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Oh, Odin
24 Mar
It’s been quite some time since I’ve written here, but it should surprise no one that the occasion of adopting a new kitten/cat/baby cat (age is up for debate currently) has already afforded me with fodder for a blog that is often about animals being assholes. Lets take, oh, the last twelve hours, shall we, to elaborate my point? First, let me show you a picture of the adorable executor of the soon-to-be described assholery.
I may be almost blind, but I can clearly see how to annoy you already.
After nipping me multiple times throughout the night in an attempt to get me to “play,” I was woken up terrified by an insanely large crash coming from the kitchen at about 3am. I jumped out of bed to find Odin on the impossibly high counter I never thought he could reach, having just smacked everything he could from the counter to the floor, including a very heavy crystal vase that amazingly didn’t break but did cause the ear shattering and most likely neighbor-waking noise. I lured him back to bed, only to be woken later by him stepping on my face, where he slide on the uneven terrain and sliced my lip with his razor nails. I chose to feign sleep through the pain so as not to further entertain/provoke the prowling feline.
Can hardly see but I’m looking for trouble
In the morning, after snoozing my alarm multiple times due to lack of sleep, I got out of bed and took approximately one step before Odin excitedly darted between my legs, causing me to go sprawling across my floor. He dashed away, like a Lilliputian trying not to get crushed by a giant, which is what every woman wants to feel like in the morning. After showering and dressing, I sat down with a can of soda to put my makeup on (don’t judge, most of us get our morning caffeine from somewhere; I get mine from Pepsi). As I cracked the can open, Odin jumped onto my coffee table to exam the noise for a possible food source.
Trying to knock over a bottle of water while on the “coffee table” (it’s a chest) because he obviously doesn’t have enough toys.
Having not learned my lesson from him denuding my counter of everything it had, I took my eyes away from him to apply mascara and bam, he smacked the open can to the floor, where the soda shot out and sprayed angrily, covering not only the carpet and chest, but my pants, purse, and Odin himself as he darted through it like a kid in a sprinkler. “ODIN!” I shouted, because shouting always solves things, especially with cats. I cleaned up the best I could, which means I threw paper towels on the mess while saying “Ewww, Ooooodiiiiiinnnnn,” leaving both cat and floor sticky after trying to wipe them both down with a damp sponge. I finally fed him, to his high-pitched sqwaky-meowed thanks, and I went off to work a half-hour late, sans-makeup and in soda covered pants.
Who, me?
It’s not even been a week since I adopted him and man, do I love this cat, even if he does appear to be an asshole in training.
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
13 JanI think we all know that breaking up is not fun. Whether the one broken up with or the one doing the dumping, in general, ending a relationship that was once full of love (or at least a lot of like), laughter, and promise is not something most people enjoy. It is, though, of course always more painful for the one on the receiving end of the break. If you are reading this and thinking “Well, I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been broken up with,” well, I know you think things have been going swimmingly, but I no longer want you reading Ophelia’s Prozac anymore. There! Dumped! BOOM knife to the heart and you didn’t see it coming. (I’m kidding pleasedon’tgoIloveyou).
Now that that’s been taken care of… Let’s discuss dealing with the pain of a breakup, shall we? While there are a lot of things that can be done to make the process easier on everyone (mature things like being open and honest, communicating clearly, and spending time with family and friends, and less mature but more helpful things like eating a lot of crap foods and crying while watching Youtube videos of people receiving puppies as presents), I have recently come across an article that I think clearly illustrates the number one, letter A, top of the list thing you should NOT do after you are broken up with: Do not attempt to break into your ex’s home by nakedly shimmying down his or her chimney. You read that correctly, and that is not a euphemism for something risque. That happened. Someone attempted this. So now you can just cross that off your “Things I was Considering Doing” list immediately. You aren’t Santa. That shit won’t work. Case in point: real photo of the naked, soot covered legs of the aforementioned female, who is wedged inside her ex-boyfriend’s chimney after taking off her clothes. (Did she think that would make it easier to fit? Was she trying to be sexy? I have so very many questions.) Click photo for larger version, you know you want to.
Just hanging out, don’t mind me!
It took California firefighters two full hours to get this thirty-five year-old mother of three (God help those kids) unstuck, and I can’t imagine if it was more painful, uncomfortable, or overwhelmingly embarrassing. I almost wonder if someone who gets herself into that situation in the first place is even capable of realizing how ridiculously embarrassed she should be; I mean, everyone knows how much easier it is to nakedly squeeze through dog doors. Sheesh. Have some dignity, people.
Empty chimney: Watch out world, that women is loose.
*Chimney photos borrowed from the NY Daily News*
Thief
3 SepYou’ll never believe what this woman allegedly (ahem) stole from a store in Arkansas on Labor Day:
I look damn good and I know it.
Almost $150 worth of eye makeup. Shocking, right? She got belligerent when she was confronted by store employees and an officer inside of the store, saying they had no proof that she stole anything and claiming that all of the makeup she had just shoved into her purse was hers to begin with. Since Ms. Allen was unavailable for comment, I spoke to a few experts for some of their thoughts on the matter:
Rainbow Dash thinks our thief is REALLY overdoing it.
Rainbow Brite thinks Ms. Allen should cut back on the makeup and work on her clothes.
Cheer Bear the Care Bear gives a thumbs up to our eye shadow thief, because she is a sweet rainbow bear and appears to only have thumbs.
Gawker article on the makeup thievery.
Back in Time
1 SepI’m taking a short detour from my posts about my London/Ireland/Scotland trip to write about a more recent journey… to the 1920’s. With a quick (and free) ferry ride to Governors Island, my friends and I found ourselves at the Jazz Age Lawn Party. It was our second summer attending so we knew what to expect, but we were still impressed by the clothes, hairstyles, dance moves, and picnic spreads the attendees had on display.
A view of the well-dressed crowd.
Ripping up the dance floor.
With hair to match.
Walking around and checking out everyone’s outfits and watching them dance was worth the ticket price alone, and if you don’t bring your own food, they had various food and drink packages you could purchase ahead of time. Being lazy, we went for this option, and ended up with some tasty gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, awesome St. Germain mixed drinks, and more than one bottle of champagne that was wheeled and dealed from a bartender by Andrew and Laura (well played, guys!).
Andrew, Laura, and champers.
Kenda & Masai enjoying the ambiance.
We grabbed some grass by the smaller of two dance floors/stages and had front row (front blanket?) seats to both professional acts as well as amazing amateur dancers.
Well, hello there.
She was not messing around.
One couple in particular was really awesome; you could tell they were having a great time and they were both fabulous dancers. I spoke to them briefly and they said they were friends that danced with each other at various events, and their names are Kevin Tan and Ila Myers. They were so much fun to watch.
Kevin Tan showing us how it’s done.
Kevin Tan & Ila Myers.
Kevin Tan & Ila Myers.
We were lucky to sit next to fabulous blanket neighbors, Terry, Matthew, and Steve. They are the epitome of class, were perfectly dressed, and calling their set-up a picnic spread is insulting how gorgeously done it was. We had a lot of fun chatting with them and admiring their outfits. Terry, Matthew, and Steve, we bow down to your Jazz Age Lawn Party expertise! If you read this, hit me up, I have lots of great shots of you guys that I’d love to send to you.
Looking amazing without even trying.
We hated to see them go, but damn do they look good walking away.
A few more shots of the day:
Nice set-up.
Dance floor.
Happy Masai.
Dancing the day away.
I also learned that day that if I am ever in an emergency, I want to be with Andrew. Check out the goods that he carries with him at all times. That is preparedness, organization, commitment, and insanity of the best form all at once. Andrew, you are my new go-to person.
Need anything? Anything at ALL?
After a quick ferry ride back (after a wait in a LONG line for it), we stopped for a snack at Stone Street, and I met the wonderful Miles and his parents (you didn’t think I’d have a post without an animal in it, did you?). He has these amazing white markings across his face from harder times, when some horrible person tied a muzzle around his face and left him in the dessert. The white markings are what remains from him being tied up like that and left in the sun. As you can see, I was very happy to meet him and his wonderful parents who adopted him.
Me & Miles, my newest boyfriend.
Instant friends.
We had a great time spending a Saturday in the 1920’s. It was another reminder to me that no matter where I travel, Manhattan is such an amazing place. There’s always interesting, friendly people, amazing dogs, and awesome events right around the corner, or in this case, just a free ferry ride away.
The Ravens
10 AugMy favorite part of the Tower of London is definitely the ravens. Finally, some real animals up in this joint instead of ones made out of wire and chained by their ankles with sad, pained looks on their faces. And ravens are total bad-asses, otherwise known as assholes, and if you read my blog, you know I have a long and storied experience with asshole animals. These birds don’t mess around: they eat raw meat, raw eggs, and the occasional “treat” of whole rabbits. Yum. And they are huge. Just look at that guy.
But don’t misjudge them, there’s a softer side to the ravens, too. They mate for life, and that’s not a paltry commitment as they’re known to live a long time for bird-years. A raven named Jim Crow lived until he was 44 years old at the Tower. They can only be handled by their Yeoman Ravenmaster, who they consider to be another raven; anyone else would get their fingers taken off by their raven-beaks. Yeoman Ravenmaster: How’s that for a cool-as-hell job title?
“What do you do for work?”
“I’m an accountant, you?”
“Oh, nothing much. Just a Yeoman Ravenmaster at the Tower of London.”
“Oh, um. That’s cool. I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing.”
Bite me.
Raven house
But why are there ravens at the Tower? Well there’s a pretty cool reason. As the helpful sign pictured below explained to me, the legend is that King Charles ordered that all the ravens who had decided to make the grounds of the Tower their home be destroyed because picky astronomer John Flamsteed complained that they were flying around and messing up his work. Astronomers can be so annoying, am I right? However, before the birds were killed, Charlie got wind that there was a prophecy that his kingdom and the Tower would fall without the protection of the birds. This prophecy is likely linked to the legend of the giant Bran, whose name means “raven.” Bran ordered that his head be cut off while he was dying in battle and it be buried to protect the kingdom. The ravens symbolize the giant’s strength, which is nice, as I’d much rather come and visit ravens then a severed head. Just saying.
Anything that has a legend behind it is automatically awesome.
I think the ravens and the legend surrounding them are pretty awesome. Shout out the marketing people at the Tower though: why don’t you sell raven stuffed animals at the gift shop? I would have left with like five of those buddies, and I highly doubt I’m the only one. Get your marketing team on that, stat. As it was, I was left buying my niece a princess wand, which I told her a real princess from a real castle in England gave to me for her. She took it from me very reverently, looked it over, and then promptly asked me why it had a price tag on it if a “real princess” gave it to her. Move over, animals. Little kids can be assholes, too
The Tower of London
28 JunMy next stop was the Tower of London, conveniently located within walking distance from my hotel and enabling me to avoid any tricky mass transit. A tourist site, you ask? When you’re well-traveled and fancy and first-class? Yes. Because I was a tourist, and my friends and I could dress it up with fancy champagne and dinners, but come on. I think I proved in my previous post that I, at least, wasn’t fooling anyone to the contrary. And the Tower of London has ravens. Sign me up.
Older than my apartment building.
I’m not going to go into a bunch of traditional history on the place, because, well, Wikipedia that shiz. But it’s amazingly interesting and I hope I don’t have to be the one to tell you that. I had been there once before with my family when I was about fourteen and we took a great tour of the place, but this time around my friends and I had a very limited amount of time as we were due to high tea (how Londony can we get?). So we decided to basically speed walk through the place, bowling over small children and foreigners (of which I realize we were as well (foreigners, not small children) in order to see as much as possible in about forty minutes. Being an animal lover, the first thing I noticed was the wire mesh lions they had out front replicating actual lions that used to be prowling the grounds. I paused to take about fifty pictures of these guys, which mystified my friends considering we were still outside of one of the most famous spots on the planet, but I mean, come on, guys, wire lions. Little did I know, these were the first of the wire animals we’d encounter on our journey.
My three new best friends
The entrance: I like any decorator who incorporates unicorns in a classy way.
Our attempt at a selfie with the unicorn crest behind us. As you can tell, we missed the crest entirely and we look GORGEOUS. Well done, us.
Once inside the castle, we raced up tiny stone stairs that twisted up skinny spiral stairwells and looked out thin, rectangular windows. It’s really stunning to stop and realize that you’re touching stone and tile that is so amazingly old. It takes your breath away. So does trying to beat a group of French tourists to the site of King Henry VI’s death, let me tell you. But we managed.
He became king at nine months old, the youngest person ever to become king of England. Seems like a lot of pressure if you ask me. I know I wasn’t doing much of anything at nine months, and no offense to Kate and Wills, but George doesn’t seem like he’s ready for that kind of commitment, so good on Henry VI.
I’ll pause here to provide you with the beauty shot of Tower Bridge.
You’re welcome. But I don’t know why you’d want to see that when you can see…
An elephant! A wire elephant! Now, I need to admit to you, dear reader, that it was about this point in the day where I got a little wacky. There were signs that simply read “Elephant” with arrows leading us down stairs and around paths, and for some reason, I really thought there was going to be a real elephant in the Tower of London. And if you’ve been reading along with the postings about this trip and haven’t yet concluded that I am a real and true moron, now is where you will finally give up and decide that I am mentally deficient. Thank you for your faith and sorry to have disappointed you. I actually argued with my friends, telling them that NO I was sure there was going to be a live elephant at the end of these signs. And when we found the above wire elephant? I had a brain freeze and still thought maybe he was the entrance to where the real elephant was living. I honestly have no excuse for this other than possible alcohol poisoning. It wasn’t until we saw the below sign that my friends read to me very slowly like one would to a child that I finally understood our large wired friend was the only pachyderm I’d be seeing that day.
It seems that King Louis IX of France made of gift of an elephant, as one does, to King Henry III, in 1255, to which Henry decried “Make a building without delay at the Tower for the King’s elephant, 40 feet long and 20 feet wide.” Well. I suppose if that was in the year 1255, he’d be one old ass elephant to still be hanging around.
Next up was the Crown Jewels, which we almost left without seeing because the line was as long as the new “in” brunch spot in Soho, but we toughed it out and got to see some of the fanciest glittery-sparklies you’ve ever laid eyes on. This, however:
Get your mind out of the gutter.
Was the only photo I could take or else I’d end up imprisoned in the Tower myself.
And wait! There’s more! One last wired friend! Sad Bear, who I named because he was a sad looking bear and he made me sad when I looked at him. Deep thoughts, I know. Just look at that ankle chain. Yes, I realize he is made of wire. But he represents a real bear who was once chained by his ankle at the Tower of London. And yes, I realize there are many other, worse atrocities that were committed at the Tower, to humans, but… he’s a bear. With a sad face.
Sniff. I can’t go anywhere. This chain is like a foot long. Plus, I’m made of wire.
And on that lovely note, we leave the Tower of London, because you have read enough and my friends and I had a tea to get to. What’s that you say? I promised ravens? I did! You are correct. But because I am strange and I love ravens, I am saving the Ravens of the Tower for their very own post. And unlike the elephant and all the other wire animals in this one, the ravens are decidedly alive.
Underground
4 MayThe first photo of my trip on my “real” camera and not my phone is of glasses of champagne, which is definitely suiting. This whole trip was a celebration. Though I’d be working many days while there, I was also going to be seeing some of my best friends in the world, visiting places I had always wanted to see, and watching one of my favorite people ever get married to an awesome man. Champagne was definitely called for.
It started with champagne.
London was my first stop. While there, I was staying across town from my friends, as I was in a hotel near my office. This left it up to me to figure out how to navigate mass transit. Living in Manhattan for more than a decade, this wasn’t something I was worried about. Look, they had friendly signs that said “Subway” and clearly marked the stairs to show me where to go.
“Go here, stupid American.” Or, don’t…
“But wait,” I thought, “don’t they call their transit system the tube, or the underground, or something properly Britishy?” I dismissed my thoughts and figured they must cater to tourists and call it the subway in some signs. Sure, that made sense. And I proceeded to walk down approximately one million stairs, where I was faced with a tunnel about a block long. I walked through said tunnel, where I was confronted with one million stairs going up. Okay then, London, I’ll do you. I marched up the stairs confidently and found myself back outside. Confused and blinking like a mole in the not-even-that-sunny London sun, I looked around to get my bearings. This looked familiar.
Hm. This looks familiar.
I’m extremely ashamed to admit what happened next. I actually went BACK down the stairs, through the tunnel, UP the other stairs, came back outside again, turned around blinking and confused in the unsunny sun, again, and only then did I finally realize that in London, “subway” meant “underground passageway you walk through under the street so you don’t have to worry about getting hit by cars while crossing the street.” I think it is also British slang for “Americans are morons.” I then acted like I didn’t just cross the street underground twice and walk up and down two flights of stairs four times and swallowed my tourist pride and asked the next person walking by where the tube was, and I was on my way.
The London Underground. A cooler logo and name than NYC’s “subway.”
With the help of some abiding locals and my hotel-provided map, I’m happy to say that I did, eventually, find my way to a train, and ultimately, dinner with my friends.
Thank you, tube, for taking me to my friends and food. And more champagne.
opheliasprozac 