Carrot talk

I was reminded today about the tastes of fresh carrots.  Olivia and I decided awhile back that raw carrots have three basic flavors.  1. Good carrot taste.   2. Pine tree flavor.  3. Wet dog flavor.  Today I had an assortment and had some 1's and 3's.

Dear World,

    Am I alone?  Am I the only one who thinks that I should have won the darn New Yorker cartoon caption contest a long time ago or at least made the finals once?  If you don’t know about the contest, it is in the New Yorker magazine and on their website.   They supply the cartoon, you supply the caption.  But beware.  It can be habit forming and very hard on the ego.   I am pretty sure I am not alone in my week after week after week disappointment.

  I guess I should be happy.  I have come sort of close to winning vicariously.  For contest # 183 My caption  “I guess Jimmy made curfew after all.“, winning caption "Well at least he made curfew."  For contest # 170 my caption “And to think that my last holiday bonus was 100 million dollars.“, winning caption "I miss the cash bonuses."   Lessons learned.  1.  Use "he" instead of personal names that the judges might associate to unsavory characters in their lives. 2.  Use "cash" instead of numbers that the judges might associate to unpleasant losses of personal massive fortune. 

  Winning caption for #208, “American car companies just can't make a decent hybrid. “, my caption 

“I don't know why you thought we needed to get the "Climate Change" options package.“  O.K.  My caption wasn’t close to winning that one but you can see that I have a certain flare for this.  Wasn’t mine funnier?  Be honest, I can take rejection, I am used to it.

  My secret suspicion is that I am just too good and the judges know it.  The judges actually long to see what I have submitted for the week knowing that my cartoon will be the funniest but just a little bit too far out and intelligent to be appreciated and understood by the masses.  They savor my weekly entry like a fine wine.  “What did Caroline send us this week?”  one says to the other expectantly as they sip their coffee and smile in their beautiful judging conference room with mahogany and comfortable leather chairs and a beautiful view of the city.  “Nothing?!?”, huge sighs of disappointment fill the air and everyone looks down pensively into their coffee cups.

 Well maybe not.  I forgot to mention that not every caption I submit is good.  I make it a habit to submit a caption once I have seen the cartoon no matter what.  I do the contest as a kind of a cheap brain training technique and to not enter it just because it is hard would lead to brain atrophy and then Alzheimer’s for sure.  I am not a quitter!  It is a puzzle to try to make this crazy picture make some kind of hysterically funny sense with just the right words. And believe me, the material we have to work with isn’t always inspiring, no offense to almost all the cartoonists almost all the time.  But, like a decorator who tries to take her cash strapped clients current mayhem of competing colors, fabrics, and furniture and make them all work together harmoniously with just the addition of a few judiciously placed newer pillows, recycled artificial flower arrangements, and very very low lighting, I do my best with what I have got to work with.  Even when the picture is inspiring, sometimes all the cylinders are not firing and it is 11:49 eastern time on Sunday night minutes away from the entry deadline and I just go for whatever comes into my head and out it goes unfiltered and unedited.   Editing and filtering are underrated I am sure the judges will tell all of us after reading 10,000 last minute entries like mine.    

    So why don’t I get picked when I submit a really good caption?  It is probably because I am from Seattle and New York people think we Seattle people are smug tree huggers who complain that NYC is a dirty, unethical hellhole responsible for all the negative numbers on our 403-B’s plans. Not true! We are too polite here in Seattle to say that about NYC, we just think it.  To educate the NYC folks, the 403-B is a retirement plan for non-profit organization’s employees.  Non-profits are companies that are motivated to do good works instead of lie, cheat, and steal from the shareholders and the world in the name of “making a profit”.   You might have guessed those kind of companies used to be called “For Profit”.    Non-profits are the only companies allowed in Seattle.

  Do my captions get ignored because I haven’t bought a cent of merchandise or a subscription off the New Yorker website?  I could test that theory, of course, and buy something but if I did win I would be forever questioning myself.  Was it me or my Mastercard?  We people in Seattle just can’t bear to earn something we don’t deserve unlike people in another city I won’t mention.

   I often do write long captions compared to the finalists.  Perhaps it is because I am a woman and a mother and I like to spell it out for others because we women are like that.  Helpful we are, not wanting any mistakes to occur on our account.   Better to qualify that instruction with a few extra words.   The judges are all men, I believe.  I guess that lowers my chances. 

  Well now that I have gotten that out of my system I will go back and try to crack this week’s cartoon with another winner of a caption.  I just hope the judges can see it my way.  And to be sure this article will not influence them if they should ever see it,  the name I have used for myself in this letter in no way relates to my New Yorker account name.  Judges please don’t look in your database of captions to out me.  Then I will never ever know if I was just bad or you were holding a grudge.

  To my fellow captioners,  good luck and I hope you can wish me luck, too, because maybe that is all we are missing.

Compulsive Captionist Caroline

P.S.  I wrote this a long time ago but decided to post it after seeing that something in the WSJ on the topic.   Now I know I am not alone!  

Shout the Donald Up

I posted this as my status on Facebook this morning about Donald Trump


"Donald, now that you and We the People have all seen President Obama's birth certificate, We the People now demand to see your scalp for we have credible evidence that it says "Made in China" on it. Feel free to copy and post as your status until the Donald gives into our demands."


My dream is that this goes viral and every time Donald speaks, the crowd starts to chant "Made in China, made in China!" and then "We won't stop until you show your top, we won't stop until you show your top!"  Then he finally caves and shows his bald head and is humiliated.  I love bald heads but not on him because he is so vain and egotistical.  It is fun to poke him in the one place we all can tell he has some vulnerability.  

More Seinfeld TV movie

My big obsession with Seinfeld started when there was a contest to write the ending for the show.  I loved the show of course and the idea nagged at me.  I had just had my first baby and, instead of postpartum depression, I had postpartum mania.  I stayed up very late that first night after reading about the contest and came up with my first idea.  I submitted it.  First contest I ever entered that required written thought.  My entry in 50 words or less was :
"They charter a boat from Long Island for a vacation. Strange currents from El Nino take them far south. There they become stranded on a deserted isle. They assimilate new identities: Gilligan (Kramer), The Skipper (George), The Professor (Jerry), and Mary Ann (Elaine). The last scene is Jerry on stage telling nerdy professor `jokes.' "
I didn't win but I did get an honorable mention.   Of course they ended up in jail instead of on an island and my husband will attest to the fact that a few days after submitting my original idea, I popped up in bed and said "They end up in jail".  It was the only logical place for them besides being stuck forever on a tropical isle.


So instead of using my idea for the ending, I have decided that my idea is the beginning of a great made for any video device movie.  This time embellished a bit.  A "Shawshank Redemption" meets "Gillian's Island" piece.  New details that must be included.   George's parents drive the getaway vehicle.  They end up on the island, too,  and assimilate the identities of the Howells.  Please Larry David, bring us back some Seinfeld!

Seinfeld Movie

I don't know why I think I deserve a wonderful free service that allows me to write about crazy ideas like how I want Larry David to make a made for TV (or, gasp, the big screen, even) movie about what happened to Seinfeld and friends in jail.  But that is why I started this blog.  More later.