No One Said The Road To National Geographic Was Going To Be Easy

You know what's NOT relaxing?

When you're hiking along, honing your photojournalism skills, your trusty assistant at your side, carrying all the things he insisted you didn't really need to bring...

Yes, that is my camera case, binoculars, and jacket.
And no, I couldn't carry them myself because I had
to walk around with my camera at the ready.

...taking pictures of beautiful butterflies...

Ok, that's a moth but butterfly sounds prettier.

...and birds...

Does anyone know what kind of bird this is?
I'm a photographer not an ornithologist so
 I have no clue, I just thought it looked cool.

when you see a huge bird diving...

...and another one swooping...

and you run after them wildly, sure that you have come across a bevy of eagles, ignoring your trusty assistant's assurances that eagles don't nest in this area.

And you realize that they aren't eagles at all.

They're VULTURES.

Which means that, in light of all the swooping and diving and the sheer number of the creatures in the trees, you're pretty close to something DEAD.

That, my friends, is NOT relaxing at all.

Photos, Frost and Flowers

I think Opie’s favorite part of our recent hikes is the way I seamlessly blend culture and nature, thus adding education and intellectual enlightenment to his days.

This is especially true when we are hiking early Saturday morning after a lengthy celebration at our favorite pub, George’s.

Like last Saturday when we hiked Turkey Mountain. We got up early (one of us under duress and protesting weakly) and headed over to this urban wilderness area in South Tulsa.

“Which way do you think we should go?” He asked. 

“I, I take the road less travelled by,”  I  said. And when he just stared at me, I assured him “It’ll make all the difference.”

Oddly, he doesn’t seem to find this illuminating at all.

It also didn’t seem to be helpful when I said “I’m sorry we can’t take them both, I’ll just look down this one as far as I can, to where it bends in the undergrowth.”

“What are you talking about?” He asked.

“You know you read these Robert Frost poems in school!” I shouted.

“I was a computer major.” He said.

“High school, you should have read them in high school!”

“I didn’t,” he assured me.

But I was pretty sure he had and just didn’t remember…probably he only needed a few more notable lines thrown his way to jog his memory and open his mind.

“And make us happing in the darting bird, that suddenly above the bees is heard.”

“I can’t hear you,” he said then but I’m pretty sure this was a lie. So I tried again. “Nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold.  Her early leaf a flower but only so an hour.” And that didn’t seem to ring any bells either.

 “Oh my Ponyboy Curtis!” I said. “I know you read The Outsiders!”

“I saw the movie,” he said and that’s when I knew he was messing with me because we have the same strong feelings about reading books before watching movies based on them.

“Should we start back?” He asked.

And I tried to explain that we still had miles to go before we sleep, miles to go before we sleep…

…but I guess I was wrong.

The Great Yogurt Battle of 2015

I thought today was going to be a pretty normal, low-key day. I got up early, let the dogs out, guzzled coffee with reckless abandon, and then began making Opie’s lunch.

(It is interesting to note that a lot of people have found that last bit horrifying, as if I have single-handedly set the feminist movement back 50 years by packing my husband’s lunch. Here’s the thing: It’s not like he forces me to do this; if it were up to him, he’d cheerfully buy a hotdog or something equally horrifying every day. I like making his lunch. But I digress…)

Anyway I got out a yogurt, like I always do, and this is what I saw:

 

Please note the expiration date in the upper left corner--MARCH 11th!!.

Today, in case anyone isn’t aware, is March 12^th.

To be honest, Opie probably wouldn’t have noticed or cared.  He maintains that the expiration date is more of a suggestion than a rule and that things are fine a few days beyond.

Which is, of course, crazy talk.

But the real problem was that I bought that yogurt yesterday.

I bought the yogurt that expired on March 11^th ON March 11^th. Or, to be more precise, the grocery store tricked me into buying their leftover, hovering-on-the-edge-of-spoilage yogurt by pushing it to the front of the case and rightly assuming I wouldn’t check.

The miscreants!

Some people can let these little things go, throw the yogurt away, and continue with their day. I’ve often wondered what it’s like to be one of those people...

I immediately checked all of the yogurt I bought yesterday, loudly cursing at each new March 11^th expiration date. “Robbed!” I muttered to myself, storming around the kitchen and waving my hands in the air. “I’ve been robbed and cheated and I’m not going to stand for it!”

At moments like these I can actually hear my friend, Martha, in my head saying “Kimberly, the yogurt was what? $4.00? Get over it!”

“There’s a principle involved here!” I assured the invisible Martha. “I’m not going to sit back while, once again, corporate America rips hard-earned money out of the hands of a working family! I’ll get over it when I see justice done.”

And it was on fire with this righteous indignation that I packed up the yogurt, found my receipt and stormed back to the grocery store like a woman on a mission.

As I approached the customer service counter and the teenage boy behind it, though, I heard Opie’s voice in my head urging courtesy and calm, reminding me that getting banned from the only grocery store in town would be a disaster of epic proportions.

So, I calmly put my yogurt and my receipt on the counter and explained my dilemma. “I bought these yesterday,” I said. “And they all expired yesterday.”

He stared at me like I had a grown a second head.

 “I don’t want my money back,” I assured him.  “I just want to exchange this for some yogurt that isn’t expired.”

And this clearly is a situation not covered by the grocery store customer service training manual because he just kept staring at me…and I began to wonder if I had somehow gone all Tower of Babel on him and started speaking in a strange language.

“I’d like to exchange the yogurt.”  I said again in the clearest English I could manage.

Which is when he called this other young whippersnapper of a girl over for help.

I explained the situation to her and she raised her eyebrows skeptically. “Do you have the receipt?”

I pointed it out to her and she began examining it and the yogurt in question like she was reviewing government documents for the CIA.

After a few minutes of this, I said “I don’t mean to be obnoxious,” (which is usually a pretty good indication that I am, in fact, about to be obnoxious) “But I don’t understand what you think is really going on here. I mean, I can assure you that I’m not the head of some underground black market yogurt-scam ring. I’m not trolling grocery store after grocery store trying to con my way to millions, 4 yogurts at a time.  I just want some yogurt that won’t kill me.”

“I don’t think it’s going to kill you,” she said.

And I kind of wanted to punch her in the face. Instead I smiled coolly and said “You never know. I have a really high intolerance for spoiled dairy products.”

At which point the manager came over to see what the heck was going on. I explained for the third time and he stared at the two employees like they were crazy.

I’m not going to lie, I felt vindicated.

“Of course you can exchange it,” he told me. “It shouldn’t even have been on the shelf.”

And I was going to stick my tongue out at the two young whippersnappers who’d been treating me like a freak show but then I remembered that I’m a Christian and an adult and ostensibly a role model.

Besides, they’d already turned away.

So, the short version is, justice was done.  I got my yogurt (although they were out of Caramel Macchiato and I had to settle for Café Late…but that’s ok, I’m breezy, I let these kind of things go) and all is right with the world.

But now I have to know—am I the only person in the world who would take the yogurt back? Would other people have eaten the yogurt? Would you just have thrown it out? Please will someone assure me that I’m not alone on the battleground for yogurt justice?

Wordless Wednesday -- Winter

Meteorology Mayhem

20% chance of flurries they said...

Little to no accumulation they said...

Sleet and freezing rain possible but again, no ice accumulation, they said...

And this is why I say I'd have more respect for our meteorologists if they would say something like "See this blue patch on the radar? We actually have no idea what that means. It could be snow, it could be rain...heck, for all we know, it could be a cloud full of frogs."

The Right Way To Eat A Red Velvet Oreo

Did you all know that Oreo just came out with a new, limited edition flavor: Red Velvet ?

Since Opie absolutely loves red velvet anything, I got him a package the first weekend they were available.

I'm like the Vanna White of Oreos over here

And, as often happens with all things sugar, I immediately loved them more than he did. I mean, he liked them but he didn't have what I consider the appropriate appreciation for their amazing sugary goodness.

Seriously, what is up with my thumb?
It looks deformed.

"They're good," he said. "But they almost have too much stuffing."

Which, honestly, might be the craziest thing he has ever said.  In fact, it might be the craziest thing ANYONE has ever said.  EVER.

Because, yes, they do have more stuffing than your average Oreo:

This was the moment in the photography process
 that I realized I don't have a future in hand modeling.

But the stuffing is clearly THE BEST FREAKING PART OF THE ENTIRE COOKIE. There can never be too much.

And that's when I decided to show him (and, apparently the rest of the world) the RIGHT way to eat an Oreo. Any Oreo, actually, but especially a Red Velvet Oreo.

Step One: Remove the Lid:

Yes, I call the top to the cookie the lid. It's
the  lid covering the  sugary goodness.

"THAT'S the best part," Opie said.  "Not the stuffing."

But, as has already been established, Opie is clearly insane when it comes to Oreos. Plus, he is an amateur. I, on the other hand, am an Oreo-Eating Expert. If Oreo Eating were a sport, I would probably win the World Championship.

Because it's all about the technique.

Step Two: Eat the Lid. Then, carefully fold back the icing on top of itself:

Now my whole hand looks both deformed and wrinkled!
Is this how it always looks?? How come no one ever told me
about my horrible hand problem??!!

This creates a fabulous double-layer of stuffing:

At least I have a good manicure going on.

But--and this is important!--don't dig in yet. The Oreo is better but still doesn't have the appropriate cookie-to-stuffing ratio.

Step Three: Bite off the half moon cookie portion that has no filling on it, leaving yourself a half-moon of cookie with a double layer of stuffing:

Ok, yes, this picture isn't the best but I was
getting impatient. I've never taken this long
to eat an Oreo in my life.

"You are a lunatic," Opie said. "That's way too much filling, you can't even taste the red velvet anymore."

This is why he will always be an amateur when it comes to Oreo eating: he lacks vision.

Step Four: Take a big drink of milk to cleanse your palate and prepare your taste buds for the perfect taste explosion of cream cheese stuffing and hint of cookie crunch.

Pretty sure "hand-modeling" isn't the only modeling
 I can eliminate as a career choice.

And that, my friends, is the right way to eat an Oreo.

Now I'm just waiting for this blog to go viral, catching the attention of the Oreo magnates, so I can finally embark on my career as a professional Oreo Eater.

The Perfect Puffs

If you know me at all, you know I'm a little weird about my dogs.

And you know that my life is one dramatic disaster after another.

So it should come as no surprise that finding a good groomer for her Royal Highness, Princess Snowflake Sassypants, has been a bit of a challenge.

I was taking her to Petsmart but then we had the Unfortunate Balding Incident of 2014 when I went in to pick her up and wasn't even sure they were giving me the right dog:

(It is interesting to note that when I sent Opie
 this picture at work he asked "Did you ask them to do
 that?" Like I would ask anyone to bald my dog.)

The groomer assured me that this was totally necessary, that underneath her topcoat she was a matted mess of dreadlocks. So, idiot that I am, I actually took her back one more time and THEY SHAVED HER EARS AGAIN.

"You really need to brush her ears," the groomer told me while I was still fighting the urge to beat her to death with a pair of hair clippers.

"I do brush her ears," I snapped. "I brush her all the time.  I brush her, I put her hair in bows to match her outfits and she's probably the best-dressed dog in Oklahoma! I can't understand why this keeps happening!!"

The groomer had no explanation but I think it's fairly obvious she was secretly a neo-nazi skinhead who was trying to populate the world with skinhead dogs as part of some sick subversive skinhead rebellion.

Opie calls that kind of conclusion "over-reacting" but he's always been a little naive about the nefarious ways of violent fringe groups.

In any case, we both agreed it was time to get a new groomer.

And then I remembered that my friend Paula has a Maltese named Charlie and she recently bought a pair of clippers and began grooming him herself. "Maybe I should do that," I said. "Think of all the money we'd save!"

After we stopped laughing about the sheer ridiculousness of that suggestion, we asked one of our neighbors who they took their dog to.

Which is how we met Stella Faye.

On the upside, Stella Faye is a great groomer. She's a sweet older lady, probably in her 70s or so, she and her daughter run their shop out of a converted garage and she's been grooming small dogs for over 40 years.  And she has so many clients that she doesn't even need to advertise, she's not even in the phone book for the love of heaven,which is why we had never heard of her before.

On the downside, her name is Stella. So every time I go into the shop, or talk to her on the phone, or mention her to Opie, I am nearly overcome by the urge to scream "STELLA!" over and over like Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire.

The other downside is that I'm pretty sure Stella Faye thinks I'm crazy.

As you may have guessed from the fact that she has two first names, Stella Faye is as country as a turnip green. Sweet and nice but not the kind of person who appreciates things like a fabulous leopard print puppy coat with matching collar.

This was not noticeably helped by the fact that one of the first things I said was "If, for any reason, you decide to shave her ears I'd appreciate it if you'd call me first."

Stella Faye stared at me for a long minute and then asked "Honey, why would I shave her ears?"

Since this was our first meeting, I decided not to share my skinhead theory and just muttered that we'd had some problems with our last groomer.

The second issue was that she has two Maltese puppies herself and assumed I wanted one of the traditional Maltese haircuts which look a little something like this:

"Not exactly," I said.  "Those are too masculine. I want something a little more lady-like. I want the body cut really short but I want her ears, topknot and tail left long."

"I can do that," she said.

"And I want boot puffs."

At which point Stella Faye stared at me for another long minute. "What are boot puffs?" She asked.

"You know, puffs of fur left long around her ankles so it kind of looks like she has boots on."

"If that's what you want," she said dubiously.

But the first time she tried it, she only left the fur long on Sassy's paws.  Like she was wearing strange, dustmoppy, bedroom slipper puffs--NOT the look we were going for at all.

So, the next time we went in, I tried to explain better. "I want the puffs to go further up her legs," I said. "So when I put socks on her, the fur puffs out over the top of them and it looks like she's wearing fur-lined boots."

"You put socks on her?" Stella Faye asked.

"Only when it's cold," I lied.

At which point I'm pretty sure Stella Faye was so horrified by the thought of a sock-wearing Sassy that she couldn't really concentrate on appropriate puffs. That time when I picked her up, she was puffy all the way up her legs...like she was wearing thigh-high puffy boots like some sort of prostitute dog.

It's kind of hard to tell from this picture
 but these are the ridiculous full puffs.

But the third time was a charm!  I found a picture on the Internet, took it in with me, and Stella Faye created the perfect puffs:

She always looks so serious in pictures!!!

"Yes, yes, YES!" I gushed when I picked her up.  "Those are the perfect puffs! I have a perfectly puffed pup!"

"Honey," Stella Faye said. "I've been grooming dogs for forty years and NO ONE has ever asked me for anything like that for a Maltese."

"Not yet," I told her. "But just you wait.  You know how people are always copying royalty...I think this is going to be the next big thing in canine fashion statements."

And Stella laughed.

But I'm pretty sure she still thinks I'm crazy.

So, to summarize, boot puffs are awesome but hard to explain, you should always ask people you know before getting a new groomer, and if you know what's good for you, you'll be on the look-out for a subversive skinhead grooming rebellion.