Day Forty-Nine: I Do My Best Pirate!

I present to you the following blog post, which stands as a warning to all of my novelty seeking readers about what can happen when you leave your novel experience until the end of the day and have absolutely nothing planned to pull out at the last minute.  This is also a cautionary tale about peer pressure. 

It was another busy, sometimes frantic, day in which I attempted, unsuccessfully at times, to meet the needs of my very small children, my household, and myself.  I find that motherhood, for me at least, often resembles the work of a triage nurse:  you assess the level of the crisis, prioritize, and then follow through in order of importance and urgency.  My children's basic needs and happiness come before everything else, and some days it feels like that's where all my time is focused...  Thus, leading to the seemingly never-ending backlog of tasks of lesser importance that need to be addressed when there is a rare free moment!  But it is my internal list of priorities that gives some semblance of structure to my days.  As a result, this novelty experiment, which is, of course, a lower priority than the needs of my children, can get pushed off until  they are safely tucked in bed.  And then the race against the clock begins!

Tonight, my best friend, Angela was over so I decided to employ her as the generator of novel experience ideas for the evening.  So, of course, she suggested something really easy.  "You need to Google search Guinness Book of World Records," she said with authority.  "Dare I ask why," I replied.  "Just do it.  Trust me."  

So, like the obedient woman that I am, I typed in the search parameters and pulled up the website.  "Now you're going to break a world record," exclaimed Angela.  Oh.  Of course!  What else would I do with barely two hours to dedicate to a task?  Doesn't everybody set out to beat a world record when they have a few moments of free time?  

Shockingly, it became abundantly clear that this was not a realistic goal.  However, the website did provide endless amounts of amusement with some inspiration mixed in to boot!  As we perused long lists of the fastest, tallest, widest and smallest, Angela became excited about a listing for the most people dancing the Bharatnatyam, an Indian dance form, and decided that learning this dance was going to be my novel experience for the evening.

But here's the part where I put a damper on Angela's enthusiasm...  A quick search of the internet confirmed my darkest suspicions...  I've actually danced the Bharatnatyam before.  Seriously, what are the odds that this WOULDN'T be a novel experience?  But when I was at a welcome reception in India in 1995, a group of us went up on the stage to learn how to dance the Bharatnatyam with the performers...  I hadn't been able to remember the name of the dance, but the description gelled with my memory of the experience.  So it was back to the drawing board.

The good news, here, is that it was at this point that we became inspired to do random searches on YouTube.  A simple search for "how to" led me to the novel experience of the night...  Though I initially protested that this was a cop out, I was eventually peer pressured to participate.  And, while laughing to the point of tears, I did, in fact, practice like a good little student, thus alleviating my concern that this should not count.  Are you ready?

Yup...  This is how I ended up spending my night.  I do feel that my new bilingual status will help me in life in the long run so I am very grateful to Angela for convincing me of the worthwhileness of this novel experience.  I mean, just check out my mad pirate-speaking skills:

"Arrrr...  This sharp-tongued wench be tired.  I gunna be sleepin."

So, on that note, I will wish you all a goodnight, and will now retire to my bed to dream of plunderin' and booty, (of the pirate variety!)