#ThrowbackThursday: A Lesson in Juggling, AKA Knive and Wives and Girlfriends

Still digging through my archives and resuscitating posts that most of you might have missed. This one harkens back to September 2010, and recounts a tale that harkens back even further. 

(Sidenote: The word of the day appears to be "harkens.")

Knives and wives and girlfriends, oh my!

I'm so excited!!!

Why, you ask? What could possibly have Linda jumping up and down to the extent she wishes she'd invested in a heavy duty sports bra?

Well, I'll tell you. I just found out The Flying Karamazov Brothers are coming back to The Barns (the theater where TG is the reigning deity) next month, with their show entitled "4-Play."*

These guys are fan-effing-tastic! A comedy troupe that juggles. Yes, a juggling comedy troupe! Sooo funny, sooo talented, AND they sometimes wear KILTS!

Didja hear that, ladies? I said KILTS! And they all have really nice legs, which would be enough to make me watch them, but did I mention they also juggle while wearing kilts? What's not to love about that?




Aah, memories... *loses self in reverie*

You see, this is not the first time the troupe of kilted jugglers has been here. Many, many moons ago (as in, the '90s -- you know, the Dark Ages), The Flying Karamazov Brothers came to play at The Barns. The troupe has morphed since then--only one of the original members is left--but the spirit of F-U-N is the same.

On that memorable occasion, I actually got to be up close and personal with the guys. They were doing two shows--a matinee and an evening performance--so naturally TG, being the hospitable guy he is, invited the whole troupe and crew to our house for a meal in between. Even though we had two little kids at home, I don't really cook, and my elderly aunt from Sweden was visiting. Not that I'm holding a grudge or anything. I mean, I agreed and all. Still, I think he owes me for pulling it off.

Yeah, I know. Me, cooking. It is to laugh. But it's amazing what you can do with two frozen lasagnas (one with meat and one without, because there's always a vegetarian in an artsy crowd), bags o' salad, and baguettes from the bakery. If there's anyone who can throw together a passable meal without actually cooking, it's me.

The first thing you should know about jugglers is, duh, they juggle. All the time, apparently. Whatever they can get their hands on will go flying through the air. Yes, they're always honing those mad skillz.

Honing is what makes them professionals. *looks meaningfully at all writers reading this* Take from that what you will.

Part of The Karamazov Brothers' schtick is a trick called "The Gamble," in which one of them (designated "The Champ") juggles any three items provided by the audience (as long as the items weigh more than an ounce, less than 10 lbs, are no bigger than a breadbox, and are not live animals**). Said items are voted on by the audience members, so the guys don't know in advance what they will have to juggle.

TG says the most memorable thing an audience member brought to The Barns for this trick was a pig stomach stuffed with green jello. Eeew.

(I believe animal parts have since been added to the list of no-nos, at least at The Barns. So if you're planning to come to the show, don't bring any. Frankly, TG doesn't want to deal with it.)

They have another bit, called "The Terror Trick," wherein they juggle a salt shaker, a cleaver, a flaming torch, an egg, a block of dry ice, a fish, a ukelele, a bottle of champagne (with the safety wire removed), and a skillet. By the end of the trick, they're frying the fish and egg in the skillet, and drinking the champagne.

(Huh. Maybe I should've let them cook...)

At my house, they limited themselves to juggling a peanut, a bottle from the bar, a banana from the fruit basket, and a knife. Oh, and one of them was also juggling his girlfriend and his wife (who showed up *cough* unexpectedly to visit him on the tour). That was rather awkward.

What could a good hostess do? Other than seat them all at separate tables, smile brightly, and engage the wife in a halting Swedish-English conversation, with the help of a handy visiting aunt, while TG enlisted everyone else's aid in keeping the girlfriend from drinking too much wine and spilling the beans to the clueless wife over dessert.

Gotta love showbiz.

(No, I won't tell you which Karamazov brother it was. Contrary to the impression I may have left on loyal readers of this blog, I do have some discretion. Doesn't matter anyway--he's no longer with the troupe. I suspect the on-the-road "juggling" became too much of a challenge for his personal life to sustain.)

Anyway, I cannot wait to see their new show. TG hasn't said yet if he's invited them over for an encore meal. I suspect he's waiting to see if any of them have additional *cough-cough* baggage to deal with before making the commitment.



*Admit it. You were expecting me to make a crass foreplay joke here, weren't you? Well, some set-ups are just too easy. No challenge. Besides, you were already thinking it, so what's the point?

**TG tells me the items also cannot present a danger to the audience or the juggler, should a mishap occur. So you wouldn't be allowed to give them, say, a balloon full of sulfuric acid or a piece of dynamite. In case you were considering it.

[Back to 2015]

Yes, the Flying Karamozov Brothers still perform. If you ever get a chance to see them, do it! Though you might not want to sit in the front row. Just sayin'. 

Huh. Smells a little fishy to me (a #ThrowbackThursday post)

Wow. It's already Thursday again. Seriously, Universe, stop it already with this warp speed stuff. It's messin' wit' my head!

*Cough*

Okay, so in honor (once again) of #ThrowbackThursday, I dug into my archives and am resuscitating a post from a while back. If it smells a little funny, bear in mind it's almost five years old, and we all know fish start to stink after a few days. ;)

Bam-Bam, the Fish, and the Universe

My dad died when I was twelve and my baby brother was three.

(Relax. This isn't going to be a maudlin post.)

My older brothers and I did our best to help Mom with, oh, let's call him "Bam-Bam." Because that's what we did call him. See, he had this little wooden hammer, and was not bashful about using it...but that's not really germane to this story.

One of my dad's favorite pastimes was fishing. We'd go to the lake in the summer, and stay for a few days or a week, depending on how much time off Dad could get. He would spend every spare second down on the dock, fishing. My older brothers spent their fair share of time there with him, proudly holding their rods. (Heh-heh.)

I'd join them sometimes, mainly to watch. And *cough* possibly to make a lot of noise, trying to scare the fish away before they were hooked. (Yeah, imagine how popular I was with the menfolk.) What can I say? I was a soft-hearted twerp. Besides, the worms were icky. I couldn't bear to squish them onto the hooks myself, and even when my dad did it for me, it still freaked me out. I mean, eew. Worm guts.

So I spent most of my time in the camp's rec room, playing ping-pong and drinking Delaware Punch (the only non-carbonated beverage in the soda machine. Oh, and reading, of course. Good times.

Bam-Bam wasn't old enough for any quality dock time before Dad died, but he'd heard stories. When he was about six, he got it into his head that he wanted to go fishing, just like his daddy. My other brothers were busy doing teenage boy things, and Mom didn't fish, so I figured it was up to me.

Trouble was, I still couldn't stand to, you know...

 Which was really fine, because I sure as heck didn't want to deal with...

...an actual fish.

See, what I had in mind was a nice afternoon bonding with my baby brother while he dangled a worm-less hook in the water. Pretending to fish. After all, just holding the pole was the important part. (Honest to God, I tried to come up with a way to not make that sound like a double entendre, but I don't think there is one.) Anyway, no worm, no possibility I'd have to deal with a fish, right?

Ha. Hahahahahahaha. HA! (That would be hysterical hindsight laughter.)

So, what do you suppose happened the very first time Bam-Bam dropped that hook in the water, and jerked it back out in his sheer enthusiasm for the activity?

That's right. He hooked a fish. Through its back.

There, dangling from Bam-Bam's fishing line, was a four-inch, silver-gray fish who was suddenly having a very bad day.

Picture it: you are the Einstein of fishes, much too smart to snap at a worm on a hook. No, you'd rather starve than place your mouth on any strangely still, hook-shaped worms. Because you know better. And then out of nowhere comes a freakin' worm-free hook, speeding through the water above you, and before you can wiggle your tail and swim away you are suspended in front of a six-year-old human boy shrieking, "Can we eat it? Huh? Can we eat it?"

Like I said. Bad day for the fish. (And me--I had to *shudder* take the hook out.) But Best Day Ever for my baby brother, even though I had to explain to him that we had to throw the fish back because it was too small to keep. Didn't matter to him. He'd caught his fish.

There's a lesson in there somewhere. Something about never taking anything for granted. Or about how life can surprise you in the damnedest ways. Or how, even when the odds are against you, things sometimes work out. Or perhaps how point of view is everything (think of the fish). Take your pick. Me, I just look back on it and laugh.

How about you? Has life handed you any small surprises? How'd they work out for you?

A #ThrowbackThursday Post about my Sordid Criminal Past

I was perusing the archives of my blog, marveling at how the quality of my posts went downhill after I sold my books. Who knew writing novels under deadline would drain so much creative energy? Alas, 'tis true. *sighs*

Then I thought, hey, I bet a lot of visitors here haven't even read my earlier posts, and might be surprised to learn I can write about something that isn't, you know, one of the books I'm trying to sell!

Then I thought, hmm, #ThrowbackThursday is a good excuse to dig up something from the past and post it now. (I'm quick that way.)

So, here ya go. A relic from 2013 relating an even older relic from my dubious past (geez, I hope there's a statute of limitations on my criminal behavior youthful antics...):

My Sordid Criminal Past

WARNING: The following post contains such words as "h*t p*le" and "t!t" and "chickensh!t" and "bad*ss." Read at your own peril.

(Oh, come on. This is me. How bad can it really be?)

Even before my walk on the wild side as an almost-gunrunner in Ireland, I had already dipped briefly into a life of crime. Difficult though it will be for you to believe it:

I am an international smuggler.

There. *bites knuckle* I've said it. Think of me what you will. But it's not my fault! I was young. I was impetuous.  

I was Double-Dog Dared.

And we've already seen what depths I will stoop to when dared, haven't we? So you can hardly be surprised to learn that this behavioral tendency has its roots in my murky past.

It was my junior year of college, and I was studying abroad in Stockholm. (TG says he studied a broad in college, too--several, in fact...ba-dum-bum *waggles eyebrows*) Over spring break a group of us international students went Russia. We stayed five days in Moscow and four in St. Petersburg. Since we were tagging along with a high school study group, you'd think we couldn't manage to get into much trouble, wouldn't you?

Yeah, you'd think that. But you'd be wrong.

Listen, all I can say is, it's not that tough for five college girls to ditch one harried high school chaperone, who was naturally way more concerned with keeping tabs on his underage charges than on those of us who were supposed to be "mature." The poor man may even have been under the impression we would actually help him ride herd on the teenagers.

[Pause for interlude of hysterical laughter.]

Shortly after we arrived in Moscow (getting there was a harrowing experience in itself--I'm not sure how it is today, but back then there was a good reason Aeroflot was commonly known as "Aeroflop" *shudders*), one of our motley crew of college girls--let's call her TUNS (short for "Thinks Up Naughty Stuff")--decided it would be fun to take a cab to the nearest fancy restaurant and dine spectacularly on caviar and vodka.

Well, the only thing was, the exchange rate from Swedish crowns to Russian rubles was not so great. None of us poor college students could afford it.

"Ha!" says Tuns. "No problem. I know a guy..."

Know a guy she did. He was a Pole (as in from Poland, not a staff, and quite classically handsome, if physical considerations are important to you) from our International Swedish language class. He happened to be visiting his Russian cousin at the same time as our trip.

What a coincidence! I'm sure the timing of his trip had nothing to do with the fact that Tuns had been seeing him on the sly back in Sweden. He was married to a Swedish woman, purely, he assured us all, to gain residency. Didn't stop him from trying to date me, Tuns, and every other American girl in our language class. I think he had aspirations of U.S. citizenship. Tuns had no intention of marrying him, even if he did divorce his Swedish wife, but she couldn't see why that should stop her from letting him *cough* try to persuade her.

Long story short (or is it already too late for that?), Hot Pole's [Heh-heh. I said "Hot Pole."] Russian cousin was a taxi driver who dabbled in, um, unofficial currency exchange. Apparently, this sort of "moonlighting" was quite common then. Might still be, for all I know. He gave us an exchange rate approximately ten times better than the official one, assuring us that "nobody really minded" as long as we didn't try to take any Russian currency out of the country with us. We'd have to spend it all while we were there.

This did not strike us as an especially bad hardship. *blink*

Russian Cousin also said he could give us a very good rate on a cab ride to a nice restaurant. So five of us girls, plus Hot Pole (heh), squeezed into (heh-heh) a tee-niny cab, built to hold three passengers, tops.

Have I mentioned this was March, and that this particular March in Moscow was colder than the proverbial witch's...um, bosom? (Bosom is better than tit, right? I'm working on my restraint.) With four-foot snowbanks along the sides of the roads? Also, apparently it's illegal for taxi drivers to over-stuff their cabs, drive without their meters on, and then not report the income to whoever the Russian equivalent to Uncle Sam is?

Yeah. Well, it is, it is, and it is. So we spent the whole cab ride caroming around icy streets, avoiding cop cars, and finally wound up slamming head-on into a snowbank. Fun stuff.

To give Russian Cousin his due, he did get us to the restaurant...after we all helped dig is car out of the snow. And the restaurant was spectacular. The food was amazing, the wait staff so attentive we felt like celebrities, and the vodka flowed freely enough that none of us felt our whiplash.

But back to the main point of this post. After lots more antics along those lines, one of them involving all of us getting kicked out of Lenin's tomb for inappropriate laughter (what? he looked like a reject from Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum), we found we had some rubles left over as we packed to head back to Sweden.

Tuns told us the rubles would make wonderful mementos of our trip to Russia, and that she fully intended to take hers with her. Went so far as to say if we didn't do the same, we'd bechickenshits, and she would spend the rest of the semester clucking at us whenever she passed us in the hall.

Then she did it. She double-dog dared us. 

What choice did we have? The other girls stuffed rubles in their bras, but I thought that seemed too obvious. So I pried open my dental floss case, folded up my 5-ruble bill really small, crammed it beneath the wound-up white thread, and closed the case back up, good as new. Squeezed a small blob of toothpaste on the outside case for authenticity's sake, and to discourage any official who happened to rifle through my bags from actually touching it. (I thought that was a rather clever touch.)

Then I proceeded to have heart palpitations until we were safely through airport security. No one checked any of our bags, but I didn't breathe easily until we were back on Swedish soil. Badassthough I am, I don't think I'm cut out for a life of crime.

How about you guys? Have you ever broken an international law? Do share in the comments. I swear your secret is safe with me.