Die, Zombie Becky!

As a kid, I was steeped in a broth of James Bond, with a heavy dose of Dirty Harry mixed in. I also have a weirdly defective startle impulse and routinely scream during benign situations if I am surprised. People think I’m kidding, but I really can’t control it. 

So it was with a mix of excitement and dread that I headed to the shooting range to fire a handgun for the first time. I got a safety lesson first from Jordan, a friend of my husband’s whose Baer 1911 .45 I would be firing.

The .45 is a big gun. I was scared and let out a yelp from the big kick during my first few shots. I was surprised how quickly I got used to it, though. I started by loading just one round at a time so that I wouldn’t have live ammunition in the gun during the kick.

Once I settled in, I fired three rounds in succession, since that is a better method for shooting at zombies.

I stayed alert and cautious throughout our session. A man a few lanes away was firing a cannon that I felt through my feet every time he shot. It’s hard to relax around that, but I did get more comfortable.

The three of us only fired about 50 rounds, to the surprise of the man at the desk. Once I finished, I was itching to get out of there quickly, feeling like I didn’t want to press my luck.

I took care of Zombie Becky, but Zombie Roxie may be coming for me in my nightmares tonight.

#4. 101 things in 1001 days. Shoot a gun.

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce: Eating at Louis' Lunch

We squeezed into the crowd of wall-to-wall people to wait our turn to eat a hamburger at Louis’ Lunch in New Haven. Reportedly, the American hamburger was invented here in 1900 when a man in a hurry rushed in and asked for a meal he could eat quickly, and Louis Lassen threw a broiled beef patty between two slices to bread for him to eat on the go.

The wait is quite a bit longer now as Louis’ Lunch has become a Connecticut landmark. My husband and I had potato salad while we waited and were lucky to get one of the tiny adorable booths that seat one person on each side.

The atmosphere of the place was very friendly, with the waitresses joking with the cook and the customers. The wait was about an hour—very long for 3 p.m. on a Saturday—but it seemed much faster for the regulars who were fit in between the other orders.

The burgers are made from beef that is ground fresh daily and broiled vertically on both sides at once in a cast iron grill.

The burgers were juicy and tasty. They are served on toast, and the only garnishes allowed are cheese, onion, and tomato. No ketchup; no mustard; no pickles!

 "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce..."

#76. 101 things in 1001 days. Eat a cheeseburger at Louis’ Lunch.

It took me only 13 days to stop complaining for a week

#38. 101 things in 1001 days: Don’t complain about anything for a week

I survived the computer lab fiasco that is detailed in the above cartoon without complaining, only to be done in by ice cream, so I started over. And over. And over.

On my first day, I felt pretty good getting through an entire school day without complaining, but I quickly discovered there are a lot of gray areas. What exactly constitutes a complaint? While some complaints are instantly recognizable, in other situations I may be rightly asserting myself. Is it the tone that makes it a complaint? The repetition?

Then I posted the above cartoon on Facebook, and a colleague ruled it a complaint. I countered that I was expressing myself through art, as artists have done through the ages. I suppose Picasso was complaining when he created Guernica, eh? She didn’t buy it.

That debate became moot the same night when I muttered to my husband, “Why didn’t you get something with chocolate in it?” when he surprised us with ice cream, and I was busted on Day 2.

I started over and got tripped up again on my new Day 2 when there was some miscommunication about a track practice pickup. Then when my husband came home late on a night we had dinner plans, I had to start yet again. 

I finally made it through this challenge, or did I? I might have just relaxed the rules on what counts as a complaint. I did make some improvements in avoiding “venting” at work. Let’s face it: venting doesn’t do anybody any good.

I read this blog post that mentioned four typical learning phases:

1. Unconscious incompetence

2. Conscious incompetence

3. Conscious competence

4. Unconscious competence

I think at best I was entering Phase 2: conscious incompetence. I made a little progress and felt myself letting go of grievances more easily. I will try to keep the better habit going now that I am free to complain again. I might have to stay away from the computer lab, though.

Serenity now!

I’ve got one more silver dollar: Karaoke

#7. 101 things in 1001 days. Sing karaoke in a bar.

I selected “Midnight Rider” by the Allman Brothers Band to sing karaoke, a song I love that also seemed fitting for the setting, the Winchester Café. Nervous enough, I freaked out more when “Midnight Rambler” began to play, a great song, too, but not what I was prepared for. The karaoke man switched it to “Midnight Rider,” but it was a slower version, I think the one by Waylon Jennings. It was all good, though, a lot of fun, and the crowd was very supportive. (I cannot sing!) Group versions of “Gimme Three Steps” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” followed.

The most fun moment, though, was on an instrumental break during my debut when I said, “How’s everybody doing out there tonight?”

The crowd went wild.

Time to fire up the Tivo: IMDb's Top 250 Movies

#14. 101 things in 1001 days: Watch all of IMDb's Top 250 Movies

"strip" by Miemo Penttinen

I want to see all of IMDb's Top 250 Movies, and there are 55 I haven't seen. I am obsessed with movies, so this should be a fun task to complete, but there are some on the list I am not thrilled about viewing. 

The movies I have seen already are highlighted in yellow.

1   The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

2   The Godfather (1972)

3   The Godfather: Part II (1974)

4   The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

5   Pulp Fiction (1994)

6   Schindler's List (1993)

7   12 Angry Men (1957)

8   Inception (2010)

9   One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

10 The Dark Knight (2008)

11 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

12 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

13 Seven Samurai (1954)

14 Fight Club (1999)

15 Goodfellas (1990)

16 Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

17 Casablanca (1942)

18 City of God (2002)

19 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

20 Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

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101 things in 1001 days

I came across an idea I hadn't seen before, and it fits in perfectly with my "(Don't Be) Too Timid and Squeamish" challenges: Create a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. (See Day Zero.) (Updates will be posted here.)

I started yesterday with a Zumba class, so I have until December 28, 2013 to complete my list.

What do you want to complete in the next 1001 days? If you create your own list, please share it!

Here is my list so far. 

1. Milk a cow
2. Do 50 consecutive push-ups
3. Say yes to everything for a whole day
4. Shoot a gun
5. Attend a UU church meeting
6. Go to a roller derby
7. Sing karaoke in a bar
8. Take a trapeze class
9. Make homemade pasta
10. Document one month of my life in photographs
11. Learn to juggle three balls
12. Climb to the top of a tree and take a picture of the view
13. Listen to 10 classic albums all the way through
14. Watch all of IMDb’s Top 250 Movies
15. Make vegan cake pops

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Internet Exile, Part One

I am swearing off the Internet for a week. No Facebook, no email, no Huffington Post. I waste a lot of time mindlessly surfing the web, and I want to break the habit.

I predict this will be a very difficult challenge.

(Internet Exile, Part Two link)

Join a Classics Book Club

The Internet is consuming more and more of my time. When we leave the house for anything, my boys groan when I have to “just check Facebook,” and it inevitably becomes a delay.

So while reading classics isn’t really new for me, I notice that I don’t read nearly as much as I used to. This is true unless I count mindlessly clicking from political blogs to Facebook to entertainment blogs as reading, which I don’t.

For this challenge, I picked up Anna Karenina, which my local library’s classics book club is reading this month. I heard about it only a few days before the meeting, so I didn’t quite get through its 817 pages in time. Nevertheless, a librarian sent an encouraging email for readers to come even if they didn’t finish the book, so there I was discussing Russian literature on a Wednesday night.

I have a lot more reading to do.

If I really want to challenge myself, maybe I should give up the Internet for a week. That idea will require some serious deliberation.

Next month: Emma.

Gimme Some Nudgin': Ideas for Future Challenges

Skycoaster

Any more ideas out there?

I have gotten some great ideas for future challenges, as well as some not-so-great ones.

Some are in the hopper:

• Take a flying trapeze lesson
• Shoot a gun
• Sweat through a Bikram Yoga class (hot yoga)
• Get a pedicure (I’m squeamish about it)

Others I’m not sure I could do, or I know I don’t want to do:

• Attend a nudist colony
• Go bungee jumping
• Prepare a live chicken for cooking
• Belly dance
• Jump off the cliff at Brownstone Quarries
• Skydive

Then there are some I have always wanted to try, but don’t know when I could get to them:

• Swim with dolphins
• Go SCUBA diving
• Travel solo

And then there are the not-so-great ones that my husband and sons recommended:

• Juggle live snakes
• Swim through sewage
• Shave my head

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