Hey all. It’s been a long, stressful week at Casa Twistie. In point of fact, I’ve spent the last two days hanging around the hospital with Mr. Twistie. Panic not. He’s fine now, but it’s been kind of crazy.

Anyway.

Brain not working. Nerves shot. In need of a good giggle. And so I have decided to declare a 24-hour edition of Caption Madness.

You know how this works. I post the pic, you caption it via the comments function, and – since this is a super short one – I’ll declare a winner tomorrow.

This week’s image comes to you direct from the Bizarre Critters of the World and their friends file and looks a little like this:

Ready… set… snark!

… I’m going to mention something that’s been honking me off for months now in a tiny, mosquito-whine kind of way.

Honestly, I’ve never paid attention to what brand it is, but the commercial for a hair dye talks about how fast and easy it is to use. The model exclaims: “Ten minutes! I take longer to get into a pair of skinny jeans!”

Honey, if it takes you longer to get into your jeans than it does to cover your premature greys, YOUR JEANS DON’T FREAKING FIT! GET A NEW PAIR!

That is all.

As I stumbled down the stairs this am in my usual desperate search for caffeine… well, there really wasn’t much else on my – for lack of a better term at that point – mind. My one thought was “COFFEE!!! COFFEE!!!” and I’m not ashamed to admit that. Once I got the coffee, my one thought was a familiar one that I have most mornings these days: “I really have turned into my Aunt Louise.”

No, really, the very first time my brothers and I saw a rockhopper penguin,

we all immediately agreed that it resembled nothing so much as Aunt Louise before her first cup of coffee in the morning.

Yeah. That’s now me in the morning. I get up, look scary – yet oddly adorable – make coffee, grab a nosh after the coffee (darlings, if I attempt to cook before caffeinating myself, I would probably set the entire house ablaze and be entirely too dazed to save myself), and sit down to check my email. After that I can slowly ease myself into life

This morning, however, I had a third thought, which is pushing it for me before I’m properly caffeinated. I wondered how my fellow Big Girls wake up in the morning. Do you have a ritual? Something you need to do before you face the world? Is your morning face less terrifying than mine?

Darlings, I have a confession to make, foodie what I am and all: I loathe beets.

Now this would not normally be that bad a problem. You see, most of the foods I dislike intensely are also foods that Mr. Twistie either loathes or finds too terrifying to contemplate. The difference here is that Mr. Twistie likes beets very much.

We recently joined a CSA and are now getting regular deliveries of yummy organic veggies. Now I was given the option to customize what we get and quickly knocked a couple things off the list for all time. Mushrooms? Not at Casa Twistie. Asparagus? Give it to someone who wants it. But when it came to beets, I said to myself that since I was taking the zucchini and the eggplants and the cauliflower and the melons and the blueberries and the… well, you get the picture, that I could find a way to deal with beets.

The time has come. In the last box, there sat a bunch of bright ruby beets.

Unfortunately, the only way I’ve ever managed to get a beet down me without triggering a most unladylike gag reflex is in a borscht with plenty of beef and lots of cabbage in it. That’s not an option with the sort of weather we’ve been having. I could try putting it in a salad and liberally disguising it with goat cheese… except that Mr. Twistie reacts to goat cheese the way I usually do to beets.

Basically, I need to find a way to prepare beets that won’t make me gag and that won’t make Mr. Twistie run for the hills in terror. I have about four good-sized beets and their attendant greens to work with.

Hit me with your best shots, guys.

Help Obi-Wan Big Girls. You’re my only hope.

Hey ho campers!

Remember last sunday when I forced you all to contemplate this deathless image?

Eight of you bravely took up the challenge to come up with just the right caption.

You were all deeply funny and pithy. No, really, pith everywhere. I’m still cleaning it up.

In the end, though, there can be but one winner, and this week that one is the one, the only, the superfantastic Amazon Princess for both lauding and painfully mocking my own cultural background until I begiggled myself into fits with this delicious concept:

From Scotland’s little known coastal region – The Finalists for the Driftwood Caber Toss!

Congratulations, Amazon Princess! And thanks to everyone who played.

Hey all! It’s time once again to play Twistie’s Sunday Caption Madness. You all know how this works. I find a picture that needs a caption like Plummy needs a certain Archbishop. You provide said captions via the comments function. Next week I declare a winner and we all go on a virtual shoe-shopping trip. Or something.

This week’s image comes to you from the bizarre group behavior file and looks a little like this:

Ready…set… snark!

No, we’re not having one for MftBG. We’re having one on my block today. It’s an annual event in my neighborhood, usually following a block garage sale. Today it’s just the party and we’re holding the garage sale in a couple weeks.

It’s a great tradition. The street is blocked off from noon until close to sunset. The organizers bring in a jump castle for the kids to play in, and late in the afternoon, everyone brings out their best dishes for a potluck party while two volunteers man the grill.

Me? I’m bringing a fabulous lemon layer cake filled with lemon curd. Why? Because I’m the dessert maven, darlings. I also have some oatmeal cookies filled with dried fruit left over from the Relay for Life that I’ll probably thaw out and bring.

But there’s more to it than games for the kids and showing off our foodie leanings. Having this party every year means we all get to know something about one another. It builds community and friendships. It makes us think a little more during the year about who we haven’t seen lately or who suddenly isn’t doing much with their previously show-quality yard. It means we notice when someone is behaving oddly and take the time to find out what’s going on. It means we take better care of one another because we have a reason to pay attention. It means if there’s an emergency, we all know we can go to a neighbor for help.

Community is a good thing. The great thing is, all it takes is a bit of effort to create one. Say hello to a neighbor. Invite someone in your building to dinner. Make a connection.