Random Acts; or What I Did This Summer

Hey kids!  Long time, no write, I know (except for that weird post in August, but I will explain that in a minute).  I've been a bit busy the last year and I know you've heard it before, but seriously this time, I was super busy.  See, I had a kid!  Yep, I made a baby hipster!  She's pretty amazing and I am digging this mom thing.  But don't worry, this isn't going to become a mommy blog (not that there's anything wrong with that.  Some of my favorite people are amazing mommy bloggers!).  I will occasionally be talking about the baby (Blueberry) or her dad, my awesome partner and love of my life.  But I'm still the Small Town Hipster, so I will be amusing you with my adventures, and cool beer and booze talk, and food, and basically whatever else I want to write, as per usual.  So don't fret, dearies!  So, back to explaining that entry from August.

I'm a big fan of the show Supernatural.  If you've never seen it, check it out.  It's about two brothers that drive around in a cool ass Impala and slay supernatural creatures.  But the best part of the show is the chemistry between the cast members.  They obviously all enjoy what they do and who they get to work with.  One of those actors is @MishaCollins.  He plays an angel with all kinds of issues.  It's pretty great.  But Misha also has an active life outside of the show.  He created GISHWHES (Greatist International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen).  This is basically a big scavenger hunt where teams from around the world complete strange tasks to score points.  The points really don't mean much, it's definitely all about the experience.

I have participated previously by myself, where I got placed with strangers from around the world (some of which I am still friends with!).  But this year, I got to work with all people that I know.  Our team was Unicorn_Rodeo, because what's more awesome than that?  For one week, myself and 14 friends traded messages discussing the best way to pour wine from 3 stories up, or if anyone had a coffin we could borrow.  It was an amazing, absurd, ridiculous week.  And it was a great send off for my oldest friend's daughter, Marching Chief.  She started her freshman year of college a couple weeks later.  And she was the mastermind of a lot of the awesome moments of the hunt.  We all had a wonderful time, got to be ridiculous, (which we are all pretty good at), and got to help out an amazing cause.  What's better than that?

So, I'm super glad to be back to y'all.  I missed you more than you probably missed me.  ;). Keep an eye out for some awesome new stuff from me.  I know have a website and I will be working on that to get it prettied up and running for your reading pleasure.  I have lots of hipstery stuff to write about, plus I'm going to be adding a recipe section to the website, so you guys can recreate some of my inventions.  Lots and lots of things happening over here!

So, as always, until next time, stay hip!

History of the World, Part 3

I recently got reintroduced to a very special person.  The kind of person that makes you reevaluate your life and choices.  The kind of person you can really look up to, maybe even worship.  This lady has done so much for so many.  So I felt the urge to honor her in some small way.

I first interacted with Miss Jean Louis in 2013.  She was knowledgeable and efficient. To say I was impressed by her would be an understatement.  But our time together would not last long, and I lost track of her for a few years.  So this year I made a promise to myself that I would seek her out and aimed to learn more about the mystery that is Miss Jean Louis.

Miss Jean Louise was born in a cave in a remote area of New Zealand.  Not that this was an ordinary cave.  Nay, this was a well appointed "luxury cave".  Gold plated fixtures, fine linens, strong leather furniture, and all the other accouterments that come with the word luxury.  But all of this finery did not turn little Miss Jean Louis into a brat.  Instead, she was proud of the mantle of being "born in a cave".  

Her young life was fairly unremarkable.  Tea parties with foreign ministers, and holidays with coal miners.  She spent much time in a field near her home(cave) studying the migratory paths of the now-extinct slangaroos.  Her heart was filled with jello and turtles.  She was adored by small rodents and large rodents alike.

As she grew, Miss Jean Louis became more aware of the outside world.  She began to question her place in the world.  She learned that not everyone had a pet beaver or spent their summers wrapping pine trees in yarn sweaters.  At this time, she made to decision to go out to the wide world and learn more.  So she ventured on.

Those early years were extraordinary.  Spending time with the Bedouin tribes learning the secrets of traditional flatbread, making gum wrapper necklaces with Maori elders, and being a scarf carrier for the Belgium ski team are just a few of the adventures she had.  Life was full.  

But she thought that life could be more full.  Like fuller, or fullest.  So she began the search for something that would fill that order.  Something that would make her ordinary life (to her) a little more extraordinary.  And that is when she met a real life angel.  And her world was turned upside down.

Finding GISHWHES and Misha filled Miss Jean Louis with so much like and marshmallow fluff that she felt she couldn't contain it.  She dove wholeheartedly into this absurd world that Misha had created.  She started by punching holes in index cards, but over time she grew to become Misha's personal wrangler, a tall order indeed.  She has grown from a naive New Zealand cave dweller to a less naive small loft apartment dweller with minuscule bureaucratic powers.  She is truly a unique individual with a somewhat mediocre life history.

I hope you, the readers, now have a better understanding of this complex, interesting person that I have grown to appreciate.  After all, everyone needs a hero.

(This article was written to complete an item in GISHWHES, the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen.  Check the blog out next week to learn more about GISHWHES and all of our adventures this week.  And as always, stay hip!)