A tale of two different Belle's and a Beast...

My two nieces recently watched Beauty and the Beast, for the first time, and have fallen in love with it. The magic of the movie captivates them, for sure. Since then, they have wanted to watch it quite a bit. One of the many times, while watching the movie, we came to the part where Belle and Beast dance in the Library. This is the girls favorite part, and Kailen asked us to stop the movie so she could put on her princess dress and dance. We indulge her, and stop the movie. She gets dressed and asks me if I would dance with her, like Belle dances with Beast. I took offense to the whole beast part of her comparison between the two of us, but I agreed to dance anyway. So she walks up stairs, and has us then start the movie, so she can walk down the stairs when Belle does. It's actually very sweet to see her walking down the stairs all dressed up, waiting for her... (ahem) Beast, to dance with her. We finish the dance and the movie goes on, but then my other niece, Kendra wants to dance to the song also. I tell her to find her princess dress and we would dance together.

This is where the whole personality difference between the two girls, comes in.

Kendra refused to wear her princess dress, and instead is sporting her little girly panties, a t-shirt, and the pièce de résistance... her princess crown. She just wanted to wear the crown. So this little punk plants the crown on her head, and takes her half dressed little body up the stairs. We start the movie, and she starts walking down gracefully, just like Belle. She gets about half way down, and it's as if Belle was thrown to the wasteside, and the Beast stepped in. She starts yelling in this deep guttural voice, "Uncle Tony, Uncle Tony", and I looked because at least she wasn't hollering for the Beast; instead just sounding like one! Once she gets my attention, she stomps her foot, and says in that same voice as before, "COME GET ME!" This Belle must've been worked to the core, and faint, or spoiled and rotten; I'll let you decide. After composing myself from laughing, I did the number one bad thing a parent or guardian can do, and did what she demanded, and got her off the stairs. We started dancing and I thought, "Ok, this might not be bad." Then little miss attitude decided we weren't dancing the right way, and proceeded to tell me how we (I), should dance. I almost threw her. The song ends, and all is well in her world now, and we were finally able to finish the movie.

I say all this to tell you something you probably already knew, but was completely an eye-opener for me... just because children are raised in the same household, does not mean they will turn out the same way, or act the same! I know, I know, that's kind of a "duh" statement, but let me explain, these are the first kids I've ever helped to take care of, so this is all new territory to me. I assumed you raise them all the same, they just tend to be a clone of the one right before them. WRONG-O!!! Kailen and Kendra are literally complete opposites when it comes to... well, anything. Kailen is often times the more gentle, motherly type, where as Kendra is more of the one who will be less likely to share something, or quicker to respond with a, "No", when asked to do something. Man, oh man! It actually makes me laugh to think about just how opposite they really are. It's probably a good thing, that I don't have kids of my own, and that I can "practice raising" on my brother's kids before I actually have my own. The way I think things through, I'll take a chance of screwing up someone else's kid(s), before I screw up my own. =)

*Let me add, I'm totally kidding. I, in no way, would intentionally screw up someone's kid. I'd let their parent's do it. =)*

a sweet suprise...

A couple days ago, a gentleman came in and was asking us if we could help him fix his unemployment claim, and we said we'd try, but we weren't certain if we would be able to or not.

After working on the situation for several minutes, and playing phone tag with my supervisor, we finally got the situation fixed. To say the man was releaved and happy, is an understatement. I'm pretty sure he could have done a jig. He repeatedly thanked us for the help, and kept saying he owed us a burger or something. We told him you know, No, it was our job, we were happy to do it, and so on and so on.

The next day I was out of my office for a second, and when I came back, I had a brown papersack waiting for me. Inside was a huge piece of chocolate covered cheesecake (similar to the one pictured above). I asked Todd, my coworker, what this was for. He said that guy we helped the day before came in and brought us both one, to thank us for the help we gave him the day prior. It was completely unexpected, but really awesome! I took a couple of bites, and had to put the rest up because it was so rich, but it was, and is delicious!

We don't get a lot of people in here that are happy, mainly because by the time they get to us, they've tried our phone system, and have met dead end, after dead end on Unemployment. I say that to say this; I really appreciated what the guy did for us. I'm not expecting or wanting this to happen all the time, by any means, but it's nice to know that we at least were able to help one person that day, and that they really appreciated our service! It was a great way to balance out the negativity we usually come up against!

Poopers, Dancers, and Privates, Oh my...

As many of you know, I work in Downtown Wichita, and have for several years now. Because of this, I've seen my fair share of people who are, interesting and just a tad bit crazy, to say the least. You never know what you'll see from day to day while working in this area of Wichita.

Let me explain...

POOPERS:

While working at a prior location, we learned to be careful as to where we walked when we left the building, because one homeless gentleman in particular decided the outside premises of our building was a free for all toilet for him to use anytime he wished, and did he ever make a lot of use out of that commode. We would be warned by our Security Guard that *Poopin' Pete* had returned, and to watch our step if we were to go outside. By the way, we didn't really call him that name, but it seemed fitting, and I always wished we would have, I think he would have appreciated the fact that we noticed him enough to give him a nickname... but I digress. After what seemed like many months of *watching our step* outside, the occurances stopped. We never knew what happened to him; if he found another building premise to occupy, or if he found a whole in the ground to occupy, but we were thankful he had moved on, regardless!

DANCERS:

Just last week, I was visited by what I have to assume was a retired male exotic dancer. Let me explain the setup. My office faces the street, and the wall that seperates me from the outside is glass from floor to ceiling. While minding my own business, I heard someone knocking on the glass wall trying to get my attention. I looked up at what I can only describe as a half dressed, overweight, middle-aged man, who had to be inebriated, or trying to recapture his youthful exotic dancing days. Once I was looking, he decided to press himself up against the glass wall, and dance around, rather violently, all the while *french kissing* the glass wall. As I was watching this, I couldn't help but hear the song from ABBA, "Dancing Queen", running through my head. I turned around so as not to encourage him, and he stopped dancing thankfully, however, you can still see lip and tounge prints on my glass wall today. I'm bringing Windex to work tomorrow! I wished now I would have had the thought, and guts to get up and *Party Boy* the window where he was, just to see his expression, but I'm ready now if and when he returns! I can't lie - it was hilarious to watch, and to think someone would have the guts to do something like that!

& PRIVATES: OH MY...

I work for the State of Kansas: Unemployment Division. When people need help filing for Unemployment, they come see me. A couple weeks ago, an older gentlemen who was, I would assume, unaware as to how short his shorts were, decided to come file for unemployment. He sat down in a chair facing me, and we started filing his unemployment claim. After a couple of minutes, I glanced over at him while I was talking to him, and found him scratching his upper thigh. This caused his already short shorts, to become shorter, therefore revealing his, um... privates. I immediately looked away, and thought, "How do you not know that you're 'hanging out'", for lack of a better word! I hurried up and finished filing the claim for him, got him gone as soon as possible. I've learned a couple of lessons from shorty shorts guy... 1. Always, under any and every circumstance, wear underwear! 2. Look in the mirror before leaving my house!

I have a feeling this isn't going to be the last post I write about weird happenings here at work, and downtown, and I can't honestly say I'm sad about that, it definitely keeps things interesting, well except, I could go forever without someone else showing me their jiggly bits, but that's besides the point! Stay tuned, you never know when something crazy's going to happen, and I'll be sure to blog about it all!

The Culinary Coward...

I read many blogs while I'm at work because it gives me something to do. I was reading one the other day from Andrea Goto, who writes an article for pauladeen.com. This article had me cracking up at work; like out load laughter, and strange looks from those around me. I decided to copy and paste it over here for you guys to read also. Hope y'all like it.

The Culinary Coward: Andrea Goto

Never Try A New Recipe On Friends…If You Want To Keep Them

I get it. You don’t perm your hair the day of prom, wear new shoes to run a marathon, or apply self-tanner before a job interview.

But during a brief bout of dementia, I thought it would be a good idea to try out a new dessert for my dinner party. First, you must realize that I host dinner parties about as often as I remember to remove the hair from the shower drain. Second, my idea of a no-fail dessert is canned fruit cocktail drenched in chocolate syrup. But that’s not going to fly with this group. One of my guests, Nicole, whipped up a French boeuf bourguignon something-or-other for her last party. The sauce alone was so delicious that I poured myself a bowl.

“It’s not soup, Andrea.”

“Hell it’s not.”

Because this is what I’m up against, I hope to flex a little Southern muscle on Nicole’s thin, Frenchy frame. I choose Paula’s Frozen Chocolate Mousse Pie because the only thing better than one of Paula’s butter-infused dishes, is a chocolate one. And this recipe takes it up a notch by adding cream, sugar and liqueur (basically, my Last Meal).

I read over the directions and prophesized, “This is going to be easy.” To which my husband responds, “Your confidence will be your undoing.” (Can all men do a Luke Skywalker impersonation?)

A minute later I’m picking up broken pieces of frozen piecrust from the floor, cursing said husband.

Once I rebuild the piecrust, I crack open the chocolate liqueur, dribble a little onto the chocolate chips, and then pour more than that into my coffee. It can’t hurt, right?

Wrong.

Shortly thereafter, I’m scraping burnt chocolate from the bottom of a saucepan as my 4-year-old daughter stands on a stool next to me dipping her fingers in the char-free remains. She feverishly licks her hands and I think I see her eyeballs shake.

“Mommy, it’s so good I can’t stop eating it!” Addictive personalities run in our family.

In her sugared state, she attempts a grand jette from her perch, spilling all but a tablespoon of the vanilla extract onto the floor. I dump what’s left into the pie filling even though the recipe only calls for one teaspoon.

Moving on, Paula says to whip the cream “as if you are making whipped cream,” which probably means something to someone who has made whipped cream before. I turn the mixer on “high” and beat the heck out of two pints of cream, hoping that this equals one quart (I stopped caring somewhere around my third “coffee.”) After five minutes of trying to control the tornado that is my hand mixer, soft peaks begin to form. I pause to make an appointment to have my kitchen repainted.

Hours later, I humbly present the dessert to my dinner guests. They are good friends, but lousy liars, which makes it all the more difficult to watch them surgically dissect the pie with their forks as I await the verdict.

Eventually someone breaks the silence. “Are there coffee grounds in this?”

They collectively agree that there’s something gritty going on. The vanilla is a bit overpowering, and they suggest letting the pie thaw a few minutes to avoid the obvious frost problem.

As one guest excuses himself to check his insulin levels (maybe the candy-bar topping was overkill), I start to feel a personal rain cloud form above my head. I wistfully hope that someone will throw me a bone.

Instead, Frenchy’s husband offers me this: “It’s like ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ You know they’re never going to get off the island, but it’s sure fun watching them try.”




After reading the post, I'm curious as to if any of you guys have ever had a bad experience with trying to make something in the kitchen, be it for a dinner party or just for family?

Wow... That's strange.

Kyle - I'm stealing this idea from you. Thanks. =)

After reading a friends blog post about things they do that others might consider "weird", it got me to thinking about things I do that others might think are weird.

Here's a few...

I have OCD really bad sometimes, especially when I'm getting ready for bed at night. I will more than likely check my alarm clock once or twice just to make sure it says, 5:00am, even though I know it's still set for that time from the previous nights ritual.

I set my alarm clock to go off at 5:00am, even though I don't have to get up until 6:15 or so. Once it goes off at 5, I have an internal time clock that lets me know I can sleep a little over an hour more, and then I'm fine to get up and function. If I have to get up the very first time the alarm clock goes off, I literally don't function. I know, thats strange.

I want to have a southern accent. I think they are charming.

I want to live in a world where everyone calls everyone else by their first name, prefaced by their gender title... Mr. Tony, or Miss Betty, etc.

I psycho analyze myself quite frequently.

I want to lose weight, but I feel subconciously I wont let myself because I'm afraid of rejection from people. If I stay fat, then I can tell myself its rejection due to my size, not because of me personally.

I want to live in a small town, much like that of Mayberry, where everyone knows everyone.

I absolutely hate the taste of chocolate and fruit, and inevitably, thats what we got every year in our Christmas stockings was some sort of chocolate/fruit mixture.

I used to pronounce the color, Orange, like O-Weenje, just because I thought it sounded cool.

I snore so loudly in my sleep that I've always said whoever I marry needs to be deaf, or she will become that way.

I'm a huge packrat. Whenever I get a boxed product, I save not only the box to put the product back into, but all the little covers, and twist ties and tape and everything that was around the product when it was in the box, just in case I ever give the product to someone else, I have the stuff to put back around the product. Also, I know that as soon as I were to throw the box out or packaging material, I would ultimately need it for something.

I love neat and tidy cleaned spaces, but my room isn't neat and tidy, or cleaned. It's actually completely opposite.

I want to be left handed. In fact so much so, that I will often start writing with my left hand just to see if I can teach myself to be that way.

I love unique things. I don't ever mind seeing weird new fashions or trends, because if I were a much smaller size I would totally be right there with the trend setters.

I absolutely hate the taste of coffee, but I make myself drink it because it makes me feel sophisticated.

I would love to sing Opera. I can't sing Opera at all, but I would love to be able to.

I'm a flippin pansy when it comes to bugs and snakes. They freak me out.

Whenever I make a trip to walmart, which is more than likely once to twice a week, I always buy a can of deodorant, just to make sure I always have enough.

I enjoy structured list. If everything came with a detailed list of step's 1, 2 and 3, my life would be easier.

I have girly handwriting. You can thank my 3rd grade teacher for that one. She made us practice handwriting daily.

WOW... I'm strange.