Month: June 2012

Nine Sports That Are Weirder Than Dressage

I’ll be honest. Even with the New England snobbery, the affinity for Brooks Brothers and his disdain for the brown, I’ve yet to find much use for Mitt Romney.

But then he was outed…as a dressage enthusiast!!

Yes, there may be some sticky issues with the fact that he was able to write off upwards of $70,000 on his taxes for his pretty ponies while many of us will never ever make upwards of $70,000 in a whole year, but…but…but… DRESSAGE PONIES! One of the hallmarks of Oreodom and animals which I truly love and adore.

The Atlantic Wire wrote this week that it was Perfectly OK to Make Fun of Ann Romney’s Weird Horse Sport.

Sigh. If you want to ridicule Ann Romney for something animal-related, It’s Perfectly OK to Make Fun of Ann Romney’s Weird Bird Shirt instead.

If you’re saying yourself, “That bird shirt is so not worth $900,” then you clearly don’t know fashion

Dressage, while a very specific exercise that involves using nearly invisible movements of your hands, calves, ankles and thighs to make your horse cycle through a variety of gaits in time to lovely music that you’ve chosen, is definitely not the weirdest of sports. Plus you get to wear an awesome hat.

If you’re saying to yourself, “That hat is so not worth $300,” you clearly hate animals.

There are plenty of sports dumber than dressage. Like these!

Football – wherein a bunch of men are encouraged to be obese so that they can fall down on top of other men top stop them from stopping some other guys from running away with a relatively small object called a ball that is in a completely different shape than every other ball ever.

Hockey – wherein ice skaters make each other bleed.

Golf – wherein they should bring back the old-style breeches because those pants at least make sense while it makes no sense to use a thin stick to try and hit a tiny ball into a hole that you can’t even see.

Basketball – wherein giants make squeaky noises with their feet while sharing ownership of a bright orange ball as they try to put it into a web of netting with the bottom missing. No baskets are involved in the sport. Also, points rack up quickly and very high – suggesting this is too easy of an exercise.

Figure Skating – wherein ice skaters make each other anorexic.

Soccer – wherein extraordinarily attractive bodies pretend to be injured  so they can stop the incessant running and get a moment or two of peace during a game that goes on for hours and hours with the very real possibility of having no points scored–suggesting this is too difficult of an exercise.

Table Tennis – wherein people pretend to play tennis.

MMA – wherein men wear very few clothes and are allowed to beat, punch and kick each other until they nearly die. But are not allowed to beat, punch and kick each other the one area that would ensure a win in the fight and prevent brain damage.

Beach Volleyball – wherein people use competition as an excuse to take off many of their clothes. Show-offs.

Now compare those silly pursuits to the fine art of dressage! In dressage, you and your mount keep time with music. Plus it’s perfectly okay to use the word “mount” to refer to the thing between your legs and no one can say you’re just being gratuitous. You obsess about your extensions are correct and you get to braid your horse’s hair into pretty shapes…

…Wait a minute… Dancing? Extensions?! Cornrows?!? Maybe dressage isn’t the safe haven I thought it was.

Ah well, at least there’s still the hat.

…and the hot.
(source)

Do you play any of the ridiculous sports listed above? What do you like about said sort? Let us know in the comments!

Not sure what sport is right for you? Click here to find out!

Team sports are actually a struggle for this Oreo. Find out why here!

***************************
For Mor-eo Oreo! Follow The Oreo Experience on Twitter (@oreoexperience)
Leave a comment here or at any of the above and let us know what you think!

Oreo-Approved Summer Gifts

Awww, you shouldn’t have!!
…yes you should. Always.
(source)

Summer is a big season for gifting. We had Mother’s Day, the Jubilee, this weekend is Father’s Day, then there are summer weddings, graduations, house-warmings, birthdays, then in the fall, it’s back to school, my birthday, a tiny break and then The Holidays!

When going to all these events, an Oreo must choose gifts wisely. Pick the wrong bauble of affection and you may lose your invitation to next year’s regatta. Your gift must be both an expression of who you’ve chosen to be and who you hope the people are around you. I’m not saying that if you choose a gift poorly, your face will melt off like you just drank from the Cup of Not Christ, but you might wish it would have. Stand out from the pack and the RBP with this handy guide of Oreo-approved gifts.

Father’s Day – June 18

  • Creme Fraiche
  • Franklin Covey organizers
  • Sachin Tendulker-autographed Cricket bat
  • Eggs in bed – Ostrich or Faberge
  • Notarized agreement to say simply “issues” instead of “daddy issues” to therapists, lovers

Wimbledon – June 25 – July 8

  • Came Set Match Care Package and Picnic Basket including: bottled water, sunglasses, wide-brimmed hat, binoculars, sunscreen, bribe money.
  • Ironic racquets from other sports – badminton, pickleball, squash
  • Andre Agassi
  • Creme Fraiche
  • Diamond-and-line judge tennis bracelet
  • Vintage Sports Illustrated covers, Current Sports Illustrated franchise

Fourth of July BBQ

  • Bottle of Zinfandel or Shiraz
  • A tasty side dish: Spicy orzo and black bean salad, garbanzo pasta salad, that nice young man from yoga.
  • Gordon Ramsay
  • Lamb – a live one for the kids to pet.
  • Creme Fraiche
  • *Don’t even joke about bringing watermelon. Even if it has been thoroughly injected with vodka

Bastille Day- July 14

  • Beret
  • Cake
  • Private performance of Les Mis
  • Champagne cellar
  • Marie Antoinette costume: wig, dress, ladies in waiting
  • Creme Fraiche

Weddings

  • Champagne
  • Appropriate gift certificates: Restoration Hardware, Williams-Sonoma, Municipality of Monaco, Law Firm
  • Summer home
  • Creme Fraiche
  • A plausible excuse

Baby Showers

  • Cloth diaper service
  • Organic swaddling blanket
  • Scientific paper showing evidence that drinking while pregnant isn’t always a terrible thing
  • Appropriate gift certificates: Restoration Hardware, Williams-Sonoma, Municipality of Monaco, Therapist’s Office
  • Creme Fraiche

Birthdays

  • Wine of the Month Club Membership
  • French Cheese of the Month Club Membership
  • Creme Fraiche of the Month Club Membership
  • Organic Produce of the Month Club Membership
  • Opera of the Month Club Membership
  • Emotionally Available Suitor of the Month Club Membership

TOE Birthday

  • Houseplant
  • Tickets to The Book of Mormom (I am willing to see this more than one time)
  • A pint or two in London
  • Adam Pascal/Ben Stiller/Hugh Grant
  • Creme Fraiche

You may also feel free to pick from any of the items that are on a standard Oreo shopping list. Though if you have to buy any of these items for someone, they’re probably an RBP and should be dis-invited from your box seats immediately.

***************************
For Mor-eo Oreo! Follow The Oreo Experience on Twitter (@oreoexperience)
Leave a comment here or at any of the above and let us know what you think!

Black Ladies: Ugly, Lonely, Fat – So Say Studies, “Them”

It’s news like this that daily reconfirms my commitment to the Oreo lifestyle. These headlines might sadden some; but not me. I read them and smile knowing that I have made the right choice to do whatever I can to escape my ethnicity.

In case you haven’t been reading your professional journals of late and then following what the InterTwitterNets say about those findings, there’s been some news and it boils down to this: Black ladies…go ahead and give up. Just pack it in, call it a day and move along. Because it sucks for you.

Let’s see what the last year has taught us.

In May, 2011, a contributor for Psychology Today wrote a piece that explained how “objectively” “black women” were “less attractive” than “Everyone.”

In case you think that the article was simply misunderstood and I’m pulling something out of context, the title of the article was “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?”

Kerry Washington. Upending science since 1977.
(source)

Sure, it’s true that the author of the piece, Satoshi Kanazawa, is known for trying to justify his racist and sexist views with science, so one might say that it’s easy to dismiss this article as the ramblings of a bored idiot. Buuuuuuut,  it’s also true that a company full of editors, managing editors, executive editors, consultants and CEOs allowed that column to be published in a non-fiction magazine. So they had to have thought it had merit.

And I mean, he must be on to something. If black ladies were really all that cute, maybe we’d see one as a romantic lead in a movie that didn’t involve a man in drag and I wouldn’t have had to go to prom with a gay dude. If dark skin truly held a candle to light skin you’d see it on the regular on magazine covers and in the dark.

Kanazawa said a lot of really interesting things. Like how black dudes and white dudes are pretty much equally attractive but black women are teh fugs. He even had a chart to explain, look!

Truth.

And why are black gals so gross, “Dr.” Kanazawa? Because they have more testosterone coursing through their vomit-inducing veins and thus look like men and so they’re ugly. (No chart was available for that).

Also, how ironic is it that I totally misspelled his name as “Dr. Kwanzaa!”

In February of this year, the Internets saw more oh noes about black women when it was discovered that…they’re not getting married!!!!… As much or as early as they used to!!!…Oh!!! No…?

There was a big-deal book that was published that actually in part echoed Kwanzaa’s ramblings research. It said that one of the reasons black ladies can’t get turned into proper women is that they’re dating black men less and white guys juuuuust aren’t that into them.

Hey! An Oreo wedding cake topper! It’s totally not weird that I’m buying this now… right? Maybe I just wanna put it on my birthday cake. Or a Friday morning cupcake.
(source)

(And yes, I was duped into going on television to talk about this)

Never mind that a delay in the age of first marriages also correlates to higher earning potential and more education… Cuz, sure, black gals may be getting their Masters’ Degrees, but they’re not getting their MRS’s so… you know… problems…

And as if being ugly and alone weren’t enough, this very week we learned that black women should just cancel their gym memberships, cuz they’re not gonna help.

(See, Surgeon General who said that black ladies didn’t go to the gym because they were afraid of messing up their hair? You got it all wrong. They don’t go because they got this report ahead of time and knew it was pointless!)

“They” did a study that showed that white girls stayed skinny while black girls didn’t even though both groups exercised the same amount.

Sorry gals. I know you think you’re in great shape. But you’re 85% more likely to be wrong about that than you think. Let’s go get cake. I have this neat little topper….
(source)

Sure, they were trusting on the self-reporting of a bunch of tween girls about food and exercise to render their findings without doing a simultaneous study to see how much teen girls lie about food (100% of the time).  And correct, one’s weight is not the only indicator of overall health. Et mais oui, environmental factors like access to good food play an enormous role in how a person’s body is able to regulate its weight. And yeah, black people can generally trace their roots back to Africa which is the most genetically diverse continent on the planet which means that reducing the recipients of those genes to merely “black people” is a horrible, inefficient and unuseful way to classify bazillions of DNA combinations…

But c’mon! If we start saying things like that, we have to do a lot more thinking. And what man is going to fancy a woman who’s unattractive, not a stick AND an overly analytic know-it-all.

***************************
For Mor-eo Oreo! Follow The Oreo Experience on Twitter (@oreoexperience)
Leave a comment here or at any of the above and let us know what you think!

Things I Didn’t Say: Zumba

I’ll never tell….you what I’m really thinking. I’m nice like that.

Part of being a Oreo in working order is perfecting the time-honored tradition of not speaking up when you want to. No need to get confused for RBP who shout in movie theaters and are too loud on buses.

The truth is though,that whether you’re an RBP, trying desperately not to look like an RBP or are just someone who is alive, no one wants to hear what you have to say anyway. Generally, in life, when people say things to you, they are not looking for your thoughts on their quip in return. They merely want to exercise their ego and have their opinion go unchallenged. Most interactions are just there to prevent silence from killing us all.

For example, imagine two people in an elevator, then consider the following three scenarios and their anticipated outcomes:

Scenario 1:

Person 1: How are you?
Person 2: I’m just okay. Got some troubling news from home and am really unprepared for this meeting–just not sure if this is the right field for me anymore, but don’t know that I can incur the risks of a career change.
Person 1: (set self on fire)

See how awkward it was when person 1 told the truth. Tsk, tsk.

Scenario 2:

Person 1: (says nothing)
Person 2: (says nothing)
Person 1 and 2: (set selves on fire)

Ugh. Spending a whole minute next to a human being without admitting that you can both see each other even though neither of you really has anything to say and you’re both hoping to just get off this lift and to the meeting that you spent all weekend preparing for…awkward. Painfully awkward.

Scenario 3

Person 1: How are you?
Person 2: Fine, you?
Person 1: I’m good, thanks.
Person 2: (waits for Person 1 to leave the elevator, then sets self on fire…because of circumstances related to an unclear conversation that was had with the spouse over the weekend…but definitely not because of a crap elevator ride…aaaaand, Person 1 didn’t have to get involved in any of that sticky personal business)

See how easy it is to avoid having to deal with someone’s issues.

And it was with that spirit that I held my tongue after Zumba class this week when someone thought it apropos to say to me:

“Love this class! You sisters are so lucky, though! I look ridiculous, but you with those hips–you look like you actually know what you’re doing out there!”

What did I say to her? Something along the lines of: “Hahah..yeah….” as I grabbed my towel and water bottle and headed to the bathroom before the tears started to fall.

What didn’t I say to her? While any number of things would have been perfectly reasonable responses, Oreos do not speak up and make a fuss. Here’s a smattering of what the tiny sassy lady inside of me might have said were she not being squished into oblivion:

  • “Sisters? I’m an only child.”
  • “Yes, we are lucky. We just flip the switch and the machine in our rears does all the work.”
  • “You realize that I am at a gym and a typical ‘problem area’ for women is their bottom, so your attempt at a compliment might actually be reinforcing my own body dysmporphia.”
  • “I noticed you were terrible. But don’t worry, it’s not because you’re white. You’re just bad. Very very bad at this.”
  • “Thank you so much! By reducing my ability to dance to the amount of melanin I have in my skin, you’re completely ignoring the hours and hours I have spent in dance classes, working with teachers, studying movement, practicing in front of the mirror, consulting with professionals, watching footage of myself and others and working on the self confidence necessary to remove the mental blocks to free physical movement….I figured that stuff was a waste of time!!”
  • “Ummm… if you’re so bad at this, maybe you should keep your eyes on your own reflection, creeper.”
  • (sets self on fire)

Just think what a ruckus would have been made if I blurted out any of the things I was “actually” “thinking” or “feeling.” More than one relationship has been ruined this way and even though you may be choking back words, as an Oreo, you at least get to choke them down with some lovely creme fraiche.

What’s the last dubious compliment you got? What did or didn’t you say? Let us know in the comments!

For more awkward artsy (non)conversations, click here!

For more awkward conversations where people clearly didn’t notice I was…um…black (shudder).. click here!

For the awkward result of a poorly worded engagement party invitation, click here!

***************************
For Mor-eo Oreo! Follow The Oreo Experience on Twitter (@oreoexperience)
Leave a comment here or at any of the above and let us know what you think!