A Valuable Waste of Time

Day in, day out, I accomplish a lot of stuff.

Blog stuff (my stamping blog happily consumes a lot of my time).

Family financial stuff (you try finding out how much you paid for Horizon Health Corp stock back in 1997).

Housewife stuff (I do clean, you know...more than I like to admit given the general chaos of my house).

Pet owner stuff (two vet appointments in one week at two different vets).

Volunteer stuff (meal ministry, Stephen ministry).

Bible study stuff (class most Tuesdays, lots of reading).

Mommy stuff (oy vey!).  

Good and important stuff. There's so much stuff, in fact, that some stuff (like housekeeping) falls short of my best work. Isn't it funny how we often admire people who excel at things we only wish we excelled at. I have a friend (Karen, you know who you are) whose house has been immaculate every time I've set foot in it...even when I once dropped by without calling. I wish my house were immaculate every time someone stopped by.

But it isn't because, as much as I wish it were, I simply don't keep it that way. I'm the only neat freak in a house of rampant hoarders and decided years ago that I would go insane keeping my house clean enough for me. So it's just clean enough.

What do I do that keeps me sane (or at least functioning) when I could be striving for a really clean house or for perfection in all the other stuff I do?

I waste time doing things that make me happy.

Which brings me to the point of this post: the website Pinterest makes me very happy.

Pinterest acts like a virtual idea board. People pin (upload) gorgeous photos of all sorts of stuff: nature scenes, interior decor, architecture, fashion, baby pictures, wedding announcements, artwork, signs, urban chic scenes...you know, stuff. When users at Pinterest see photos they like, they can repin them to create their own unique idea boards.

It's all an enormous waste of time.

And I love it.

You have to love a place where you can find photos with quotations and sayings like these.

That last one is particularly true for me. So very true.

Anyway, it's easy to sink hours into scrolling through hundreds of pictures looking for quotations and sayings that make me happy. In fact, I'm happier wasting time on Pinterest looking for quotations than I am doing crossword puzzles and Sudoku, and reading murder mysteries combined.

I'm not sure what this says about me, exactly, but I have a pin that covers the situation:

I want this sign.

But I'm an English major at heart, and that means I can always invent an explanation when I need one. We English majors thrive on quotations that embody other people's cleverness. We mine for them like Snow White's seven dwarves mined for rubies and diamonds. We devour them like Grendel devoured King Hrothgar's men in Beowulf. We feel compelled to share them like Daisy feels compelled to share her glorious golden fur.

We're weird that way.

Of course, Pinterest isn't all quotations and sayings. It also contains visual beauty.

And humor. Lots of wonderful humor.

There are also lots of pictures of clever craft projects that I absolutely must make. Don't you think I need a Thankful Tree? Doesn't everyone need a Thankful Tree? I never would have thought up Thankful Trees on my own, but as soon as I saw this picture, I knew I needed to make one for myself. Because it's so me.

And these adorably simple gift bags...these, too, are so me. And I have that border punch. Oh yes I do!

And that, I think, is the appeal of Pinterest. You're bound to find stuff that is you: sayings that reflect your values and beliefs or tickle your funny bone, rooms that you want to live in, places you want to visit, projects you wish you'd thought of yourself, clothes you want to wear, food you want to eat, images that speak to your heart and soul and fill you with joy or peace or both.

And the fact that this stuff that is so you is presented in pretty pictures for your perusal in your pjs makes Pinterest just about perfect.

Whenever I think of Beowulf, I start getting all alliterative. Sorry.

You'll also find the occasional picture that helps you put your stuff--all the tedious, boring, important, interesting, daily stuff you have to do and want to do and dread doing--in perspective.

I can soooo live with that.

But I'd add the missing commas for clarity.

Note: Despite all appearances to the contrary, I have not been paid in any way to promote Pinterest. I'm just obsessed and hoping to infect others with my obsession so they, too, can waste time valuably.  

Things on Thursday: Less than a Week to Go!

As the commercial says, it's the most wonderful time of the year! Nick looks like the children in the ad. Jack, on the other hand, can't wait for next Wednesday.

Today, we're going to Nick's school to practice his locker combination. It's hard to believe my boy will have a locker and that he wanted a messenger bag instead of a backpack. I hope the whole locker thing gets him a tiny bit excited for school. Since school isn't a choice, it's much better to have a good attitude about it.

Life is easier if you're a geek, you know.

Mandatory Fun and the Little Black Velvet Dress: A Social Experiment

Last weekend, tragically, George broke his favorite wine glass, the one commemorating the U.S. Air Force’s 50th anniversary. His sadness reminded me of the night he acquired that wine glass, which reminded me about the little black velvet dress I wore the night he acquired that wine glass, which reminded me how, when I wore the little black velvet dress on the night he acquired that wine glass, men noticeably talked to my boobs instead of to me.

George had to attend a dining out for the 50th anniversary and of course he wanted me to tag along. Military parties come in two varieties: fun and "mandatory fun." Dining outs, or military formal banquets, are usually fun occasions, at least when flying squadrons get together to party with rituals, toasts, and lots and lots of alcohol. This dining out, however, was “mandatory fun.” Few of George’s friends were going, and not one of mine.

Oh, joy. Get dressed up and go to the Officers’ Club; eat cold, bad food; converse with strangers; and wait until given permission to go pee after some boring speech about blah, blah, blah.

I’m sorry if this doesn’t convey my deep and sincere respect for the awesome work of the Air Force over its first half century.

For once in my life, I didn’t have a formal dress to wear, having donated the old ones I’d worn for years to Goodwill some months earlier. At first, I didn’t expect to have trouble finding a suitable dress for a reasonable price, but after much fruitless shopping, I realized a reasonably-priced, attractive dress that fit me did not exist in Boise, Idaho, in 1997. The only acceptable dress I could find was almost $400.

Um, no. Just no. I didn’t pay that much for my wedding dress.

So I dug through my closet and found a little black velvet slip dress that George bought at Victoria’s Secret a few years before. I’d never had the guts to wear it out in public because the v-neck plunged rather alarmingly, but it was at least a semi-formal cocktail dress with a pretty—if short—swirly skirt. It seemed the best option at the time.

In 1997, I was in pretty good shape. The dress was a size 4, my boobs were perky but not terribly large (I wore a barely B cup size), and other than my cankles, I rather liked my body.

Still, I wasn’t in the habit of wearing plunge necklines and showing that much leg. I even had to buy a new bra for the dress as my old, strapless bra peeked unattractively out the top of the dress’s neckline. I tried on at least twenty different bras at five or six different stores before finding a skimpy black push-up that wouldn’t show.

Standing alone in the dressing room, I didn’t mind the décolletage. After all, I was saving big bucks by wearing this little black dress.

This very little black dress.

The night of the dining out, George saw the results of my frugality. He was not amused. He asked if I could put on a sweater. I said no. He asked if I had a scarf. I said no.

On the hour-long drive to the base, he kept glancing nervously at my boobs. I decided this was the perfect social experiment: what, indeed, is the effect of cleavage on social interactions with both a spouse and strangers at a formal event?

The answer, which did not surprise me and I’m sure will not surprise you, is complete and total distraction. Even my smallish boobs were enough to distract pretty much every man I encountered. None of them could maintain an interesting line of thought for conversation, and when they could form words at all, they spoke those words to my boobs, which, to my knowledge, completely lack ears.

As you might imagine, I had a blast with my little social experiment because the circumstances were completely safe and secure, and it was particularly entertaining to watch George squirm. He didn’t leave my side the entire night and tried repeatedly to tie his napkin around my neck. Also, he didn’t flinch when, later that year, I purchased a $120 evening dress on sale at Macy’s that had a modest neckline and did not require a skimpy push-up bra. Never again has any man, other than my properly wedded husband, addressed my boobs in conversation.

On the whole, I rather prefer it that way.



Here's a picture from the Christmas party later that year, for which I bought the dress with the modest neckline. As you can see, this party was definitely fun, and not at all of the mandatory type. Also, note how I look boobless. George really liked this dress.

What's in a Name?

Shakespeare may have asked this question in dulcet blank verse, but military aviators have taken the idea of a rose by any other name to extreme levels of humor—or cruelty, depending on how you look at it.

Perhaps you saw the movie Top Gun, which showcased call signs like Maverick, Ice Man, and Goose, which are Hollywood names that tell audiences a lot about the characters. Real-life call signs, however, are much more colorful and often have quite interesting stories behind them.

The first thing you should know about military call signs is that people generally do not pick their own. They are assigned a name by their squadron mates. If an aviator is so self-conscious as to protest a name, he or she will be branded that name for all eternity. When George first arrived at the 34th Bomb Squadron, or Thunderbirds, a bunch of drunken comrades wanted to change his call sign. He used the only weapon of self-defense he had: “YES! I love Noodle! Oh wow, you can call me Toe Jam anytime!” His friend John, call-sign Beemer, tried to blow George’s strategy by yelling loudly and repeatedly, “He’s using reverse psychology, people!” But everyone was too drunk to listen.

As a fledgling Thunderbird, George was finally assigned Chick. It didn’t stick because everyone already knew George as Spot. I’m convinced he kept the call sign Spot because of the term Spot Drunk, a George-inspired phrase that entered the B-1 community lexicon following a particularly amusing night in which George was kicked out of the McConnell Officers Club.

But that’s another story entirely.

On rare occasions, someone can buy his or her way out of a call sign. Our friend Levi had his name changed to Sonar because he pinged so easily. Obviously, such a name is unflattering, so eventually he petitioned to have it changed back to Levi, which is a simple play on his last name, and had to pay $200 toward a four-tap kegger for the Squadron bar for the privilege.

His wife was not amused.

George received the call sign Spot during his first B-1 assignment at McConnell AFB, and the reason was quite uninteresting. He has an albino patch on the back of his noggin. As Spot was the least offensive call sign suggested for him, he ran with it, quickly having name tags made up and introducing himself to people as Spot.

Spot falls into the most basic of call sign categories, those drawn from a person’s physical characteristics. In fact, one young aviator bore such a striking resemblance to George (not at all unfortunate) that his call sign became Spot’s B*tch (highly unfortunate). 

Another example in this category was Turnip. Turnip was prematurely balding, and the top of his head looked, well, like a turnip. Fortunately for me and several other wives, Turnip was quite short, so when the squadron hosted a flight-suit party, at which spouses were invited to wear flight suits with masking tape over the rank, many of us short wives borrowed flight suits from him. Lest anyone doubt the dedication of military aviators for call signs, please note that the officers ordered name tags for their spouses just for the occasion. My call sign was On the Spot.

This picture makes me deeply nostalgic for my dark brown locks.

Some call signs play on a person’s real name. A friend whose last name is Daley, for instance, became Planet. My favorite in the play-on-name category, however, was Freddie Kruegger. I thought his real name was Freddie for years because that’s what his wife called him. When she was annoyed with him, she called him Frederick. I addressed their Christmas cards to Captain and Mrs. Freddie Kruegger. In fact, his real name was Howard. Or Harold. Something with an H. I can’t remember. George says Ronald. Whatever. He’ll always be Freddie to me.

If a name offered any opportunity for vulgarity, it was seized upon with alacrity. A man whose last name was Wood became Morning, and Morehead became Cravin’.

Please tell me I don’t have to explain these.

Other call signs are merely insulting, such as Wedge, who was the simplest of tools; Splinter, who was small yet annoying; PITA, who was a pain in the ass; and Glitter, who primped like a woman. One silly aviator showed up at the Thunderbirds whining that he was so good in the plane he shouldn’t have to go through Mission Qualifying Training, after which it was decided that he couldn’t even be a Chick…he was an Egg. That, at least, was better than Sperm.

By far, the best call signs are awarded to memorialize something a person did. I particularly like Harpo, who appeared on Oprah as one of America’s most eligible bachelors (you can just imagine the ribbing he took for that). He is now the Commandant of Cadets at the Air Force Academy and a bachelor no more. He and his lovely wife throw the best parties ever.

But like Spot Drunk, that’s another essay entirely.

Beemer, whom I mentioned above, throttled up his B-1s engines so hard on the taxiway that he blew out the windshield of a Very Important Person’s BMW. Hurlin’ once vomited, of course, on a Colonel’s wife in the Officers Club. Poacher was so-called because of the rumor—which he would neither confirm nor deny—that he strafed camels in Desert Storm.

I do not condone the strafing of camels, mind you. But the fact he will neither confirm nor deny the rumor shows admirable presence of mind in relation to preserving a call sign that is rather innocuous. Poacher is certainly better than, say, Camel Spit.

On the Spot certainly worked as my call sign for a party, but I'd like a call sign to call my own. George found one that he feels is more appropriate. Tuesday, he clicked into a website that lists call signs and the stories behind them. George’s favorite was Tulsa: Total and Utter Lack of Situational Awareness. I immediately took this one personally because he’s accused me any number of times over the years as lacking situational awareness (rarely without good cause, mind you).

Or perhaps my nickname at Troy State University might do. I was known as the Mussolini of the English Department when I taught at the Ft. Benning campus. George was stationed at Ft. Benning as an Air Liaison Officer for the Army Rangers and some of the enlisted Rangers were TSU students. One day, a couple of Rangers walked into George's office and told him they were angry at me.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because, sir, she isn't teaching English 102 next term and we need to take it."

"But I thought you called her the Mussolini of the English Department," George protested.

"Yes, sir. We do. But we consider that a compliment."

Being named after a Fascist dictator seems a tad harsh, though, so I won't order any name tags with Mussolini on them. No, I have the perfect call sign for myself. If I were to order name tags, they would say Bookworm B*itch, or BB for short. That’s what some young punk yelled at me from a moving vehicle as George and I entered the Barnes and Noble in Wichita years ago. It’s edgy and descriptive and frankly true.

I embrace BB.

I own it.

And no matter what, BB is better than Tulsa.

Put your self-deprecating thinking caps on and tell us what your call sign would be!

Weekly Giggle #29: A Postmodern Play in Two Acts

Act 1

The scene: Tucking the boys into bed last night. Susan is lying beside Jack, and George is beside Nick. The room is dark. 

George: Nick, we're going to institute a new rule in this house. Nothing but G-rated movies.

Nick: Noooooooo!!!!!

George: Yep. There's a good one coming out soon. It's called Fluffy Puppy Finds a Rainbow.

Nick: Noooooooo!!!

George: Yep. Don't you want to see Fluffy Puppy Finds a Rainbow?

Nick: Noooooo!!!!

Jack [to Susan]: Mommy, rainbows are sooooo beautiful.



Act 2

The scene: Five minutes after Act 1, following a particularly deep discussion between Susan, George, and Nick on what happens to us after we die. Susan and George are exiting the room.

Jack: "Are we going to die?"

George: "Everybody dies eventually."

Jack: "Not us! We're Raihalas!"



The End

What Happens To You When You Work for the Military Industrial Complex

Take a look at this picture of our dining room table, which isn't a dining room table anymore. It's been taken over by technology. And George.

Me: This is sad.

George: Yeah. I've been thinking I need to think about cleaning it up.

Me: You need to think about thinking about cleaning it up?

George: Sure. First, we need to do a Desk Cleaning Analysis. Define the requirements for cleaning. Do we have to get everything off or just some stuff? Also, how many hours will it take to clean? Next, we need to do a Feasibility Study. Is it even possible to clean the table, especially during tax season? Then we should draft a Request for Cleaning Proposals, see if we get any bids. Award the contract. Then get whoever wins to come in and clean. It's going to take some planning to get all this done.

Welcome to my world.

Ingst and Other Nonsense Words

If you have hung around in Cyber-Land very long, you've probably had to enter a word verification when you've posted a comment or entered information on a website. You are shown made-up words or squiggly letters and have to key them in as they appear in order to post. This helps keep electronic spammers at bay, but even more usefully, it provides entertainment for word lovers who can then play nonsensically with the nonsense words generated by the word verification programs.

When word lovers are hopped up on heavy-duty cold medicine and desperately trying to distract themselves from a flaming sore throat, the fun is intensified, as you will see if you keep reading.

I do not recommend that you keep reading. Which pretty much guarantees that you will, because you have an insatiable curiosity to see the train wreck and be grateful that it isn't you.

I recently had to enter the nonsense word ingst and decided that ingst is really just a blending of ink and angst, and it’s what writers get when confronted with a blank page that they must fill with writing. Ingst. I’m experiencing ingst today. Virtual ingst, since of course I’m not using ink on paper but typing letters into a computer. But it gave me an idea for this week’s essay.

Note that I said an idea, not a good idea.

Since I truly feel I haven’t given you enough evidence that I’m obsessive compulsive, let's hammer the last nail in that coffin by telling you that I collect these nonsense words. In fact, I have a business-size envelope overflowing with index cards on which I have jotted the best nonsense words I’ve encountered.

I’ve even begun to categorize them under three general types.

1. Nonsense words that should be in the English language but, sadly, are not. Most of these are supremely easy to spot and require very little cleverness to define.

unduo (verb: to divorce, break up. They decided to unduo after he left the toilet seat up one too many times.)

relike (verb: the reverse of unduo. She reliked him after he bought a house with his and her bathrooms.)

repint (verb: to refill a beer glass. "Repint me," George said.)

nongynal (adjective: a medical appointment not pertaining to women’s issues. I need a nongynal appointment for my cold.)

unsin (verb: to make right a wrong. Most sins cannot be unsinned.)

repie (verb: to get another piece of pie…duh)

restic (adjective: the state of being both restful and rustic. Our stay in the cabin was restic.)

blogied (verb, past participle: when your mom shares embarrassingly funny things about you on her blog, you’ve been blogied)

gawdly (adverb: same as godly, but spoken in rural Alabama. That there man is a gawdly redneck.)

homater (noun: a promiscuous tomato. That's one skanky homater!)

spousion (noun: what happens when your spouse explodes in your face. Leaving the toilet seat up guarantees a spousion.)

grome (noun: a grown-up human with an unfortunate resemblance to a gnome. That grome really should not post his picture on eHarmony.)

luveywu (noun: a sickeningly sweet term of endearment. Come here, luveywu, and give me a kissy-wissy!)

swoog (verb: what I did when I saw the gelatin-womb cake on Cake Wrecks)

glerc (noun: the sound I made when I swooged. My glerc made the dog swoog in sympathy.)

smalloid (noun: new term for Pluto since it’s no longer a planet and I feel sorry for it.)

Please note that if I were distressingly obsessive compulsive, these words would be listed in alphabetical order. They are not, and it was not even a little hard for me to leave them that way; therefore I am not mentally ill. Just weird.

2. Nonsense words that are fun to say out loud but for which I’m not clever enough to invent definitions.

ingly
mooloot
togyrot
clorp
tarsp
fiaboo
ploble
quatipsi
cousious
dedredi
phoduc
cherb

3. Nonsense words that are not particularly fun to say but for which I’m still not clever enough to invent definitions.

dignied
hyperin
wationy
spepias
subclef
chramps
prolu
deretoph
blantel

Since I am not clever enough to invent definitions, I thought I’d use the nonsense words in a poem, which is only a poem because it’s broken into three stanza of five lines each and not for any other reason. Remember, this idea came to me after a massive dose of cold medicine, which does amazing things to my creativity, and not necessarily good amazing things.

The Fiaboo

The spepias deretoph
Laid a blantel of cherb
Over the ploble dedredi,
Whose sounds of prolu
Were dreadful to hear.

The spepias deretoph
Felt bad for his deed,
And sang, subclef,
A hyperin dirge
Of cousious sublime.

The dignied clorp
Made the fiaboo right
By removing the dedredi’s blantel
And ingly whacking the deretoph
Until he shut up.

Which seems like a really good idea for me at the moment, so I’m going to pop a throat lozenge and contemplate the piles of laundry that I should have been doing instead of writing this post.

Stay well, people. Stay well.

Too Many Ps

Nick, for some reason, decided to pull for the Steelers in the SuperBowl, but had to go to bed before the game was over. Sunday was a school night. Monday night at dinner, the following conversation took place.

George: I'm sorry, Nick, but your team lost.

Nick: I know. But I decided I don't like the Steelers anymore.

George: Really? Why?

Nick: Pennsylvania has to many Ps.

George: Huh?

Nick: Well, there's Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, and of course, Philadelphia. Too many Ps.

George: Oh. I've often thought that, too.

I love eleven year olds!

Random Tuesday

It's been a disappointing few days.

1. Ice. It's great in a glass, on a skating rink, or in Antarctica. It's most definitely not great on sidewalks and roads. Mother Nature, you seriously need to make up your mind. Snow or rain. Those we can deal with. Ice. Not so much.

2. See how vicious Daisy can be? Check out those fangs, the crazy demon eyes, and the way she uses her paws to defend herself against the big, bad daddy with opposable digits poised to strangle her.

It's all an act.

Daisy was attacked yesterday by two miniature schnauzers who broke out of their electronic fence and methodically attacked her butt. Despite the fact that she equalled the two dogs in weight and could have chomped them both with little effort, Daisy tucked her tail between her legs and bravely tried to hide behind me. While one schnauzer barked and harassed our front, the other would sneak behind and bite Daisy on the backside. She cried, yipped, whimpered, and looked at me with hurt eyes that said, "Why don't these dogs LOVE me?"

This must have been a shock to her because not thirty yards before we reached the schnauzers, Daisy had had a happy butt-sniffing visit with a 75-pound golden retriever named Rose. The two of them try to out-submit each other. It's really quite funny.

Fortunately, the mean schnauzers didn't break her skin, but poor Daisy had schnauzer spit all over her backside. Those yappy mongrels would be in low Earth orbit if George had been walking Daisy. I, however, sternly told them "No!" and moved Daisy away as fast as I could without running. Then...oh, I'm really stern, aren't I?...I left a stern message on their owners' answering machine and paced shakily for a while. Turns out their electronic fence collar batteries were dead. The owner apologized and said she was going to replace the collars with ones that also keep the dogs from barking (good news because they are a serious nuisance at 6:30 in the morning).

So I guess the viciousness with which Daisy plays doesn't translate to the real world. Or perhaps she was picking up on my own viciousness when confronted with two attack schnauzers.

Really, we're just a pair of pansies.

3. Word Mole. I hate this game. I just discovered last night that it's NOT like Boggle. You don't have to make sure the letters are adjoining to form words; you can touch any letters anywhere on the screen to form words. This rocked my world, and not in a good way. Within just a few minutes, I'd beaten my top score by hundreds of points and could have kept going indefinitely. It's not fun anymore because it's just too easy. What's the point? I guess I should be grateful. Instead, I'm just mad.

4. I had two different companies solicit interest in my blog on the same day, and neither struck me as worthy of follow-up. Why oh why won't Starbucks or Barnes and Noble or LLBean offer to give stuff away to my readers?

5. I tried the Thai Chicken Salad at Panera for lunch yesterday, and it's not good. I ate it because I paid for it, but it's just not good.

Now Panera won't ever offer to give stuff to my readers either.

6. I scheduled my annual mammogram for February 14. 'Cause nothing says romance like not wearing deodorant and getting your boobs squished.  

It's a good thing all this didn't happen last week when I had PMS. If it had, I'd be curled up in the fetal position on my bed sucking my thumb.

See. I knew I'd find a bright side. It could always be worse.

Boston Cream Pie

George, at the dinner table: "Boston Cream Pie. Not a pie. A cake. Discuss."

Communication Breakdown

George: Jack, I want you to rinse Daisy's water bowl and fill it with fresh water.

Jack: Okay. [Gets bowl, takes it to sink, walks back to the food dish.]

George: Did you rinse the bowl?

Jack: Yes.

George: Do you know what rinse means?

Jack: No.

George: Is there still grass in the bowl?

Jack: Yeah. [Jack puts down the bowl and walks away.]

George [to me]: That was entirely my fault.

Me: Yes. Yes it was.

Clean Windows

“Housework, if it is done right, can kill you.” John Skow

Around the time I decided to stay home and raise my children, I bought a book called Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson. It’s an impressively weighty tome, with 884 pages of tiny, law-school textbook type with shockingly few illustrations. The author, a lawyer (why doesn’t this surprise me?), certainly sets a high standard of cleanliness and order.

In chapter two, Cheryl lists her idea of daily chores:

-Put soiled clothes in hamper and hang up other clothes
-Clean sinks and tubs after use (including drains and traps)
-Check soap, toilet paper, other supplies in bathroom; change towels if necessary
-Prepare meals and clean up afterward
-Put out fresh kitchen towels and cleaning utensils [My note: what exactly are cleaning utensils?]
-Clean floors in high-use areas (kitchen, entryway) by sweeping, damp-mopping, or vacuuming
-Refill vaporizers and humidifiers (and clean if necessary)
-Neaten; put away newspapers, magazines, and similar items
-Do interim marketing when necessary
-Empty trash and garbage containers (evening)

While some of Cheryl's advice seems, to my mildly AR/OC personality, quite good, I have never, even in my wildest flights of obsession, lived up to this list, much less to her list of weekly chores, which includes, among other things, dusting light bulbs, washing out and sanitizing garbage cans, vacuuming lamp shades, and washing “all” combs and brushes.

This reminds me of Heather Armstrong’s blog and all the pictures she posts of her dogs on pristine hardwood floors. According to Heather, “People often write me and ask how I keep my wood floors so clean when I live with a child and a dog, and my answer is that I use a technique called Suffering from a Mental Illness.”

My own OCD isn’t clinically significant (thank Heaven!), and when I bought Home Comforts, I hoped it would help me streamline my housekeeping and make it more efficient so I wouldn’t have to spend so much time cleaning. Instead, just reading the first few chapters made me feel like a filthy, no-good, dirty rotten loser. I was already spending far too many hours in fruitless search for a clean house (baby, pack-rat husband, two dogs, four bathrooms…ohmygosh I was so incredibly doomed to fail!). So I quit reading Home Comforts to preserve my sanity. Honestly, if a person kept house at this level, he or she would spend most waking hours cleaning: who would want to do that?

Well, my grandmother, for one. She kept house at the level recommended by Home Comforts, so I know it’s possible. She had very few hobbies outside the domestic sphere, plus her house was maybe a smidge over one thousand square feet, with one bathroom…small enough to be manageable by one woman on a mission. When she finished all her ordinary household chores, she would invent things to do or carry ordinary tasks to extremes of obsession. For instance, I have vivid memories of her using a pair of tweezers to pick through the contents of her vacuum cleaner bags looking for anything useful that might accidentally have been sucked into it, like rubber bands or loose change.

Does anyone else do this routinely? I mean, I can see tweezering through the disgusting contents of a vacuum cleaner bag if, say, you suspect you sucked up your diamond engagement ring. But to do it in the off chance you’ll find a rubber band?

SERIOUSLY?

I could wax poetic about the Greatest Generation’s saving ways, their frugality, and their June Cleaver pearls-and-high-heels wardrobe for vacuuming. Those things are admirable (well, not the June Cleaver thing…that's just kinky), but these days, I’m happy if my toilets and kitchen are clean and I can still see my reflection in the bathroom mirror despite toothpaste spatter.

Is that too much information? Sorry about that.

Some household tasks inevitably fall to the bottom of the list, simply because they are so very easy to overlook or ignore. It’s hard to ignore dirty toilets (though I am quite capable of it) and positively dangerous to let your kitchen go. But it’s very easy to ignore the state of your windows. I simply don’t think about them very often, which means that, by the time I do notice, they are appallingly dirty.

Having Miss Daisy Doolittle in the house brought windows to my attention. You see, at puppy-nose height, our bay window and door window had become opaque with snot. Seeing that caused me to look higher and realize that all the windows were completely nasty. My grandmother is in heaven shaking her head in disgust at my lack of housekeeping finesse. She loved clean windows and kept hers sparkling.

Oh, relevant and funny tangent time! Jack asked if he could clean this sink the other night. I said sure because there was finely chopped mint and cilantro all over it that needed to be wiped out. After a few minutes, I checked on Jack’s work. “Jack, you need to clean the green stuff out of the sink, dude!” He replied, “Mommy, that’s gross! I’m cleaning the not gross parts. Aren’t I doing a good job?”


Back to windows. My children have washed the downstairs windows in the last few months, but their idea of washing has more to do with wasting as many paper towels and as much Windex as possible on the center of the glass. The fact that windows have sides and corners is completely lost on them. So last week, I cleaned every window in the house. Even the garage-door windows.

I LOVE IT!!!!! Oh how wonderful to see, really see, out the windows. I swear the house is brighter now. I break out in giggles of joy when I open the blinds in the morning. I vow never again to let my windows get so filmy and dirty!!!

But I will. You know I will. In the messy business of life, I will become distracted. I will choose to read novels, poke around on the Internet, blog, craft, help children with homework, scrub toilets and wipe kitchen counters, volunteer to shelve dusty books at the school library, take my mini-laptop to Barnes and Noble for the afternoon and sip mochas and eat scones and blog, and the windows will, once again, most certainly get nasty.

For now, however, I’ll revel in the sparkling clarity of my windows, and comfort myself with the following wisdom from Erma Bombeck: “My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?”

Indeed.

Directionally Challenged

For the record, I am most definitely directionally challenged. Over the years, I've been lost a number of times and am usually quite capable of getting myself unlost. Such occasions don't cause me distress at all, except when I somehow got lost in the Chicago projects.

That is a very long story.

Anyway, yesterday (Wednesday), I got a call from Camp Kern, a YMCA camp near Lebanon, Ohio. The entire fifth grade at Nick's school had been there since Monday hiking and petting snakes and learning about nature and getting dirty and dancing around campfires and sleeping in bunk beds. The students were scheduled to return to school early afternoon on Wednesday.

The phone call was from the nurse, who informed me that Nick was sick. I shall not give details, but the poor boy needed to be picked up and brought home.

In all the paperwork sent home about camp, there was a map showing very clear directions. I'd never been past the camp before, but George rides his bike around that area all the time and knows it well. I figured with this very clear map, I'd have no problem finding the camp and picking up my sick boy.

Oh, how wrong I was. You see, it's very, very wrong, when reading a map, to assume that the first interstate you come to is the RIGHT interstate. In fact, one should absolutely and without fail read the road signs and not mistake Highway 42 for Interstate 71. Especially when there is an immediate left just past Highway 42, as there is just past I-71 on the very clear map guiding you to your destination.

That immediate left (the wrong one, it turns out) forks into Wilmington Road and some other road whose name I forget. Anyway, I started by taking Wilmington Road because a big sign with a canoe on it pointed that way. But after driving about five miles, I crossed the the Little Miami River. The map clearly shows that Camp Kern is BEFORE the Little Miami, so I knew I'd gone too far. But as I backtracked, I couldn't find Camp Kern.

At that point, I suspected that I had taken the wrong fork, so I backtracked and took the other fork. After going over four miles, I realized that, indeed, I was hopelessly lost.

My first thought was that, undoubtedly, Camp Kern is listed as a point of interest on the Garmin GPS we bought for our trip to Minnesota in June. My second thought was that this realization was pretty useless to me because the Garmin was in my coat closet at home.

I realized that things had gone wrong back at the "left past I-71" and I needed to backtrack. I was, however, feeling the push of time...my sick son was waiting for me. So rather than backtrack all the way, I pulled over and called George, not really expecting him to answer. But he did. What ensued was several minutes of debate as he searched Google maps and I told him I where I thought I'd gone wrong (without remembering helpful things like street names). I really wish I'd tape recorded this conversation for your entertainment because it was so clear that George and I were speaking completely different languages: he, the language of the former Air Force navigator, and I, the language of the directionally challenged.

Finally, I got to an intersection with street signs, and told him where, indeed and at that moment, I was.

He replied that it wasn't possible for me to be at the intersection of Emmon and whatever the name was.

Yet there I was, hopelessly lost yet still perfectly capable of reading street signs.

Then he asked me if I was heading west or south.

Bwwwaaaahaaaaahhhhaaaaaa!!!!!!

Sorry. You see, all I can do is guess on cardinal directions. The only time in my life when I felt comfortably oriented to the compass was the two year we lived in Wichita, Kansas. HELLO! That's a well-planned city on a grid. Unfortunately, I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Queens Road intersects Queens Road and unless you're in downtown, nothing is on a grid. Cardinal directions were simply no help in navigating in Charlotte, so I never really had much use for them.

George, on the other hand, spent too many years telling military pilots where to go and plotting targets for bombs. Directions HAD to be right, so his brain is hardwired to know where he is in space at all times. To him, asking which direction you're driving is a complete no-brainer. To me, the only answers come from wild guesses and trying to figure out where the sun is.

Do you see where I am going with this?

George had me turn left and found me on the map at the next intersection when he asked if there was an animal hospital on my right. YES! THERE WAS!!!! I fell instantly in love with Google Maps. At this point, he comforted me by saying, "Well, you're not as lost as you could be." He vectored me to the right road and I arrived at Camp Kern an hour and a half after leaving the house.

It took me and Nick less than a half-hour to get back home.

Nick had no problem finding his way to the sofa, where he curled up and watched movies with Daisy Doolittle.

Poor Nick suffered for my directional incompetence, but I'm happy to report that about three hours after I shot this photo, he was fully recovered and running around the house making pewwing noises while pretending to shoot mummies.

Don't ask. He's a boy.

Last night, George had to call up Google Maps and debrief the mission with me. He wanted to know where in the world I had been. We realized that Ennon Road has several names, not all of which were showing up on the scale map George had been using. He was really quite kind about it, though, and I suspect it's because the situation is similar to his comment about Daisy this weekend and how dogs make us feel "superior and loved at the same time...it's a win-win situation." Well, he's directionally superior to me and loved by me. Win-win.

Yesterday's adventure taught me two things:

1. It is good for a directionally challenged individual to a) have a cell phone and b) be married to a former navigator. (Thanks, honey!)

2. It is even better for a directionally challenged person to take a Garmin navigation system with them whenever they go someplace for the first time so they don't get lost and look like a complete idiot to their loved ones and the world.

Care to share a time you got lost? How did you get unlost? Do you get upset when you're lost or are you, like me, rather accustomed to the situation?

Words, Words, Words about Silliness

"Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again." Mike Myers

"If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done." Ludwig Wittgenstein


Hoover has taught us a lot about silliness in the last thirteen years. He doesn't care who is watching when he wriggles in pure, unadulterated joy. In fact, he seems to appreciate the audience and invites us to throw ourselves onto the grass and wriggle, too.



Go forth this weekend and be silly. Hoover the Miracle Dog says it's the best medicine, and I believe him!

PS If you only read Questioning in emails or a reader, please click to the blog itself today and take a look at the fresh new layout. I encourage you to do this regularly because there's stuff on the sidebar that you miss if you only read the feed.

Carob, Dragonheart, Lost, Laundry, and Coffee

It's a busy time of year not conducive to coherent thought, so today's post consists of random things I’ve been mulling over lately rather than an essay.

Whatever happened to carob? Some things might seem like a good idea at the time, but let’s face it: there is no substitute for the real thing. Especially when the real thing is chocolate. While talking about something related to flying, one of George’s Air Force instructors once said, “It was a good idea that shouldn’t have seen the light of day.” That seems also to apply to carob, doesn’t it?

Scholastic Book Fairs are fun. When I first started volunteering in our school district, I tried volunteer opportunities without thinking about what I might actually be called upon to do. Field Day and the Spring Carnival stand out in my memory as particularly painful. Then it dawned on me that I needed to play to my strengths as a volunteer, so I started doing early literacy tutoring, helping at the library, and volunteering at the bi-annual Scholastic book fair. There is no need to run after errant balls like a dork or use sunscreen or, you know, sweat. Besides, Jack is really proud that his mommy helps with the book fair, and Nick likes being able to beg me for books and win. Everyone is happy.

Worst movie ever: Dragonheart. To be fair, we only watched fifteen minutes of it, which was about thirteen more than I wanted to watch. Nick tried so hard to stick with it but finally declared it unwatchable. Dennis Quaid fluctuates erratically between a fake British accent and no accent at all, just like Kevin Costner in Robin Hood, another bad movie which at least had the grace to be campy…well, a little, and maybe not on purpose. Dragonheart’s script is appallingly bad, with characters changing their personalities for no good reason and using speech that was not ever and will never be natural. What was Sean Connery thinking?

“I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.” Richard Greenberg, NY Times Magazine, 03-26-2006

Oops. My candid comments about Dragonheart and Robin Hood could be construed as vain and unkind. So let me say that I certainly couldn’t have done any better job acting than anyone in Dragonheart. In addition, Dennis Quaid completely rocked in InnerSpace with Meg Ryan, and I will always love Sean Connery for his absolutely pitch-perfect performance in the third Indiana Jones movie (“Rats?”) and in every single James Bond flick he made. As for Kevin Costner, he has a really cute ass. Thank you, Dances with Wolves.

Tatanka.

And while we’re on the subject of entertainment, I’m still lost with Lost, even after last night’s episode where we learned who was chosen. The most revealing line in last week’s episode was something like: “Every question you ask will only lead to more questions.” Sunday night, we will learn all we will ever learn about this silly island in the 2.5-hour series finale, and Monday morning, I imagine I’ll still be lost. At least it will be over, and as long as that worm Benjamin Linus dies, I think I’ll be happy. Or maybe not. Sigh.

Tomorrow, Jack’s class will be serving the moms lunch in their classroom. I’m so excited to see Jack in his classroom! Because children with autism rarely handle breaks in routine well and are so easily distracted by them, Jack’s teacher cannot have parent volunteers in the classroom. For a special event like this, it will be interesting to see how the other children react. Jack will be thrilled and will handle it quite well, I’m sure.

Laundry and paperwork. They are never-ending.

May and December are the busiest months of the year for mommies in the northern hemisphere. What month is the end of the school year Down Under? I want to say special prayers that month for all those mommies. I’m already praying for mommies here in the northern half of the planet. We need it.

So why, during one of my busiest months of the year, did I decide to read the epic-length novel World without End by Ken Follett? One-thousand-fourteen pages of obsession. If you’ve not read it and enjoy historical fiction at its sordid best, dive right in. But wait until your schedule is light for a week or two, or you’ll end up sleep-deprived and cranky. Like I am.

I’m going to miss the weekly coffee group that my friend Chelly and I started back in November. Once school is out, we’ll all have kids at home so getting together will be less…grown up. Play dates at the park or pool won’t be the same as sitting around a kitchen table talking about nothing and everything, drinking coffee and eating something fattening, with a group of fun women who like to laugh. On the upside, my dear friend Angela is moving back to our area this summer after leaving 18 months ago. I’m so thrilled to have my stamping buddy back!

As we wind down the school year, I’m thinking about how far my children have come since September. Jack has taken off in reading because his teacher understands that a whole language approach to literacy is useful for some children. Nick has overcome a lot of his math difficulties this year because his teachers have been so diligent and patient in teaching him. It takes a village, and we’re in a very good one. I’m so very grateful for that.

I’ll end today with a question for you. I’m almost finished with World without End and wonder what the rest of you are planning to read. What’s on your summer reading list right now? And feel free to add whatever random thoughts are on your mind this May as well. If I can be random, so can you!

Modern Technology and Me

I’ve been having issues lately with modern technology. Our cell phone culture, for instance, has me hopping mad. Aside from annoyance at people driving while talking on their cell phones (please don’t do this, folks!), my interactions on the Internet and with certain hardware devices are becoming major distractions in my life. Don’t get me wrong. I adore technology, but does it have to be so annoying?

Facebook Oh, where to begin? Facebook is a great place to reconnect with old friends and stay in touch with people spread all over the globe. But I don’t understand a lot of it. What is up with Farmville, for instance? I’m happy if someone is happy playing a game, but do I want to know they just scored 100,000 points? Not really.

Yet this stuff pops up automatically in and amongst all the meaningful information I truly want to read, such as my cousin’s reporting of her mission trip last year or my friend Tim’s announcement that he was moving back to the States. I also adore reading funny stuff, like a daughter’s reaction to a friend’s haircut, or sweet stuff, like videos of kids being kids. I also like whiny status updates because they make me feel not so alone in the world. That stuff is real. Farmville isn’t.

My motto for Facebook: Let’s keep Facebook real!

Twitter I signed up for a Twitter account just because someone famous* tweeted about me. How sadly narcissistic is that? When you first register, Twitter automatically gives you randomly selected tweeters to follow. I don’t know these people and don’t care that they just went to Starbuck’s. I had to “unfollow” them one by one manually. Perhaps there is a way to do this en masse, but I couldn’t figure it out. After wasting ten minutes of my life, I decided I could do without Twitter.

And is “tweeter” the right term for a person who twits/tweets/tw…? I give up.

My Mini Laptop George bought me a cute little red laptop for Christmas. It’s small enough to fit comfortably in my purse (which is pretty big) so I can write while waiting for Jack at therapy or at Barnes and Noble while drinking a mocha and feeling all J.K. Rowling-ish in a café.

But there are some issues with this little laptop. I’d like to know when Microsoft started hooking advertising to its software. I can run MS Word on my shiny red laptop, but ads pop up on the side. Sigh. I hate clutter on my teeny, tiny screen, but can I afford $600 (more than the cost of the computer) to download an unpolluted version of MS Office to it? Not really.

George has suggested some freeware that will work like MS Word, which is one of the greatest inventions of any century in the history of mankind. I’m hopeful.

It also took a long phone call and surrendering control of my laptop to a friendly non-native English speaker to get Norton AntiVirus installed. At least now when I’m surfing at Barnes and Noble Café, I won’t get hacked. I hope.

Electronic Books I file these in my brain under the heading Signs of the Coming Apocalypse. I don't even have one of these and they are annoying. It is great that other people enjoy them so much, but my aunt, whose bibliophile gene I share, has taken it upon herself to convince me I cannot live without one. This not only breaks my heart but makes me want to go to Barnes and Noble and buy a bunch of REAL books while drinking a mocha just because I can!

Cell phone I’ve never sent a text message to anyone. Shall I wait until you recover from falling off your chair in shock? The only person who sends me text messages isn’t even a person—it’s the cell phone company. I went so far as to learn how to delete text messages just to have the satisfaction of figuratively hanging up on AT&T without reading their superfluous marketing.

And by the way, I’m morally opposed to using the word text as a verb. Turning text into a verb weakens its effectiveness as a vaguely inclusive and extremely useful bit of jargon in literary theory. I imagine only literary theorists care about keeping text a noun, and I realize my protest will be as effective as Don Quixote tilting at windmills or Madonna trying to recapture her youth.

I’m sorry. Was that mean? Madonna, it’s a free country and you’re allowed to do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt anybody. I wish you a happy life.

My Palm Pilot A few months ago, I wasted hours of my life trying to load the software for my Palm Pilot on my laptop. Hours I will never get back, folks. I love my Palm Pilot, but the current situation is sort of scary. If that thing crashes, or I drop it, or solar flares erase its memory card, I have no back-up of the information on it because the back-up information was lost when my old laptop hard drive crashed a year ago. All my addresses, phone numbers, and appointments are on that thing. Krikey.

Please please please tell me I am not alone in my love/hate relationship with technology. All these gadgets and websites perform wonderful services, but I almost wish I'd had a college class in managing them in my life. Oh, wait. When I was in college, only cell phones existed, and they were the size of bricks.

Now, I feel old and annoyed.

I need chocolate. Or perhaps a dope slap to stop my whining. Whatever.

*Jennifer McGuire, rock star of the stamping world, has tweeted about my stamping blog several times. I get hundreds—perhaps thousands—of hits each time she does this. She’s my new best friend.

Stupid Dreams

The May 2010 issue of National Geographic includes an article by D.T. Max titled “The Secrets of Sleep.” Max quotes William Dement, a sleep researcher who co-discovered REM sleep: “As far as I know, the only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy.”

Dement’s syntax is a little confusing, but I find it very interesting that after decades of research, no one has a clue why we sleep. Furthermore, no one knows why we dream or if our dreams mean anything, either. The dream debate has raged between two camps: those who believe that dreams have meaning and those who believe that dreams are the meaningless result of random firing synapses.

I read Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung at least two decades ago and vaguely remember Jung’s archetypal discussions of dreams. At the time, Jung’s dream theories appealed to me simply because they read like literary theory, and it can be a lot of fun applying them to literature.

My own dreams, however, never made much sense, even when analyzed under the archetypal microscope, except in the broadest, most general terms. What I can remember of my dreams seems pretty badly composed, with disjointed narratives, surrealistic events, and characters merging and changing into different people. My dreams, in fact, seem like products of some sort of freaky acid trip rather than significant tapping into a meaningful collective unconscious.

Take, for example, my frequent nightmares about snakes. Freud might say that the snake is a phallic image that represents my repressed sexuality. I never much liked Freud. Jung might say my fear of snakes slithers into my dreams because of some deeper collective fear of snakes hearkening back to our ancestors on the African savannah who got KILLED by mambas and cobras and vipers.

I mean, this isn’t exactly an irrational fear, and I did almost run over a rattlesnake while riding a bike when we lived in Georgia. I was six years old, and it was totally traumatic for a little drama queen, but not as traumatic as my little sister’s experience, at the age of three or four, coming between a rattlesnake and its hole. Lisa was rescued by the telephone repair man and our dog Cindy Lou.

South Georgia has lots of rattlesnakes. I’m glad I don’t live there anymore.

No offense to Georgia, of course.

Whether this early experience started it or not, my phobia of snakes has stayed deeply entrenched. At age 21, I screamed like a little girl and hyperventilated when I stepped out my mother’s door one day and scared the hell out of a six-inch-long garter snake. George assures me it was just six inches, but in my mind that sucker was a yard long. Well, 18 inches, at least. My heart starts racing just remembering that green, legless…ewwwww! Get it away! I still struggle just looking at snakes behind glass at the zoo, and when the zoo staff bring them out for the public to touch, I stay clear by at least 20 feet.

So, we’ve established that I have a phobia of snakes, but what does that have to do with the activity of snakes in my dreams? Well, other than the fact that they are generally about to KILL me, not much. My freaky nightmares about snakes are rarely realistic. You see, snakes in my dreams are consciously searching for me to KILL me, like Mafia hit men I’ve offended in some way, which gives far too much credit to tiny little snake brains which are, in fact, far more interesting in killing mice so they can eat them. Also, my dream snakes do wacky things like bite their tails, make their bodies rigid like hula hoops, and roll down slopes after me with intent to KILL me when they catch me.

Marlon Perkins never reported this sort of snake behavior on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, did he?

Of course not.

The problem, at least as I see it, is that dreams can be interpreted so many different ways, using so many different theoretical approaches (Freud, Jung, even Northrop Frye and Karl Marx if you wanted to get really silly). Of course, Jung would have something to say about my dream snakes turning into hula hoops…circles being highly symbolic shapes after all. But who cares? What my dreams about snakes tell me is that I’m terrified of snakes. As if I didn’t already know that.

Last week, I sifted through some memorabilia that had belonged to my grandmother, including newspaper clippings of my sister Lisa’s ballet career. Two nights after this little trip down memory lane, I had a very weird dream.

It was present day, and I was a 43-year-old housewife who never had a ballet lesson in her life. Someone, who remained invisible and nameless in the dream, ordered me to dance the role of Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. (Lisa was a beautiful and elegant Sugar Plum Fairy, by the way.) In the dream, I HAD to do this, but all the rest of the dancers hated me for it because they knew I would ruin the performance. Mom and Lisa encouraged me and told me that I could do this and would be great, and I kept telling them they were crazy. I couldn’t find my make-up, either, which caused all sorts of additional anxiety, because, you know, putting on make-up makes you a better dancer.

Not.

It was such a relief to wake up after what felt like hours of agony and realize that I did not have to dance in The Nutcracker. This dream clearly fits into a category of recurring dreams about performance anxiety, which many people have, often with the fun twist of being suddenly naked in front of a large group. I also occasionally dream about needing to teach a class but being unable to find the right classroom. At least I always have my clothes on.

Another category of recurring dreams is the natural disaster dream, such as being in a tornado, tsunami, or earthquake. I have natural disaster dreams repeatedly during times when I’m stressed out waiting for a life-changing event over which I have no control, such as when George was about to get orders for us to move or when he flew off to war. As soon as the orders came through or the deployment ended, the dreams stopped. It doesn’t take a Jungian psychoanalyst to figure out what these dreams mean.

It’s partly this recurring nature of dreams that tempts us to create systems of meaning for them. Our brains are hardwired to see patterns and connect them to some bigger picture, an evolutionary trick that created jobs for literary critics and psychoanalysts, by the way.

Psychoanalyzing dreams beyond the fairly obvious, however, is a dangerous business, especially since science hasn’t yet explained what dreams are, where they come from, or why we dream. I’m eagerly awaiting further research to answer these questions because sometimes—just sometimes—our dreams seem to make sense and seem to be sending a clear message from our unconscious…collective or otherwise…that we feel compelled to listen to or act on.

But if there is a message in my dream about a potato growing out of my knee, I don’t want to know it. Ignorance is bliss.

Your turn...please share a weird dream, meaningful or otherwise, with the rest of us. Come on, you know you have an entertaining one!

When Snuggle-Bunnies Goes Bad

George and I lay on the boys' bed last night for Snuggle-Bunnies (our nightly ritual of tucking the boys in and spending what is supposed to be a little quiet time with them). During Snuggle-Bunnies, George and Jack often play a variation on "Got Your Nose!" with Jack stealing various facial parts off George. Last night, it went too far.

Jack: Got your butt!

George, Nick, Me: GROSS!!

Jack (cackling gleefully): I got your BUTT!

George: My butt just farted in your hand.

Jack: GROSS!!

Nick (laughing): "My butt just farted in your hand!" That's so funny! Say it again, Dad!

George: My butt just farted in your hand.

Just wanted you to know I'm running away from home. The testosterone in my house has carried butt/fart humor too far.... I need some estrogen.

Anyone know a good convent that will take a Methodist?

Weekly Giggle #15

Since some of you receive my blog via your work email, I’m not titling this post as it deserves, but in our heads, let’s call it Every Sperm is Sacred. I’ve never laughed as hard at Monty Python as I did Sunday night at my dinner table.

George decided to have a tootsie pop out of the kids’ Easter baskets. The Easter Bunny—who is diabolically wicked and pagan to boot and I love him anyway—brought egg-shaped tootsie pops this year because he knows tootsie pops are one of the few candies Jack will eat. George unwrapped his grape-flavored pop and immediately saw the same thing I did, at the same time. He held it up and announced:

“This tootsie pop isn’t egg-shaped. It’s sperm-shaped.”

Don't you agree?

Now, I think we can state pretty definitively that there wasn’t a woman on the committee that named the iPad (still, its name isn’t keeping me, or George for that matter, from wanting one), but seriously, who thought the idea of sperm-shaped suckers was a good one? Anyone who’s been through fifth-grade sex education class KNOWS that shape and has giggled at cartoon images of it swimming upstream. I’m willing to bet there’s not a human over eleven years old who can eat one of these suckers with a straight face, either.

It gets funnier.

As we were giggling over the sucker’s shape, Nick walked up and asked, “What’s a sperm?”

Which resulted in helplessly juvenile giggling from the over-40 crowd in the house.

“No, seriously. What’s a sperm? I want to know what’s so funny.”

Oh, help me, Rhonda! I had a bite of peep in my mouth. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t swallow, and as the marshmallow dissolved, I felt like I’d either drown or throw up, which, in that moment, was hilariously funny and made me laugh harder.

I was completely incapable of speech, so George answered, through involuntary snorts and giggles, “I’ll tell you when I finish eating it. I can’t talk about it and eat this thing at the same time.” Then he made his sucker swim through the air.

Who knew laughing could hurt so much?

Once we got ourselves under control, we explained about sperm and egg cells and googled pictures of sperm so Nick would understand. Fortunately, he didn’t ask where sperm come from, so we were spared that much detail, but Oh. My. Gosh.

Sperm-shaped suckers. What will they think of next?

P.S. It is posts like this that keep me from putting “content-appropriate advertising” on this blog. Can you just imagine the sorts of ads that might pop up beside this? *shudder*

P.P.S. DUKE WON THE NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAY TO GO, BLUE DEVILS!!!!!!!!!!!! COACH K ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BUTLER, I'M PROUD OF YOU, TOO!!!!!!

Eating and Drinking with the Stars

I’ve already written about my approach to wine selection. After poking fun at a wine connoisseur and having him retaliate so eloquently, you might think I had finished the subject, but alas, the latest issue of Food and Wine opened up a whole new bottle of wine-related entertainment. Care to join me for a glass or two?

Let’s take a look at a delightfully provocative chart titled “An Astrologer’s Cosmic Guide to Food and Wine.” Now, my apologies to any readers who might find more meaning than entertainment in the world of astrology. My views on the subject are heavily influenced by deep scientific skepticism paired with a Methodist upbringing. I simply cannot take astrology seriously, but as you know if you’ve read this blog for a while, there isn’t much I do take seriously, at least in the long run. Read the quotations on the sidebar.

Back to cosmic food and wine. The chart shows tasting style, favorite foods, and favorite wines by astrological sign. Sadly, for both me and George, the chart is pretty inaccurate. For George, in fact, it’s wildly inaccurate. He is a Taurus, and the article states that he is sensual and loves luxury. Hmm. Not exactly. He’s more of a thrill-seeking speed freak who would rather carbo-load and go mountain biking than sip champagne and nibble strawberries while sailing on a luxury yacht.

George's favorite foods should be, according to the chart, rich or sweet foods like almond croissants. If he were starving, he might touch a sweet croissant, but in real life, he’s a savory meat man for sure: steak, burgers, braised meats. Oh, and bacon. My, does he love bacon. His favorite wine, again according to the chart, should be a full-bodied Chardonnay when in fact he only drinks white wine if the food absolutely won’t go with red.

My zodiac sign is a bit more complicated, simply because I was born in the cusp between Sagittarius and Scorpio, which means that I could go either way. So to speak. My tasting style should be either “excitable, enjoys the unfamiliar” or “intense, loves routine.” Neither really fits well. I’m not unduly excitable, though enthusiastic might work, especially where food is concerned. When I asked George if he would describe me as “intense,” he responded, “Good God, no!”

As for “enjoys the unfamiliar” and “loves routine,” well, the answer is yes to both. So perhaps the Cosmos has that right because of the cusp thing. For instance, the first few times George and I visited Indian restaurants, I tried all sorts of different things and enjoyed them all, but after ordering the Chicken Korma at Amar India, I get it every time. Cashews and white raisins blended with butter and cream in a rich, spicy sauce poured over chicken makes me happy. But you just never know when something else completely different will call out to my palate instead.

Basically, good food appeals to me. Even almond croissants. And especially anything chocolate.

As for my cosmic favorite foods, the chart says I enjoy pungent foods like Roquefort cheese. Um, no. I prefer brie or havarti or parmesano reggiano when it comes to cheese. I’m also supposed to like fragrant, exotic foods like Moroccan tagines, but while I do enjoy fragrant, exotic foods on occasion (I particularly remember a delicious aromatic Thai dish with fresh flowers in it), give me a big bowl of chicken and dumplings or a simple medium-rare rib-eye or a big salad with grilled chicken breast or a slice of my grandmother's chocolate fudge cake, and I’m a very happy woman.

To this point, I’d say the Cosmic Guide has not scored well when it comes to predicting the Raihala family food and wine preferences. Then, I read the Scorpio wine preference. SCORE ONE FOR THE COSMOS! The Guide says I like powerful, spicy reds such as Malbec. Yummy! I definitely prefer a wide range of big-bodied, complex, spicy, fruity reds like Zinfandels, Cabernets, and, yes, Malbecs. The Sagittarius wine preference was for lighter reds, which are okay but not my favorites.

Like all systems, astrology tries to take a complex, highly individual process and make it all ordered and predictable. Sometimes, the system gets it right from sheer coincidence, but mostly, people just eat and drink what they want. The fun in applying astrology to food and wine is that you can create themed meals based on these (in my opinion) arbitrary criteria. Wouldn’t that be a fun idea for a whole year for a dinner club? In fact, the article preceding the chart in Food and Wine gives recipes for an Aries-themed dinner party, and it sure sounds good.

So, check out your astrological food and wine style and tell me if the Cosmic Guide works for you. Inquiring minds want to know!