Tag: hooray

feelings

the princess & the space shuttle

abby mumford

i was trolling through twitter looking for blog ideas. adriana suggested i write more book reviews, which triggered an idea, but before i could get into the office to write that post that idea was obliterated.

let’s back up a minute. once upon a time…

*the sun rises* *an alarm clock screams* *abby wakes to an overcast, but not yet rainy, day*

somehow, despite the gloomy morning and late bedtime the previous night, i manage to finish my morning routine 20 minutes ahead of schedule. (i know! great day, right?) i skip out the door and head to the bus stop. i’m almost there when i see the shuttle pull up (note: i like to call it the shuttle because it makes me think i’m boarding a spaceship and isn’t that infinitely more interesting than a bus? yup, i work on mars.) so i’m at the intersection and have the stop lights working for me, but still, the shuttle revs its jet engine and i’m forced to make a mad dash (frogger style) across the street.

i catch it.

as i hop on, i see the little girl who’s often on the same bus. she looks at me, grins, and turns to her father. “look, it’s the princess.”

her father laughs. “i guess you’re a princess,” he says.

“only on thursdays,” i say.

this little girl, who is between the ages of two and three, and i, we’ve never spoken, only exchanged smiles, so i’m not sure where she got this idea from. but hey, who am i to argue? if i can take a space shuttle to work, then her imagination’s allowed to place me amongst the stars.

feelings

the art of lying

abby mumford

i was in killington, vermont this past weekend with a group comprised of my high school friends and their husbands/BFs. i’ve been snowboarding since college, but i prefer to stick to the easy slopes, especially this year since this was my first trip where i had my own gear. *cue euphoria* i wanted to stay on the greens (beginner slopes) and blues (intermediate slopes) because i wasn’t sure how my skills would react to the absence of sub-par rental equipment.

nearing the end of the day, instead of going down a slope we’d previously done, four of us split off to try a new run, took a wrong turn, and ended up halfway across the mountain. bud and jaime quickly consulted the map.

bud: we’re going to take a blue to another blue to a black to a blue to a green and then, the lodge.

abby: *squeaks* a black?

(sidenote: a black color coded trail is for experts. i haven’t done anything past a blue on a board.)

bud and jaime exchanged a look. bud looked back down at the map and over to me: ok, new route, all blues.

and off we went.

except, we didn’t take all blues. bud had lied. we took the original path he had suggested. that was the fastest way down and with the pouring rain and sore muscles setting in, it was the way we had to go. yes, kids, i went down a black diamond trail and lived to tell the tale. granted, i went about it in a sissy manner and grated my way down the steep portion instead of executing proper turns, but hey, i had survival on the brain. i merely wanted to come back in one piece. so, mission accomplished. and snowboarding outside my comfort zone? mission further accomplished.

later, we were all safely ensconced in the warm and, more importantly, dry condo and were enjoying some post exercise cocktails and appetizers. the heat from the fireplace plus the warmth of nine people tucked into a small space sent the temperatures inside soaring.

POP.

i almost choked on the carrot i was eating the noise was so loud and unexpected. but the ringing in my ears sounded vaguely familiar. after a second of thinking, i was able to place why. and then, i almost choked again, but this time it was on my own laughter. you see, julie and jaime’s birthdays are in march and we were planning a small, secret celebration. balloons had been blown up and hidden upstairs, but you know how heat rises and rubber expands and all that science-y stuff? yeah, one of the balloons popped and our secret was about to blow up in our faces.

with everyone staring at each other — us in the know with guilty looks on our faces and jaime and julie with confused looks — a lie slipped out of carrie’s mouth. “it was the pot. i’m filling it with hot water for the pasta.”

neither jaime nor julie bought it.

caitlin quickly covered. “i think it was this bag of chips.” that plus the guilty look on her face sufficed. both birthday girls believed it.

two lies (ok, three) in one day. one got a girl out of her comfort zone and into the realization that she can handle it when scary slaps her in the face while the other kept the surprise a secret until the big reveal later that night.

i’m beginning to think that perhaps the art of lying is merely the power of persuasion incognito.

general

spring has sprung

abby mumford

in the form of a bulgarian tradition.

in case you need a refresher, you can read about my first foray into my bulgarian roots HERE.

once again, adriana has tied me up with her foreign traditions thus transforming my winter blahs into sunshine and flowers. i mean, this is a much better way to celebrate spring than with old puxatawney phil. sorry phil, but those bulgarians get accessories when all you provide us with is a fleeting shadow and a hole in the ground. i can’t support that local custom, so i’m going global with this one.

thanks again for widening my horizons and teaching me the ways of the world, adi! i feel both stylish and cultured.

feelings

#teamlucky

abby mumford

gather round, kids. it’s story time with aunt abby.

once upon a time some peeps were tweeting.

kelly

and karla

it might have been their close proximity to one another (ish. florida’s a big state!) or perhaps it was their shared sense of humor or maybe it was a result of too much sunshine, but they hatched a plan. a writing plan. to create a story and volley it back and forth with each one trying to trump and stump the other.

they blogged and they bantered and they chuckled and they chatted and they wrote and they wrote and they wrote and it the midst of it all, i fell in love.

*gasps, sighs, cries, waves of horror from the audience*

i know, i know, calm down. you’d know if i had a BF in real life. but it’s a fictional love. wait, no, my adoration of lucky isn’t fake, it’s just that he’s fake, well, no, wait, not like silicone breasts fake, but like fiction fake which isn’t false at all, but really, he’s not someone i could take home to meet mom and dad. (though i could tell them, and YOU, to click on kelly’s and karla’s names above so you too can read and know and love lucky or harper or owen or grace or truman).

so yeah, anyways, LUCKY. he rules. and how does kelly react to my outpouring of love for a character borne of hers and karla’s minds?

first, she gives me a cameo.

and then, SHE MAKES ME A T-SHIRT. and by t-shirt, i don’t mean a hanes t-shirt base with some puffy paint on it, though, come to think of it, that would be rad.

*gasps, sighs, cries, waves of jealousy from the audience*

you know what? let me just SHOW YOU what #teamlucky brings to the table.

my reaction upon opening the package (TWSS).

the front of the shirt (so don’t even think about stealing it, yo).

a little gem there on the sleeve.

isn’t it amazing!?!? and you haven’t even seen the best part of it, the back. i think this deserves a drum roll.

*audience obliges, floors/desks/tables rumble*

and now, i present to you without any further interruptions, THE AWESOMESAUCINESS!

what’s that? you want a close up?

isn’t it fantastic? isn’t she talented? aren’t i SO LUCKY? i bow down to her and her overflowing generosity and creativity.

*round of applause for kelly*

another point for team twitter. it’s keeping me well dressed.

feelings

happy birthday, EVM

abby mumford

the last of my siblings’ birthdays is that of my younger sister. it’s the only one that falls on a blog posting day, so the baby sister E gets a full post to herself. how very last child of her. :) i’ll refrain from singing because that would blow out your ear drums, shatter the glass windows, and cause a volcano to erupt somewhere far from here. i don’t want to do that to you or to her as she turns 19.

when i turned 19, there were parades and parties and a prince that popped out of a fudge cake. that didn’t happen when you turned 19? what did?

in real life, when i turned 19, the year was 2000.  a new millennium for my last year of being a teenager. there weren’t any hoverboards ala back to the future, but i was hovering on the edge of independence. i was starting my second semester in college, so i was over the scariness of leaving home and enjoying the perks of collegiate life. i knew people. i was invited to parties now, i didn’t just crash them. lacrosse season was about to hit its stride. i took my first creative writing class. the words were stilted and awkward, much like me. i started to understand exactly how awesome my parents were. the friendships i’d tentatively formed first semester solidified. i left campus mid week. i took snowboarding lessons on a mountain in virginia, which is truly only a big hill. simply stated, the swan song of my teenage years was sweet, tough, uplifting, silly, serious, awesome, and surprising. i was turning into an adult with each class, practice, decision, game, lesson, and party.

i wish for the same things for sister E, but in ways the delight and surprise and sparkle and are coordinated just for her. she may have surpassed me in height, but she’ll always be my kid sister.

happy last year of your teens, E. go get ’em.

 

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