Sweeping the Clouds Away

Telly and his dolly

So, I’ve been putting off blogging because I promised a big post about my San Francisco trip, and for some reason that seems like a lot of work. As time wore on, I felt it was embarrassingly late to post about month-old adventures, but then Miss Renee did it, and it was just fine. Point is, I will get to the SF post when I feel like it, which is definitely not now.

Right now I feel like blogging about a subject that is, as many of you know, near and dear to my heart: Sesame Street. In my humble opinion, Sesame Street is the best television program ever made. It’s educational, it’s funny, it’s timeless, it’s commercial-free, and it invented PC only to have others blow the concept wholly out of proportion.

I grew up watching Sesame Street—as Mary Ess will tell you, when I was three I simply referred to the show as “The Favorite.” At five, I won a Sesame Street coloring contest sponsored by JC Penney; my prize was a new wardrobe of awesome Sesame Street duds. As a teenager, I preferred to spend any sick days lying on the couch, sipping Sprite and watching Sesame Street rather than Ricki Lake or soaps or other daytime fare. When I was in college and worked at KBYU Master Control, I always volunteered for the early Monday shift (12:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m.), because that’s when we aired all five of the previous week’s Sesame Street episodes back to back.

I’ve got Sesame Street on the mind because the other day I saw a news blurb on Sesame Street Old School Vol. 2, which is a “best of” from 1974-1979. I’m only slightly embarrassed to say that’s almost the exact timeframe in which I watched it the most. This got me thinking about my own favorite Sesame Street sketches, which are as follows (the ones with the asterisk [*] are not necessarily “old school” but I still love them).

1. Me and My Llama
2. My Name is Fred
3. "A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter"
4. The Triangle Song (by Telly, not the one with James Blunt, though)*
5. “Ten! Root Beer! Floats!”
6. The Ladybugs’ Picnic
7. Lost Dog Flyer
8. Anytime Bert’s opining about his bottle cap collection
9. That one time where Elmo learned to brush his teeth only, having no teeth, he used an ear of corn*
10. Monsterpiece Theater

Sure, Elmo, Ernie and Oscar are great, but a bit overdone don’t you think? Here are my personal favorite Sesame Street characters:

1. Telly (the self-conscious one)
2. Baby Bear* (the worry-wart)
3. Telly & Baby Bear in any scene together (hi-larious)
4. Slimey
5. The Yip Yips
6. Prairie Dawn
7. Those conjoined monsters that sound out words by bringing them together
8. The Count (actual eastern European royalty, or mere Rocky Horror fan roaming the neighborhood—you be the judge)
9. That adorable talking loaf of bread in the fridge full of talking food
10.LeVar Burton (okay, so he wasn’t on Sesame Street–but he should have been!)

Anyhow, feel free to register your own faves in the comments section.

Happy Ahikotauqua!

So I've been a bad, bad blogger lately, but if you thought it was because I was watching Biggest Loser and Project Runway marathons the entire holiday season, you'd only be half right; rather, I had a great Christmas vacation with the fam at the Gee household in Orange County followed by another short trip to San Francisco before returning to Los Angeles to make no less than 1,000 New Year's resolutions and a cool binder to document progress with said 1,000 New Year's resolutions, although I regret to report that resolving to stop penning run-on sentences just didn't make the cut.

However, the following usual suspects did:
1. Eat healthy
2. Exercise more
3. Reduce debt
4. Increase savings
5. Buy a house
6. Travel abroad
7. Keep an immaculate apartment
8. Dress fabulously at least 70% of the time
9. Finish projects
10. Edit nanowrimo novel
11. Write 7-book young adult fiction series with Mrs. Dub
12. Develop alternative fuel composed of sustainable resources and processed with minimal environmental impact that can be used in existing gasoline engines with little to no modification

But this little number made its debut in 2008:

13. Ride Vespa more

In fact, I was working on #13 on New Year's Eve when I accidentally ended up driving the Vespa on PCH. Apparently "Moomat Ahiko Way" is some sort of indigenous translation of "Caution! Not Beach Parking! Major On-Ramp!" I drove it very fast and straight for two miles, where the first turn-off is onto Chautauqua Blvd. (Seriously, who is naming the streets in Santa Monica? And why didn't they make their way over to West LA, where the street-namers gave up and started naming everything Beverly and National?) I took Chautauqua against my better judgment, because every time I've taken it in the Jeep I have ended up on either an extensive tour of Topanga Canyon or the crazy twisty part of Sunset Blvd--both options are arguably more dangerous for the Vespa rider than PCH given the high concentration of blind curves and drunken celebrities in those areas. Thankfully, the Vespa magically led me on a previously unknown shortcut back to the safe streets of Santa Monica.

So, hello milestone! I have officially ridden the Vespa on a highway without even setting out to do so. Although it sort of sucks to keep all the crazy resolutions I didn't make.

San Francisco recap and pics to follow sometime this week.