weed less

I walk around downtown for at least two hours every day (usually at lunch and then right after I'm done with work).

How weird is this?

There were always people smoking pot on the street (especially 16th street mall). Now, since it's been legalized, I haven't seen a single person smoking pot downtown.

Maybe because it's legal it's not fun anymore?

And for those of you who think it should be illegal to smoke pot, what's your position on gun control? Because, some day, that might be your kid's school that gets shot all to fuck.

You tax the shit out of cigarette because they'll kill you. And alcohol. Why not bullets?

croco-diamond redux, part 2

(Johan is Marie's friend. I included him because my friend included the following in his email giving me limited information about Marie's school: "She likes the playloft. When Johan goes crazy it's pretty funny (Johan is her little friend)")

SO off they went to Marie’s classroom, which was filled with children, paints, pots of glue, tape, stickers, clay, and two goldfish. The croco-diamond looked longingly at the goldfish and said “Ooh, I love sushi.” Marie told him under no circumstances would he be allowed to eat the goldfish.

The children looked at the croco-diamond with curiosity. Though he had taken his goggles off, he was still wearing a pilot’s scarf, and was carrying a flashing red picnic basket. And rather than taking a seat with the children, he was proceeding to the front of the classroom where Ms. Kaeli normally sat.

“Children, children!” shouted the croco-diamond, though there was no need to shout because the children were silently staring at him. Most had been unaware that there was a croco-diamond living in Canmore. “First, I will take questions concerning myself, and croco-diamonds of all the worlds. Then we will move to the musical, a song I wrote myself, based on a poem which I first heard while just a small croco-diamond. We often refer to them in the diminutive, as croco-didis, but of course you wouldn’t have known that until just this moment. I heard it while visiting the Viscount of Snowberry, on the flying mountain of Nepalitani, which soars high into the clouds like a fortress flying here and there, always changing its location. The mountain is made of spaghetti and is 8,000 meters tall, and all the children who live there sing songs and eat cookies, a particular type of cookie, in fact, a cookie made from the finest flour picked at dawn by indigenous people known as the Sherpalopolus opolopolus opolopoli…yes, I believe I have that correct, it’s quite a long word, it’s been years since I’ve said it, I think it was last mentioned while I was having a late breakfast with the raj of Blanchworth…”

“Excuse me,” said Ms. Kaeli, who had been standing behind the croco-diamond waiting for him to stop talking, until she realized he was never going to stop talking. “I am the teacher, and and though your story of a flying mountain made of spaghetti is interesting, we have to get started on our lesson.”

(We should note here that the flying mountain Nepalitani actually is not made of spaghetti, but is a giant pile of mashed potatoes, built, as the legend goes, by children who don’t like mashed potatoes. Aforementioned children threw their mashed potatoes out the window until one day, well, there was a big mountain of mashed potatoes. We are not sure how the mountain is able to fly, but some day, as you look out your window, you might see a gigantic pile of mashed potatoes passing by, in the sky. Do not be afraid.)

 “Yes, yes, educating young minds is MOST important. But first, and SLIGHTLY MORE IMPORTANT, are the questions these young minds must have about myself, which is to say, ME. So children, feel free to ask questions and I will tell you all about myself. I’m quite interesting, as you will find, and I have gathered many facts from all of my travels.”

But in the time the Croco-diamond had been speaking about mountains made of spaghetti that soar high into the clouds (though we now know he should have said mashed potatoes), Marie had sent around a note to the entire class suggesting that anyone who asked the Croco-diamond a question would get a serious thumping at lunch time. 

No one asked a question.

Puzzled by this behavior, the Croco-diamond reached into his picnic basket and, without the goggles, was almost blinded by the flashing red stop sign, but still managed to find his bongos, which he pulled out. “I sense that you children are too intimidated to ask questions of someone as great as myself. So we’ll move on to the next part of the program, which is the musical.  I will play these small drums and sing for you a song I wrote called “Mongo in the Congo,” which celebrates the equatorial forest dwellers of the Congo. The mongo people are made up of many tribes, including Bolia, Bokote, Bongandu, Iyaelima, Konda, Mbole, Nkutu, Ntomba, Songomeno, Tetela-Kusu, Bakutu, Boyela…”

“Mr. Croco-diamond,” said Marie’s teacher.

“There are four more tribes,” said the Croco-diamond, who was obviously not pleased he had been interrupted.

“If you would be so kind, I need to get on with the lessons for the day. Perhaps we can make some more time for you this afternoon. Please have a seat.”

“And so, children, this concludes the musical part of our program. I will be taking a break to collect my thoughts. Thank you for your attention. I will be signing autographs at lunch.”

The croco-diamond regally walked to the back of the classroom, where there happened to be some bean bags. He carefully arranged the bean bags and plopped down on them, making a POOF and a PUFF sound. Marie was thankful that he closed his eyes and appeared to have fallen asleep.

Ms. Kaeli gave the students construction paper so they could make butterflies during story time. Normally it would have been morning circle time, but after the croco-diamond had disrupted class Ms. Kaeli decided it might be best to tell a story. Though she was only slightly familiar with croco-diamonds, she knew one should never invite a croco-diamond to morning circle unless one had ALL DAY for morning circle. Croco-diamonds tend to talk a lot.

“Once upon a time,” said Ms. Kaeli, “there was a man who loved every creature in all the worlds…”

SNORT, SNORE.

All the children looked to the back of the classroom where the Croco-diamond lay on the bean bags, snoring.

“This man,” continued Ms. Kaeli, “loved spiders, snakes, ardvarks, spotted turtles…”

“Croco-diamonds,” said a quiet voice from the back of the classroom, though none could tell who it was.

“And Croco-diamonds,” said Ms. Kaeli. “One day this man was walking through the woods and he found a cocoon. He took the cocoon home so he could watch it transform into a…”

POOSH, POOF, FOOP went the bean bags as the Croco-diamond shifted his position on the bean bags. 

 “…butterfly.”

SNOOOOOOZ went the Croco-diamond. 

“Ahem.” Said Ms. Kaeli.

Marie was so embarrassed that she focused on making her butterfly and ignored the Croco-diamond. She decided at lunch she would say that she had just met him, that day, and that he had followed her to school even though she tried to stop him. 

Ms. Kaeli continued, “As the man watched the cocoon he noticed that the chrysalis…”

“That’s a baby butterfly,” came a voice from the back of the room, which might have been the croco-diamond, except that it couldn’t have been because he was asleep.

“Thank you,” said Ms. Kaeli. “A chrysalis is a baby butterfly. He noticed the chrysalis was struggling to get out of its cocoon. The man wondered what he should do. Should he help the chrysalis? What do you think?”

Johan raised his hand and said. “I think we should let the croco-diamond play his bongos.”

“I most certainly agree,” said a voice in the back of the room that seemed to be coming from near the fish tank. Marie hoped that the croco-diamond was still asleep and not trying to eat the fish but she was afraid to look. 

Then there was a sudden PUFF PLOP FLUFF from the back of the room. A bright flashing red light appeared and disappeared as the lid for the picnic basket closed with a thump. 

“Oh no!” thought Marie. “He opened his picnic basket!”

BUT.

Iit WASN’T the croco-diamond who had opened the picnic basket. It was…

…Johan…

….and HE HAD THE CROCO-DIAMOND’S BONGOS.

“Who CARES about baby butterflies! I’M GOING TO PLAY THE BONGOS!” yelled Johan. He ran up into the playloft and began wildly beating the bongos.

Then, as if in a trance, the croco-diamond rose up from the bean bags and began to do what might have been some kind of African tribal dance. He took his pilot’s scarf and wrapped it like a turban around his head. 

He began to chant:

Croco-diamonds are cool!

I went to school!

With Marie! As you can see!

And as you know!

It’s time for the croco-diamond show!

Everybody gather ‘round!

And watch the croco-diamond get down!

The croco-diamond danced over to his picnic basket and pulled out the flashing stop sign. He waved it over his head and began to dance around the children.

Give it up for the croco-diamond!

Throw your butterflies in the air!

And dance like you just don’t care!

All the children began throwing their paper butterflies in the air. Johan, who couldn’t reach his butterfly since it was downstairs and he was in the playloft, threw a basket of dolls instead. And then some other toys. And furniture. All the while yelling “CROCO-DIAMONDS ARE COOL!!!!!”

 The classroom was complete chaos! Ms. Kaeli looked like she was going to cry, and all the children were running around the desks throwing construction paper, crayons, bottles of glue, and pencils. The croco-diamond had found the classroom supply of glitter and was sprinkling it on all the children saying, “I anoint you an honorary croco-diamond!” 

 And it was all Marie’s fault for bringing the croco-diamond to school!

Marie wanted to crawl under her chair until the school day was over. The only good thing that could possibly come out of the situation was for the tray of quinoa snacks to get knocked on the floor so no one would have to eat them.

MARIE had to think FAST! What was she going to do to restore order to the classroom???

croco-diamond, the sequel

I have a friend who graciously offered to read The Colossal Cringle Crisp Caper to his daughter, Marie, who is 6. I guess she liked it because he's reading it to her for the third time. I guess he's sick of it because he asked me to write a new story about the croco-diamond.

So I gathered some information from him (to be honest, I think he provided 3 useful facts) and then decided to write a story about the croco-diamond going to school with Marie. I have to finish the story by Saturday because they'll be done reading C4 by then.

Here's the first part. BTW, all of the "non-croco-diamond world" stuff is true (e.g. the tribes of the congo and National Pepper Pot Day).

ON the particular day of which we speak, which is a day you may remember as it didn’t happen too long ago, the croco-diamond found himself eating breakfast alone. The giant man had gone to the dentist to have his teeth cleaned, and since his teeth are so big that would take all day. The kangawrong was at tambourine camp. The croco-diamond was supposed to be at cooking school to learn to be a master chef. But he had been kicked out after doing something VERY BAD which we won’t mention here, except to say that eventually the flour cloud settled and most of the students stopped coughing.

So he wandered over to Marie’s house, where Marie was eating breakfast. “Marie,” he said, taking a seat at the table while sneakily pulling a cookie off the counter with his back foot, “I’ve decided to go to school with you today. I, of course, went to a very rigorous boarding school. It would be interesting to see what it’s like to go to a Waldorf school. I am quite fond of the idea of crayons, though I haven’t used one before. And I know a few poems that may amuse your classmates.”

Marie wasn’t sure that it was a good idea for the croco-diamond to go to school with her, but he looked so forlorn sitting at the table with cookie crumbs on his snout. Marie agreed that he could attend her school. The croco-diamond rushed home to prepare.

When Marie was ready to leave she looked out the window and saw the croco-diamond in the driveway, a white scarf around his neck and aviator goggles over his eyes. In addition, he was carrying a flashing red stop sign and a large picnic basket.

“Oh no,” sighed Marie. “I wonder what the croco-diamond is up to this time.”

She walked outside with her back pack. “I will carry you to school, on my back, like a dragon rider of olden days. Dragon riders, as I’m sure you know, were charged with keeping the peace and underwent years of training in magic, physical endurance, observation, and swordsmanship. They lived on their own island called…”

“That’s interesting, Croc, but we are going to be late for school.”

And so Marie climbed on the croco-diamond’s back, holding the picnic basket in front of her, and they set off for the Waldorf school. That is, until the croco-diamond saw some children on the sidewalk.

“Stop, stop!” commanded the croco-diamond at the cars in the street. He waved his flashing red stop sign around and the cars came to a screeching halt. Even the children stopped and stared.

“What are you DOING Croc???” asked Marie.

“I thought you knew. It is national child safety month. I must protect the children!”

“What in all of the worlds is going on?” asked one of the drivers.

“It appears there is a…croco-diamond…in the street waving a stop sign. A very bright, blinking red stop sign. He’s…he’s also wearing goggles.” Said another driver.

“Wait a minute. Is that Marie with the croco-diamond?” Asked another driver.

“Come on Croc or we’ll be late for school!” said Marie, ducking behind the picnic basket so no one could see her.

Eventually the croco-diamond reluctantly let Marie put his flashing stop sign in the picnic basket where it could cause no further traffic jams.

Even with the delays they arrived at school a few minutes early. Marie climbed off the croco-diamond’s back and he said, with a flourish that was a bit dramatic, even for the croco-diamond, “Show me immediately to the school mistress so that I might collect my sash!”

“Your…sash?” asked Marie.

“Yes, my sash. My visiting dignitary sash. Hopefully it has gold lettering. Silver washes me out and makes me look sleepy.”

“I…I don’t think school has…sashes.” Said Marie. “I think they just give you a name tag.”

“Name tag? Of what material is this “name tag” made?” asked the Croco-diamond.

“It’s a sticker.” Said Marie.

The croco-diamond’s head rose proudly, and he stood on his hind legs. “We, my tribe I mean, are royalty. Which means, obviously, we do not wear stickers.”

“Oh.” Said Marie, unsure what to do next.

“It’s no problem,” said the croco-diamond. “One always must plan for the unexpected when one goes on an adventure.” And he pulled out a sash from the picnic basket, which seemed to be pulsing with a red light due to the flashing stop sign. The sash was royal purple, with large gold lettering that said ‘Most Distinguished Visitor’. Underneath was smaller gold lettering that said ‘croco-diamond royale-ty talk-i-mus non-stop-i-tus , guest of the king of South Norwand Island Territories and other protectorates.”

 

“You do realize we’re in Canmore?” asked Marie.

“Yes, well, I did not have time to update my sash,” said the croco-diamond. And with that they went to see the school mistress.

The school mistress was quite surprised to see a croco-diamond in her office. And even more surprised when the croco-diamond took a seat, pulled out from the picnic basket a fancy tea cup and saucer, as well as some McVitibles’s digestive biscuits (he had meant to grab the box of chocolate chip cocoanut cookie nibbles, but with his goggles on inside the giant man’s house he couldn’t read the boxes), and sat with his hind feet up on the blinking red light picnic basket.

“You have been to the South Norwand Island Territories I presume?” he asked the school mistress, sipping his tea.

“No, I haven’t. They are quite remote. I…I was wondering how I might help you?”

“Well, I’ve decided to accompany Marie to school. She has agreed to be my escort. She will do a fine job. I presume she has told you I will not wear a sticker.”

At this Marie and the head mistress exchanged looks.

“I see.”

The croco-diamond attempted to put his tea cup down but couldn’t quite see where the table was because of his goggles. Marie helped him put it down.

“Maybe you should take your goggles off.” Marie suggested.

“Absolutely not! I cannot take these goggles off!”

“Oh.” Said Marie.

“Aren’t you going to inquire as to why I am wearing them?” Asked the croco-diamond.

Marie thought that maybe she wasn’t going to inquire because normally when she asked the croco-diamond questions it took weeks to get to the end of the answer. 

“Since perhaps you are too shy to inquire, I will answer your question without you asking. Besides being national child safety month, it is also aviation history month. In honor of that I’m dressed as a pilot. Surely at the Waldorf school you are aware of these holidays. THAT LAST A MONTH. BUT THEY’RE STILL HOLIDAYS.”

The school mistress looked at Marie, who shrugged her shoulders. 

The croco-diamond continued, “You might also not be aware then, that today is also Look For Circles day, Deviled Egg day, Clean Your Refrigerator day, Button day, Have A Party With Your Bear day, Square Dance day, Mitten Tree day, Cotton Candy day, National Noodle Ring day, Look On The Bright Side day, Make Cut Out Snowflakes Day, Pepper Pot day…”

“How interesting,” Interrupted the school mistress. “But it is also a school day. Perhaps you and Marie should head to her classroom so she isn’t late.”

poems and performance reviews

Yesterday I emailed my friend, the esteemed poet JD Frey and author of Umbrellas or Else (check out his web site here; proverbs from purgatory especially hilarious as is his haiku about knee caps).

I wrote:

I left my old job in July and am now working for a non-profit. Unfortunately, they gave me a position of responsibility, and I find myself having to write 20 performance reviews by Friday for employees I don't really interact with because I have asperger's and don't like people.
I started reading Umbrellas or Else for inspiration as to what to say in the aforementioned reviews. I'm thinking that each review should quote at least one line from one of your poems.

But then I was worried that might upset you.
In my defense, I have the perfect person for "doppelganger, pterodactyl, ectoplasm scones".

Please?

JD wrote:

FF,

By all means, if poetry be the food of performance reviews, play on.

Just be careful--not everybody is going to "get" that you really aren't challenging them to jello-wrestle with Barbara Walters...

Nice to hear from you and I hope things are happy and fulfilling.

JDF

 

I wrote:

 

Actually, thanks for that idea! I'm also supposed to come up with a list of team building exercises for 2013. Wonder if an appearance by Barbara Walters is out of our budget. She might do it for free since we're a non-profit. 

but that's why I have a blog

Today my neighbor, let's call her X, who is also a writer, and in her 60s, came over to see my kitchen. Then we had the following conversation:

X: Hey, you inspired me to start a blog! (she's been reading my blog for kitchen updates)
Me: That's great!
X: So I wanted to ask you for a favor.
Me: Sure! (thinking she's going to ask for writing advice)
X: So, I want to buy you a membership to match.com. Then you'll go on dates and I'll write about them.
Me: Um. What?
X: I bought my sister a membership and she went on some dates but nothing really funny happened and then she met someone and got married.
Me: Oh.
X: Maybe you'll meet someone and get married. And then I can write about that.

(uncomfortable pause)

Me: Don't you think the back splash turned out really nice?

Maybe I'll stop inviting people over to show off my kitchen.

back splash, done!!! And it's better than awesome!!!

More pics later, got home from Bozeman Ice Fest around 530 and have been working ever since to get my kitchen set up!

behind the scenes

Behind the scenes at the Bozeman Ice Fest:

• They put up cameras to capture live footage of the guys building the ice breaker wall. But they mounted them to a fence and some moron put the port-a-potties in front of the cameras. So all the cameras captured were three days of the back of the port-a-potties.
• We didn't have an "official" score board for the speed comp so Liz (another volunteer) and I made one out of paper and cardboard, which we duct taped together and then propped up on the stage using rope and the aforementioned duct tape. All the news reporters were taking pictures of it because it was so ghetto. Then the duct tape started falling off and the score board almost blew away so I had to staple it with a lightweight stapler. No idea how it stayed together.
• I was given the job to man the booth where we were taking pictures of people at the ice fest last night with the ice breaker wall behind them (kind of like getting your picture in front of the great pyramid in egypt, but cooler). Anyone who knows me knows I am the WORST photographer EVER. Also, I had slipped and accidentally kicked the tripod so it was in the wrong position. So most of the pictures I took had only half the person (or couple) in them. Then a little kid started throwing a major tantrum in front of the camera so I took a bunch of pictures of him having his tantrum. The guys who upload the pics to facebook were laughing their asses off when they saw my pictures.
• Conrad and I took down all the banners as part of clean up last night. That was kind of surreal. I think he offered to help me because I was using his knife, which has a lot of sentimental value, and I almost stabbed myself in the face with it (YOU try cutting through frozen zip ties with numb fingers while hanging onto a chain link fence with the banner whipping around in the wind).
• Two nights ago in the theater Joe gave me some schwag to throw out to the crowd (gloves) and I pitched them so far I hit some guy in the back of the head with them (he was looking in the other direction because they were throwing stuff on that side too). Oh well, at least he got free gloves.
• A guy who was cooking at the festival last night set his grill up on a PLASTIC table. I was like "dude, that is NOT a good idea". He insisted he had done it before. So I went to the ice breaker wall and got the builders to give me some left over wood and gave it to the kitchen guy to put under his grill. Instead of putting the wood UNDER the grill he propped up the four corners of the grill. Needless to say the table was scorched and melted by the end of the night. Joe was like "I need someone to make that disappear NOW" so we didn't get in trouble with the people we borrowed the tables from. I suggested we keep it and give it out every year as an award.

There was more hilarious stuff but I have to run do some work. To be continued...

ice breaker

Here's a picture of the climbing wall the athletes had to dry tool.

My friend Mayo on the wall

It was even more insane in person. The wood, which came from Conrad Anker's backyard, had swivels on the top. Only a few climbers made it out on the boom. Gadd won. To watch him climb the wall click here and then scroll to the middle of the page. It's a short video.

North Face, you are THE BEST (at least your reps are)

(this was supposed to post last night but the internet was down)

Have been working long days at the ice fest as a volunteer and spent all day and night out in the driving snow and cold, so probably won't write until tomorrow about all the amazing and funny things that have happened over the past two days.

But, even though I'm exhausted, I can't sleep until I give the biggest fucking shout out on the planet to BJ, a rep for North Face.

I am very susceptible to cold. And wearing the wrong clothes doesn't help.

I was working with another volunteer named Liz keeping score for the speed climbing event today. I had dressed pretty warm but not warm enough for standing in the snow for hours at a time while not being able to move around or get out of the driving snow/wind. And I couldn't leave my position because you can't just walk out in the middle of an event when you're posting scores.

At some point in the early afternoon my brain was like "we're going hypothermic, bitches". I was shaking uncontrollably and doing these weird arm and step moves trying to warm up. My hand warmers were failsuck, my gloves wet, my feet wet, and it was generally miserable.

BJ came up to me and asked if I wanted to wear his down coat (I was wearing my down coat already, that's how cold it was). I didn't know him so I was like "that's okay, I'm fine" (was so cold I could barely talk). Then he said he would get me a thicker down jacket than the one I was wearing (my down jacket is pretty fucking thick). I turned that down too, not because I'm stupid, but because I know reps and they always complain about people trying to get free gear from them and I didn't want BJ to think I was one of those types of people who borrow or want to be given stuff.

A few minutes later BJ came over and said "I can't stand to watch you anymore because you're obviously freezing." He handed me a prototype (love prototypes!) light down jacket. I looked at it (was so cold the only thing I could focus on was what the score keepers were yelling at me) and BJ said "Let's take off your down coat and put this underneath". I couldn't even get my coat off by myself so he helped me, and then he helped me put the prototype jacket on, zipped it up (my fingers were useless because they were so cold and at that point someone else had to write results on the score board after I got them), and took off the tag. He said I could keep the jacket and he helped me put on my down coat. I tried to protest but he insisted. And then pulled the hood for the prototype jacket under my neck warmer so it wasn't in the way and was against my neck (the inside of the hood is fleece - NICE!!! - and very soft and warm!!!!).

North Face is probably thinking "we give you a nice jacket and you take a shitty picture of it???? Franki's an asshole!" Sorry North Face, I'm not a photographer.

Even though gained through suffering I LOVE this jacket. It's so perfect. The wrist things that go around my hands are lycra. The underside of the arms and down the sides of the jacket is a stretchy fleece material. Hood is lined with fleece. Rest of the jacket is down. Cool pockets. Bomber zipper. Perfect for anything (and, no offense to Patagonia, much better than my light down jacket I got from them).

BJ is awesome and one of the most chivalrous men I've ever met. I hope they put this jacket into production. The little details, like the fleece hood, make the jacket. And it DID warm me up a lot.

I used to not buy North Face stuff but now I'm going to check them out. And maybe can get BJ to convince North Face to make ice climbing pants that have a longer than 32 inch inseam for women.