Do you ever have one of those days where you can’t seem to string together a coherent group of words to save your soul? I’m having one of those. So, of course–I have decided to write a blog. You, after all, are used to my lack of lucidity. My rambling, moronic, rants.
A few things have occurred to me lately.
Why is the English language so strange? I can’t imagine trying to learn it for the first time. Who decided to name evergreens “fir” trees? Especially in Canada. We suffer the “living in igloos” stereotype enough without newcomers falsely believing that it’s so cold here our trees need fur.
And who invented the doughnut? And why? If something tastes good, why would you want to have less of it by cutting out a hole?
And why can an owl turn his neck right around? It’s not like he needs to back his car out of a long driveway. Or keep an eye on misbehaving students, while he writes on the blackboard.
And why are my arms too short to scratch the middle of my back?
And why does aspartame taste like crap?
If you know the answer to any of these conundrums, I would love it if you could enlighten me. In the mean time, I will share a few gleanings that I have discovered of my own.
1) Most of you know that I am short. Only five feet tall to be exact. My lack of height is exacerbated by the fact that everyone seems to be getting taller these days. Seriously, I feel like an ewok. With slightly less fur. And better enunciation.
It turns out that things could be worse. Yes, I am on the very short end of the height spectrum–for humans. But I could be a short dog.
“Why would that be worse?” you ask. Good question. It turns out that if human heights varied as much as our canine counterparts, the shortest person would be around two feet tall–that would be me–and the tallest would stand at 31 feet. Suddenly, I don’t feel so short. I could be two feet tall. Or 31. It would be hard to find pants either way. Or agree on a the height for my kitchen counters. Where would you put a doorknob? I guess you’d have to have more than one. And imagine if the tall guy sat in front of you at the theatre.
2) Okay. So, you are now going to think I am an idiot. I think I am, so you might as well too. For some reason, I always thought that doughnuts were made without holes in them and that the dough balls were later punched out. It’s Tim Horton’s fault, really. If the holes weren’t going to be punched out and discarded, why did they develop the Timbit (for those of you outside of Canada, these are doughnut holes that we buy by the dozens).
It turns out that doughnuts are formed in their tire-like shape–hole and all. I feel very let down by this discovery.
Does anyone remember the little dough balls they used to put with pizzas in the pizza box? I always wondered what they were for. But, for some reason, they were always my favourite part of the pizza. Until we got a dog. Then the dough ball became “his” part of the pizza. Stupid dog.
Speaking of Tim Horton’s–they recently caused massive confusion with the introduction of new cup sizes. If you want to experience this ordering mayhem for yourself, watch this:
3) After years of “heart smart” Becel, I miss the taste of real butter. So much so that when I go to a restaurant, I always take a few of the little single servings home. I just found two in my purse. They had melted. Note to self: put plastic baggy in purse for butter-thieving occasions.
And, apparently, butter isn’t just for eating anymore. It has become a great medium for art. Honest. I just realized that my last blog had a bit about sculpting with cow poop. Today’s is about butter. I seem to be developing a cow fetish. Hm.
Here are some mouth-watering examples of butter art:
Photo Credits: Staypuft (ghostbusters.wikia.com), Homer (www.simpsonovi-dnes.estranky.cz), cow jumping over moon (edibleblog.com), Ben Franklin (endlesssimmer.com), farmer/cow/sheep (illusion.scene360.com), sow and piglets (dyscario.com), motorcycle cow (uk.search4eat.com), man with lion (thechive.com), cafeteria lady (thebaresquare.com), rose (edibleblog.com).
The Embiggens Project 
boy – learned a lot from you today – wish I could answer your questions–but one in particular has me intrigued too — why can’t we scratch the middle of our backs — guess that is what doorways are for (My dad always used to stand in a doorway and rub his back against the door jam)
Butter art is very popular here in Wisconsin!! I love that you steal the butters from restaurants! I’ve thought about stealing the jellies before because they always have such a wide variety and we usually only have grape at home but then I think better of it because how embarrassing it would be to be caught with a purse full of jelly!!! Way to have guts girl!!!!
Do you want me to mail you some stolen jam? lol.
man I’m a regular reader and have yet to see a blog dedicated to people named Doris (Timmy Hagan got a shout out and I didn’t) also I thought the pizza holes were to prevent the pizza from sticking to the lid AND life is way too short just eat the REAL butter!
Aw, Doris! I don’t want you to feel left out!! I will have to come up with a Doris-related post. Hey! You’re probably right about the pizza balls. I never thought of that.
It’s no picnic being very tall either. I’m part alien, part human and part terminator. I’m huge and have an extremely long head. It hits every human in the face, So you’re not alone dealing with a difficult height.
Gee, we have a lot in common. My head isn’t long, but it is oddly shaped. Hence, my user name–face like a frying pan.
Oddly shaped heads run in my family obviously! It’s okay, we’re still cool.
OUr 4th grader’s spelling list was all homophones. Sure enough fir/fur was on there. He asked me what a fir tree was so I pointed to one in our yard. He said, “Isn’t that an evergreen?” Yeah. Life should be simpler…..
haha…I wish I was bilingual. I’d love to know if other languages have this problem.
I studied enough French to know that is they do have this problem they don’t have it nearly as much as English does.
Hoping the 4th grade class is about out of homophones. I’m getting tired of them after 3 weeks straight. 😉
Dear flafp,
Don’t tell anyone – I’m the same height (short) as you. 🙂
Love Dotty xxx
Yay! Dothead, I knew you were a kindred spirit. We’re not short. Everyone else is just overly tall!!!
xo flafp.
Hi! I just thought you might be pleased to hear that you’ve come in as a second winner in the Just outside the box name the evil pink alien competition. If you want to receive your prize, you’ll need to contact me at marti68@tpg.com.au and let me know your postal address so I can send you a hand signed evil pink alien of your choice cartoon (here are the evil alien series to choose from http://justoutsidetheboxcartoon.com/category/b-universe/evil-aliens/ )
PS. Sorry for leaving a message here, but I couldn’t find an alternate way of contacting you.
Marti
Cool! Thank you!! I’ll send you an e-mail right away!!
How do you know what crap tastes like?
Hm. You got me there! Okay…I imagine that aspartame’s taste is close to that of crap. haha.
Hey! love your dotty sense of humor and your style. your posts had me in splits specially the one about benjamin franklin printed toilet paper.. and the rest too, of course..:):). looked out for your ‘about’ page.. couldn’t find, so writing here..looking forward to more from you!!
Thank you so much! Am worried about where my “about” page has gone to. It didn’t tell me it was taking a break.
maybe it just had ‘a bout’ of sneaking away..:)