Cousin Kyle

Kyle, my cousin, was a troubled kid. He was my fathers’ sisters’ son. I don’t know why he was troubled, and I don’t know what he did, but I do remember the summer I met Kyle.

He came to stay with us for a few months. I was so excited to have a new body in the house! “Someone new to play with,” was the first thought in my mind. I didn’t realize that my cousin was 16 and I was 5. He wasn’t interested in playing with me. He wanted to go smoke nasty smelling paper things out behind the bushes. I stayed away from him when he went there. I remembered those bushes all too well. I knew what people did when they went to hide behind bushes.

I wanted to impress my cousin; make him think I would be fun to play with. Maybe then he wouldn’t want to hide behind the bushes with his burning rolls of paper. I loved the swings. I played often on the playground and had calluses that would make a professional gymnast proud. Still, my favorite things at the playground were the swings. I used to lie on them on my stomach and swing back and forth, pretending I was Superman. The day I decided to impress my cousin, I really did impress him, but not the way I had planned.

I took off running toward the swings, arms over my head as if in a diving position. Suddenly, about 2 feet from the swing I was aiming at, I soared into the air. For a split second I felt like I was flying. Then I landed. Not with my stomach making contact with the swing, but rather with my head making a stunning, sickening thud when it contacted with the sand underneath. My legs hung limply over the swing, my butt in the air. I had soared right over the swing completely and landed on my skull on the other side.

Kyle and my brother both came racing over, asking me if I was ok. Once I could get the dirt out of my mouth, I grunted that I was all right. I claimed that it didn’t hurt at all, and even got up to show Kyle the cautious way to do the Superman, forcing back tears the whole time. Kyle marveled at how tough I was not to cry at landing directly on my noggin.

Kyle had to suddenly go home one day. I remember coming in the house with my mom yelling at him. I wanted to stay out of the whole thing, so I tip toed upstairs to my room. On the way I smelled a funny odor coming from the bathroom. It smelled like the funny smell my nose sensed every time Kyle went behind the bushes. I had never smelled it in the house before, except on Kyle’s clothes. I figured that was why mom was mad a Kyle. Years later, I found out I was right. Kyle never came to visit again.

The Horrible Success

In January of 2007, I planned a dinner party for several people. It was the first I had ever fully planned, and it was my way of saying thanks to the couple who invited us over the week before to share their dinner with them.


At their house, dinner was a buffet style. They had made tacos, and this way everyone could choose what they wanted to put in them. I loaded up my taco with a little of everything, topped it off with salsa and homemade guacamole from avocados I had brought over, and I watched my date do the same. When we sat down to eat, I asked him if he noticed anything was missing.


"No," he replied. "What do you mean?"


Feeling that it was a remarkably unobservant remark for a veteran Police Officer of 13 years, I pointed out the one obvious fact he had failed to notice.


"There's no meat."


"What?!" Incredulous, Pete looked at me, down at his taco, and back at me. I could see him thinking for a second. "You're right!"


"I think they're vegetarians," I said quietly. George and Rachel were still putting together their tacos, so that moment of privacy was the only moment I would be able to point out my simple observation without incurring an uncomfortable silence.


"So," Pete said in a much less tactful way when they sat down near us, "you're vegetarians, huh?"


"Oh," George and Rachel proclaimed. "We forgot to tell you. Yes, we've lived a Vegan lifestyle for the past 3 years now," Rachel explained to us, "but I was a Vegan long before that. It just took me a while to convince George." She kissed him sweetly on the cheek while his mouth was wrapped in a big bite around his taco. He smiled a bit.


"Yeah," he concluded after chewing his bite and clearing his mouth. "I wasn't easy to convince."


Before I realized it, the night was nearly over and we were headed home. I couldn't seem to stop myself from speaking when I invited them over for dinner the following week. I'd never cooked a Vegan meal in my life.


I started cooking that Saturday at 9:00 am. It had taken me all week to decide on a menu, and then I discovered that there were so many options that I couldn't decide between them. The final decisions were left to Pete. The dinner party had grown from 4 people to 5 couples, so I knew that no matter the menu, I would have something for everyone. Still, the majority of food was to be Vegan by design.


The first thing I worked on were the appetizers. I chopped the stems and crumbled the bread crumbs for the stuffed mushrooms, wrapped the brie rounds in the Phillo dough with walnuts and Jalapeno Pepper Jelly, and sent Pete to the store for more pears. The baked brie was to be served with apple and pear slices along side a variety of crackers.


Then I got to work on the salad. What Pete's sister described as a "California Salad" is precisely what I made. I started out with the fancy lettuce variety – arugula, baby spinach – the like. Then I tossed on some chopped walnuts (left over from the baked brie) some Feta, also to be used in the lasagna, some sweet yellow peppers, later to be cooked in with the vegetarian lasagna, and some raspberry vinaigrette dressing. It was wonderful! I served this to the guests as soon as they stopped chowing down on the appetizers and chit chatting over the days events, a good half hour after the first couple arrived. They also turned out to be the last couple to arrive. The rest of the group except Rodney (minus the girlfriend) cancelled at the last minute.


Then I made the HAND ROLLED lasagna – two different kinds. I had the traditional meat and tomato, but also the spinach and cheese. It was very good, I'll admit. I had only made it once before. While the guests worked on their salads, the Lasagna was baking in the oven, making the whole house smell wonderful. Noses turned to the air, sniffing wildly as George mopped up the last bit of Raspberry Vinaigrette with a baby spinach leaf.


Next I tossed the ingredients together for my own Cherry Cobbler Cake – a whopping 4 ingredients. This cake is simple, fast, and always a party favorite. I threw that in the oven just as the Lasagna came out and the guests were setting down their salad bowls. Each piece of lasagna came out as a beautiful presentation, and having previous experience as a food server, it was nothing for me to carry three plates at once. Pete carried ours. Ever the polite hostess, I even offered choices.


I had plated two servings of the vegetarian lasagna for George and Rachel, knowing full well from the previous week that they had been Vegan for years. The chances of that changing in less than one week were slim to none.

"Would you like the Spinach lasagna, or the traditional?"


George and Rachel exchanged quick glances. Rachel spoke up first.


"We'll try the traditional."


Agog, I had Pete hand the two plates of traditional lasagna to our guests, while the third I handed to Rodney. The two plates of Spinach lasagna went to Pete and myself. Our confusion was obvious, I guess. George offered an explanation.


"We went to a friend's house on Wednesday. He had been cooking ribs all day long and it had been so long since I had ribs. I said I would take a bite of one just to see how they tasted. All Rachel had to do was taste the BBQ sauce on the ribs and we were both hooked. I suppose I should have told you guys sooner, but it slipped my mind. We're not vegetarians anymore, by the way." His fork cut into his lasagna and he removed a bite sized piece. "Sorry." He emptied the contents into his mouth and his face lit up. "But if I hadn't gone back to meat on Wednesday, I would have now! This is incredible!"


"It is," Rachel agreed after swallowing her first bite. "I've GOT to get this recipe from you! I've never seen Lasagna look like this before. It's so... well, pretty!"


Before everyone finished eating their lasagna, I claimed to have some errand in the kitchen I needed to attend to. The smell of the Cherry Cobbler Cake wafted through the house when I turned off the oven and opened the door to allow it to cool.


The final touch was the Poached Pears. I'd never had poached pears before and I knew it sounded good, so I was curious. I threw together the ingredients in a sauce pot and got it boiling. While waiting, I collected the empty and polished lasagna plates. Had they been any more spotless I would have accused them of licking the plates clean. Then I returned to the kitchen where I peeled, cored, and boiled the pears, but while they were boiling, I garnished the desert plates.


The desert plates were garnished with Raspberry Syrup and Chocolate Syrup swirled in one corner around an orange slice and a raw apple slice. The cake went in another corner, the poached pear next to that. A single scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream finished the presentation, and it came out looking like a miniature work of art. When the desert was served, I got the biggest compliment of the evening.


"This is the best desert I've had in so many years," Rachael proclaimed.


"Everything has been so wonderful!" Pete said.


"Wow, Amanda – you've outdone yourself here. Wonderful." Rodney thanked me.


"I'm so full I feel like I cant swallow any more, and yet I cant stop eating!" George cut a slice of pear off with his spoon and tasted it gingerly. "Oh Wow," he said in a hushed tone. "This is the best desert I've ever tasted." George smiled up at me and then looked at Rachel. "Why don't you ever cook like this?"



Rachel's face fell in embarrassment and she refused to look at me for the rest of the night. She didn't say much after that, and it was clear that she was extremely hurt by what George had said. While I was openly embarrassed for her, inwardly I was stunned that my food had garnished such a compliment.


It was a crowning achievement; a great and horrible success, and an overall wonderful moment for me while also being a most humiliating moment for Rachel. If only the 8 people invited had showed up rather than just the three that did, maybe the comment would have been lost in random conversation.

There were certainly PLENTY of leftovers. To this day I've not made another batch of Vegetarian lasagna though. I know I probably wouldn't eat it if I did. It was good- very good. I just got rather burned out on it.


George and Rachel never came over again, and we never were invited to their house for dinner after that. We rarely saw them at all, and the few times we did, it was clear that Rachel still had rather hurt feelings. She hardly spoke to me.


Part of me wonders if she thought my purpose was to out-do her taco dinner we had at their house, but I know that wasn't the point at all. My only purpose was to make something I would enjoy making and that people would enjoy eating. I wanted to be creative and I saw my moment to try something new.


It was, in the end, a horribly successful dinner party that I'll never forget. I've got money on the fact that Rachel won't forget it anytime soon, either. I still feel bad for that one.

Rodney, Myself and George.

My 4 Most Embarrassing Moments

Yesterday I posted a story about a time when I scared the pants off of someone... Well, turn about is fair play, as they say - is it not? As a moment of lapsed sanity and against my better judgement, I'm going to tell you all about a time or two that life got the better of me and had me eating Humble Pie.

In life, we all have the moments when we see an attractive man or woman who's attention we want to get. More often than we would care to admit, we've tripped or done something incredibly embarrassing and left the object of our attention doubled over in laughter. Honestly, that happens to me about 80% of the time I try to get a man's attention. It's no wonder I'm so shy - I know I'll do something stupid.






One of the most horrifying moments I've ever lived through was at Universal Studios CA when I was just a kid. Mom and I were waiting to get on the tram ride through the back lot (back before the entire park changed into nothing but lame 3D shows seen from standard theater seats and City Walk didn't exist). She saw this great, realistic statue of Frankenstein. I remember the statue towered over my dad. Today's translation in my memory would be around 7' tall. Its hands were as big as John Wayne's. If the statue was real, it could have palmed a basketball like an apple. The statue scared me a bit, but I had no idea why. I was around 8 or 9 I believe.


Mom asked me to stand next to Frankenstein for a photo. She pulled out her camera, played with the focus for a minute, and aimed at me. It's a good thing the camera strap was around her neck, because suddenly she screamed and dropped the camera. She reached forward and snatched me by the wrist, yanking hard, just about the time I saw a big green hand come to a rest on my shoulder. I screamed and looked up at Frankenstein, who looked straight down at me, smiling. The "statue" was no statue!


I screamed and ran into my mothers arms. Instinctively we ran a few steps away like a mother bear and her cub running from a panther. Then my mother turned around, ready to do some damage - again, like a mother bear. My heart pounded and her 'be warned' "wooo hoo hoo hoo..." that began incredibly high pitched died out slowly at a normal octave. She shoved me behind her and I watched from under her elbow.


Suddenly she burst out laughing. All of this had taken place in somewhere between 1 and 2 seconds. I think somewhere in the beginning I screamed as loudly as I ever have.


Frankenstein felt terrible. He told my mother he was sorry where nobody else could hear him (characters aren't supposed to speak) and he tried to shake my hand. Still terrified beyond belief, I remained hidden behind Mom. She coached me out and I shook his hand. I tried to dash back behind her again, but she wouldn't hear of it.


"It's just a man in makeup," she said to me, as if she never yelled or panicked along side me. "I still want a picture."



I turned and looked up. As my eyes scanned from their natural view level of his belt buckle, I took in every inch of the massive towering tree trunk before me. My eyes grew wide, I'm sure. He reached out to take my hand so he could walk me back to the original posing point, and I screamed again. Finally he made a very smart move and squatted down. He still towered over me, but he was no longer taller than any human I'd ever seen in my life. I grew a little braver and hugged Frankenstein when he gestured, and everything was ok.


Somewhere in a box buried in the back of a closet in a large house in Northern Utah, there's a 3 inch novelty button with a picture of Frankenstein and myself inside.








Back when AOL chat rooms were all the rage, I used to get into the rooms all the time. One girl in particular had a signature that she used every time she signed out of a chat room. She would say her goodbyes and then put in the following text:


3...
2...
1...
POOF!


Just like that, she would be gone. She would sign out for the night and that was that. One day I decided to mimic this idea. I wasn't having a lot of fun online that day and decided to go play with Cookie instead. I hit the 3 and then the ellipses and pressed enter. I hit the 2 and entered the ellipses. I hit the 1 and then the ellipses. When the time came, rather than type in pooF, I ended up typing "poop" and pressing enter before I noticed my mistake. The very busy chat room fell silent. Not a single line crossed the screen. I typed in "oops" and pressed enter.


The chat room erupted in uncontrollable laughter. Every line filled with LOL or ROTF or the sparsely used ROTFLMAO. I laughed until I hurt. To this day, if I'm having a bad day, all I have to do is think about that one idiotic moment and how I made people all over the world laugh, and I can't help but at least chuckle to myself. It never gets old.








While I was living in Arizona, all of my friends in the neighborhood apartment complex had decided to have a BBQ at the pool one day. I was late coming home from work because my employee evaluation went better than expected. I had been given a raise and asked to stay late in order to receive an appreciation award. (I still believe it was the creepy old guy trying to get into my pants).


When I got home, I jumped into my swimming suit and grabbed my things to run to the pool with. I gathered my cigarettes, lighter, towel and sunblock, bundled them all up inside my towel, and took off. I couldn't help but notice that my very good looking neighbor down the way was standing out on his half circle upstairs balcony smoking a cigarette. I strategically pulled my lighter close to the edge of the towel so that I could drop it at the precise moment I chose.


I took off for the pool, jogging down the sidewalk. I didn't exactly have the figure of the Bay Watch babes, having just bounced back from starvation, but I still wanted to get his attention. Boy, did I manage that!


At the precise moment I wanted to drop my lighter, only about 10 paces before his balcony, I nearly lost my footing. The lighter slipped loose and flew through the air. It bounced off his patio just inches from his fingers and landed in the grass far off to the right. I wasn't concerned with getting to the BBQ anymore. I just wanted to get out of sight. I knew without looking that the handsome neighbor was looking right at me, wondering what I was doing. I jogged out into the grass to retrieve my lighter from where it landed.


About a yard before I reached the lighter, my foot slipped in the wet grass and everything I had went flying through the air. I landed on my backside and slid through the grass as easily as if it were a slip and slide. Cigarettes rained all around me, my towel ended up in the bushes, and my sunblock opened on its way south. When it landed, a stream of lotion came squirting out with force, shot through the air, and landed in an arc over my head and streaming through my hair.


I was facing away from the balcony, and even the lotion gluing my hair around my ears couldn't stop the sound of laughter coming from behind me, but it didn't sound like it was coming from the balcony.



"I was having such a horrible day," he said from just a few feet behind me. "Not to make light of the grass stains on your swim suit, but my day just got a whole lot better." He gave me a hand and helped to gather my things. He asked if I was ok, and my shy side over reacted. I reached up to push my hair back behind my ear and felt the ooze of lotion between my fingers. Nearly retching with the embarrassment and shame, I hung my head, told him thanks for helping me, and ran straight back home. I figured the BBQ would still be going after dark. The grass stains on my bikini bottom and legs were NOT something I wanted to try explaining at a BBQ.








Last July I had a call to open a roof access at work. Just as I came around the corner to meet the A.C. repair guy and guide him to the stairs, my eyes locked with a GORGEOUS man I'd never seen before. He looked to me like Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid. He was riding up the escalator right in my direction. Still harboring some 'shy' side to me, I looked away and waited for the AC guy to show up. Then I looked back at Prince Eric - he was carrying a repair bag. Prince Eric WAS the AC guy.


Knowing my face was already red from being caught staring at him, I turned and told him over my shoulder "This way, Sir," and kept on going. I hit the door at almost a trot, leaving him panting up behind me. I headed straight for the stairs and bounded up two at a time. He stayed right behind me. At 6'2" he wasn't exactly short legged. He had no troubles.


Suddenly I took a false step. I felt myself starting to fall backwards and knew I would end up breaking my neck and landing in a heap at the bottom of the steps. My first thought should have been "Oh, I hope we have good workers comp," but in all reality, my only thought was "I knew I was going to do something stupid in front of Prince Charming." It was too late to fight the fall, I was half way down.


Arms reached out from nowhere and caught me around the waist. He set me back on my feet and just like that I continued climbing the stairs - as mindless as a robot or as steadily as a slinky in reverse. I made certain it wasn't obvious that my face was now purple from being embarrassed and my heart was once more thumping between my ears, threatening to give me away. I couldn't wait to get him up to the roof hatch and say good bye.


It didn't dawn on me until 10 minutes after I let him on the roof that I hadn't even bothered to say thanks. I snuck back to the stairs and half way up the ladder to the roof hatch. I attached a note to a step that simply said "Thanks for catching me on the stairs," and then climbed back down and split. I wouldn't show my face until I knew he wasn't around anymore.


We all do it, we just don't all admit to it.


Now it's your turn. What's YOUR most embarrassing moments?