Top Ten: Tripping and Bugging.

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tripping : v. 1. When someone is overreacting or getting all bent out of shape over something small; 2. a reaction to something baffling, surprising, or incredulous. 3. bugging.

example: "Katie Couric was tripping off of Sarah Palin when she couldn't name any magazines." "Dude! I was, too!"

bugging : v. 1. The same thing as tripping. 2. Acting crazy.

example: "I can't go see The Hunger Games 'cause my mom is bugging about the violence." "Dang. Your mama be tripping." "Totally."


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Man. There's SO much that I'm tripping off of these days. It's hard to share it all. But today I have narrowed it down to the top then things that I'm tripping off of this week.

And bugging off of, too.


#10  Honeycrisp apples? Honeychile, please.

Have you had these little bombs of juicy joy? If you haven't, then let me just tell you: They are like a crispy, juicy, yummy party in your mouth. But. The part I'm bugging about is how RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE they are. RIDICULOUSLY. (Especially if you're cheap like me.)

Ssshhhhh: Is it bad that I bought my family some Gala apples and told them they were Honeycrisp? Is it bad that I was laughing under my breath as everyone at the table gushed about how TOTALLY, deliciously superior those PSEUDO-HONEYCRISPS were to all other apples?

0_0

Well. A mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do

#9  Easy weight loss.

Man! I gave up Diet Coke on February 1. And! I lost like 4 pounds--without any other changes. I've been reading about how diet soda makes you eat more and how you'll lose weight if you stop drinking it. Well. From my little experiment it appears to be true. Mmm hmmm. Not even kidding.

And the good news? I totally was craving it like crazy at first. Then I pulled on a skirt that had previously been too tight and it fit. I have decided that I like fitting my clothes more than Diet Coke.

#8  This POLLEN!

Seriously? What is UP with all this pollen in the southern United States? I have been an itchy, snotty mess. Remind me to talk to a doctor about that. And to get my yellow-coated car washed. For real.

#7 Zachary the Mango Boy.

I feared that Zachary was going to turn into a mango. The kid sits and eats mango until his entire mouth is raw. Then he keeps on eating them and whimpering between bites. Today, he took it too far. He just announced:

"I am not a mango boy anymore."

That's cool with me, because those damn things almost cost as much as Honeycrisp apples. Plus, there's no Gala version to trick him with.

#6  People being Rude about the person that got Rue-ed.

Not this Rue, though. They were cool with her.

Alright. You all know that I devoured The Hunger Games trilogy several months back. Yes. I contributed to that $155 million opening weekend for the movie. You bet I did.

Well. Have any of you ever read a book and then it was made into a movie? And when you saw the movie you were like, "Hmmm, that's not how I imagined this character in my head." Of course you have! Then you moved on, right?

Well not if you were all the people who were fit to be TIED at the fact that one of important characters in The Hunger Games movie-- this beloved character named "Rue" -- was cast as a . . . gasp! . . . black girl.

Uggghh! Sorry, y'all. I hate to even bring up anything else race-related this month. Really-- I tried to stay out of this discussion but seriously? This is one of the things I'm bugging off of this week so I had to include it.

Alright, alright. . .so Rue is black in the movie. Sound the alarms why don't we? Better yet--how 'bout we do this instead: Why don't we just revisit the EXACT language used by the author in the book to describe young Rue, shall we? Don't mind if I do!

"And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she's very like Prim in size and demeanor."

 Uhh, hello? This is what the author wrote VERBATIM. Matter of fact, just Google "dark brown" under images and see what comes up. Or even "dark brown skin." It's okay, I'll wait.

Welcome back. See? Nothing cryptic about that, now is it?

Now, here's what I'm mostly bugging off of: While some were just flat out n-word-using offensive about their surprise and disdain over this sweet-faced actress (Amandla Stenberg) being cast as Rue, many not necessarily unkind people simply said on the message boards, "I just never imagined her as black. I imagined her as more. . .like. . .I don't know. . . olive."  You mean "olive". . . . as in the word used by the author to describe another character? Oh, I see.

Shall we go the text once again?

Katniss, the protagonist, phenotypically describes her mate, Gale, her sister, her mother, the people in her district AND herself here:

"[Gale] He could be my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes. But we're not related, at least not closely. Most of the families who work the mines resemble one another this way. That's why my mother and [sister] Prim, with their light hair and blue eyes, always look out of place. They are." 

This all has me baffled. I read the entire book seeing Rue with dark brown skin (as in that of a black or Indian/South Asian person) and Katniss (the protagonist) as having, well, olive skin (as in that of a person who tans easily.) And I won't even go all up into how disturbing all the mean racial twitters have been. My friend Angella does an excellently diplomatic job of describing all that here.

I guess it fascinates me how we're all wired to see things. Under nearly every other circumstance if something is described as "dark brown", it is just that. But for some reason. . . many people never, ever conceived that for this cherished heroine that "dark brown skin" might actually mean. . . . well. . .dark brown skin. Fascinating.

You know what? I think I'm just tripping off of ALL of the crazy racial things going on this month. March 2012 has been bananas, I tell you. And from young people, too! This month has been like the Ides of March for real. Those crazy tweets came from what looks to be teens and tweens! I was like, "Damn! Et tu, Brute?"

Plus, I'm imagining how hurt that sweet actress Amandla Stenberg's feelings must have been when she heard all of those mean things being said about her--just because of her race.  Boo hiss, man.

Damn, America. Really?

But seriously? Who CARES who's cast as long as they can act and the screenplay is good? Not me, that's for sure.

PLUS, I was talking to my Gradydoctor-friend Lesley M. today and we agreed that EVERYONE knows that the movie versions of characters almost NEVER all stack up to what we imagined in our heads! (The one caveat is Harry Potter, but Lesley pointed out that they had illustrations to go by.)

# 5 And speaking of all that. . . .Help me out, will you?

When I read the book "The Help" I imagined that sniveling blabbermouth "Hilly" as being quite overweight--as the author described. The woman they cast in the role for the movie? Not overweight at all. I also pictured the main character Aibileen as much older, too. And she wasn't old at all. HOWEVER, the screenplay rocked and both women were amazing actresses. So I quickly got over it.

And I'm saying. People loved The Help, too. That book went viral and the characters were absolutely our own. So I'm tripping off of why a slim Hilly and a youngish Aibileen didn't fire people up as much as a (not even dark brown, hello?!) Rue.

Damn, America. Really?

Okay. I'm done with all of that. For real, I promise.

#4  Keep it syphilitic, stupid.

New England Journal of Medicine image

You know what? My friends who are Infectious Disease (ID)specialists loooooove to talk about syphilis. I'm for real. They will stop whatever they're doing if you just say that magic word: Syphilis.

Syphilis, syphilis, syphilis. (See? One of them just fainted. )

When it comes to syphilis, ID people get all giddy and foamy at the mouth the minute you ask about it. The only thing they like to talk about more than syphilis is syphilis + HIV infection. Once I sent a group text message with a syphilis + HIV question to my two favorite ID-doctor girlfriends, Wendy and Shanta. And I kid you not, my cell phone exploded from all the texts that followed. Exploded. No, for real. It did.

Syphilis, syphilis, syphilis. (See? One of them just ran out of their front door screaming in glee.)

I love that about them. Plus, I think I am secretly a closeted Infectious Disease nerd. I, too, get very excited about syphilis which I think is the litmus for the ID gene.

Case in point: Shanta Z. texted me some interesting pictures of this thing called the jarisch-herxeimer reaction which is this scary explosive rash people get when they first start getting treated for. . .you guessed it. . .syphilis. But even though it's explosive, this rash goes away in a few hours. Well. I was sitting in the movie theater waiting for The Hunger Games to start and literally started getting giddy and foaming at the mouth a little when Shanta sent me a picture that she'd seen on her recent ID travels. In fact, I was disappointed when the lights went down and I had to stop texting. Ha.

Now pardon me while I run out of my front door screaming.


#3 Can you hear me now? Not good.

I am bugging off of how many DROPPED CALLS I am getting on AT & T these days. Ugggghh!! Right now they are an EPIC fail in my book. I would call them and complain but I don't have a signal.

#2 My parents and their commitment.

What you youngsters know about this? 

Dude. Dude! Have I ever told y'all about how my parents packed up all four us kids into a Lincoln continental and spent six weeks driving in a complete circle around the ENTIRE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA in one summer? This was before the DVD player, the Nintendo DSi, the iPad, the iPhone, navigation and seatbelt enforcement. Yes. Yes!

I was in the fifth grade, my younger sister was in fourth, my older sister in seventh and my brother was in ninth. I think. But either way, my dad and mom did the total old school thing and got a BIG OL' TripTik from triple A mapping the whole thing out! THEN they commenced to drive us LITERALLY on a tour of land of the free and the home of the brave.

Not. Even. Kidding.

We saw the Grand Canyon, The Washington Monument, dairy cows in Wisconsin, Mount Rushmore, and even the Hoover Dam. And when we got home from this painstakingly thoughtfully organized trip and all the impressed people asked us, "What was your favorite part?" Guess what we said?

"CIRCUS CIRCUS in LAS VEGAS!!! IT HAD THE BEST POOL!!!"

0_0 -----> look on my Dad's face.

Seriously? Seriously. Talk about ungrateful and uncultured. Ha!

Now that I am a parent, I cannot even begin to comprehend the ENORMOUS sacrifice of time, energy, and sanity that must have taken to plan and actually execute. I cannot. But thirty one years later,  I do appreciate it. Especially because I can't quite see when my travels will take me back to South Dakota again. Bananas!

Mom and Dad? You guys were some parenting BEASTS. Oh, and I mean this in the GOOD way.(Picture me on knees bowing up and down.) That was both CRAZY and . . .uhhh. . .kind of crazy.

#1  Glitterati.

I'm tripping off of how good I've felt about letting my gray hairs come on in as they please. It makes me feel unusually confident, which I didn't expect. This could also be because--thanks to Zachary--I now see them as swanky "glitter-sparklies."

That's all I got today.

Yawn.

For the record, there was absolutely NO point whatsoever to this post. But sometimes, those are the best kind of posts, don't you think?

P.S. I'm tripping off of the fact that it's been more than 20 years since we were in college like these ladies! Dang!

Oh and Coach B? This was for you. I had nothing profound to say, but at least it counts as a post!

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Happy Hump Day.