let's talk about Hardees.

Everybody has their favorite fast food restaurant. Sure, they’re not the highest quality in the world, but when you’re looking for something quick and cheap, where else do you turn? Of course, not all fast food is created equal. Sadly, I’ve done my fair share of fast food research, and in my humble opinion, the best is (drumroll?) Hardees.

Now, let me qualify “fast food.” I’m referring to places like Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, and the like. Qdoba, Noodles & Company, Panera, etc are a different breed, so just forget about them. We’re going to be talking Hardees.

In my (numerous) stories about Brookings, I’ve told you about how my siblings and I constantly badgered my poor grandparents into taking us to McDonalds for Happy Meals. While I did enjoy a good chicken nugget from time to time, it was the toys (and definitely not the food) that kept us coming back to McDonalds.

In those days, our Brookings fast food options were limited to McDonalds, Burger King, Dairy Queen, Taco John’s, Subway, and Hardees. Grandma Lorraine and Grandpa Harvey preferred Hardees out of all these options, so we’d throw them a bone once in a while and go to Hardees. The older I got and the less Happy Meal toys mattered to me, the more I appreciated Hardees. Their curly fries and hot ham and cheese sandwiches were right up my alley, and Hardees never made me feel as gross as McDonald’s did – you know the feeling.

Hardees became a regular in our fast food rotation, but not just in Brookings: one of my earliest memories of my Grandpa Darwin, weirdly enough, involves the Watertown Hardees. I was awfully young (three? four?), and I was in Watertown with Dad and Grandpa. Dad had a truck to pick up in Watertown, so Grandpa had driven us there. Dad was going to take the truck home, and Grandpa said, “Do you want to ride home with your dad, or do you want to come to Hardees and have breakfast with me?” Needless to say, Dad drove home alone.

Like we do with so many things, I completely took Hardees for granted. I assumed it would always be there, ready to serve me up a delicious hot ham and cheese sandwich. But then came the day that it wasn’t. When I was a junior in high school (circa 2003), a small restaurant chain called Z’kota (don’t ask me) bought the Hardees in Brookings, Sioux Falls, and Watertown – basically, the only three places I ever went where there was Hardees potential.

Meh.

Z’Kota was mediocre at best, and I resigned myself to having to look for Hardees in weird places.

The first Hardees I came across during that dark post-Z’kota takeover era was the one in Milbank, SD. Milbank doesn’t have much going for it… except Hardees. In October 2004, Mom and I drove to Morris, MN to visit a dinky little college in the middle of nowhere (and the rest is history). Our route took us through Milbank, which had the first Hardees I had seen in almost a year. It must’ve been destiny.

Not that I was a huge traveler in high school, but I could only find Hardees in two other places: Pierre and Moorhead. Both trips to Hardees were bright spots in otherwise lackluster trips. I was in Pierre - which is a godforsaken place, and I advise against making a trip there unless you absolutely must – for state oral interp. (I was so cool in high school.) We did not get a superior rating, so we drowned our sorrows at the Pierre Hardees. As for Moorhead, Dad and I were there in February 2005 on a college tour of Concordia. At the end of the tour, Dad and I located – joy of joys! – a Hardees, and over curly fries, he asked me what I thought of Concordia. “Didn’t like it,” I said firmly. “Good,” Dad said. “I didn’t like it either, but I wanted to hear it from you first.” My bone with Concordia was that it seemed way too uptight: there was a 10 o’clock curfew, for crying out loud. I never had a curfew in high school – why would I want to have one in college?

I ended up going to college at the U of M Morris, where there were no curfews, no limits on visitors, and where floors in the dorms were co-ed. Concordia would’ve been scandalized. Of course, I would periodically make the trip from Morris to Arlington, and each and every time, I’d stop at Hardees.

When I graduated from Morris, there was absolutely no reason to go through Milbank any more. I wasn’t sure when I’d get to Hardees again, but it wasn’t on the top of my “things to be concerned about” list: I was a bit more interested in, you know, getting a job.

After college, I bounced around from Denver to New Orleans to the Minneapolis area. It wasn’t until I was moving from a Minneapolis suburb to Minneapolis itself that I accidentally stumbled across a Hardees. It was June 2010, and James and I were exhausted from a day of moving and unpacking. We were driving to St Paul for some reason when all of the sudden, I glimpsed that old familiar logo on the other side of the interstate. “JAMES!” I yelled. “HARDEES!” We wound our way back to find the Hardees – it was in one of those little weird suburbs that you don’t’ even know is a suburb smushed in between Minneapolis and St Paul. It was a pretty skeezy Hardees, so we only ate there once or twice – but it was a Hardees nonetheless.

Not too long after the miraculous discovery of the Minneapolis Hardees, I learned that Hardees had bought back all its old restaurants from Z’Kota. Hardees was returning to Brookings, Watertown, and Sioux Falls. That was all good and well, but how often was I in any of those towns? Well, wouldn’t you know, I moved to Sioux Falls in September 2011 – and my first job back in Sioux Falls was practically right across the street from a Hardees.

I’ve been living in the Land of Hardees for more than two years now, and honestly, I don’t go there as much as I thought I would. I only get one thing at Hardees – that would be the hot ham and cheese sandwich – and you can only have so many of those.

They are delicious, even though they never look half
as nice as the sandwiches in the ads.

So even though I don’t eat there all that often, it’s nice to know I have the option. When I need something quick and easy, I’m awfully glad that Hardees is around.

let's talk about salamanders.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved amphibians and reptiles. Maybe it was because I had quite a few Kermit the Frog toys as a kid, or maybe it was because I lived in the country and the springtime frogs were a lot more fun to play with than the lazy farm cats. Maybe it was all the time I spent watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a child. Who knows. In any case, amphibians and reptiles were right up my alley.

Turtle power!

While turtles were always contenders for the top of the list, my favorites were always salamanders. Call me crazy, but I think they are ADORABLE.

Look at that face!

Whenever it rained, we had an abundance of salamanders in the yard. Who knows what first inspired me to pick one up, but salamanders and I have been friends ever since (except for the one that tried to bite me, but “bite” is a pretty strong word… the one that tried to gum me, I guess we can say).

Salamanders loved the paved roads, too. I remember them lounging all over the road as my dad tried to drive us to our babysitter’s house. I say “tried” because he would have to creep along, urged by his children not to run over any salamanders. A couple of times, he even let us out of the pickup so we could scoop up the salamanders and deposit them safely in the ditch.

Like any child who loves a certain creature, I decided that I needed a salamander as a pet. I had a small aquarium from my days as a fish owner (remember how badly I failed at that?), so I set out to find a new resident for my little plastic aquarium.

How well did that work? The catching of the salamander was no problem. I just had to wait for it to rain, and the salamanders would come out in droves. We’d find them relaxing on the concrete, not seeming to care about the family dog (who, in turn, didn’t really care about them). All I had to do was choose my salamander (which usually ended up being the one that thrashed around the least when I picked it up). However, my pet salamanders never lasted longer than a day or two… not because I accidentally killed them, but because I ended up feeling bad for them and in turn set them free. This was mostly thanks to my mother, who would say things like “don’t you think his family misses him? I bet they’re really worried. You should let him go.” Well played, Mom.

My favorite salamander story (what, you don’t have a favorite salamander story?) took place in college. It was my senior year, and I lived in a junky house on Third Street with my friends Sara and Nate. It was early spring, and it was raining as I rode my bike home one evening. Along the way, I spotted a salamander on the sidewalk, so naturally, I picked it up and brought it home to show my roommates. When I walked in the door, I found Sara, Nate, and James all gathered in the living room. I presented my salamander: Sara said, “CUTE!” and immediately came over to hold it, while James and Nate both said, “EWW! GET IT OUT OF HERE!” and relocated to the kitchen.

While my days of trying to keep salamanders as pets are over (which can be blamed in part on James), I will still happily go outside and look for them after a rainfall. You should try it sometime! You might make a new (albeit slimy) friend!

top ten Tuesday: songs from James's and my wedding.

As I’m sure you remember, James and I got married in July in what has been widely referred to as the BEST WEDDING EVER. (I’m not just blowing my own horn here. People have really said that!) What makes the BEST WEDDING EVER? In our case, it was a combination of three very important things: great people, a great sense of humor, and great music. And we had all three in spades.

All three of which can be found in this picture.

For this particular blog post, I’m going to focus on the final of my three great wedding components: the music. I grew up in a musical family, and I spent a solid twelve years (fifth grade through college graduation) in some kind of musical ensemble. James is a trumpet player and a music teacher. Needless to say, the music in our wedding was incredibly important to us.

You may have figured this out by now, but I’m not a terribly traditional person. I wanted James’s and my wedding to be just what we wanted it to be, especially when it came to the music. No “Here Comes the Bride” for me, thank you!

My dad has been playing in a brass quintet for years now, and luckily, they were more than happy to provide the music for our ceremony. Dad’s quintet is made up of his old band director, two friends, sometimes James, and himself, and he recruited his sister, his brother, and one of our friends from college to all play. That way, Dad could fulfill his official father-of-the-bride duties while ensuring that all the parts were covered. Plus, the more people we had to play, the more music we would have – they could tag-team so no one would get worn out! It was brilliant!

The brass would play for the prelude, processional, special music, recessional, and postlude. At the dance, we had the BEST DJ EVER. Her name was Andrea, and she knew just what to play to keep the crowd engaged. She adhered strictly to my do-not-play list – which really was only one song: “Amazed” by Lonestar – even when our bridal party members Nate and Sara begged for it. (They ended up getting their way: Nate and Sara recited it to us as part of their toast. It was AWESOME.)

"I'm amazed by... YOUUUUU"

This all boils down to the fact that our wedding music was outstanding. There are way too many fantastic songs to mention, but I’ve picked the ten songs with the best wedding-related stories (presented in the order in which they were played). With that rather long-winded introduction, I’d like to present the top ten songs from our wedding!

The Imperial March

You read that right: we played the Imperial March at our wedding. Let me give you a little background. We got married at First Lutheran Church in Brookings, and we did so for two reasons: the official reason is that this is where my parents got married, and the unofficial reason is because it’s Touchdown Jesus.

TOUCHDOWN!

Anyway, it turned out that Touchdown Jesus had very strict rules when it came to the ceremony – especially the music. Any music had to be pre-approved by the wedding coordinator, and they were loath to approve anything secular. This wasn’t a huge problem for us because all our music was instrumental – no pesky lyrics to get us in trouble. We submitted the brass’s lineup: Beethoven’s Ninth (Ode to Joy), Nearer My God to Thee, Down by the Riverside, Just a Closer Walk. All good church songs, and we were approved with no problem. However, I’d had this great idea… not just great, but BRILLIANT. Remember how I’d mentioned that one of the most important parts of a great wedding is a sense of humor? This is the perfect example. I wanted to get the wedding off on the right foot; to show our guests that we were there to have fun, celebrate, and not take ourselves too seriously. My idea was this: the bridal party would all walk down the aisle to Canon in D: a lovely wedding standard. BUT! When it came time for Dad to walk me down the aisle, the brass would explode into the Imperial March: the very same theme that introduces Darth Vader. They would then play it off as a mistake and return to Canon in D. I pitched the idea to James (loved it) and Dad (loved it), who in turn pitched it to the brass (loved it) and our pastor (loved it). Pastor Loren agreed to be the one who would call the brass out, which would make it even funnier. As far as getting permission from the church, we all agreed that it would be better to ask forgiveness that permission. What were they going to do – unmarry us?! So we didn’t tell the church. We were almost busted when the brass played a snatch of the Imperial March at the rehearsal, but it flew right over the substitute wedding coordinator’s head. On the day itself, Dad and I stood giggling while we waited to walk down the aisle. We collapsed in a fit of laughter as we heard the brass play those infamous first notes. 

Pastor Loren called out, “Hold on, hold on! Either I’m at the wrong wedding, or we’ve got the wrong music!” He stepped over to the brass and dug around on their stands. “Canon in D, part two!” The brass resumed the canon, and Dad and I were off. Best walk down the aisle EVER.

Olympic Fanfare and Theme

When I was dreaming up this wedding, one of the very first things I set my sights on was the Olympic Fanfare and Theme as our recessional. I’ve LOVED this song ever since we played it in band when I was a junior in high school, and I couldn’t think of a better recessional. James was completely on board, so I asked Dad if the brass would be willing to do it. Of course they were, so he talked to their arranger and got the Olympic Fanfare written up for quintet. I heard the piece soon after they’d gotten it, and while it was nice, it wasn’t what I was looking for. It had none of the fancy thundering stuff that I loved so much. So what then? Dad suggested I talk to my uncle Mike. Mike is Dad’s older brother, and he can do just about anything. He’s very musical; he was in the army band for more than thirty years, and he’s going to grad school for education. Mike was more than happy to arrange the Olympic Fanfare, and he had it done in no time. The brass put it all together, and Dad was so excited to debut it (even though he was the father of the bride, he snuck back to the brass and got to play during the ceremony). When James and I walked down the aisle to the Olympic Fanfare, it was – and I don’t use this word lightly – epic. 

Best wedding recessional EVER.

Chariots of Fire

Now that we’d figured out the ceremony music, we needed to start on the reception. We had our DJ all lined up, and she was ready for whatever we threw at her. First of all, we needed a song for the wedding party’s grand entrance into the reception hall. James and I had a non-traditional wedding party: three girls and two guys on my side, five guys on his. Normally, the attendants walk in the reception hall in girl/guy pairs (as they usually do in the church, but we sent them down single-file). We knew we were going to have them do something silly, so what better way than in a larger group? We divided our attendants into groups of three, three, and four and informed them that they were going to be running in slow motion to “Chariots of Fire.” Luckily for us, all of our attendants were good sports, so they all hammed it up for us – I’ve never seen better slow-motion running in my life. 

Best wedding party grand entrance song EVER.

Ring of Fire

I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that I wasn’t about to go for some drippy slow dance for James’s and my first dance. We were swing dancing partners all through college, so it was only fitting that we swing dance for our first dance. I originally proposed “String of Pearls,” but it didn’t take me long to set my sights on “Ring of Fire” instead. James was a little reluctant, but I couldn’t think of a better first dance song: after all, James used to sing that song when he was in Funky Gumbo. Plus, how many people have Johnny Cash as their first dance? Answer: not enough. James relented, and we set to work practicing our moves. We were a little rusty, but it turns out that swing dancing is just like riding a bike. Sure, James dropped me on my head a time or two, but that’s why we practiced on carpet. When the big day arrived, we danced like champions. The flips were perfect, and my dress (which was a second dress, as my wedding dress was too old and long to dance in) was the best swing dancing dress I could’ve imagined.

Very twirly. Even the DJ – who has, no doubt, seen hundreds of first dances – said that we were the best she’d ever seen. So now James and I can officially say that “our” song is “Ring of Fire.” Best first dance EVER.

The Way You Look Tonight

The father/daughter dance wasn’t going to be a slow dance either – and Dad was fine with it. He likes to jitterbug, so I searched about for a good jitterbug-able father/daughter song. Turns out that’s easier said than done. So many father/daughter songs are waaaaaaay too cheesy (think all those country songs about daughters), and an awful lot of the jitterbug-type songs didn’t seem like they fit the occasion. Even though it can be found at every wedding ever, I chose “The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra. But I suppose there’s a reason everybody has it at their wedding: it’s sweet, but not overly so, and it’s peppy enough for those of us who don’t like slow dancing. So Dad and I jitterbugged to Frank Sinatra. Best father/daughter dance EVER.

Friends in Low Places

I chose this song for the wedding party dance, and it was a no-brainer. First of all, who doesn’t love Garth Brooks? Second of all, just look at the title: “Friends in Low Places.” What better way to describe our dearest friends and family? When we told the wedding party that “Friends in Low Places” would be their song, we were met with unadulterated joy. It should definitely be noted that we didn’t choreograph any sort of dance with our wedding party; we’re just not like that. When the song started, we just let the dance happen… and it turned into an eleven-person can-can line.

We morphed into a circle, and there was skipping and arm linking, and the joy and love in the air was palpable.

Best wedding party dance EVER.

Calla Calla

A while ago, I wrote about “Calla Calla” in my blog about top ten songs with names in the title. This particular song was introduced to me by my friend Allison and her family long long ago, and it contains such lyrical gems as “it’s the day of mating/time for celebrating.” It is, after all, a wedding song. Ever since I first heard it, Allison threatened to play it at my wedding. By the time my wedding rolled around, it had been years since we’d talked of “Calla Calla.” I didn’t know if she remembered, and I wasn’t about to remind her. During the dance, the DJ made an announcement between songs that she had a very special request to play that was delivered to her via flash drive. Yep: it was “Calla Calla.” Only Allison and her family got the joke that night, but it was priceless. It’s not every day you get to polka to a song with your name in it that also includes the phrase “day of mating.” Best surprise song EVER.

Jessie’s Girl

“Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield was a must-play at our wedding. Everybody knows it, it’s catchy, and it was one of my friends’ and my cruising songs in high school (you know you had high school cruising songs). Now, one of James’s brothers is named Jesse.

Here he is!

When “Jessie’s Girl” started playing, we all flocked to the dance floor and spontaneously formed a half-circle around Jesse and belted out the song. Every time we got to the chorus (“you know I wish that I had Jessie’s girl!”), we all jumped up and down and pointed at Jesse, who was as happy as a clam. We had more than one person ask us if that was planned, and I think it’s exponentially more awesome because it wasn’t. Best spontaneous serenade EVER.

Standing Outside the Fire

You know how, for each friend you have, there’s one song in particular that’s YOUR song? “Standing Outside the Fire” belongs to Bob, Sarah, and me. We listened to it practically nonstop through the last two years of high school… and whenever we saw each other during college breaks… well, whenever we saw each other period. When Bob got married, he asked his wedding party to suggest a song or two for the dance, and my pick (along with “Faith” by George Michael – another one of Bob’s, Sarah’s and my songs) was “Standing Outside the Fire.” When that song played at Bob’s wedding, Sarah and I bolted to Bob on the dance floor: we danced and air-bongoed our hearts out. 

Of course, we wanted a repeat at my wedding. Both Sarah and Bob made it very clear to our DJ how important this song was, and she promised to play it. When she did, we found out just how many of our friends love “Standing Outside the Fire.” We all pranced around like idiots and belted the words at the very tops of our lungs. It was simply beautiful. Best tried-and-true friend song EVER.

More Than a Feeling

Alas, all good things must end. James and I chose “More Than a Feeling” as our last song because it is a GREAT song and the perfect way to end your night on a high note (literally and figuratively).  It was almost midnight, but there were tons of people left – all of our college friends and all but two of the wedding party were still there (along with assorted cousins and friends), and they all came to the dance floor for our last dance. We all formed into one gigantic circle and wailed the lyrics, doing our best to hit those stratospheric notes. There’s a certain burst of energy when you know it’s the last song, and we gave it everything we had. As the song came to an end, James and I were shoved to the middle for a gigantic group hug. Best last song EVER.

-----

This list is just a drop in the bucket. There were so many great songs with so many stories: “Hallelujah Chorus” (played right after we were pronounced married – appropriate, huh?), "In Heaven There Is No Beer" (which the brass quintet successfully snuck by the wedding coordinator), “Rainbow Connection” (the one slow song I danced to), “Little Willy” (during with Mitch initiated foot-stomping that I thought would bust through the floor), “Gangnam Style” (with a huge line of excellent dancers), “The Time Warp” (a special request by Allison that also attracted some fantastic dancers), “Thrift Shop” (the DJ announced this as ‘one of the bride’s favorite songs’), “Blurred Lines” (requested by Sarah to be played immediately after “Standing Outside the Fire, and to which the DJ said, ‘I’d never play these back-to-back… except at this wedding’), and “Beer Barrel Polka” (requested by our college friend Lacee for all our UMM friends).

Our dance was more fun than I ever could’ve imagined. We did our best to keep the songs high-energy, and the dance floor was never empty – some of our friends and family never left the dance floor! Instead of couples being paired off, many of the songs we danced to ended up being huge circles: fun and inclusive; no one needed a partner. After all that dancing, my legs ached for a week afterward. A small price to pay for the BEST WEDDING EVER. At the end of the night, our DJ said she’s never had a more fun group of people, and the bartenders said the same. If that’s not an indication of a wedding well done, I don’t know what is.

Great people? Check. Great senses of humor? Check. Great music? CHECK.

BEST WEDDING EVER.

Wedding five!

the scary series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Ok, so I know this doesn’t really fit into my October theme of real-life scary stories, but I’m going to go ahead and pull the “it’s my blog, and I’ll break my self-imposed theme if I feel like it” card. This story is about one of my favorite television shows of all time, and it deals with all sorts of Halloweeny things, so that’s why it still gets to be a part of my October scary month. What is this show? Why, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course!

To those of you who are unfamiliar, two things: 1.) WHAT????!?!?!?!? You have NO IDEA what you’re missing! All seven seasons are on Instant Netflix – what are you waiting for?? and 2.) Allow me to give you an overview: Buffy is the Slayer, and it’s her job to save the world from all sorts of nasty things, from vampires (as the title would suggest) to demons to banished gods to power-crazed witches and whatever else happens to come her way. There is only one Slayer – a Chosen One who possesses the strength to fight all of these creatures. And where do all these creatures come from? Well, Buffy just happens to live on the Hellmouth (which is exactly what it sounds like), so she’s right at the center of all kinds of demony energy.

The series starts out with Buffy as a high schooler, and it follows her through college and beyond. Along the way, she picks up all sorts of interesting characters. Being a Slayer means that you have a Watcher – someone who trains you and basically watches out for you. Buffy’s Watcher is Giles, the school librarian.

Look at all those BOOKS!

She’s also got her dorky sidekicks: Willow (who eventually turns into a superpowered witch) and Xander (who is an all-around good guy, but is basically useless – and he knows it, so it’s a running joke). 

This picture is terribly misleading. Neither Willow
nor Xander is cool and suave like this
photo would have you believe.

Between the four of them, there are all sorts of misadventures – seven seasons’ worth, to be precise.

What exactly makes Buffy so great? For one thing, it’s terribly witty. The characters have a fantastic stockpile of one-liners that perfectly balance whatever serious world-ending thing is going on at the moment. It’s also one of those shows that ties itself together so well. You’ll find something from the first season coming back to bite them in the fourth season, and you’ll remember a minor character from the second season when he shows up in the fifth season (and so on). So you’ve got to pay attention.

And oh! the characters! Buffy herself is the stereotypical blonde cheerleader-type (complete with the cheerleadery name) who always dies first in scary movies – and now she’s the one responsible for saving the world. 

See the stake?

Superpowers and vampire slaying aside, Buffy is just a normal girl trying to live a normal life. Like any teenaged girl, Buffy has boy troubles (granted, some of these troubles are with a 200 year old vampire named Angel) and clashes with her mother. As time goes on, Buffy has to deal with more real-world problems, like how to pay the bills. All the while, she must continue slaying vampires and saving the world from a certain doom. Talk about a full plate.

While Buffy makes a good lead, it’s really the supporting characters that make the show. Giles, the librarian/Watcher, was my favorite character from the very start. He was always the first one with a snappy retort, and he was very smart and very British. Plus, Giles loved books and libraries as much (if not more) than I do – add book smarts plus wit plus British accent plus ability to fight demons, and that might explain why I had a crush on Giles. 

Don't judge.

The fantastic and well-written characters secondary characters are in no short supply, but I’ve got my favorites. I love Spike the mostly bad, sometimes good, Billy Idol-ish vampire, Oz the werewolf (Seth Green!), Jonathan and Andrew the nerds… the list could go on and on. 

We do have to spend a minute talking about the vampires. Buffy vampires follow classic vampire rules: holy water and crosses burn them, they can’t go out in the sunlight as it will end them, you kill them by staking them through the heart, they don’t have reflections, etc. Vampires are also naturally bad: unlike a certain set of vampires who tend to sparkle in the sunlight, Buffy vampires do not choose to be good and not kill humans. Buffy vampires are only good when something goes awry – a restored soul, a chip in the brain, and so forth. Even then, there’s always the strong possibility that they’ll turn bad again.

My friend Allison was the one who got me started on Buffy. She had been watching it for years, and she thought it would be right up my alley. This was 2002, and I was 14 years old. Buffy had been on TV since 1997, so reruns were all over the place. There was a two-hour chunk of Buffy reruns every weeknight on USA or FX or something, so I would either a.) make sure I was around to watch them or b.) set a VHS tape (those were the days) to record them. Lucky for me, the Buffy reruns aired in order – and it’s very important that you watch them in order.

(Sidenote: it was during this time of dashing home after school and rewinding the VHS tape that my very own brother Mitch started to sit in on Buffy. He was either nine or ten at the time, and he liked the show so well that he named a cat Buffy in honor of our intrepid heroine.)

It didn’t take long for me to get hooked, and it’s been that way ever since. Buffy ended in 2003, but I was still working on the early seasons, so I had to forgo the big series finale at the time. (SPOILER ALERT: it was just as well, because the finale – let’s be honest, the entire final season – was just disappointing.) However, I have since watched the series from start to finish a time or two… or three… or maybe more.

Even though I’m well-versed in the Buffy universe, the beauty of that show is that every time I watch it, I feel like I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. Every single time, the suspense is there. For example, there’s a particular Buffy season finale that gets me every time. (I’m not going to tell you which one or what happens, just in case you’re new to Buffy and decide to see it yourself.) I have watched this episode time and time again, and I know exactly what’s coming… but every time, it makes me cry. Now, if you are familiar with me and my crying habits, you know it’s pretty rare for a movie or TV show to bring out the waterworks (unless they involve animals, and then all bets are off… I once watched an Animal Planet special on hero dogs – like military dogs and seeing eye dogs – and bawled like a damn baby), but this episode – without fail – does it for me. What can I say? Only a great and powerful show like Buffy can bring out my inner crybaby.

While – in my opinion – all episodes of Buffy (save for the final season – blech) are good episodes, there are a handful that stick out as my very favorites. Around Halloween each year, I like to watch the Halloween episodes from seasons two and four. In the season two episode, Buffy and her friends all turn into whatever they dressed up as for Halloween – Buffy turns into a helpless Victorian woman, Xander into a soldier, and Willow into a ghost. Of course, chaos ensues. 

In season four, Buffy, Willow, and Xander are all in college, and they get trapped in a haunted house where they all must face their greatest fear. It sounds serious, but Buffy always manages the perfect balance between humor and drama.

Allow me to explain the Buffy comedy/drama pairing using three of my favorite episodes: the one in which a curse is put on Sunnydale (the town where Buffy and friends live) and everyone loses the ability to speak, the one in which Willow tries to wipe out her girlfriend’s memory but ends up wiping everyone’s memory instead, and the one in which Sunnydale gets turned into a musical.

In the no-talking episode (it’s called “Hush,” if you’re curious), it is simultaneously chilling and hilarious – these terrifying creatures take away the town’s voices so they can rip out their hearts with no one hearing them scream. 

Hello, nightmares.

At the same time, it’s just comical to try and watch Buffy and the team try and communicate without voices.

In the memory wipe-out episode (“Tabula Rasa”), no one remembers why they know each other (Giles and Spike assume they’re father and son because they both have British accents and can sense their strong dislike for each other), and no one can figure out why these angry creatures (vampires) want to attack them. They all get their memories back in the end, but they aren’t too happy with Willow and feel (understandably) violated.

The musical episode (“Once More With Feeling”) is just brilliant. A demon casts a spell on Sunnydale so that the townsfolk spontaneously break into song, and we found out who has a surprisingly good singing voice (Giles, Tara, Spike), who is mediocre at best (Buffy, Xander, Dawn, Anya), and who is downright terrible (Willow – but she doesn’t sing much, so somebody must’ve known). The songs are on the catchy side, and I’ve been known to listen to that episode’s soundtrack from time to time (or more often, but who’s counting?). Sure, a musical episode of Buffy sounds like fun and games, but the characters don’t have much control over what they blurt out when they start singing. We learn about unrequited love, doubts about an upcoming marriage, relationships ending, and Buffy’s Big Secret (that we have known for a while, but this is when her friends find out). Grim realizations come to the surface, friendships are damaged… but a new romance begins, so it’s not all bad.

Here's the big group number!

So with Halloween just around the corner and winter close behind it, I think you need a new series. Not only will it get you started in the Halloween spirit, but it will keep you entertained through the bitter Midwestern winter.

And if you’ve already watched Buffy? Watch it again.

the scary series: PE.

Welcome to the next installment of my real-life scary stories. My next topic is about something that doesn’t scare everyone, but it sunk dread into my heart every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from kindergarten until 8^th grade. That’s right: PE.

As a kid, I loved to run around in the woods behind our house, and I loved to play with the dog and ride my bike. I loved to explore and go on walks, and playgrounds were heaven. You know what I didn’t love? Structured exercise. I didn’t like being told when I couldn’t run and when I couldn’t, and I didn’t like being told what games I had to play. I especially didn’t love the competition – I have always been a competitive person, but only when it’s something that I know I can win. PE was not something I could win. EVER.

Now, don’t get me wrong: as an adult, I realize that PE is an essential part of a school day, especially for the younger kids. They need to get out and run around, and everybody could use some exercise. I’m sure the whole experience was good for me… but that doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.

I doubt that I started off with such a bad opinion of PE. When you’re in kindergarten, all you do is play “Wide Wide River.” Remember that game? One kid stands in the middle of the gym (or playground), and the rest of the kids yell, “Calla, Calla, may we cross your wide, wide, river?” Then the kid in the middle chooses who can cross: everyone wearing purple, everyone with a ponytail, etc. Then, everybody from the selected group tries to run to the other side of the gym/playground without getting tagged by the kid in the middle. If they get tagged, then they have to start tagging, and they stand in the middle with the original kid. This goes on and on until everybody is in the middle. Game over.

I’m fairly certain that what turned me against PE was all the running. I didn’t mind the games, but the running was just something else. Every day at the beginning of PE, we’d sit in our spots (we had assigned spots on certain lines on the gym floor) and do our warm-ups. We’d do some stretches, some sit-ups, and some push-ups… and then we’d run laps. I’ve always been more of a sprinter, so this sustained running was not up my alley. I would lag way behind, more out of spite than anything else.

In addition to those accursed laps, there was another running activity we did called the Journey. We only did this on days when PE was outside, as the school playground was an essential part of the Journey. You had to take off running from the school doors and make your way through the playground-turned-obstacle course. You weaved through the tire swings, slid down the roller slide, hopscotched over to and then ran through the sandbox, snaked through the jungle gym, and whacked the tetherball a few times before class actually began.

Outdoor PE really wasn’t that bad: after the Journey, we either played flag football (fall), kickball, or softball (spring). The only one of these I was remotely good at was kickball, as it’s about the simplest thing ever. All you have to do is kick a ball and run. No problem. Flag football didn’t especially interest me, and I was (and probably still am) terrible at softball. I blame it on a lack of hand-eye coordination.

Of course, a major part of PE was dodgeball. We played with little foam balls, so there was little to no chance of injury. There was one day of dodgeball where we decided to try playing with the big rubber kickballs, which ended up being the day I got hit in the face and broke my glasses. (Believe it or not, that was the one and only time that I’ve broken my glasses. And yes, I had to go around with tape on them that day.)

We tried a little bit of everything in PE: soccer, jump roping, crab-walking in the wrestling room (yes, really), four-square, you name it. I have never been a big participant in competitive sports, so none of these held my interest (especially basketball, which I STILL don’t understand). However, there was one sport that I truly did enjoy: field hockey. We played hockey about once a year (what a shame!), but I looked forward to hockey day like no other. Believe it or not, I was good at field hockey. I was fast and nimble, and I was a good aim with a puck. I may have missed my calling as a field hockey player.

While I was good at field hockey, I was fairly terrible at everything else. I could usually get away with it because we never spent more than a week here and there with each particular sport… until junior high. From about November to February, the PE classes were split into boys and girls. During that whole time, the boys did nothing but play basketball, and the girls did nothing but play volleyball. I went through the rotation in seventh grade volleyball; I had a jersey and went to the required games. However, when you’re a twelve-year-old girl who doesn’t particularly like something, you’re not going to try all that hard at it. When volleyball season came around the following year, I requested to be the stat keeper. I still had to play in gym class, but instead of playing in the games, I’d keep score instead. Not surprisingly, the volleyball coach had no problem with that.

So we’ve established that I didn’t particularly like PE (save for field hockey). However, there were two things that especially soured PE for me: Presidential Fitness and picking teams.

Boo.

In order to split us into teams, the PE teacher would usually line us up and give us numbers: they could be ones and twos, they could be one through four, but we never really knew how we would be divided up. (He did this so we weren’t always clumping together with our friends). This was the one and only way teams were chosen for years. But one day, the PE teacher chose two team captains and informed them that they were to pick their teams. You guessed it: I was picked last. Every single time we picked teams this way, I was one of the last (if not THE last) to be chosen (unless one of my friends was a team captain and they took pity on me). Even though I was a lousy athlete and knew it, it was still a blow to the ego to be chosen last all the time.

Presidential Fitness came around once a year, and we spent the whole week doing all sorts of fitness tests. The tests themselves weren’t that bad – the bad part was that you did them with everyone watching. You had to do as many sit-ups and push-ups as you could in a minute, stretch as far as you could on a ruler placed at the base of your feet (I could barely reach the ruler) and do as many ten-foot sprints as you could in a minute (these we did two at a time in alphabetical order, and all the kids at the beginning of the alphabet were super athletic – except for me. So I was always paired with someone super fast, and it was a tad bit embarrassing).

Worst of all were the chin-ups. We had to hang from a chin-up bar and do as many chin-ups as we could, and EVERYONE stood around staring at you. I have the upper-body strength of a kitten, so chin-ups were never successful for me. I flailed around a bit and then dangled until my time was up. (I did manage to do one chin-up one time, but that was a fluke). Needless to say, I never won any Presidential Fitness awards.

I muddled through PE with no real light at the end of the tunnel… until fifth grade. What was so different about fifth grade? Band lessons, that’s what. We started band at the beginning of fifth grade, and up through junior high, band lessons were required – and I thanked my lucky stars. They were once a week and fifteen minutes long, and we had to find time within one of our classes to go. I, of course, chose PE time.

Every Monday, I left PE a solid twenty minutes before my band lesson was about to begin. After all, I had to change out of my gym clothes, make my way to the band room, put together my clarinet, find my music, and warm up… and I made sure it took twenty minutes for all that. The band lesson itself was always right on schedule, but I took an additional twenty minutes getting back – after all, you need to disassemble your clarinet, clean out the spit (gross, but essential), put away your music, get back to the gym, and change back into your clothes. If I timed it right, I’d be strolling back into PE around the same time my classmates were being dismissed to the locker room. Mondays were the best.

Except for four months of straight volleyball, PE in junior high was way better than PE in elementary school. Gone were the days of Presidential Fitness and everyone staring you down as you struggled on the chin-up bar. Junior high PE wasn’t much more than kickball and the occasional sprint. PE was on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with study halls on Tuesdays and Thursdays – and it wasn’t hard to talk the gym teacher (who, in junior high, was never the actual gym teacher but one of our regular teachers who happened to have a free period at the end of the day) into another study hall in lieu of PE. It helped that most of my junior high PE class wasn’t terribly sporty, either.

Once you entered high school, PE was no longer a requirement. At the end of eighth grade, I joyfully bid PE farewell. High school allowed you to arrange your own schedule, so the lack of PE meant that I could use my time for something I was more interested in, like art or FACS (yep, Family and Consumer Science – ANYTHING but PE). I also managed to choose a college where there was no PE requirement – there was a performing arts requirement (hellooooo, band!), but nobody was going to make you take gym.

It’s been almost thirteen years since I was last in a PE class, and I still cringe when I think about the chin-up bar and choosing teams. Like so many of my sucky experiences, I have to remind myself that it’s a good thing that they happened. After all, if they hadn’t, then what would I tell you about on this blog?

the scary series: ghosts.

This week’s real-life scary is about something scary you’d normally associate with Halloween. We’re talking ghosts.

Not this kind.

When I say real-life, I’m not saying that I’ve had actual encounters with ghosts or that I even think they’re real. However, all it takes is a spooky story and some mysterious noises to trick my dumb brain into thinking there’s something out there. To put it simply: I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them.

That’s not to say that I didn’t once believe in them. Remember how, when I was a kid, I was completely enthralled with the supernatural? I would come home from the library with an armful of books about banshees, chupacabras, aliens, and urban legends. I managed to read all these books and somehow NOT have nightmares – at the time, we lived in a rather small farmhouse, and I figured that there just wasn’t room for anything creepy. As a child, I was never scared of monsters under my bed – instead, I was scared of spiders and of the house burning down (thanks to a traumatizing video I watched at Safety Town).

Ghosts tended to be my topic of choice. There was something very interesting to me about someone’s spirit hanging around on earth. You’d think they would have better things to do.

I read every ghost book I could get my hands on. While I loved a tried-and-true ghost story, my favorites were the books that claimed to be true. My Grandma Lorraine had been an elementary school teacher, so she had a treasure trove of old ghost stories. The library (as always) was an excellent source, and I could occasionally talk my parents into buying me a ghost story book from the book orders they’d hand out at school.

Remember book orders? They were these colorful booklets on thin magazine paper, and you’d have to fill out this long strip of paper on the back and turn it in. Then, you’d wait in eager anticipation for your book to arrive and for your teacher to hand it out. That same strip of paper would be tucked inside, and that’s how you knew it was yours. I always did my best to choose books that I was a.) interested in, and b.) came with a toy. I remember getting rubber aliens, fake blood, and some green slime.

Some of my favorite ghost books came from these book orders. That’s where I was able to get collections of “true” stories: I remember ordering one specifically about haunted schools and another about ghostly pets. The ghost pets really got to me – I’ve always had a soft spot for animals, and the pet ghost stories were all about dogs who died saving their owners lives but came back in spirit to show they were ok, or cats that died but came back as a cat-ghost to comfort their former owner when it was needed. I only read the ghost pet book at home in my room because – without fail – it turned me into a blubbering mess. I bet if I read it again, it still would.

Most of my ghost stories were less comforting and more creepy. They were the kinds that you’d tell around campfires with a flashlight… or that’s what I assume. My only campfires growing up were with my parents or at a church camp, so no ghost stories there. Just jokes (parents) and stories about finding Jesus (church camp).  I did tell scary stories at sleepovers with my cousins and friends, so don’t worry: I didn’t miss out on sleepless nights with friends, scaring the bejeezus out of each other.

My friend Allison lived right in Arlington, and when I would go over to her house for sleepovers, we’d spend a good portion of our night wandering around town and talking about local lore. She would point out the houses that she’d heard were haunted (including a former funeral home and a house in which a murder was committed in the 1800s), and I’d listen with wide eyes.

Allison also informed me that her house was likely haunted. She had seen clocks run backwards and had heard weird noises when no one else was home. I, of course, wanted to experience this ghost for myself, but nothing ever seemed to happen when I was around… except for one night. It was late when we finally decided to go to bed, and it was pitch black. We were both dozing off when suddenly, the room flooded with light. It was a brief flash, but it was as light as day. I thought for a moment that I had simply been dreaming, but after a moment, I heard a cautious “…did you see that?” Allison had also witnessed the burst of light, so it was no dream. Both of us were totally convinced that it was the ghost. In reality, it could’ve been just about anything – car headlights, lightning (even though there was no storm that night… heat lightning, maybe?), but that night, you couldn’t have told us that it was anything but a ghost.

As I grew older, my interest in ghosts waned, but it never completely disappeared. Even as I entered the “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them” mindset, I was always up for a good ghost story – how you swear you saw an ethereal figure strolling across your lawn, or how doors slam in your house when there’s no one home. Bring ‘em on – I love those stories.

That is, unless I have to stay in the ghost house after you tell me your ghost stories.

Many years ago, when I first started dating James, he and I went to visit his parents. His parents’ house was a few hours away from our college, so we planned to spend the night. On the way there, James started telling me stories about how he was pretty sure that his parents’ house was haunted. Apparently, every member of his family has reported hearing strange noises in the middle of the night, and both James one of his brothers say that they’ve heard empty beds creaking in their spare room. A couple of them have even seen a shadowy figure wandering about and/or sitting in their rocking chair.

So I’m learning about all this as I’m going to spend the night there. I don’t think I slept at all that night, as I was too busy listening for ghosts. I could’ve sworn I heard ghostly clattering in the kitchen in the wee hours of the morning, but James informed me that it was probably his dad. Whew. No ghosts.

Whenever I stayed with James’s parents, the ghost stories were always in the back of my mind. Aside from those first few nights, I didn’t spend much time listening for them – our weekends visiting James’s family were always jam-packed, so I was usually too tired to care if there were ghosts or not.

The ghosts were brought up again one night this summer. James and two of his brothers regaled me with some fresh ghost stories, which scared me anew… right around bedtime. I was dead tired, but I was awfully reluctant to go to bed. I curled up under the covers and did my best to convince myself that the noises I heard were just standard house noises. I never saw anything shadowy, nor did I hear anyone/anything sit down on the empty bed next to me, so maybe the ghost took the night off.

So anyway, that’s how I feel about ghosts. I do my best to be logical and not believe in them, but – thanks to my rather active imagination – it’s not too hard to trick me into a night of buried-under-the-covers-jumping-at-any-sound with some first-hand ghost stories about wherever I’m staying that night. But don’t get me wrong: even though those stories scare the living crap out of me, I can’t get enough of them. I’ll always listen to your ghost stories – just don’t expect me to sleep that night.