Tag: humor

Best of My Facebook Status Updates 2012

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Humor, Memoir, Weekly Challenges9 Comments
Cinderella sure has an interesting way of drying her gowns.
Cinderella sure has an interesting way of drying her gowns.

It’s that time of year again.  That special time of year, when the treetops glisten … and children listen … and the”Best of ” lists come rolling out. You won’t find me in the Rolling Stone’s 50 Best Albums of 2012 or The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2012 (numbering 28, down from 37 last year).  I am not one of  the E! Top 10 Stylish Stars of the Year (thankfully, though, I am NOT on either E!’s list of Top 10 Wardrobe Malfunctions OR their list of Top 10 Mug Shots).  My name cannot be found on ANY of the many 2012 Forbes Rich Lists – not even Richest Pastors in Nigeria.   Unlike Honey Boo Boo Child, I am not one of Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People of 2012.  Gawker’s 10 Least Fascinating People of 2012 list isn’t out yet, so I may still have a shot at that. Salon’s 2012 Hack List? Nope.  The Best 140 Twitter Feeds of 2012?  Sadly, no.   And I just learned that President Barack Obama beat me out for Time’s 2012 Person of the Year.

Last week, this appeared on my Facebook timeline:

Year in Review
Jennifer Prestholdt
A look at your 20 biggest moments from the year including life events,
highlighted posts and your popular stories.

So, I checked it out.  How could I resist my life events, highlighted posts and popular stories?  But  my 2012 Year in Review was an utter and complete disaster!  I don’t know what kind of random generators are at work here, but this app most certainly does not capture my “20 biggest moments from the year”.   Some of the pictures were not even from 2012!  In short, Facebook Year in Review app is like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas: “The three words that describe you are as follows, and I quote: ‘STINK. STANK. STUNK.'”

These days there is precisely one thing in my life that is entirely within my control and that is my Facebook status update. So I’m taking charge of my Year in Review and creating my own”Best of My 2012 Facebook Status Updates”!

Best of My 2012 Facebook Status Updates

# 25   This sugar is not just pure.  It’s DHAM pure!

dahm pure

#24     Me (to my 10 year-old): “Simon, turn off the TV. Your screen time is done.”
Simon: “It doesn’t count as screen time if it is football or Barack Obama.”
Well played, son. Well played!

#23  Some people have Elf on the Shelf. I have cat barf on the Playmobil nativity scene.

#22  To the gentleman crossing against the light while reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I say, “Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?”

‎#21  Chickie (my 7 year-old daughter): “Mom, do you know why we light candles at this time of year? It’s to keep the trolls out of the house. It’s true. It says so in the Bible.”

#20 I did not realize that I even had a granddaughter, much less such a thoughtful one!

happy anaverse

#19     As I was jaunting around this morning with my bike helmet pushed back and dangling down my back like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s sunbonnet, it suddenly struck me that perhaps I did not look as fetching as I would hope.

#18     Fortunately, I left the restaurant for another meeting BEFORE my colleagues ordered the “head chips”- at Kathmandu, Nepal.

#17     Further proof of my bad hockey mom status: Packing Simon’s gear for hockey camp, I couldn’t remember what the thing that they wear on the chest is called. So I called it a “breastplate”.  (I also called his nut cup a “codpiece”, but that was on purpose.)

#16     Note to self:

go to work

#15     Chickie: “Where is everybody?”
Me: “They went to Sev’s hockey game.”
Chickie: “WOOHOO! Girls’ night! Let’s get into our jammies and READ!!”

#14     Went to gym. Worked out. Took shower. Realized I had forgotten to bring a towel. Dried off with my sock. Keep calm and carry on!

#13     Bonnie Tyler, reincarnated as a 10 year old boy. Turn around, bright eyes!

#12     These are the kinds of conversations that go on in my head:

Me: Why did I buy this Empire-waisted dress? I look terrible in this style?
Myself: It was only 7 dollars.
I: Ooooo! Excellent bargain shopping

#11       I keep reading the UN Millennium Development Goals – MDG – as – MGD – Miller Genuine Draft. It must be Friday!

#10     To flush or not to flush.  That is the question.

flush

#9     I waited a couple of decades and read the book again. Same conclusion. Mr. Rochester is an a-hole. Run, Jane Eyre, RUN!

#8     Overheard Chickie giving a friend a tour of our house: “This is mom’s closet. Or as I call it, My Shoe Store.”

#7     Future God’s Gift to Women: “Girls don’t like AXE, they like Old Spice. Wait, no. AXE was invented by women because they like the smell. I need some AXE. Girls like AXE.”

#6     Last day of summer vacation.
         “What’s left on the school supply list, Chickie?”
         “We’ve got everything but The Lorax wipes.”

#5     My rule:  You forget your lunch box at school and you get the Lunch Box of Shame the next day.

lunch box of shame

#4     7:10 am and I’ve already had to answer the questions “Is this a scalene triangle” and “Can you make me an omelette?”

#3     My Mother’s Day present:  The Napoleon Dynamite Dance!

#2     Chickie: “Mommy, what is a Miley Cyrus?”
          Me: “It’s a person.”
          Chickie: “Really? I thought it was a body part. One of the private ones.”

#1     I found this in my grandma’s apartment today. Also found out that she had voted absentee before she died. I don’t know if it still counts, but I’m proud that, at 98, she made sure to vote. And that she voted No on both state constitutional amendments (one that would have limited the right of same-sex couples to marry and one that would have limited the right to vote). Go Edna!

obama family

This post is in response to the Weekly Writing Challenge: Wrap It Up!  Check out other original “Year In Review” posts by following the link.

Constabulary Notes From Suburbia

On By Jennifer PrestholdtIn Human Rights, Humor2 Comments

True confession.  Whenever I’m feeling down, I cheer myself up by reading the police reports.  It’s true! They are right there in the newspaper every week, but I suspect most people don’t even notice.  Maybe they even avoid them because they just don’t want to read any more bad news.  That’s a shame, really, because the police blotter can be pretty comforting.   Reading it  just plain reminds you that people are silly, that the police help a lot of people, and that pretty much everything is going to be just fine.

I started reading the police blotter when I was 15 or 16 and growing up in the suburbs, right round the time I became a fan of News of the Weird.  It never even occurred to me that it was weird to turn straight to the police reports.   (I had one friend who read the obituaries and then crossed the names out of the phone book. That DID seem weird. In life, I guess, everything is relative.)  Let me tell you, the newspapers in Louisiana had some great stuff in the police reports.  Women seemed to be giving birth in cars ALL the time! And there was always some kind of dispute about stolen boudin or voodoo.  Sometimes both boudin AND voodoo.

I live up north now and within the city limits.  While I  still read the police reports in my local paper,  they basically just remind me to lock the car door if I park it on the street overnight.  So if I’m feeling down, I turn to the suburban police blotter.  Or blotters, I guess, since this is a metropolitan area on the wide open plains of the Midwest and there is a North, a South, an East and a West Metro.

Here are a few recent items from the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

PRIOR LAKE (OCT. 8) Littering. A Prior Lake police officer observed a refrigerator, old tires and concrete blocks dumped along the road near Howard Lake Rd. NW. and NW. 154th Street. The city maintenance crew was advised of the debris.

CORCORAN (SEPT. 29) Suspicious person. Someone reported that a suspicious man with a clipboard was going door-to-door and walking around the neighborhood on the 8600 block of Trail Haven Road. Officers located the man and found he was a city assessor inspecting properties.

See, now aren’t you starting to feel a little better already?  Sure, there are downers in the police reports – DWIs or sisters throwing peanut butter jars and hurting each other. But mostly it’s like Andy Griffith moved on up to Lake Wobegon.

 COCORAN (OCT. 4) Property damage. Officers responded to a home on the 7800 block of Maple Hill Road regarding property damage. Someone had keyed the residents’ vehicle and had written on it with marker. Officers discovered that two children, ages 2 and 3, had marked up the vehicle.

There you have it – proof of the principle of Occam’s Razor!  Now for more from Midwestern suburbia:

MINNETRISTA (OCT. 1) Suspicious activity. Officers confiscated 30 rolls of toilet paper after encountering suspicious vehicles along Eastview Avenue.

High School TPers Foiled Again!  Football season must be Level Orange Alert.  Let’s forge onward:

HOPKINS (SEPT. 26) Theft. A cat carrier was reported missing from a home on the 9100 block of 7th Street S.

MINNETRISTA (SEPT. 25) Theft. Gargoyles valued at $300 were stolen from the yard of a home on Kennedy Memorial Drive.

COON RAPIDS (SEPT. 16) Theft. A coin purse containing lipstick and a nail clipper were stolen from an unlocked car parked in a lot on the 3100 block of 111th Avenue NW

More than anything, the thefts in the police report remind me that we are fortunate enough to live in a country with a functioning justice system.   No matter how small the theft, people feel that they can and should report it to the police.  Then the police report officially record that the thing (whether it is a cat carrier or a nail clipper or a gargoyle) was stolen.  And then someone at the newspaper writes about it and prints it.  Total transparency, zero corruption.  This is the standard that the police in many countries in the world need to achieve.

Every once in a while, there is even a little something to remind me of my youth:

 FRIDLEY (SEPT. 10)  Assisting the public. A woman from the 6000 block of 2nd Street NE. complained to officers that her neighbors were doing voodoo on her. Police discussed the woman’s options with her.

I’m a human rights lawyer, so I see the worst aspects of humans in my work.  But I also see the best very aspects of humanity and that has taught me to look for the joy in life, no matter how mundane   That’s why I read the police reports these days.

I’ve always imagined that these police blotter descriptions are the work of an intern with a highly developed sense of satire, who is, in her spare time, writing the next Great American Novel.   Sometimes I worry that the decline of print media will mean that this public service will get the ax and deprive me of the solace that I take in these random acts of strangers.   Or, then again, maybe not.  Maybe someone will just develop an app for that. (Please?)