. Being pregnant is beautiful. Pregnant and atop a camel? Nigh unto divine.

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  6. I would like to speak of riding elephants, both literal and figurative. Alas, the pharse, "sporting perms and pained expressions" is a much more accurate description of whole stretches of my youth.

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    1. Mine, too. Here we are at the Great Wall, with Chinese perms. Here we are in London, with fresh perms. Here we are at summer camp, with grown-out perms AND sunburns. So hot. Why did we do that to our hair?!

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  7. I have a picture of myself sporting a perm and pained expression... I was such a rotten teen, I would never have deserved any of the amazing experiences you all have mentioned.

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    1. Everyone was a rotten teen in one way or another. I doubt I "deserved" them, either, I just had no choice but to go where my family went. There were times that my spoiled-y rotten self would rather have just hung out in my friends' basement "like a normal person".

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  8. I have ridden an elephant at the Sonoma County Fair, with my three sons, and it was as good as it gets, the fulfillment of a life's ambition. And being born in 1952, one of my best friends in high school, who accompanied me on my voyage of discovery upon graduation, was born February 29th. He managed to survive the excitement of it all.

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    1. I knew a man when he was 94 years old who didn't know when he was born, so he chose February 29th so he could hit on women 1/4 his age.

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  9. I sported a mohawk and a pained expression through much of my youth. But then, I rarely left Wyoming so it was probably understandable *laughing*.

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    1. Ooh! I'm so jealous. I wanted a mohawk, but the closest I was allowed to get was a sort of spiky mullet.

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  10. I also spent much of my youth sporting a perm and a pained expression. The pained expression was probably a result of the perm, but I didn't know that then.

    This leap blog thing looks fascinating! I might have to check it out. Who would ever forget about you?! Not possible.

    bunakess - that has to mean something, right?

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    1. It's amazing we all didn't die from the toxic chemicals dumped on our heads. Pained expressions, indeed. You should leap blog.

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