In order to give you some background on, well, ME... the Writer O' The Snarky Comments (and to prove that I am, in fact, getting back into writing my probably over-thought-out opinions), I decided to fill out one of the numerous personality surveys flitting around Facebook.
Read, enjoy, and prosper!
(And be on the look-out for more of the (Not So) Lovely Letters, coming soon!)
State your name for the record:
Krystal Ann (Pennington) Bishop... of which "Bishop" is used more than "Krystal", and usually of my own accord. What can I say? I have the hots for my husband, and his last name is cooler than my first name.
Identify your gender:
Mommy. (Which is to say "gender neutral" or, more accurately, "gender non-important".) (Although, given that I am, in fact, a mother... I guess it means that I have girl parts, which would lead me to believe that I am, or was at some time, female.)
Please state your birthdate:
Way Earlier Than Anyone Should Ever Have To Be Awake Unless They Are Bringing Me Coffee A.M. on October 20th, 1983.
Identify your place of birth:
Bethesda, Maryland... along with about 1.3 billion other Navy brats whose maternal units also played "Follow The Soldier".
Where do you live?
I am always fearful of this question; not for the ever-so-complex answer of "just south of Seattle, Washington", but because I can never seem to stop singing Seattle's praises and am, therefor, convinced that the overpopulation of every major and minor suburb of my amazing city is my direct fault.
Hair and eyes:
My current hair color is my favorite yet - a reddish brown (or brownish red?) that I owe entirely to my friend, Lyndsey, for her every-6-weeks battle against the black that it first presented itself. My eyes are kind of slutty, switching colors from blue to gray to hazel, depending on light refraction and blah-blah-blah... but are usually a blue-gray.
What is your preferred OS?
I love me some PCs. Like nerd-father, like nerd-daughter.
Do you use a mouse pad? How about a screen saver?
At work, a mouse pad is a must. Well, I suppose I could toss it... but then what would collect the different sugar flakes from my morning tasties? Nothing, that's what. At home, I use my effectively outdated laptop sans mouse. My screensavers are bubbles, always.
What is your favorite color?
Blood red is a constant... it's just so damn pretty. Ooh, and that green-blue, hazy color that the water gets right before a storm; I'm fond of that one, too (just, apparently, not enough to actually figure out a name).
What is your favorite hobby?
Until I can find a way to read obsessively and cook new recipes at the same time (without singeing my arm hair again), the two are tied.
What are your favorite TV shows?
Between Jeopardy, Wipe Out, and anything ever seen on The Food Network, I'm fairly set in my ways. Now, if they would just bring back Gilmore Girls...
What is your favorite smell?
Wood fires. Baking bread. Vanilla and salt water, together. My husband when he has been working with metal all day. My son after a bath. Way too many 'dirtied vanilla' scents to list.
What is the best feeling in the world?
A coffee buzz while smelling a new book.
What is the worst feeling in the world?
Holding my son down while the nurse sticks him with a needle, and seeing that look of total betrayal in his tear-filled eyes.
What are your favorite things to do on the weekends?
Read, eat while reading, read about cooking things to eat, cook, snuggle, Seattle (it's a verb now, thanks), and write.
What is one vain thing about yourself of which you are proud?
With the (much needed) help of weight loss surgery in 2006, I've lost over 185 lbs of "oh, that's just not healthy"/"Ick"/"life-stealing fat"... and now I have curves instead of rolls. Okay... there are still some rolls...
What is your ultimate vacation spot?
Disneyland still wins this title for me, as it is the only place I have been to that has allowed me to completely, totally immerse all of my senses in a fantasy world.
What is the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning?
How my son managed to get into that particular sleeping position... and why it took me so long to notice his knee in my right eye.
Do you get motion sickness?
Oddly enough, only during my period. Please don't ever call it "that time of the month", or apply other pithy sayings meant to cover up what is, duh, a medical necessity for the survival of our kind. You may, however, call it "THE CURSE FROM THE BOWELS OF HELL", if you'd like.
Pen or pencil?
Unless I'm doing some mathematical problem (read: a gun is to my head and someone is holding my family hostage), I use a pen. A blue pen, preferably. If I am working on a story, however, I will probably be typing.
How many rings before you answer the phone?
I guess it depends on how much I like my current ringtone. I've been known to let someone call and call... and call... because the song that plays as a result of their need to contact me is just too damn catchy. (Probably not the nicest thing to do, though... sorry.)
What are your favorite foods?
Fresh seafood (especially Dungeness crab, red snapper, mussels, scallops, and Copper River salmon), Thai peanut sauce, fresh baked bread with butter and honey, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, creme brule, nacho cheese sauce (with little-to-no real cheese involved), Doritos, deep-fried Twinkies, gravies, quiche, and coffee. It IS a food.
What is your number one pet peeve?
Any form of a superiority complex.
Do you sleep with stuffed animals?
As my 2 1/2 year old son is currently - and for the foreseeable future-ly - occupying the bed I share with my husband, we have two incarnations of Bobo, the monkey. One has a microchip with our voices saying something sappy, imbedded in his left leg... the other has Velcro on his hands so that he can 'hug' you. Both are Bobo, and both end up under my head as makeshift pillow-adjustments.
If you could have any job you wanted, what would it be?
I would be a multi-published author, and co-owner/operator/cook-person of a cafe.
What is on your bedroom walls?
An insanely creepy felt picture covering a gaping hole, and a cork board with outdated pictures of family and friends. Oh, and cat hair, because that stuff gets EVERYWHERE.
What are your favorite movies?
The Princess Bride, Zombieland, Hot Fuzz, episodes 4 - 6 of Star Wars, The Notebook, Fantasia, Cinderella, and anything NOT starring one SpongeBob SquarePants.
What's under your bed?
Small pieces of luggage, a few socks, broken glass from a middle-of-the-night-meatloaf-sandwich-craving-gone-wrong, a Brobee doll, and my husband's wedding suit in a garment bag.
What is your favorite number?
Twenty.
Marvel or DC?
Marvel, hands down... even though my favorite villianess (Poison Ivy) is a DC girl.
What one thing do you wish more people already knew?
How to drive in the rain. It's not as hard as you make it out...
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Girl Scouts - or, The Temptresses of Tagalong Town
Dear Girls Who Dress In Strange, Outdated Uniforms and Sell Overpriced (Yet Still D-e-lectable) Cookies For The Briefest Time Period EVER,
Let me teach you something about this magical world that you might, one day, experience (if I let you live that long)... a world called "pregnancy". You see, in this happy land of swollen ankles, cracked ribs, and food cravings so fierce that no purveyor of edibles is safe, the will of the pregnant woman = law. Please her, and you've saved your own life. In this magical world, Oh Toters of the Tagalongs, it's best to just give Mama what she wants... and, right now, Mama wants to get her hands on some Thin Mints. And Tagalongs. And Samoas. And Lemon Chalet Cremes. How am I supposed to accomplish this task when you only peddle your wares for all of THREE WEEKS A YEAR?!
The last I checked, the following issues apply to you:
1. You, too, are susceptible to this recession, Oh Darlings of Detestable Attire
2. You have a quota, sure, but you also have a soul. I hope.
3. You have parents... parents who should know how to read a freaking MAP.
I fail, then, to understand why you continue to limit your sales period to 3 - 4 measly weeks a year. Really... REALLY?!
However, since I have yet to consume a single, freaking cookie this year (see point DIRECTLY above) and still have my wits about me, I have brainstormed a (brief) list of solutions.
1. Up. Your. Sales.
- Notice how you're having to cut back on how many cookies you're able to produce every year? It's not because the Magic Flour Fairy forgot to wave her wand above the factory, or whatever other nonsense your Troupe Leader has filled your dainty-hatted heads with... it's because your prices are too high, and your selling period is too short. I mean, think about it: You're badgering me to pay $4 for a box of cookies that will, in all humiliating honesty, last all of 2 blocks from store-to-home (1 block if there are traffic lights on that particular road), and you're only available for 3 - 4 weeks?! Darlings of Chocolate-Dunked Delectables, does that make sense?
2. Show a less demonic side (or, if that's too tall an order, just shoot for a softer side), and I'll show you my wallet.
- Lay off the freaking guilt trips, already! I know you reeeeeeeally have your heart set on that sparkling baton for selling 500 boxes of cookies, and you reeeeeeeeeally want to win that trip to Disneyland that you'd get by selling 74,500 more... but, um, it won't happen by jumping in front of my shopping cart with two of your closest friends. No, all that will accomplish is you getting run over by said cart, and your mother getting an earful when she tries to yell at me for hitting her precious Mini-Me. Have you heard of lying? Why not try THAT tactic the next time we meet in front of Safeway? Here's what it would look like:
You: "Gosh, lady... you're so pretty."
Me: "My, aren't you just the sweetest thing! Whatever are you selling? I'll buy all of them."
SEE?!
3. Go where the money is.
- Chances are, Susie Sixpack, it ain't the local Cash-N-Carry. By now, your parents are probably sick to death of hearing your endless blathering about quotas and goals and dreams and visions of a better tomorrow, which makes them your ideal business partner. Couple your new-found ability to tell boldfaced lies to complete strangers with your parents' knowledge of the community you live in, and you should be able to zero-in on the wealthiest neighborhoods in no time. Disneyland? It's yours.
All-in-all, I'd say this was a very therapeutic letter. I was able to get things off my chest and, if you were to read this, you would (of course) take all of my suggestions to heart and magically transform yourself into the Whores of Wholesome Cookie Wonders that I know you have inside of you.
In all honesty, your organization is a great one. I love the concept of girls sticking together, learning some pretty valuable life skills, and raising money in a way that isn't likely to hurt another corporation's bottom line (aside from the evil mega-giants of Nabisco et all). Heck, I was even a Brownie... for all of 6 months, which was how long it took me to realize that we were called "Brownie", not that we got to eat them.
Now, lengthen your selling period or I swear on everything holy in Pregnancy-topia that I will teach my toddler that it is okay to pee on girls in ugly uniforms.
Do a Good Turn Daily,
Krystal
Let me teach you something about this magical world that you might, one day, experience (if I let you live that long)... a world called "pregnancy". You see, in this happy land of swollen ankles, cracked ribs, and food cravings so fierce that no purveyor of edibles is safe, the will of the pregnant woman = law. Please her, and you've saved your own life. In this magical world, Oh Toters of the Tagalongs, it's best to just give Mama what she wants... and, right now, Mama wants to get her hands on some Thin Mints. And Tagalongs. And Samoas. And Lemon Chalet Cremes. How am I supposed to accomplish this task when you only peddle your wares for all of THREE WEEKS A YEAR?!
The last I checked, the following issues apply to you:
1. You, too, are susceptible to this recession, Oh Darlings of Detestable Attire
2. You have a quota, sure, but you also have a soul. I hope.
3. You have parents... parents who should know how to read a freaking MAP.
I fail, then, to understand why you continue to limit your sales period to 3 - 4 measly weeks a year. Really... REALLY?!
However, since I have yet to consume a single, freaking cookie this year (see point DIRECTLY above) and still have my wits about me, I have brainstormed a (brief) list of solutions.
1. Up. Your. Sales.
- Notice how you're having to cut back on how many cookies you're able to produce every year? It's not because the Magic Flour Fairy forgot to wave her wand above the factory, or whatever other nonsense your Troupe Leader has filled your dainty-hatted heads with... it's because your prices are too high, and your selling period is too short. I mean, think about it: You're badgering me to pay $4 for a box of cookies that will, in all humiliating honesty, last all of 2 blocks from store-to-home (1 block if there are traffic lights on that particular road), and you're only available for 3 - 4 weeks?! Darlings of Chocolate-Dunked Delectables, does that make sense?
2. Show a less demonic side (or, if that's too tall an order, just shoot for a softer side), and I'll show you my wallet.
- Lay off the freaking guilt trips, already! I know you reeeeeeeally have your heart set on that sparkling baton for selling 500 boxes of cookies, and you reeeeeeeeeally want to win that trip to Disneyland that you'd get by selling 74,500 more... but, um, it won't happen by jumping in front of my shopping cart with two of your closest friends. No, all that will accomplish is you getting run over by said cart, and your mother getting an earful when she tries to yell at me for hitting her precious Mini-Me. Have you heard of lying? Why not try THAT tactic the next time we meet in front of Safeway? Here's what it would look like:
You: "Gosh, lady... you're so pretty."
Me: "My, aren't you just the sweetest thing! Whatever are you selling? I'll buy all of them."
SEE?!
3. Go where the money is.
- Chances are, Susie Sixpack, it ain't the local Cash-N-Carry. By now, your parents are probably sick to death of hearing your endless blathering about quotas and goals and dreams and visions of a better tomorrow, which makes them your ideal business partner. Couple your new-found ability to tell boldfaced lies to complete strangers with your parents' knowledge of the community you live in, and you should be able to zero-in on the wealthiest neighborhoods in no time. Disneyland? It's yours.
All-in-all, I'd say this was a very therapeutic letter. I was able to get things off my chest and, if you were to read this, you would (of course) take all of my suggestions to heart and magically transform yourself into the Whores of Wholesome Cookie Wonders that I know you have inside of you.
In all honesty, your organization is a great one. I love the concept of girls sticking together, learning some pretty valuable life skills, and raising money in a way that isn't likely to hurt another corporation's bottom line (aside from the evil mega-giants of Nabisco et all). Heck, I was even a Brownie... for all of 6 months, which was how long it took me to realize that we were called "Brownie", not that we got to eat them.
Now, lengthen your selling period or I swear on everything holy in Pregnancy-topia that I will teach my toddler that it is okay to pee on girls in ugly uniforms.
Do a Good Turn Daily,
Krystal
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