The Lion King Situation

During high school, a lot of my friends really enjoyed Disney movies, so much that they bedecked  themselves with Pluto sweatshirts, Mickey Mouse letter jackets, and other outrageous Disney apparel, spontaneously broke out in songs from their favorite Disney movies, and oftentimes talked about one day being a princess or such at Disneyworld. I don't know how I've turned out as normal as I have with such heavy theatrical influence.

I've been pretty apathetic to Disney movies throughout my entire life and hadn't been one of the millions to see Lion King in the theater. Instead, I was honing my humor in the theater on Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold, Dumb and Dumber, and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, and other highly influential, high-brow movies. My friends, however were obsessed with the Lion King, raving how wonderful the songs were, how inspirational the story line was, how dreamy it was to have Jonathan Taylor Thomas (JTT) as the voice for Simba, blah, blah, blah. In sum: the highest grossing film of 1994. It was that good!

And so, at one fateful sleepover at my friend Sarah's house, we watched it soon after it was released on video (VHS if you must know). And: it was awful. Just awful. Excruciating*, really. The movie did not live up to the months of hype and adoration I had been exposed to. It was weird to hear JTT as a lion pup, the hienas were annoying, and the plot, just deplorable. It's quite a veritable sociological experiment when expectations created by cultural influence aren't met.

Because of this, I've met a lot of culturally popular tends with trepidation. It's really hard for me to jump on the pop culture bandwagon because I'm concerned that I'm going to be incredibly frustrated by what my culture is telling me I should appreciate, enjoy. Maybe it's because my tastes don't fit into pop culture and these situations remind me of that, or maybe my tastes are a little more high-brow, cultured than the average person, or maybe I'm just a little hipster and naturally want to avoid pop culture. Whatever the reason for my trepidation, whenever I catch wind of something new, I call my skepticism and hesitation the "Lion King Situation."

 Lion King Situations have permeated my life through a few cultural odds and ends:
-Lion King
-Sketcher Shoes
-Abercrombie & Fitch
-Harry Potter
-Paper plate aerobics
-New York City
-Evite
-The entire state of California
-"YOLO"
-Colored pants
-Sriracha sauce


I can't predict when a Lion King Situation will come or whether I'll end up accepting the trend or eschewing it, but at the very least, Lion King Situations make quite the menagerie of a list and good stories.

*Even more excruciating was seeing the influence of this movie on the tourism industry in Tanzania. If you look Western, street vendors will greet you with "Hakuna matata, rafiki!" This is unfortunate.

Up next: Traveler's Serendipity

Race Recap: Shazam!

Oh, Friends,

What a beautiful day for the Twin Cities 10-miler! I had two goals for this race:

1. don't stop belivin'
2. don't bonk (kinda my forte)

I've never felt so ready for a race in my life (which really, isn't much since I've only really been running for the past 3, 4 years): for the past two weeks I've been mentally ready, giddy with anticipation, having visions of fall colors, overly optimistic conquering the hills, and willing to pass out high-fives to anyone who asked.

I've been physically ready, too: training with the running group, bounding up hills, logging in miles as though I were--training--, and neither the cold nor flu were pestering me the last few weeks of training. And sweet Jesus, that hill work payed off.

With no pacers and a underwhelming representation of mile markers, I was on my own to gauge my pace. I was shocked when miler marker 2 came and I was at 20:00, for I usually run 11:00 miles, absolutely no faster, no slower. And thus, the shock quickly turned into a premature, yet well-deserved, runner's high that kept me going through the rest of the race. 

I saw some well-needed friends at perfectly coordinated cheering spots and imbibed in some BerryBlast! Powerade at just the right time to reverse--yes, reverse--the beginnings of a bonk and prevent it from going any deeper. (Funny thing about bonks is that you realize only after you're out of one that you were in one. Lame.) And so, I cruised to the finish line in 1:40--a personal best, maintaining a 10:03 mile. Sweet marmalade!

Highlights include:

• the verdant first 4  miles on the Mississippi River road
• a child in a bear suit on the sidelines not quite sure whether to cheer or be a bear
• being continuously amazed that I was running a 10:00 pace
• Hearing my friends yell, "way to go, Heidi!" 
• Almost crying out of joy (I managed to hold it in) when hearing the perfectly apropos "Let's Get Ready to Rubmle!" on some loud speakers right on the edge of Summit Ave and the State Capitol
• The fake out at the end and still sprinting to the finish (turns out an American flag held up by the ladders of two fire trucks over the race course isn't the actual finish. That finish line is still about 250 yards away) and thus sprinting for a good quarter mile and managing to shave off 20 seconds!
• Kid-size containers of chocolate milk at the end of the race

I, for one, am looking forward to the 13.1 miles at the end of the month to ice the running cake of 2011!

Think about it

"A writer -- and, I believe, generally all persons -- must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."

 ---Jorge Luis Borges, writer (1899-1986)

Mornings

Oh, how I love the early hours of the morning. Especially today, as most of the world is yet to get up and out, the breeze is cool, and the State Fair is yet to attract swaths of people. I love mornings like this because they come with anticipation of what is to come--the day is full of opportunity and I have a mug of coffee in my hand. The peacefulness, contentedness, and anticipation of mornings at home are like cream to my coffee, making life rich and sweet.

I can do anything I want to day--anything!--but for now, I am so content sitting in my sun room, windows open, listening to the waking world outside.

musing

I got to catch up with a good friend yesterday, sharing stories and such. I became convinced that if you want any relationship to be successful, one only needs 3 things: anecdotes, quotes, and advice. Maybe add a good bike ride together in there every once in a while, but that's it.

Think about it.

finally, more bits and bobs!

Yes, America, I finally have enough to say to start blogging again, soon. To welcome the new post enjoy a definition of my blog's new name:

Olla Podrida noun -- an incongruous jumble.

Example: "Vanessa's fashion sense is an olla podrida of patterns, colors, and decades that sassy and classy!"

In other news: I love words. I collect them as some would, say, stamps, boyfriends, or books. There's something about tossing in words such as barmecidal, bon ton, fulsome, and, logorrhea, into my vocabulary that makes me happy, much like a mathematics buff would get a kick out of counting cards at a blackjack table or a perpetual thief stealing beer from the liquor store. Yeah, just like that.

I realized, too, that I'm a syllabic conservationist, using rich, quirky words to lessen the amount of syllables I need to utter to get my point across. I'm always looking for ways to spend less energy and thus, why say, "toss your cares out the window and have a good time," when you can save your self a solid syllable and two entire words by spicing it up and declaring "defenestrate your cares and have a good time!"

Just don't defenestrate the baby with the bath water and we'll be okay.

And We're Back

It's hard for me to keep ideas of traveling out of my mind: stories of travels past and the potential of travels ahead. I'm addicted to getting more stamps in my passport and using exact change in foreign currency.

One of my great friends asked me this winter, over Christmas cookies, to go with her to Europe for a week to celebrate big--she's graduating from medical school for Pete's sake! And it's actually happening; she and I are in the midst of planning our week-long trip to Paris, France and Geneva, Switzerland from March 27th to April 3rd. Which also means I will be welcoming my 30th year on April 1st in Geneva--not a bad place to celebrate, eh?

I'm looking forward to picking up where my brother and I left of in Paris last September and making new shared stories together with my friend! Yahoo! More travel stories to come!