Have you ever wanted to invent your own species by splicing together different animals to create something new? My fellow Xennials who watched Wuzzles know what I mean! There's a new game coming this summer called Let's Build a Zoo that will let you do just that. It's like Zoo Tycoon and it will be available on Switch, Xbox and Playstation.
New months are almost as exciting for me as new years. They present a whole new start twelve times a year, so if you feel like the last month didn't really do what you wanted it to do, or that you didn't meet your goals, you get another chance! Yes, I treat Mondays in a similar manner.
My favorite ice cream place is a micro-creamery in St. Louis that makes small batch ice creams, many of which are boozy. They have "nice" flavors, which don't contain booze, but they also have "naughty" flavors like Maple Bourbon w/Salted Candied Pecans, PBR Hard Coffee and Pink Champagne Sorbet. They also have rotating flavors, new flavors regularly and even vegan options, so it's a really nice place to get some spiked dessert!
Most people love some form of ice cream, even if it's just frozen bananas. (Frozen grapes are more my thing!) But when you go out for ice cream, there seem to be two camps of people: the people who get the same flavors at the same places year after year, and the people who set out to try new, adventurous flavors or create their own at home as it suits them.
As cat people, we already know how weird we are. You don't have to tell us. We do things like get fake plants and fake mice for our cats to terrorize, let our feline friends tear up our homes in the name of their killer instincts (not to mention our own entertainment) and even make tunnels through our walls for our cats. Yes, we're weird.
Last year we missed out on one of our favorite family holidays, Free Comic Book Day, due to the pandemic. This year as I try to navigate what it might look like to attend, and whether or not our local stores are even participating, I'm left wondering if we even want to go.
Although spring isn't my favorite season, it seems like every time it comes around I can't stop craving lemonade. I love lemonade no matter what, but for some reason I want it constantly in the springtime. Recently one of our local European restaurants has taken to making Nitro Lemonade and I'm a little addicted, even though I'm trying to stay away from the sugar.
Rumors are abounding that Michael Keaton is on board to play the titular character in Beetlejuice 2, but that's one movie from my childhood I don't really care to see updated in the least. Okay, Beetlejuice is a totally toxic character, but he's the bad guy. He gets punished and we aren't meant to root for him. Do we need a prequel, or an updated version where he's learned his lesson? I like Keaton but I don't know that we do.
The farmer's markets are starting to open up, the gardens are starting to grow and it's almost time for pick-your-own season to begin! The fresh produce is the most exciting part of springtime and what better way is there to enjoy some fresh air and change your scenery than to head to a farm and pick something fresh?
This is it, the final week of NaPoWriMo! How did yours go? Did you accomplish all you set out to write and/or read? We did a very low-key NaPoWriMo this year and I'm afraid we didn't accomplish all of what we wanted to do, but we did decide to do a whole poetry credit during the spring semester of 2022 to coincide with the event next time!
My teen and I love to do re-casting of favorite movies and TV shows. It's something we often do during lunchtime while we talk about who would be a great fit for different roles. For example, today we re-cast Scooby Doo as follows:
Fred: Sigourney Weaver
Daphne: Lil Nax X (who also provides the theme song)
Velma: Elliot Page
Shaggy: Leslie Jones
Scooby: Melissa McCarthy
President/Person Who Hires The Gang: Ming-Na Wen
Villain: Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays the best baddies ever
Summer is right around the corner. Where I live, we just had two super humid days and it feels like it's already here! It's time to put away all of those cute Deadhead hoodies and coats and bring out the t-shirts, but I know many of us are in desperate need of a t-shirt overhaul. Many of them have nostalgic value, sure, but if they are riddled with holes (or even have the printing fading off like one of my favorites), it's really time to recycle them (or preserve them if they're special) and get something new.
The younger generation's ability to really connect with themselves and decide the right words to describe their gender is so fascinating and wonderful to me. As someone who learned the word "androgynous" as a teen and immediately connected with it, it was still never enough. Teen me would've loved Tiktok and all of the self-expression of this generation.
Yesterday my aunt shared this adorable watermelon carved into a frog. It was filled with fruit and looked like it would be a big hit with kids at potlucks, but a part of me couldn't get past eating fruit inside a frog's mouth! Still, I'm a big fan of both frogs and doing what's necessary to get kids excited about produce.
While my next shot isn't until next week, I'm enjoying this new sense of camaraderie people have over... vaccinations. It's like being in school again comparing how our arms feel. Did you get it? When are you getting it? Which one did you get? I have even seen people become fans of whichever company's shot they received! While that's a bit of a stretch for me, I say why not celebrate rapid science before our eyes?
It's almost no fun to ponder over, laugh about or even entertain conspiracy theories for fun anymore. Boy did I love urban legends and conspiracies as a teenager! It's fun to contemplate what might be, even if there's no evidence. At one point I wanted to be a cryptozoologist. How fun would that be?
As a teenager, my go-to chicken dinner was a meal I learned from a friend's mom. I dressed raw chicken in a bottle of Italian dressing, threw it in the oven in a dish and baked it. It was very simple and something I could do after school before heading to work, softball or whatever I had every night.
Whether you're honoring a mother or mother figure in your life, someone you lost or even yourself as a mother (of a child, a pet or even yourself), are you planning on making a craft this year for that very purpose? Motherhood is so complex. I thought the teen years would be the easiest after teaching and working with teens, and while my teen is so funny and smart and awesome, it's turning out to be a whole different ballgame. It's constantly evolving and I think I might make myself a clay statue to honor the mother I was and the mother I'm becoming.
Mother's Day isn't just about biological moms. It's about mother figures, mothers who've passed on whom we miss dearly, mothers we mourn, mothers who've lost children and are very much still mothers, and even the mothering some have had to do to themselves after not having a mother figure. We can celebrate, mourn or even ignore the day however seems best in our personal situations.
No, this isn't some QAnon conspiracy. There are boarding schools parents send their "troubled teens" to that kidnap them, force them to take medicine and shower under supervision, and even beat them. Paris Hilton recently testified that she attended one such school in Utah. It's incredibly disturbing.
