DO NOT TOUCH MY KEN DOLL!

When I was little I wanted to do everything like my big sister, Amber. She had the best clothes, toys, games and friends and I could only hope to be like her one day (not much has changed). But when she was older, she always wanted to go hang out with her friends instead of stay home with her two little sisters and play. I was left to play with my little sister, Grace (not a bad thing), who was five years younger than me but also shared an intense passion for Barbies. One Christmas, Amber got the new Barbie and the Rockers Ken doll, equipped with a long, shiny, silver trench coat and a brush to combs his wavy, blonde locks. Grace and I couldn't wait to get our grubby little kid hands all over him but Amber gave us strict instructions NOT to touch her Ken doll. She even acted like a teacher back then, I think she sat us down, shook her finger at us while laying out her rules. This made the situation more appealing for Grace and I. We wanted to reunite Ken with his buddies- Derek, Barbie, Dee Dee and Diva, whom belonged to Grace and I. Isn't it just obvious that The Rockers needed Ken to complete their band? Grace and I thought so.

So one day, shortly after Amber threatened us with our lives not to touch her coveted Ken doll, she left for the day to go hang out with her friends. I don't think my mom's car had even left the driveway before Grace and I went sprinting up the stairs into Amber's room to grab Ken so we could get the band back together. We still aren't sure why we chose to do what we did that day but at the time it felt right to bring him outside first, alone. Maybe we wanted to ease him into meeting the rest of the Rockers first- he could have been nervous. What if he and Derek didn't get along? I also don't remember exactly who carried out the events that were about to unfold (it was probably me) but clearly I am still scarred. Grace and I (laughing the entire time) took Ken outside to play and the next thing I know, he was flying through the air, towards the well. Crash! Shocked, we ran to his side to assess the situation. It was a grim site next to that well. Even though he was still smiling and his flashy coat was still gleaming, his leg had popped off. NOOOOOO! From that day forward, he was known as Handicap Ken and we made him a wheelchair out of a pink Barbie beach chair. What happened when Amber found out, you ask? I have blocked it out of my memory, but I think she is still mad...

Salad With A Side Of Shampoo?

A few weeks ago my friend Nicole, who is also my hair stylist, gave me a dollop of shampoo to brighten up my blonde locks because she noticed that the color was fading a bit. I was at her house when she extracted my sample from her personal shampoo collection, so all she had for a container was a tiny Tupperware. You  know which kind I am talking about, the small, round fella that you would normally put salad dressing in. After I used up the shampoo, I washed the Tupperware and put it in my cabinet at home and forgot about it until today. I wanted to take a salad to work for lunch, so I prepped the lettuce and other veggies in a big Tupperware, and put my salsa (my type of salad dressing) in the littlest Tupperware I had in my cabinet....I'm sure you can see where this story is going. I took a big bite of my salad at lunch this afternoon and it was like I had squirted the shampoo directly into my mouth. Apparently 'that taste' doesn't come out of Tupperware, (or my mouth for at least a few hours for that matter).

Sharknado!

If you haven't heard of Sharknado yet, Google it, please! It is a horribly horrible 'made for TV' movie that ended up getting more press than it should have (actually it only got press because it was so ridiculous). There were a few midnight screenings over the weekend in select cities for its "followers" so my friends asked me if I wanted to go with them Friday at LA Live. I thought, why not? I did my due diligence on the film and laughed the entire time- sharks flying out of tornadoes? What the hell? Due to its ridiculousness, I felt that I needed a few drinks to help me through the movie, so we pre-gamed at my apartment before heading over to the theater.

Once we arrived, it was total madness! The 'stars' Tara Reid, Ian Ziering and Kevin McCallister's dad from Home Alone were all there posing for the paparazzi and even doing press. I have to admit I was a little bummed that I didn't know about it sooner, or I would have been on that red carpet with my Starpulse microphone asking them how the hell this movie happened! We got our tickets and headed into the theater to discover that the entire back section was reserved for everyone who was involved in the making, distributing and even catering of this movie...and their mothers. There was no way we were going to sit in the front, so we sat in the handicap row and promised the ushers that we would move if anyone who actually needed the seats came in. Well, no one did and because the handicap seats were right in the middle of the theater with plenty of leg room, the 'stars' of the film ended up sitting there too. So here we are, sitting in the same row as Tara Reid, Ian Ziering and Kevin McCallister's dad from Home Alone, ready to see Sharknado. There was even a guy there wearing a shark suit!

The lights dimmed, the crowd cheered, I saw the intro and the next thing I remember were the credits. I slept through the entire film...sitting in the same row as Tara Reid, Ian Ziering and Kevin McCallister's dad from Home Alone. It was probably due to the fact that I had three vodka and grapefruit drinks prior to going out. Apparently every time the crowd burst into laughter, I would turn to my Nabeela and tell her how funny that part was but in reality I didn't see it, I was just trying to act like I did. Never take me to a midnight movie.

And She Says Dance Like No One Is Looking....

I have a love/hate relationship with trainer Tracy Anderson.....see below:

And still going (sorry about the sirens)....

No Dumping!

After I graduated college, my friends and I decided to move to Los Angeles, so we rented an RV to make the trek from Maine to California. We even met with producers at MTV and pitched a reality show but unfortunately (or not?) it was 2003, when the idea of a reality show was still very new to the entertainment world. Nowadays there are reality shows about everything from crab fisherman to chunky beauty queens from the south. There were five of us girls and Sampson, the English Mastiff, (RIP Samps) who piled into that RV on the cold and snowy day back in January, 2004. None of us had ever driven a vehicle that large and it made things even harder because my Jetta was being towed behind the RV, so there was no way we were ever going to attempt to back that thing up. It was straight ahead all the way to LA!

There were some crazy adventures along our journey, which would have made for an amazing television show, and we finally arrived in LA after we took a few weeks to tour the US. But before we could drop off the camper at the rental place we had arranged for, we had to empty out the sewage tank, which we completely forgot to do at the last campground we stayed at. What the hell were we going to do now? If we returned the camper with the tank full, there would be a huge charge. After we all put our heads together, we decided to do something that we definitely should not have but it was a temporary fix.
Have you ever seen those signs on the side of the road that say, 'no dumping?' I always assumed it meant 'don't poop on this street' which I thought was strange because technically you can't really poop on any street but now I know what those signs really mean and we definitely broke the rules that day. We pulled onto an abandoned street near the highway not far from the RV rental spot in Santa Ana and while Sampson stayed in the camper, we all took our places to execute the plan. One girl was the getaway driver, one girl was the co-getaway driver, two girls were on lookout duty and the last and very unfortunate girl was the one who had to pull off the sewage release cap. As the lookouts gave the signal, the plan was in full attack mode and although it happened so fast, I can still remember the sound of the rushing 'water' dumping all over the street, the squealing of the wheels as the camper hauled ass away from the scene of the crime and the immense laughter coming from all of us, except the girl who had to pull off the cap and was now running to keep up with the camper, avoid the 'mess' and jump in before we drove away with out her. I won't name any names....

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Our apartment has a lot of windows. Windows we keep open a lot. Windows that can be seen by the parking structure across the street. I am aware of this fact but sometimes I forget. And last night was one of those 'sometimes I forget' situations. After my shower, I applied some sunless tanning spray to my pale ass skin. The product states that you must let it dry for at least 5 minutes before getting dressed. Not a problem for me- hell, I will let it dry for ten minutes!

I walked out of the bathroom, butt ass naked, letting my newly bronzed skin dry and started talking to Anthony, who was on the couch. I happened to glance out the window (our blinds were open, of course) and literally made eye contact with an old man who was sitting in the parking garage across the street smoking a cigarette. Without saying a word, I turned my head away from him and retraced my steps backwards into the bathroom, shut the door and busted out laughing. I'm pretty sure I made that guy's night. I know I made Anthony's night because he didn't stop laughing for about ten minutes.

Stand By Me 2: Starring Erin and Rhoda Demchak

When I would come home from college for the summer about ten plus years ago, my mom and I used to love to take walks together after supper. We would talk non-stop about everything while burning off those calories power walking- it was great! We would usually walk near our house in Durham or drive to Lisbon to walk on the bike path until they opened the bike path in Brunswick. How excited were we! On our first  trip to the bike path, we parked off a deserted road in Topsham (as we were instructed by the writeup in the paper) and walked to the entrance. Because it just opened, we weren't exactly sure where to go from where we parked the car to join the bike path, so we asked a random stranger who was getting into her car for directions. She told us to walk up a bit and when we saw a bridge, walk across it until we saw the signs for the path. Easy enough, we thought, as we made our way to the down the street. Except the bridge that we saw was not the bridge that we were instructed to take.

As we looked out into the distance, we saw a huge bridge over the Androscoggin River (that picture doesn't lie) that resembled the railroad tracks on Stand By Me. We looked at each other, looked at the sign that said 'No Trespassing,' looked at each other again puzzled and proceeded to walk across the bridge. I was terrified because we had to step carefully over these rickety pieces of wood with nothing to hold onto as the river rushed beneath us. I tried to hold it together though so my mom wouldn't get scared and thought, if everyone else who went to this bike path took this route, it must be okay. When we got to the other side (what seemed like an hour later) we saw the bike path below us and climbed down a steep hill to join it. A few people who were already on the path looked at us strangely but I thought nothing of it. I am not sure how or when we found out that we literally trespassed and definitely took the wrong bridge (the bridge that lady meant was the overpass equipped with a sidewalk) but I think my mom peed her pants laughing. What the hell were we thinking? And why did we think it was normal to walk across the railroad tracks?

To this day, I have no idea how we made this mistake and I have been to the Brunswick bike path a million times since that day and die laughing every time. I blame my mom...Who Else But Rhoda?