I don’t like to cook, but I have to

November 24, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 8 Comments

For me, the largest struggle of adulthood has been feeding myself. I don’t enjoy cooking, I try to eat as many raw things as possible, and I eat out as much as I can afford to. However, I’ve come to the point where I have to admit that this is not fiscally responsible. And it’s not really healthy either. I do think I make healthy choices when I eat out, but it’s cold and flu season and as much as I trust the health department and general food worker, germs still happen.

First I learned how to cook eggs. And this was how I truly realized that my college days were behind me. I was using my iphone to take pictures when the group I volunteer with was rendered camera-less due to low batteries. The facilitator came over to me and said, “Are you getting the pictures okay with your iphone?” And I quickly said, “Yeah!”and shielded my screen. This wasn’t because of anything particularly sordid in my camera roll, but rather at that moment I realized that my pictures from the last couple of weeks were all a mixture of scrambled eggs and lumps. The eggs being food the lumps being a swollen lymph node and a couple of spider bites on my arm (separate incidences).

I thought something was wrong with this egg because I couldn't crack it. And I am not a bad egg cracker. — I thought something was wrong with this egg because I couldn’t crack it. And I am not a bad egg cracker.

But it looked fine and Google told me that healthier chickens have harder egg shells than less healthy chickens. Yay organic cage-free!

I have now realized that I’m a real grown up.

I may have thought I was before, but I was just kid masquerading as a grown person. And that my concerns are real grown up concerns. “Is this lump normal? Was this bite from a brown recluse? Will my eggs be undercooked and give me salmonella?” Okay, well maybe these are not normal grownup concerns, but they are my grown up concerns.

So tonight, I conquered one of my biggest fears. I touched raw meat. Thus far, I haven’t been able to do that. I have only cooked with soy protein or fish (which I don’t really have to touch). But I used chicken tonight. My roommate witnessed all of this and decided that I should stat a YouTube cooking series for “Girls Who Don’t Know How to Cook.” A blind leading the blind sort of thing. And while I’m too afraid of YouTube to actually do this (too many haters in the comments and alleged rapists in the videos), I did make a list of the things that made her laugh the most. And hey! Maybe there actually are some helpful cooking tips in here for those of you who like me, maybe hadn’t touched raw chicken before tonight. It should be noted that my roommate has also never touched raw chicken.

“It’s starting to smell like food now”

“It’s okay if you cry the first time you touch the raw chicken. I was surprised I didn’t cry.”

“I think the juices are clear. Is it a bad sign if you can’t cut the chicken? Maybe it’s because I’m using a dinner fork.”

“Do you find that the potatoes are a little crunchy when you make this?”

Theme Songs Performed by Actors

November 18, 2014November 18, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 2 Comments

I was getting ready to draft a post about another 21 Jump Street episode when I was like “hold up, someone needs to give a major shout out to Holly Robinson Peete for not only starring as the incomparable Officer Judy Hoffs, but also for singing this bitchin’ theme song.” Then I proceeded to stop what I was doing and rock out to that awesome theme song, featuring Peter Deluise and Johnny Depp on backup vocals. I didn’t draft that post and instead I’m writing this post about people who starred in and sang their show’s theme song. I’ve excluded the obvious like The Brady Bunch, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, etc.

21 Jump Street performed by Holly Robinson Peete (Office Judy Hoffs)

The Facts of Life, Season 1 performed by Charlotte Rae (Mrs. Garett)

Fraiser performed by Kelsey Grammer

Green Acres by Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor

Baywatch, closing credits, performed by David Haselhoff (that lead lifeguard, right? did they have characters?)

Welcome to Sitcom Credits Hell

November 10, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ Leave a comment

I found this to be a totally hilarious parody of late 20th century sitcom intros. “Too Many Cooks” is about a family (The Cooks) with at least twenty-five members who are all worthy of opening credit introduction. I watched this at work (silently due to my lack of speakers) and I laughed for like eleven minutes straight. However, the theme song has been slowly driving my boyfriend crazy over the past couple of days. I’ve never listened to the theme song in it’s entirety but eleven minutes of a theme song sounds pretty awful, so I suggest you mute it if it’s bugging you. Either way, this video is hilarious.

I Plan for This Blog, Dammit! or How Not To Get Your First Job

November 8, 2014November 8, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 3 Comments

I am a super-organized-nerd-person. I carry around this little notebook in case I need to make a schedule or a list of very important information for The Very Special Blog. I like to pretend that this is my high-profile creative job that I have to strategically plan for in a little pink notebook at Starbucks. And every now and then when I have some downtime, I get to do that. It’s really fun and surprisingly gratifying. So that’s why I got particularly pissed at this woman who decided to completely disturb the fifteen minute period I had carved out of my day. I’m roughly five minutes into my planning-session, having secured a highly coveted table, when this woman and said:

“I have a question…are you going to be here for like the next fifteen minutes?”

I knew what she was up to, so I put on my best “don’t shit me condescending face” and said, “Probably not. Why? Do you want it?”

And she said, “Yeah I would like it. I have an interview at two. So just like within the next fifteen minutes…”

Within the next fifteen minuets, I could what? Hurry up and leave? I had to be back at work by 2 pm anyway and I wasn’t going to send her away from a table that I wasn’t even going to be using.

I said, “Yeah, you can have it because I will be back at work by two.” Then she proceeded to hover around my table. She put her bag on the stool across from me as if I would renegotiate the situation with some other eager-table seeker. Then she proceeded to stand in front of my face and furiously type on her tablet. She seemed young–maybe college or a recent grad. She is probably at that age where you think you know how to get a job, but you totally suck at it and look like an entitled asshole.

As she encroached upon my space, I found myself taking comfort in the fact that she probably wouldn’t be getting this job. I didn’t wish that on her (or anyone), but I did kind of enjoy the thought. Now that I work in Operations, I can tell you (with a fairly low margin of error) who will be getting a job offer and who won’t simply based upon the way they introduce themselves and wait to be interviewed. Sadly, I haven’t been able to totally implement this knowledge on my own behavior, but I’m hoping it’s osmosis-ing its way into my subconscious.

Her first mistake was that she was trying to create a perfect! environment around her interview. And she was probably stressing herself out by expecting that kind of environment. No one actually expects you to be perfect. (I say this as someone who previously thought the opposite.) You may already know this, but there are plenty of idiots with jobs. I’m sure she was very smart, but in the real world that doesn’t really matter. People will take the chill person who is pretty-okay at her job over a fidgety-stress-nugget any day. Why? Because most jobs involve working with other people. So if you’re able to efficiently get a task done but you make the clients/customers/vendors/boss/fellow employees feel even remotely like you’re high maintenance, then there is a very slim chance that they will want to spend forty (plus) hours a week with you.

This post needs more pictures. Here is a cat.

Secondly, she missed an opportunity to appear resourceful. Okay, so there were no tables. Instead of harassing me, she could have been on her tablet looking up other places in the area with MORE seating. She could have stood in the middle of the store so that she had a better vantage point to see any and all other tables become available. She could have stood in line, gotten her coffee, and then tried again to get a seat.

But if all of those things failed and her interviewer showed up with no place for them to sit down, then she could have presented a great contingency plan. “Hey, I got here about ten minutes ago and I couldn’t find a table. But I found a few other places that seem to offer more seating, or if you don’t mind we could sit in the park because it’s unseasonably warm and sunny out today.”

But no, she lurked in front of a table that wasn’t her own. She worked herself up into a tizzy and that definitely showed, even though I left seven minutes before the interview was set to begin. She saw a problem as something to be controlled rather than an opportunity to showcase her critical thinking skills. And yeah, I’m pissed because I wasn’t able to enjoy my break-time fully. And had she interrupted me and asked for my table in fifteen minutes and then left me alone until I left, I probably would not have written this.

It’s tough out there. I get it. I would have given you my table gladly if you hadn’t been a jerk. But I still gave you my table (less gladly) because I know it sucks to be anxious and jobless. But one day, when you do have a job, you might realize how rare and essential it is not to be interrupted for fifteen minutes in the middle of the day.

Dear Person Looking for this Theme Song

November 5, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, I discovered this search term in my referrers list:

what childrens tv programme had “the grass is.greener on the other side” in the intro

what childrens tv programme had “the grass is.greener on the other side” in the intro

I meant to post this yesterday, but I went home and fell asleep. I also got bitten by a spider (or other mysterious insect!) and freaked out about that for hours about that. I’m not afraid of bugs, but I am afraid of welts with unknown origins. Suffice it to say that I forgot about this entirely until just now. I hope I’m not too late because I too know the struggle of not knowing the answer to a serious questions such as that delineated in the search terms above.

Perhaps, I am too late and you have already found the answer from another source. However, if you are still on your quest for this information, then let me offer some respite. The lyrics in quotes above are from the As Told By Ginger theme song, which was performed by Macy Gray. I know this because I had a brief obsession with Macy Gray from 2000-2002. I hope she’s okay! Does anyone know what she is up to these days? I still sing “I Try” every time I get a very bad head cold.

American Kitsch

November 3, 2014November 3, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

It’s day three of NaBloPoMo, and I’m going to use one of their prompts for inspiration! This prompt came from the BlogHer NaBloPoMo prompt page: Write about an amazing imaginary brand or organization you’d love to work with. What would their pitch to you look like? What would your post say?

ola This is not about a very special episode, but it’s tangentially related. This post is about music videos and fashion. When I was nineteen, I gave myself a scavenger hunt (that I totally failed at). This scavenger hunt stemmed from a random idea that I had where it would be cool to have quintessential classic music video looks in a non-costume-y way. And then I was like, “this sounds like a store that would exist in a movie.” I imagined that someone like Annie Potts in Pretty in Pink would run the sort of store and that it would be named “American Kitsch.” In my fantasy world, I could peruse the racks while the disgruntled teenagers who worked there (and felt too cool for the clothes) would hand me blue leopard print pants like Ola Ray’s in the Michael Jackson’s Thriller in my size and have “serious talks” about their “serious issues” like the cast of Empire Records.

In all actuality, this is probably a terrible idea for a business and I might be the only person who would want to shop at this store. But I do wish that it existed because I would love to walk into a store and get Paula Abdul’s dress from Opposites Attract. That’s just a classic L.B.D. if I ever saw one. Frankly, I don’t understand why the waited until the music video to make it clear that MC Skat Cat was a literal cat. I did not realize how opposite the two singers were until I saw the music video. I mean, who cares if one of them likes the movies and the other likes TV. All, they had to do was tell me that one of them was a cat. I would have required literally no other information to understand that they were not at all similar. Anyway, in my mind the store was called “American Kitsch” and unfortunately, I cannot tell you any of the other ideas for fashion looks because that list died with my old computer. However, the internet is a magical place and someone has made it a lot easier to find these looks for yourself (in case you don’t have time to stop into the brick and mortar American Kitsch…which wait doesn’t actually exist outside of my imagination, whoops…). Someone has even compiled a well-curated list of items to help you dress like Paula OR MC Skat Cat!

I signed up for NaBloPoMo (and I Have some Concerns)

November 1, 2014October 29, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 6 Comments

I don’t know if I can do this! I don’t know what possessed me! I keep seeing all of these posts about NaBloPoMo and I wanted a challenge and I was like “heck yes, I’ll do that!” But I’m also very worried about posting every single day. I post most days, but every single day? I can’t help but think of all of the very worst things that could go wrong in this scenario.

Here Is a List of The Very Worst Things that Could Happen During NaBloPoMo

I will forget how to say/write NaBloPoMo. I keep wanting it be be something like Nabisco Blowpop Month, but I understand that’s technically National Blog Posting Month.
I will forget to post on the weekends. I don’t usually post on weekends, and there is a good chance I might forget entirely. Then I will publicly fail the challenge in front of everyone else on the internet ahhhh. (But luckily for me, not that many people on the internet read this blog, so my failure will be a quiet one).
I will run out of things to post and I will ruin this blog forever. There are only so many very special episodes, guys! And our time together will inevitably come to an end! I can only hope that I haven’t hastened that ending with this self-imposed post-frenzy.

Okay, that’s all I can think of. 3 terrible things isn’t so bad. Onwards and upwards! (or downwards rather..only 29 more days to go!)

Just a Touch of Crisis

October 15, 2014October 15, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

St_elmo's_fire Usually when I’m feeling bummed about about my life’s direction, I watch St. Elmo’s Fire for the five thousandth time. But I watched it too recently because I was on a bus stuck in traffic and I didn’t have anything else to do. Also, I’m starting to become older than the Brat Pack and that’s hurting my heart. So lately, I’ve been left to just sit with my feelings and it sucks.

I feel extra crappy feeling blue when so many awful things are happening around the world. I know that I am ultimately a very lucky person in a world where many people cannot even count health or personal safety among their blessings. But that being said, I’m in a terrible funk and I haven’t quite felt this way since the teen-angst years. Except in the teen angst years, I at least had a million plausible dreams to keep me motivated.

But without the idealism of teenage naivete, I am a just person living hand-to -mouth with a Master’s Degree in a “Bachelor’s Preferred” job in a totally different field than what I studied. Don’t get me wrong, I feel incredibly lucky because my coworkers are cool and it’s the first full time, permanent (with benefits!) job I have ever had. But I also feel no sense of purpose in what I am doing, am bored with pretty much all of my hobbies, and work too much to find new ones. Only my 90 year old great uncle understands any of this because he is the only older person I know who was my age at a time when the economy was similarly screwed up. I know it’s getting better, but I haven’t felt it yet.

Thing I would like to do for a job

Ghostbuster
I noticed a weird sludge in the train tracks today. My first thought was, “What is that strange sludge?” Then I proceeded to think, “Well, it can’t be that bad because they are still running the train.” And finally I thought, “This is a job for The Ghostbusters.” I would like to be that person to investigate that strange sludge, and if I had my proton pack with me this morning, I would have blasted it back to Hell where it belongs. Currently, Ghostbuster is top of my list of dream jobs. With the untimely death of Harold Ramis, I think I could fill the academic nerd void.They also need a token female. And Bill Murray wouldn’t even phase me. I think he’d be all “wacky” and I’d be like, “Hey, Bill. Let’s go get a cup of coffee.”

Alex P. Keaton
This is a dude who’s got it all together. Sure, I would have to be a Republican, but I think that in Alex P. Keaton’s World it may have actually been possible to be a moderate Republican. It seems like nowadays we live in a world without much of a moderate-anything. And sure, Richard Nixon made a lot of mistakes, but I don’t think that Alex was wrong to love him. At this point, I’m used to presidents lying to me and none of those guys have ended the Vietnam War or opened up trade relations with China. Also, Alex P. Keaton didn’t have to pay for college and don’t even get me started on that.

Nun from Sister Act
Nun is a job with an inherent sense of purpose. And no one had a better nun job than the nuns in Sister Act. Not only did they get to paint murals and better their community, but also every time they go to church they get to be a Mary Wells cover band.

Be a Designer for Designing Women
Dear Ms. Sugarbaker,
I feel that I would be a good fit for your firm because it would allow me the opportunity to combine my creative whimsy and my detail-oriented administrative side. It would be an honor to be a part of such a rigorous, entrepreneurial environment, and I feel that i believe that I can offer a unique vantage point to your aesthetic. However, you and your sister are whiny so I will probably hang out with Annie Potts most of the time. She was my favorite part of Pretty in Pink. I hope to discuss this opportunity further with you.
Sincerely,
The Very Special Blogger

Whatever Sue Ellen did in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead
This seemed mostly to involve drinking wine, some light embezzlement with no consequences, and the opportunity to design impractical albeit well-received work uniforms.

Band-Aid
I understand that Penny Lane was pretty much just a groupie and that band-aid was what she called herself to reframe her tumultuous and ultimately depressing relationship with Russell. However, let’s imagine for a moment that Band-Aid is a real job a la creative personal assistant. So like everyone is really stressed out on the bus because the lead guitarist tripped on acid and quoted Robert Plant on the roof of some suburban teenager’s house. No problem, allow me to mend the situation with a little light humor and a group sing-along. You’re having trouble making conversation with Deep Purple? Don’t worry about it, let me start things off on the right track! The only problem is that I seem to be more sensitive to loud noises than I used to be (Oh God, I’m aging) but it does seem like the kind of job that would provide a lot of interesting travel opportunities.

Honorable Mention:
Karen Carpenter
I would like to be on top of the world looking down on creation, but it seems like a hard life. Eating disorder obviously excluded (I want no part of that), I wonder if it gets tiresome to stand up and sing all of the time. But rainy days and Mondays are always getting me down.

This Is How You Write a Theme Song

October 8, 2014October 8, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 9 Comments

Just kidding guys, I don’t know how to write a song let alone tell you how to write one. But I do have a lot of thoughts about theme songs. First of all, where have they gone? Did we misplace all of the intro music to our television shows? Is it all just a symptom of the untimely death of the American sitcom? I may not be a person-snob but I am definitely a snob in regards to some pretty niche things. For example Ben Stone was significantly better than Jack McCoy on the original Law & Order and no one can tell me otherwise. But today I want to talk about theme songs. I have some pretty strong feelings, and I’d like to thank the Daily Post for giving me the opportunity to complain to a larger audience about the difficulties facing theme song savants in world in which theme songs are currently disenfranchised. (But everything old is new again, so I think maybe we can hope for a comeback one day).

First of all, let me say this. I would prefer a lack of theme song to a crappy theme song. Let’s just let the credits roll over the opening sequence instead of subjecting ourselves to the theme song from The Nanny yet again. Ugh, even just typing that right now made that song get stuck in my head all over again! Yes, a good theme song tells a story. We want to know a little bit about the plot or over all feeling of the show, but not the entire pilot episode! Alan Thicke (the only accomplished musician in his family as far as I am concerned…) does this really well in The Diff’rent Strokes theme song. And if you are going to tell a little more of the story, then it should be a really great song on it’s own like Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees or The Ballad of Gilligan’s Island.

Then there’s the problem of a too long theme song (like in Family Ties or the uncut Cheers theme song). Luckily, Full House and Cheers managed to save themselves from the too-long-song fate by cutting down their theme songs midway through their run. Thank goodness for this because yes we all do want to go where everyone knows are name, but we do not need to slowly plod through the reminder of our worldly troubles.

Then there’s the theme song that is not worthy of it’s excellent show. I have to reference Family Ties again here. Don’t beg me wrong, I love Deniece Williams, she totally killed it on Let’s Hear it for the Boy (possibly the best song on the Footloose soundtrack tied with Shalamar’s Dancing in the Sheets). However, someone greatly wronged Deniece Williams by making her sing this totally blah song. It would have been cool if she had gotten to do the duet with BJ Thomas for the Growing Pains theme song because that song was awesome. But you’d have to expect a high quality theme song out of a show involving Alan Thicke.

You Better Promise Me I’ll Be Back in Time

October 7, 2014March 13, 2016 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

I’m writing this as the sounds of PYT drift through my mid-morning ear drums. I borrowed a quote from a Huey Lewis song in order to come up with a title. So when asked whether I would use a time machine to travel to the future or to the past, it must be pretty obvious which one I would chose. Well, the subject matter was probably a dead giveaway.

Reasons I would travel to the past instead of the future:

I’m not comfortable with unknowns: What if the future is some weird dystopian bummer land? Or what if everyone has plague? Or what if everyone I like is dead? Ick. I’m cool with dealing with uncertainty as I live my life in the present time and gradually move into the future, but I think that if there is anything we can learn from Back to the Future: Part II, it’s that the future can be pretty grim. No hover board or self-strapping shoe can erase from my mind that is the travesty of seeing Lea Thompson looking like a hot mess.
It’s quite possible that I could be the coolest kid ever in the late 20th Century: I was not a cool kid in the late 90’s. I know, I know. I blog largely about the 90’s so how is this possible? Well, I LOVED pop culture in this gigantic gestalt even then and my classmates could not understand my passion for All in the Family or The Facts of Life when those shows were not “hip” or”relevant.” I listened to disco in the third grade and I was weird. I liked bubble gum 60’s pop while everyone else was listening exclusively to The Offspring. And frankly, while I looooved early/mid 90’s film/media/fashion, I just was not into whatever was happening in the late 90’s. Thus, after much analysis, I think I could have owned the 80’s through early 90’s with my vast knowledge and appreciation for culture and style. Unfortunately, it’s not considered acceptable behavior to take a three year old to a Madonna concert, though there was a plan to take me to see the B-52s when I was two. (My parents thought better of it at the last minute.)
I want to wear Jellies non-ironically. I know they make your feet sweat and create weird blisters where you think it would be impossible to get a blister, but I think these shoes rock. The light pink color is my favorite because it has the leg-elongating effect of a nude shoe (results may vary based on skin color) AND allows you to look like you are so care free and breezy that you do not even have to wear a sensible shoe. “Oh I’m just roaming around, taking life one minute at a time in my leg-elongating, care-free jellies.”