Lucy, You've got some 'splainin' to do

Lucille Ball, to me, is and has always been the most iconic woman, EVER. No, not Marilyn, nor Audrey (although I do adore her immensely). Crazy, Cooky and Charismatic Lucy.

Tonight, or we shall say this morning; I sat up and watched another episode. I wonder if I've always subconciously idolized her situation. The life. The humor. The marriage. We always find Ricky getting angry with her when she gets herself into predicament after predicament, but by the time the screen tunnel-visioned into a heart and the episode ended, Ricky and Lucy were back to marital bliss.

I find myself in situations the are light-heartedly similar to the Ricardo's ( i.e. the bubble infested kitchen, accidentally charging too much on a credit card, and locking my keys in the house and breaking in with an old BYU-Hawaii ID Card). Other times I catch myself resenting Ricky & Lucy.
"That's not how it is".
When one of us Ensue's debt unknowingly we don't end up laughing it off into nothingness, and doesn't Ricky ever get mad when Lucy tells Ethel one too many things? What about how Ricky never lets Lucy perform at the club? Don't you think she'd eventually drop a few F-bombs and get her way?

Then I wonder if Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz would chime right in with me? We all know that 'Lucy' and 'Ricky' were married in real life. They divorced twice, and suffered many miscarriages. Obviously life wasn't just night clubs and chocolate factories to the Arnaz's either. They filed for divorce the day after filming their last episode of their comedy sketch. I wonder how draining it was for them to continue to put on the happy go lucky portrayal of that life. I couldn't imagine working a full day on set with Andrew when we'd been at eachothers throats (and I'm not talking tonsel hockey) all day, acting happy and glorious. To me thats almost false advertisment. But in a subtle way, It says "hey when you get married, you'll have problems, such as re-arranging furniture without permission, and baking bread with too much yeast in it. But within a good twenty minutes it's all solved".

I have always chosen to repeadtedly forget their divorce and troubles throughout my life. I remember first learning about it all in 7th grade when I did a research project on Lucille Ball. It's similar to learning about the troubles in a family member's marriage and family life. Finding out Lucy and Desi Divorced twice, was similar to realizing as a young child that my Grandma and Grandpa were no longer (and hadn't been for a while) together as a married couple.

That's not what "they" (yes, the universal "they") teach us as a kid. We all go along with life accordingly, we find our eternal partner, quickly get married before anything troublesome happens. Then once you are married, you conceive, give birth, Save money and buy a home. As you get older, in church they teach you how to bake and cook and sew. They'll tell you satan is always trying to get to you so be sure to stay away from anywhere that Christ wouldn't go. Because hey, Jesus is our homeboy. But if only everything actually WENT accordingly....

I recently googled Lucie Arnaz (Lucy and Desi's offspring), and I'm soo tempted to write her and ask her to personally tell me stories about her parents, that most of the public wouldn't know (I know incredibly creepy and stalkerish). Not their awful fights, but not the obvious slapstick comedic times, jsut he things in between, that made them human.

Like my parents- Ive seen them fight like crazy bitches on on Jerry Springer (okay definately not that bad, but it sounded ceye opening) and then I've seen them go on fancy dates and nice vacations. But my favorite memories are of my dad scratching my mom's back and my mom tickling my dads feet, while watching Jay Leno at night. I love that no matter if they've been in a little "tiff" or arguement, they almost always go to the grocery store together. Whenever my mom is making dinner and there are potatoes to be peeled, it's the one thing that's automatic for my dad to do. My dad never was a fan of animals, but he and my mom take frequent trips to the coast to let the dogs run on the beach. That's marriage.

But I guess backscratching and potatoe peeling doesn't always make for good television... Now It's all about drugs, affairs, secret murders and babies mama's...

In the end, I am still 100% devoted to Amercia's sweethearts, The original "Nick and Jessica". Lucille Ball will always be my hero, but I'm not going to say I've never grown skeptical.

Horton Had me at Hello.

We know that Paula Abdul may have Sang (and I say sang, because we all know Ms. Abdul hasn't ever lifted a pen to contribute to her oh-so-deep lyrics) a song about a 'cold hearted snake', and some may say that this song, is about yours truly.

I often feel like a fish out of water when it comes to watching chick flicks/sappy movies with my girlfriends or family. I very very rarely come close to shedding a tear, even when I make a concious effort to feel 'in the moment'. I just am not an "emotional" person. Sure, on the inside I've got emotions dancing around like crazy. But it is rare that I ever show them.

Well, my friends. Friday night at a 10:45 showing. My cold-as-ice exterior was warmed, as my heart melted.

I didn't muster up a frog or a lump in my throat sitting through "The Notebook" or "Atonement", where I may have owned the only dry eyes in the house. You see, it takes Jim Carrey and and a bunch of animated and fictional characters to blur my vision and turn to my sleeve, to dab away my liquified emotions.

None other than "Horton Hears a Who" made me crack. I laughed, I cried, I voiced some "oooh"s and "aaaw"s. Andrew was pleasantly surprised by my consumption of this delightful, youth-friendly movie. My tough-stuff attitude had been traded in and transformed into the equivalent of a fabric softener commercial.

That evening, as we walked to our car, we found ourselves quoting Horton and friends and discussing the deeper paralells and significance of the story that it tells.

This ( aside from 'Juno') is one of the only movies I've felt has been well worth my $10.75, in a long long time.





I give this one elephant trunk and two thumbs up!

Good thinkin' Lincoln

For being a lady who loves change, I am at a loss for words about how excited I am for this:



actually, I'm not at a loss for words... excited will do just fine.

I may just head to the bank and stock up on purple Abe lookin like a babe.

In the words of Luniz ........I got Fiiiiiive on it.

"sud"stantially screwing up.

Can't a lady just catch break?

I make myself so damn nervous.


Once again, my kitchen looks like one of those foam parties you or your 16 year old sister used to go to circa 2002. You know where you go to a club filled with bubbles and you dance around pretty much solo, because you can't tell which people are your friends- the one who made the Santa Claus facial hair our of the bubbles or the person doing the robot resembling the abominable snowman? So fun, but so 6 years ago. And not made for a kitchen when you're home aone.

How and Why does my kitchen resemble a foam party? Beats me.
OK, I lied... Sort of.
Approximately 2 or 3 days ago I put dishwashING soap in the dishwasher.
And can I please emphasize the importance of the "ing"s and the "er" s when it comes to doing the dishes?

Well as I went about my housewife-ly duties and cleaned the rest of the house, Andrew comes home from work and says "Thanks for doing the dishes...."
"no problem" I mutter
he quickly comes back with "What kind of soap did you use?!"
We all know the answer to that question, don't we?

Well, Since then, I've let the dishes pile up.
So today, I took it upon myself to clean house. So I load 'er up, Put in the DISHWASHER soap (the correct form of soap), And let the good times roll...
But what do you know, Same ol' same old'! Baffled, and utterly frustrated I spouted out a few words that I dare not to type knowing that my family reads this. That damn machine is haunted I tell you!! Holy smokes, as I type this I just remembered something!

Andrew has said in the past whether I be fast asleep, or out of town, he hears someone doing the dishes and walks out to the kitchen and no one is there. We also have had guests sleep over and ask if we decided to do dishes at 4am....? Coincidence? I think not. We just might possibly have a neat freak for a ghost on our hands. Could it be June Cleaver? Danny Tanner? Who goes there?

Maybe this ghost has it's panties in bunch that I am doing his or her job. Or, the remnants of the "ing" soap was still loitering around and decided to throw one last foam filled soiree for old times sake.

pick a card any card; I chose the card that says it's the ghosts fault.





Ok, So, I found someone to point the finger at with my whole Dish washing dilemma, but how do I explain this?

Yesterday, After taking one sip, I put a bottle of Cranberry Sobe in my purse.(my extremely soft brown leather purse, which I got in Greece- making it almost priceless) I drive home, walk upstairs sit at the computer for about 15 minutes until I feel the need to quench my thirst. I pull out the Sobe bottle, and there is just enough Liquid left to put into a shot glass and down in in .5 seconds.
"I didn't drink that much, did I?" I thought to myself.
"No..No..definately di---NO!!!!!"
I reach into my bag and everything is soaking!!! So I flip my bag upside down in a hurry to discharge all of my belongings. I sat and wept My brand new bag. So Soft. Now, so soaking wet. The whole bottom half of my bag- DRENCHED.

I did what I do in these situations, called my mom. No Answer. So I did what I do 2nd, call Andrew to cry. He didn't pick up. So I then go to my RELIABLE and DEPENDABLE source: Google. " Liquid Spill leather bag" I searched. Mostly, I found plenty of prevention tips, which would have been extremeeeely fabulous bout 3 hours or so prior. So I dab my bag with a towel and drape it over our big, white ghetto fan we got at CVS Pharmacy for $9.99. It now, looks oh so vintage. I try and tell myself I'm cool with it. But Who am I fooling?
Not I.

Recently, right before I left Greece, I turned a whole load of laundry purplish-pink. I hate pink. And now I have socks, shirts, and a shirt-dress that all match perfectly. Even the crotch of my black tights which has that white cotton area, is now pink.

I am always tripping, falling, and spilling. I almost feel like I should attend some sort of boot camp or etiquette class. Is is something I can fix? Or is this one of the many "quirks" that Makes up who "Brynn" (yes I just spoke in thrid person) is?

What Would Chris Do?

Growing up, one of my favorite movies was Adventures in Babysitting.

Tonight, I took a look at my filthy kitchen, when suddenly I get a familiar flashback:

it's the scene where Chris Parker (Elizabeth Shue) hurries home after their long and exhausting adventure (in babysitting), discovers the mess that needs to cleaned up in a jiffy before the folks come home, in order to hide the fact that they were gone ALLL night.

and sure enough, she whips that mess into shape like it ain't no thang.

To this day, I sometimes find myself playing that lean, mean, cleaning scene in my head when I need some inspiration to crack the whip on myself and do the damn thing...sometimes it works, and like tonight; sometimes it doesnt (and instead sparks up some thoughts for a useless blog)

At this very moment, I sit here on my big canopy bed, which has lasted me a good 10 years.. and is still in pretty tip top shape. I had temporarily forgotten why I was sooo persistant on getting a bed which had poles coming out each corner.

THANK HEAVENS I remembered...


Obviously, so I could re-enact THIS:



I'm not sure if this is one of the iconic "pop culture classics" from the 80's but to me if most definately is.
I remember wishing:
- I had the same lip gloss that she wore,
- that I had the same roller skates and small paints that Sara had....
- that maybe, just maybe Chris would just give Brad a chance.
- my hair would curl and fluff just like hers

Things that I did accomplish, (JUST from this opening scene):

-I could do piourettes
-I had tights, and could steal one of my dads big T-shirts
- I could hop and snap and lipsync like a champ
-My sister had that same black and white checkered dress ( she wore to her 8th grade graduation), so I could borrow it if I needed to (even though I was roughly five years old)


Sadly, I never dated a guy who's liscense plates said "TOO COOL"
.... and I think I'm OK with that.


Since I was always anticipating the time where I got to be like Chris Parker and babysit, as soon as I was legal at age 11, I babysat for the first time....

Problem was; I hated it... Within my first few hours of babysitting I put a full load of dishes in the dishwasher and loaded it up with dishWASHING soap. 30 minutes later, the kitchen was turned into a Giant bubble bath. Chris would've known better.

That was pretty much my first and last times babysitting


But that didn't keep me from finding more and more inspiration from such a glorious film
I've still got the bedroom singing and dancing down to a "T" :)

Shooting a shoot

Here is some footage I took from a photoshoot we had at a designers flat.
Notice the "staple" Greece anthem I spoke about a few posts back, playing in the background.

Shit Happens

Shit happens.
It's true. It's a phrase that's commonly used when things aren't rainbows and butterflies. It's used lightly, even when situations aren't so light. Whether it be a flat tire, a death, or quite literally a bird drops its fecal matter atop your head.

I'm home. I came back to The land of Liberty early. It was with great purpose, and it feels 100% right to be back here.

Being abroad made me appreciate things that I find a majority of Americans talking shit about.. We complain about all of the things our country is doing wrong, and lack the ability to be thankful for what the 'restricting' laws do bring to the table. Us Yankees may not be "Free" like European countries. We may not be able to smoke in restaurants, drink under the age of 21, and many other things that matter on a more grandiose scale.

A big big problem that many have with the U.S. is healthcare. While I do undetstand the outrageous financial constraint that healthcare may have on all of us. We need to at least look at the positives, our hospitals are extremely sanitary; Although Hospitals are quite eerie on their own, even when the floors sparkle and everyone is dressed in white and turquoise, (that sounds comparable to an aquafresh commercial) We have it pretty nice over here.

Example:
My roomate needed to go to the Emergency Room while in Athens. So myself and another friend took a taxi with her to the nearest (And reportedly the NICEST) Hospital in Greece. When we arrived we walk into the entrance, there is a rancid smell and people laying on stretchers in the waiting area unattended, the floor and walls were covered in filth. The medical staff seemed to be scarce. Feeling like we were in some weird dream; went from room to room asking for the emergency room, each person pointing us towards a different direction.
Ultimately, we stumble into the appropriate "Emergency Room". There are 3 or 4 doctors sitting there Smoking cigarettes and chatting away. The Male doctor- in jeans, long scruffy hair and an unbuttoned white coat; which looks as though he pulled it out of his dirty clothes hamper while rushing out the door to work.... actually I take that back, he most likely didn't rush to work. The three of us fish-out-of-water foreigners stand there in shock and awe. As if we weren't starttled enough by the first impression of the hospital, we now stand there staring at a clique of smoking doctors staring at us.
"can I help you?" says the skinny scruffy guy.
[Eh, no we just felt like leaving our apartment at 11pm on a sunday night because we had nothing better to do than pick up a few diseases and another good dose of 2nd hand smoke.]

Reportedly from my dear friend, the doctor continued smoking, while giving her an old re-usable thermometer, had her wipe it off and tuck it away in her armpit. George McScruffy joked around about how "They probably don't let doctors smoke in America, do they?!"

The answer: no, no doctors, patients, visitors, not anyone, not even in the waiting area. Even in some places, not even outside the hospital.

He told her that he made her friends (my friend and me) wait outside because we were destracting him. I understand that if a couple of nice young girls come in, it may be a bit destracting, but keep it to yourself George. They then, ask her to stay for an ultra sound, when suddenly a man with blood gushing down his face is placed next to her. They just sit people in the same room almost like it's a room for a support group, not an F-ing Emergency Room!

Meanwhile, after I feel like I'm bout to faint, Anna and I find a nice cold dirty chair to sit on in the waiting area. There wasn't a place out of the eye's view which didn't have some sickly being sitting there or lying there in a stretcher. Soon we see our friend exiting the restroom looking like she'd just seen a ghost, barely able to explain that the toilets had no seats, there was no toilet paper, and there were urine filled bed pans laying around everywhere. She claims a reign check on the Ultra Sound without needing words...tells us through her eyes "Let's Get the HELLL out of here".

We go to the front desk. The lady hesitates to look up and notice us. When she does, she holds up her finger- the Universal "one moment" finger. shuffles around for a minute, discovers her cigarettes, lights up, and then finally proceeds to help us. I don't think the lady had a friendly (or funny, for that matter) bone in her body...

25 Euro's later, the three of us find ourselves walking down the Exit pathway, speechless. I truly wish I could have documented that place with photos because words cannot even roughly paint a picture. So while America is all up in Arms about healthcare, at LEAST be bloody thankful that we are kept in sterile conditions. Rather than gaining a few sicknesses through the hospital visit.

And to any of you on your way to the Hospitals in Athens; I do in fact, have good news! You just saved 20% on your car insurance.