You're Doing It Wrong

Dang! It’s happening again. My domain was hijacked for spam. The mailer-daemons are flying in. Why me? What did I ever do? Probably because I complained to Sears.

Remember the salads I made last Friday? I’ve been eating them ever since and yesterday, as I scraped the last scoops into little containers to take to work, I was thinking: there is no way I’m going to want to eat this one more time. But you know, I’m all thrifty and don’t like to waste things, etc. Sure enough, lunchtime came around and that was the last thing I wanted to eat.

So I ate some carrots and Wheat Thins (Big) and some sort of nut-granola bar that’s been in my desk since Christmas and hoped that would tide me over. Nope, by 3pm I was starving and I ate some more salads. At the end of the day I took the little bit leftover home and threw it all away. No one should have to eat the same thing more than 5 days in a row. Unless you’re stuck on a deserted island or some other dire circumstance.

Have you ever read survival stories where the people had to eat raw lizards or something like that to survive? And you’re thinking, “I’d never make it. I’d never be that hungry.” I don’t want to be tested on that one.

I called Sears to set an appointment to get the dishwasher fixed. They said we have a repair warranty until 2009. How foresightful of us. We bought it in 04 and usually when they try to sell us an extended warranty I stick my nose up in the air. If they tricked us into buying it, yay them.

When you call Sears they have one of those creepy over-caffeinated cheerleader robots that answers the phone and makes you say what you want to them. I don’t like talking to a robot in the first place but since it didn’t seem to accomplish anything except give me something to play with before I got a live body, I don’t see what the point is.

Which is faster?

Robot: Hello! Thanks for calling Sears! We want to help you! Please say your selection!. For example! If you want a repair! Say: repair!

Me: Repair. [I refused to say it with an exclamation point.]

Robot: You said you wanted repair! Is that correct!

Me: Yes.

Robot: Great! You want a repair! We want to help you with that!
[etc … ]

OR.

Phone Tree: Please select from the following. 1. Repair.

I press 1.

—–

Then after all that the first live body I talked to asked me all the exact same questions and to punish me for asking, “Huh, why the robot if you ask me all the same questions?” after I answered all the questions she transferred me to someone who could help me who asked the same questions all over again.

Yeah, everyone, including the robot, was nice but why waste so much time and energy?

I tracked down their customer service comments and sent them a nice little note and I took the liberty of speaking for everyone when I told them no one liked their robot. I got a form note back apologizing for any inconvenience and thanking me for my input. That’s me, helping improve the world through plogic.

Intermittently
I thought the weatherman said it was going to rain yesterday so I left my poor garden gasping without water another day. Then we had about three drops and I figured the weatherman didn’t know what he was doing and when I got home last night I gave them a good splash. Now it’s raining. How can I market this talent?

Isn’t it funny when you’ve been using something for years and years and you just discover something new about it? I just learned, as of Memorial Day weekend, that the “intermittent” selection on windshield wipers can be adjusted to different speeds.

I’m a little nutty about windshield wipers. I like my windshield wiped but I don’t like the sound of the wipers. [Why is this sounding like I’m writing about something else with clever euphemisms?] This is mostly when it isn’t raining very hard. When it’s pouring I just want to get where I’m going in one piece, I’m not focused on the schwimp-schwump sound of the wipers.

On Memorial Day I was driving my dear husband’s car and there must have been a light mist going on and I had the intermittent wipers going but they weren’t intermittent at all, they were just on. So I kept turning them off and then I’d get coated with mist and I’d turn them back on and they’d be going back and forth not-intermittently so I’d turn them back off.

“This car is stupid,” I thought and I looked at the knob or dial or whatever you call it and I noticed “hi” and “lo” and gave it a twist and, Whoa! The wipers schwumped intermittently. Technology is amazing.

Higher Thread Count
Every time I look back at an old post I see something to fix. It’s tough to resist the urge but I figure once I start fixing, I’ll never stop and I’m trying to keep this train moving forward.

I censor myself, here, according to a complex set of rules that changes regularly and can be understood only by me but the main idea is I don’t want to write anything that would make someone feel bad. I don’t assume that people aren’t going see it no matter how remote the chance.

I may be breaking that rule with this story and it’s not even such a great story to begin with but whatever. Here it is:

I think every marriage has that moment when you have to figure out how you’re going to deal with differing ideas about major issues. I’ll say the top three issues are: money, division of labor and child rearing.

This is about division of labor, in particular: cleaning.

I am a neat person. Some might say freak. I think not. I don’t stay up late bleaching my kitchen counters and alphabetizing my spices. I just like everything wiped down and put away. My husband is not so concerned and can tolerate a high degree of clutter and things like counter crumbs or wadded up socks are invisible to him.

Who gets to dictate how the house is going to be when you have two extremes? Is it fair to either person to say his or her version of domestic order is the rule of the day? No. Our compromise has different components but one of the main ones is, we have someone who cleans our house for us every other week. This saves enormous amounts of marital strife.

Our first person started working for us shortly after we moved in together. She was fantastic. Reliable. Hard worker. I hardly ever saw her but we’d exchange notes back and forth to say hi and possibly leave special instructions or whatever. There was never a day that I didn’t appreciate having her clean my house.

But at some point she got too familiar. She felt comfortable throwing things away. Old towels. The newspaper that you left folded up on the table. She moved things around. She hung things on the walls. She came up with creative storage ideas such as taking a cute container I had in the kitchen and filling it with all my cotton balls and putting it on the bathroom counter. It was not a see through container and I didn’t want it on my bathroom counter so I put it back in the kitchen and I didn’t figure out what happened to my cotton balls for months. And in her notes she added what she thought were helpful suggestions. “You need to get your carpets cleaned.” “You need to get someone to fix that outlet downstairs.” “You need to prune that Hydrangea.”

When I arrived home on cleaning day instead of thinking, “Yay, I have a clean house,” I’d be thinking, “I wonder what she’s going to be after me about this week.” It was a long slow burn, I admit, I shouldn’t have let it get so far, but it all came to a head one week when she was scolding, excuse me, helpfully suggesting that I get some bulbs in the ground.

Meanwhile, I was unusually busy. I had work travel, family travel and fun travel all squeezed into a short time plus I had just finished a class and had been working on a big project in what was left of my free time. So I snapped. And I furiously scribbled out a note suggesting that I was an intelligent adult and this was my house and I would do things the way I wanted to do them when I wanted to do them.

She left a furiously scribbled note of her own and the front door key and that was the end of that. I felt terrible that it had ended so badly but also a little bit relieved. No more running around battening down the hatches on cleaning day so that things didn’t get thrown away or put away where we could never find them again.

I became the primary cleaner again which rapidly turned into resentment and bitching because, I signed up for a partner, not a maid job. So my husband found us another cleaning person.

And she’s fantastic. Reliable. Hard working. When I interviewed her I alluded to the thing with the notes and she said, “I won’t leave any notes.” And she doesn’t. There is not one day that she’s cleaned my house that I didn’t appreciate it.

But there’s this weird thing with the sheets. (I know, a 1000 word post about sheets. Can you believe it?)

We strip the bed on cleaning day and put the sheets in the washer and when we come home the clean sheets are on the bed. Last fall I bought some nice light pretty sheets on clearance and threw them in the cupboard for spring. We use flannel in the winter. At some point in spring I put the new sheets on the bed on the weekend and didn’t strip the bed on cleaning day thinking this was a cue that the bed was fine.

I came home on cleaning day and the old sheets were on the bed. Our old sheets are a nightmare. Stained and worn through in some parts, frayed around the edges. If someone found a dead body in the garden I wouldn’t think twice about wrapping it up in these old sheets.

The next cleaning day I put the new sheets out and we used those for two weeks and then the next cleaning day, the old sheets were on the bed. This happens every time. I’ve only had the new sheets on the bed for a total of 6 weeks because for some reason the old sheets keep ending up on the bed.

Last week I came home to the old sheets once again and was annoyed enough to change the bed and put the new sheets on myself. I suppose I could leave a note. Or I could throw the old sheets away but what if we find a body out in the garden?

As of five minutes ago, our dishwasher is completely and totally dead. This is the first day I have allowed the air conditioner to go on. Could the two be related? Can’t a girl enjoy both cool air and clean dishes, washed by machine?

It’s under warranty but still, dealing with broken household things is never fun.

And about the air, at heart I am an energy conservationist. All this Al Gore global warming talk seems to focus on the size of cars and not so much on everything else. I was a kid in the seventies when we learned about saving electricity at school. Turn the lights out when you leave a room and don’t run the dishwasher half empty. My sister had a badge that said, “Watt Watcher.” A few years later California had a drought and we had to conserve water, too. Am I the only person scratching my head, wondering how having giant concerts all over the globe is going to raise environmental awareness?

Wouldn’t a better idea be: stay at home day? All private motorized transportation would be prohibited. Only emergencies excepted. Everyone could ride their bikes on the freeway and/or stay home and read books or play board games and visit with their families and neighbors. How come no one has this idea?

I like my house warm in winter but I keep the thermostat low and wear sweaters and fuzzy socks inside and now that we’ve had a warm streak I’ve hesitated to turn on the air. Who decided the gold standard was 70 degrees for air conditioning? Is there anyone who doesn’t carry a sweater with them so they don’t freeze to death in the movies/office/mall/etc. during the summer? I waited until the interior hit 78.

Tonight, between 7pm and 9pm the temperature dropped about 20 degrees. I have windows open now. We have a cooler week ahead.

We watched the second to the last Sopranos tonight. Aiee! I came late to the Sopranos. We had some tapes that were floating around the family and Bob had watched the first season and said I would probably like it. I was relaxing one afternoon and nothing else was on so I threw in the tape and ten minutes into it, I was completely and totally hooked. I watched all 39 episodes of the first three seasons in 3 and a half weeks so I could begin with the fourth season.

Don’t you love when that happens? I saw the first three minutes of Freaks and Geeks and not only did I love it, but I knew my husband would love it, too. I’m trying to think of other shows that hooked me that fast. Twin Peaks? Weeds? Battlestar Galactica? I don’t know. Sometimes it takes me a few episodes to be sure.

Anyway, as this final season started I said to a friend that I didn’t want this to end all depressing with everyone dead or in dire straits. And my friend said, “They’re gangsters. I don’t think you’re going to get what you want.” Okay. Good point. But still. This is a hard show. These last few episodes have taken years off my life. I have one eye on the screen and one eye on my husband and I repeat over and over, “I don’t think I can watch this.” (No spoilers but #@$! and *&^%!).

I have a hard time with movie tension. (e.g. Matchpoint, Punch Drunk Love.) Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s brilliant filmmaking when I’m squirming in my seat, biting my nails and my heart pounding. I just don’t like it.

Each year we cancel our HBO when Sopranos ends and renew when Sopranos begins. This year they had a special deal (Hello, Comcast, always a special deal!) so now we have every single channel, soon to expire, for a special price. Thus, I am catching up on last season of Weeds. There’s always something new to hook you in when you have cable. I love TV but I always have so many other things I’m up to when the weather is so good. I still haven’t watched Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee which is no big surprise since I weep just reading the synopsis on the book’s dust jacket.

My final comment of the day has to do with our yard. Remember I have this adult onset fear of dogs although I’ll tell you, it’s gotten a lot better. Our neighbors next door got a new dog and every time I set my weeding kit near that fence (which is really a hedge) and start to work, their dog comes running over and snarls loudly. He’s gotten into our yard twice. He looks very sweet but the fact that he never wags his tail and runs up to say “hi” and instead makes mean barking noises means that I’ve generally avoided working on that already under-worked side of the yard. Today he was apparently not home or inside so I worked as quickly as possible, sunburn or tired arms be damned!

1. Longer days.
2. Jumping out of bed and not being cold. Same is true for running out and grabbing the paper or getting something out of the garage.
3. Having windows open in the house.
4. Wearing short sleeves. In the winter my long sleeves always dip into the dish water or get dragged through the chopped onions.
5. Not having to carry around an extra sweater, coat, umbrella, hat, scarf, etc. My purse is a little backpack. I like to have my hands free so the backpack purse or the slung-diagonally and worn on the side purse are my bags of choice. In the winter you can’t really wear the little backpack over the coat and under the coat can be an alternative although I look like a hunchback and I have to take my coat off if I need to get anything in my purse.
6. Farmers market, berries and other garden treats.

The Garden Hose Whisperer

Our office had a party last week and there was a ton of ice leftover. I have previously documented my thing withchocolate chip cookies. I don’t eat huge amounts of sweets so when I do, they have to be good. I don’t need a cookie everyday but when I want it, I want it and I want it to be a yummy homemade cookie.

I almost always have a baggie of cookies in the freezer at the office, carefully wrapped up in a non-translucent bag with my initials taped to it. One time my clear baggie non-labeled cookie stash disappeared.

Now it’s buried under 42 pounds of ice. You’d think it would occur to someone to move the stuff in there before putting in the ice but then, no one at my office even likes to close the cupboard doors after they’ve opened them.

I funneled my aggravation into drawing this picture, which is supposed to be the Wicked Witch of the East’s smushed legs with ruby slippers.

On to the garden update. My peas haven’t been doing much since the slugs eat their leaves off before they can even unfold. This is all a theory since I haven’t seen a slug in my yard in weeks. I’ve even tried going out first thing in the morning with my scissors to chop them in half but they must be onto me because I never see one.

I didn’t realize how poorly my peas were doing until this past weekend when I put out my next door neighbor’s trashcan and I stumbled upon their pea patch. Look at that. And look at that tiny green leaf-less stem. Is that the saddest excuse for a pea patch that you’ve ever seen?

Since the weather is finally warming up, I finally had to deal with the backyard hose. Last year I wrote about the great Pam v. Hose battle. I had limped along this long with a watering can but now I needed some serious spray. It took me 3 minutes to attach. Amazing how easy things can be if you take your time and whisper kind words.

Meanwhile, the only seeds I planted that have done anything are the turnips. I think every single turnip seed I planted turned into a turnip. I think turnip seeds I imagined turned into turnips. I planted tons of greens and beets as well .What happened to them?

Tuesday Potluck

1. One tidbit I forgot to mention about Jeff and Meredith’s wedding in Reno: the woman who officiated probably does 50 weddings a week and she still sounded genuinely excited about what she was doing. One of the things she said that I thought was funny was, “marriage is a cool bond.”

2. Roger Ebert has a whole book of movie clichés like the hero can always find a parking place right in front. I don’t know if he has this one but I’ve noticed that anytime people are chopping food in a domestic scene in a movie, they are always cutting up red bell peppers. You watch.

3. I recently had a random memory of me in a taxi cab with my visiting Oma (who spoke no English) trying to get to our house in Encino. We lived in Encino until I started 6th grade which means I was 9 or younger when the alleged incidents of this memory occurred. I want to say we were coming home from the airport but how on earth would I have ended up at Los Angeles Airport by myself to take my Oma to our house?

Here’s my hypothesis. My sister must have been there, too and Dad must have taken us with him to pick Oma up from the airport and then left us to take a cab home and he went back to work. I guess it’s not totally insane to let a 7 and 9 year old take their non-English speaking grandmother from LAX to the Valley.

Rather than give the cab driver our address, I told him we lived in Encino Village, and I don’t think this was a common name for the neighborhood, certainly not for a tax driver at LAX, (photos (not by me) here – my, there’s a piece of my childhood I haven’t visited in eons come and thump me right between the eyes) and we drove around a bit until we found it. At the end of the ride he said the only reason he found it was because he used to deliver milk there.

4. Remember being a kid and anytime something was missing or broken, it was always you or your siblings’ fault even if you didn’t know what it was or never touched it? Bob and I have no kids and it’s amazing how many things get missing or broken and we have no one to blame. Before Bob left on his camping trip this weekend he was looking all over for a flashlight. We used to have at least 6 of them. If the kids didn’t run off with them, who did?

5. I bought a new sports bra this weekend to wear for summertime stuff and the way it’s made, you have to fasten it behind you. I’ve been wearing bras for over 20 years and I still put one on by hooking it in front of me, then turning the fasteners to the back and pulling on the straps. The new bra you can’t do that and it’s been a chore to figure out how to hook the dang thing behind my back.

Mogget Needs Food
Our next door neighbors have a white cat named Duchess that I have nicknamed Mogget. Mogget loves to hang out in our yard and all summer long can be found lounging among the Dahlias napping in the shade or else snoozing on the outdoor patio furniture so that whenever you sit on it you get a nice coat of white cat hair.

We don’t mind Mogget except that she completely and totally ignores us and enjoys using our yard as her cat box.

Mogget’s people asked me to put their trash can out for them and when I went over there this evening you’ll never guess who came running over to me yowling as soon as I opened the gate between our yards?

I said, hello and carried out the trash and recycling, the entire time the cat meowed and followed me. She let me pet her. The only other time I have ever pet her was when her owner was standing right there.

She led me back to her food dish, not that this was unexpected. But I wasn’t assigned to feed her and had nothing to offer. Poor kitty.

The Flickr Stream from Reno is here.

Tomorrow is a no computer day. Enjoy your day.

All The Way to Reno
Last weekend we had a huge family get together to celebrate Uncle Barry’s 70th birthday and Jeff and Meredith’s shotgun wedding. I just reviewed my notes and they near completely worthless. I have a story that would be difficult to tell here without knowing the parties involved. Then I wrote down a story Aunt Judy told about her son winning a contest in college with funny expressions and he won with either: “crazier than a runover dog” or “sweating like a bad girl in church.” (They’re from Texas.)

I have a vague recollection of jotting some notes later on but I don’t know where they are and don’t feel like digging around right now. Since my dear husband is off in George, Washington, (yes, a real place) I have the house to myself and decided to do a writing marathon. In between writing I’m doing chores including tons of yardwork and other things but it’s turned out that I’ve been working like crazy — in the best possible way — but I’m tired and looking through all the tiny bits of paper to find my notes doesn’t sound like fun right now. If you haven’t noticed, I tend to be a bit tightly wound and one of my coping mechanisms is to write things down. Things to do. Things to remember. Things to read. It’s awesome but sometimes the sheaf of paper impractical.

(This photo is me taking a photo of Sinead and Curt taking a photo of me. I have a whole series of these. Why does this never get old?)

Bob and I flew to Reno on Southwest. It *was* really cheap but SW is my 2nd least favorite airline after Delta and I was going to link to those stories except I remembered I never put them back up. I’m going to have to do that one of these days. I originally posted the stories way before the Internet was used as a regular source of heinous customer service stories and I got a blizzard of freak notes including several from Delta and Southwest’s IPs. We were all so unsophisticated back then.

SW wasn’t as dreadful this time around but I don’t understand the appeal. I don’t mind paying an extra $20 to get a seat assignment. We paid for our tickets 4 months ago and were 2 hours early to the airport and we sat in the last row of the plane because we weren’t all dialed into the tricks. Uncle Joey says the tail is the best part because whenever you see wreckage from a plane crash, the tail is the only thing you can recognize.

This story isn’t about SW Airlines. We were on the same flight as Aileen, Kathy and Katie so we got to visit at the airport and then got off the plane together and went to wait for our shuttle. We actually were in Sparks, NV at John Ascuaga’s Nugget and the way John had his name on virtually everything from the restaurants to the coasters, I’m a little afraid for the size of his wiener. But the resort was nice. Huge casino. Nice, comfortable rooms. Good hospitality. Most of our group was on the same floor.

Bari, Curt and the girls had a suite on the 29th floor. They set up shop and this was the main meeting spot besides the Horseshoe Bar downstairs. Here’s the bar. It cost $20 to bring all those extra glasses up. Gouge. Gouge.

I very stupidly drank a glass, tiny cup of white wine on the plane because Kathy had free drink coupons and she gave me 4. Four free drinks, how could I pass without even having one! Even though it was before Noon and I know better than to drink before Noon. Turns out each coupon equaled a dollar so I only had one free drink and then was a zombie for the rest of the day. So after seeing all our cousins, Uncles, Aunties and assorted people I had to take an epic 2 hour nap.

My Mom and Dad arrived by then and after more catching up we went to John’s Oyster Bar to get some dinner. After dinner I rallied because we had tickets to see Riders in the Sky which turned out to be fun. The only bummer was I couldn’t see very well and turns out the entire upper balcony was practically empty and I could have sat with Mom and Dad and seen everything. After the show I staggered off to bed and swore, “No drinking before Noon, ever again.”

This was a sign in the resort near the pool which was on the 5th floor. If I was building a pool, I doubt my first thought would be the 5th floor, but then I’m fine with the size of my wiener. The pool had huge sliding ceiling panels to let in real sunlight.

On Saturday Bob went downtown to go to the art museum. (Yes, Reno has an art museum. I was surprised, too.) His thinking was to get out of my hair so I could visit with all my family without him hanging around. Meanwhile, I was up and about and feeling sorry for myself because I was all alone and didn’t want to bother anyone and wake them up. There were two babies on the trip and if I’ve learned anything about babies, when they sleep, it’s a magical time.

I ran into Uncle Joey and we walked over to the coffee house not inside the resort and I had my chai and muffin and then we walked back to the resort and he had a Bloody Mary for breakfast. I hope to be like him someday. The resort had a “Bloody Mary Buffet” and damn, if I didn’t manage to get a photo. By now I ran into people I knew every time I walked through the casino. (Our group totaled around 40). I found my cousins and babies and learned that everyone was up before 6am because those babies didn’t want to sleep in Reno.

I spent most of the day visiting and went on an epic walk with my cousin, Lisa and enjoyed the wonderful sunshine and desert environs. My cousin Bari planned the party and had sent out a huge spreadsheet with who was going and how to contact them and whether they were driving or flying and when they would arrive and the activities and when/where they were happening. During the whole weekend people were always saying, “What time is that?” or “When is that?” and then the refrain: “Check the spreadsheet.” Those without the spreadsheet were in sorry shape.

The big party was in Orozko a Basque restaurant. This is the birthday man (standing) with my Mom and Dad. I thought I had my photo taken with him but must have been another person’s camera. No family event has ever been as well documented as this weekend. The party was fun and entertaining. I had the lamb. Yum-baaah.

The party ended by 9pm because Uncle Barry has an early bedtime but a group set out from the casino to an area called Victorian Square where there were some bars and live music. We lasted about one round and headed back. I went to the party suite and was very proud of myself for staying up until 1am with the big kids. Of course, I felt like death warmed over the next day. I blame Auntie’s wine in a box. (Well, and me for thinking it was a good idea to drink some.)

On Sunday Cousin Jeff married Meredith and the back-story is his to tell so we’re going to skip that part but this all came on very quickly and there was some concern prior to the event sort of like, “what are they thinking?” Everyone in the family who met Meredith said she was great but you still want to see for yourself and long story short, everything is going to be great for those two. I think they both did good. I was at a weird angle and most of my photos are of the back of people’s heads but this one looks nice. It’s Jeff and Meredith with Jeff’s Mom and Dad (the Auntie with the bad wine and Uncle of the 70th birthday) and Jeff’s nieces, Josa, Geena and Sinead (Whose Mom and Dad = Bari and Curt with the party suite). Don’t worry if you can’t follow. I’ve been related for 43 years and I can barely keep up sometimes.

Bari, Lisa, Kathy and I decorated the wedding car and I suckily didn’t get a final photo of the results. It was an adventure because the shaving cream slid down the back and ran out early so there was some extra creativity with lipstick and foam. I really didn’t do much but watch.

Super fantastic trip and I will update when I get the Flickr stream up. Now my dinner is waiting and I’ve earned some TV time. (But not much because it’s already 8pm and I can barely keep conscious after 9pm. Kids: enjoy your youth because the older you get, the more appealing sleep becomes. Unless you’re Bob.)

Update: Photos are here.