My husband, good friend Kim and I watched the independent film “The Trip” starring comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon as two best friends taking a road trip together to tour the finest restaurants in the countryside and along the way they drive each other crazy with their dueling impressions of various characters from Sean Connery to Al Pacino.  What I loved about this film was how it reminded me of my brother, Howdy, and I when were kids and would do various impressions  (he had me beat hands down but I’d never admit it to him). We would go over and over the same impression trying to get it just right, while showing the other one how to do it perfectly.

Our little brother, Hamilton, does great impressions too.  Hamilton can do the best Chewbaca cry ever which I cannot begin to compete with;  however, I do manage to crack him up with my pathetic attempts.

There is nothing quite as fun as practicing a good session of mimicry with someone.  My husband, David and I have created our own little dance with this such as talking with a Scottish brogue when we say “Scotland” or “Aye, we’re from Irrrreland” with an Irish accent.  In fact, we’ve been known to switch back and forth from Scottish to Irish accents all the way down the highway trying to get it just right. Just like the guys in “The Trip” movie.

What is it about mimicking someone or something that is so much fun and why is it when you hear someone imitate something perfectly, it can really crack you up?  Yet, we seem to know the difference between someone imitating us as a compliment or making fun of us. And there are some people that we don’t want imitating us at all?

I’ve always been fascinated by the different voice inflections that people have as well as their mannerisms.  I know when someone has caught my attention because out of the blue, I will catch myself doing some kind of mannerism that isn’t naturally my own and so I have to stop a minute to figure out “who I’m doing”.  I know I used to make one of my good friends uncomfortable because I absolutely loved the way she would say certain words with her Wisconsin/Illinois influenced accent.   At some point in our lives, many of us do mimic or imitate each other in some form or fashion.  I suppose it shows how we humans are much more like our animal brethren then some would care to guess because various species of animals in the wild will mimic each other or mimic a predator in some form or fashion for attracting a mate or for survival.  I wonder if animals ever laugh at themselves like we do?

I  suppose the closer we get to being able to mimic someone spot on, the closer we can get to really being able to see what is going on around us very clearly.  Some of my best “skits” have been the ones that combine various people, voices, situations that are going on in the world around me that show someone who is watching me that “I know” and that “we are connected”.

Have a little fun with mimicking and imitating someone or something to see where it takes you.  One of my very favorite instant imitations that my Dad did awhile ago was when he and I had been sitting on our living room futon for a stretch of time and so when we attempted to get up, the cushion had settled back into the crack of the futon very deeply impeding our being able to get up and off the futon with any flair to speak of much less in one graceful movement.  Instead, after I had gotten up and was turning off the lights to go to bed, a movement caught my attention out of the corner of my eye because my Dad was sitting there with his bohiney stuck way down in the futon flailing his legs just like a little bug while making an ever so soft grunting sound of effort.  It was pretty subtle but absolutely hilarious.  Guess I know where at least some of our humor comes from!

How about you?  What impressions or mimicking do you do just for the fun of it?

It’s just me and the dogs so I can’t blame anyone else knocking around our house (that I know of)  but I keep hearing music playing around my house coming from different rooms.  It almost sound like a radio alarm that was programmed for the pm instead of the am went off, but no I’ve checked those out and there aren’t any on.  Maybe it’s someone driving by in their car, but we live off a circle in the country. Still, it could be the sound waves floating from a bar two miles down the road but I’ve heard both a man and a woman’s voices from different parts of our house. At least they’re low.  Maybe my gold molars on my back teeth are signing in like satellite radio?

I’m going to choose to believe it’s the angels talking again.

I guess if you ask them for help enough, like I do everyday, you’ve got to expect the unexpected. But still.  I remember several years ago when David and I were living in our first home this kind of thing would happen but I didn’t tell many people because, you know, it’d be easy to assume I was a bit off.  And maybe I am, but when my friend Cynthia spent the night one weekend on our living room coach she was awakened by the sound of a teenage boy’s voice as he leaned over the sofa and said a girl’s name (can’t remember it now).  Maybe we’re both a bat short in our belfry?

I just opened our front door to listen to the quiet for awhile and sure enough, I could hear music coming from the bar two miles away.  Oh well, I like the fact that my creative mind would rather believe that it was possible to hear angel’s talking then musicians singing from a few miles away. But then again, those musicians could be divinely inspired !

Would love to hear some of your stories around things like this……leave a comment!

Talking with one of my friends this morning she couldn’t believe that I had such an upbeat (almost manic, but not quite) attitude in spite of the record breaking drought and heat that we’ve been experiencing in Texas all summer.  I’ve lost count of how many days it’s been in triple digit heat but I’m pretty sure everyday is equivalent to the years in my age.  I think what helps me is that I believe that the Divine/Force/Mystery of all existence has a sense of humor.  Sometimes this sense of humor shows up as the underbelly of what one would usually consider funny such as the fact that many of us in Austin are siting more buzzards then ever. One of my friends posted yesterday that they had a flock of buzzards sitting on their roof and all that was missing was the skull and a scorpion.  I told him we could probably provide him with that rather quickly.

I have my buzzard sightings as well,  only the ones that hang out near our home are more active and happy.  This morning as the flock took off for flight, one buzzed down lower to get my dog’s attention before taking off to the great beyond.  You could almost hear his, “heh, heh, heh” as he startled the Paul-dog.  Look for the absurd in whatever situation is swimming around your ankles or whatever buzzards are breathing down your neck.  Laughter, even if it is silent from within, is a great dissipater of despair.  If nothing else, it can at least elevate  you to a fair playing field from which to base your decisions and responses to life.

The faint aroma of skunk still hangs around my dog even though when you sniff right close to him, you can’t pin point where the scent  is still coming from. He’s like Pig-Pen from the Snoopy Comics with eau de skunk following him around.  Perfect sniff and smell reminder for me not to take myself too seriously as I prepare to meet with a very prestigious person later on today.  I need to remember sitting here typing to y’all with my loving skunk-smelling dog laying under my chair.  Keeps me humble.

What absurdity can you find about your life today that will at least get you to shaking your head if not germinating a giggle?

Snoopy as the vulture

Why is it that when some of us get pushed right up to the edge of handling just about all we can in life, that’s when life get’s the funniest?   I’ve often shared with my Boarding School mates that one of the devices that helped us “survive” being sent (in most cases) to a military (for the boys) religious (not that there’s anything the matter with that) school for three years was humor.  I almost began making constant brrr brrr sounds with my fingers on my lips when my parents told me that I would be living at this school when I was fifteen.

Off and on in my life, from the most extreme cases to the not-so-extreme when I sidled right up the edge of going over because I can’t handle anything more…humor just bursts out of me.  I blame both my parents for that.  We kids often begged our mother to make those funny faces that only she could make by raising one eyebrow (ambi-brows) at a time and making her lips go sideways (both sides) at a time.  Very talented but never brought her to show off at school.  My father is hilarious both with words and actions.  And both my brothers are too.  Anyway. Being an in-the-closet-comedian, whenever something drastic would happen in my life I’d always remember that even though whatever was happening at the time could really suck, it could also be really good “material” later on.

Take an awful car wreck at 21 when I passed out at the wheel and woke up just as I was going over an overpass to fly down and land just south of the railroad tracks.  Doesn’t seem like hilarity abounding right off the bat does it?  But I can’t tell you how many laughs I’ve been able to milk out of the story when I tell about the policeman who first found me. And it’s all because of a retainer that I wore at the time that had one false tooth on it.  The policeman came upon me after I had tumbled around in the car, crawled out the back window and up the 70 foot embankment on my butt.  As you can imagine, I was covered with blood, sweat and tears as well as everything in-between.  I kept passing out off and on and woke up as the policeman crab walked over to me, jumping back and forth like a sumo wrestler on steriods.  Part of what was freaking him out was that retainer which had landed on my chest.  I’m sure in his brain, he was connecting the dots of my bleeding facial orifices and that retainer…but incorrectly.   I remember trying to calm him down by saying to him, “it’s okay, I usually don’t look like this”. True story.

I bring this up, this trying not to take ourselves and this life too seriously now because I almost choked on my spit this morning waking up to NPR hearing about the economy (AGAIN) and Afghanistan (AGAIN) as well as the local weather report of 105 degrees (AGAIN) with another bright shiny day for us to enjoy.  There’s nothing to do but laugh at the insanity of it all.  Either that or dive down to the drain in my pool and stay there forever.  And I mostly like this life, so I think I’ll find a way to weather it (pun intended) as best I can.

How about you? Are you taking yourself too seriously today?

Today, as I was racing around preparing an already too-late lunch, I happened upon the most God awful smell in our pantry.  The allergens that haunt most people who live in Austin, Texas after awhile may be part of the reason that my nose had not awakened to this lovely aroma. Irregardless, I didn’t notice it until I reached up for the bag of potatoes on the highest shelf (of course!) that they were dripping wet. Never a good sign when it comes to potatoes in bags in your pantry.  As my brain began to put two and two together (smell+wet bag+?), my hand had already grabbed the plastic top of the bag and was pulling it towards me which only enabled me to get a spectacularly huge whiff of the rotten potatoes and some of the potatoes drippings on my skin. 

So I’m one of these people that LOVES to laugh. I mean, I would do just about anything to be around, talk to, or watch someone that really tickles my funny bone. And I’ve been told that I can be very funny too. Sometimes I will go out of my way to make someone laugh, especially if they have a really good hearty laugh like my good friend MC and her brother. They are the type of laughers who have a burbling laughter that starts somewhere just below their guts and rumbles up and through their mouths, in most cases forcing their heads back and racking their bodies as they let out their sounds.