Filed under: Misc. Humor | Tags: Eighty-percenter, humor, Marriage, painting
I have a new word– “redundies. ”
“Redundies–” the act of repeatedly dropping and picking up the same pair of underwear over and over when you are carrying a load of clothes to the laundry.
Apparently, I do not learn from doing things incorrectly the first time. Or the second. Not only do I repeatedly stoop and pick up the same pair of underwear when it drops over and over on the way to the laundry room (instead of shifting the pile or actually placing the load in a laundry basket), but I do the same thing with the piece of lint that the vacuum won’t pick up. I look at it, stoop down and pick it up, then place it on the floor again to see if the vacuum will work better this time. Do I bother to just toss it in the trash? Of course not.
For years I’ve been doing things like this. Cleaning the house is one giant “redundie” for me. Why else would a person vacuum, mop, wipe and dust a place that in ten minutes will look exactly the same? And yet we do it over an over and over!
But a couple of years ago I finally learned how to use this trait for good.
A friend once told me his wife said he was “an Eighty-Percenter.” That meant that whenever there was a project to be done, he was happy as long as it was eighty percent done, or done eighty percent correctly. I’m more like a Sixty-Percenter. Especially when it comes to painting. I just want color. I don’t particularly care about ceiling lines and chair rails and bannisters.
But Hubby does.
One day, it dawned on me that if I only did my usual Sixty-Percenter job on a project, he would HAVE to finish it. A Ninety- or One Hundred-Percenter cannot stand it if something is done less. So, periodically I would threaten to start a project, knowing Hubby would never be satisfied with my half-assed job, and would be compelled to finish it. Hubby never seemed to recognize this pattern.
Recently, I tried it again. I threatened to start a painting job we’d been putting off for months (ok, twelve years–we still had builder’s grade white paint on a few of the walls in the house). Hubby, the One Hundred-Percenter, panicked. He went to the fancy paint store (no Lowes or Home Depot for the One Hundred-Percenter) and purchased two gallons of paint in some flavor of “sand.”
There was nothing sand-colored about it. It was yellow. Margarine that has been sitting on the counter three days too long yellow. We stood staring up at the one painted corner unitl 7:00, then decided we should get something else. So, it being a holiday and the store already closed, we kicked back with our drinks and vowed to go back the next day. (And no, it never crossed our minds to get the little sample sizes, slap them on the wall, wait several days while we observed the light at different times like modern-day Michaelangelos. We are people of action. Watching and waiting do not become us.)
The next day, in we went back to the fancy paint store with Daughter #2, fresh from the stable and under protest in her stained and smelly jodphurs and boots. Daughter #2, never paralyzed with decision-making like some members of this family, marched over to the paint swatches, yanked one out and pronounced, “This is the one you want. Can we go now?”
Sure enough, it was pretty darn close to what we’d talked about. Victory was within my grasp. The house would be painted, Hubby would be house-bound for days to keep me company, and I wouldn’t have to do any of it!
Then my plan totally backfired.
I was not only allowed to tape the edges of our work space, but I was also allowed to actually use the roller and paint the big spaces. But despite the fact that I would have to re-wire our entire relationship in my head, my heart sang, my spirits soared, and I went to work with great gusto. Why? Because I knew a small miracle had happened in our Subourbon home.
After being together for twenty-two years, we had GROWN as a couple. There was a new level of trust in our relationship. Not only was I being allowed to paint, I was being allowed to paint the foyer, the very first place people will see when they walk in. My One Hundred-Percenter had trusted ME with such an important space. Naturally, I was on the receiving end of ample instruction on how to use the roller, how to hold it, where to start rolling, how to smooth out the globs I’d left behind, when to inhale, when to exhale, etc.
But hey, it’s a baby step.
Any miracles after twenty-two years should be celebrated. Maybe I’ll embrace the “redundies” and clean the house this weekend!
Filed under: Parenting | Tags: Cotillion, Dancing, humor, south, southern, teenagers
Could someone please explain to me why the ritual of sending Southern “tweens” on the cusp of womanhood to Cotillion still exists? Don’t get me wrong. Daughter #2 is doing it, albeit under protest. And like her fellow future debutantes (in this case, girls who will someday go to college like we did, drink the same swill and do just as many walk-of-shames as we did, and then come live at home), she will be wearing the requisite white gloves, appropriately-cut dress somewhere close to her knees, and an old wrap of mine because let’s face it–every teenager wants to look like their Great Aunt Elspeth.
Now, as I understand it, Cotillion began as a country dance in France in the 1800s, which enabled partners to flirt and socialize as they danced. So here we are, 200 years later, attempting to provide our children with the opportunity to socialize. As if school, FaceBook, Twitter, InstaGram and the four others they think I don’t know anything about, aren’t enough. Flirting and socializing? Have these people ever been to a dance these days? I’ve seen less bumping and grinding in the final two laps of a NASCAR race. I think we’re WAY beyond flirting. (Of course, my Sweet Angel would never do such a thing).
Also, according to tradition, the higher the social status, the more elegant the event used to be. Social status? Let’s see…how to address that one. Since we are, to quote comedian Louis CK, “in a suburb of Walmart,” I’m not sure how much elegance we can truly hope to have. White gloves will only cover up so many Sally Hansen nails and dirt accumulated in barns and soccer/field hockey/lacrosse dirt. And there’s also no hiding the multiple ear piercings and happy faces drawn all over their arms in pen by their friends.
Nor can we disguise the difference in attitude from our Delicate Flowers’ ancestors. Daughter #2, who is twelve years old, 5’6” and 100 pounds wet, got matched up with the shortest boy there. Of course. Short Boy’s friends, other twelve-year-old Future Fraternity Bothers practicing for pledge week, teased Short Boy, saying, “You’re so much shorter than she is!” (Duh!) Daughter #2, a delicate southern flower for sure, flipped her hair and tossed back to them, “You’re so much more annoying than he is!”
That’s my girl! Yep, the gloves are coming off.
Of course, the dresses have rules too. For example, nothing strapless, and they must come just above the knee. I would like to know, have any of the women who organize this thing ever tried to shop for dresses for a tween? The dresses available that aren’t from Lilli Pulitzer, Nordstrom or straight out of the Preppy Handbook (remember that?) look like clothing for hookers, pirates or hippies circa 1972. No spaghetti straps? Knee-length? Really? Well, I guess we better head on over to Pennsylvania and borrow some dresses from the Amish. Maybe those girls who “Broke Amish” won’t need them.
There are a couple of bright spots: on the nights you don’t have to drive, there are two or three hours of blissful peace and quiet after the Bath and Body Works brothel fog has evaporated. And, if you are the driver that night, you will probably learn an enormous amount of information (you are, however, supposed to report back to the other moms what was said), like whose kid had sweaty palms, whose kid smelled weird, and which girls managed to arrange to dance with their “boyfriends.” The flip side? Who gets to be the lucky one to tell Sally’s mom that Sally and John were seen kissing at school? Or that little Jenny put raccoon rings of eyeliner on as soon as she left the house?
On the night I have to drive, I plan on dropping off the girls, hiding out in the closest StarBucks, and turning the radio up REALLY loud on the way home.
In sweat pants.
Filed under: Middle Age | Tags: Blank Slate, humor, Katie Couric, red dress, southern, subourbonmom, The Bloggess
I was watching Katie Couric’s new show (self-named, of course), and marveling that she can still pull off wearing a super-tight, red dress. As I made snarky comments to myself about how the camera seemed to be carefully fuzzy around her face, I finally began listening to her chirpy voice. The guest Katie introduced was one of my favorite bloggers, The Bloggess (hysterically funny, when she’s not going all Oprah on us–check out the link). Apparently, The Bloggess found a way to pull herself up out of a deep depression by wearing an outrageous, fun red dress and having a photo shoot in a Texas graveyard. In the spirit of the Traveling Pants, she then decided to pay it forward and send the dress on to others who might need the lift. The dress and others like it has gone around the world, helping women get through their personal dark times.
Being loud and flamboyant, I don’t think just wearing a red dress would do it for me, no matter what the symbolism is. So I started to think about what it would take to remind me of who I am after wife, mother and teacher. In other words, when was I most, well, ME?
My immediate thought was college, because I was still all the “-uns:” un-married, un-employed, and un-taxed.The only thing I had to do was learn; everything else was gravy. So naturally, I spent an enormous amount of time playing practical jokes on people, drinking gallons of Beast and choosing the easiest Minor (women’s studies). One of the jokes we did a lot was to put an inappropriate book (i.e. Lesbian Ethics) in someone’s backpack, watch them get caught going through the detectors and have their bag searched at the front desk. So I thought maybe sending that book would be inspirational to those in their darkest times (Hey, no one said I was the brightest bulb in the bunch). I quickly discarded that idea, realizing that many, many people of all persuasions would be offended by getting a book with that title. So, I thought maybe an empty can of Beast, but declined for the same reason.
I decided to go back even farther….I think you’re the most free when you’re about 10 years old. Back in the day, you could roam the neighborhood for hours, only coming home at dusk when your mom would yell, or ring the bell, or do whatever your family’s signal was. You could build stuff and get cut, scratched and bruised without the world coming to an end. You were only dimly aware of responsibility, racism, world events and the vast future that lay before you. But what symbol to use for such freedom? My “blankie?”–too young. My Big Wheel–too bulky to mail.
Then it came to me. The answer wasn’t beer, toys or clothes–it was nothing. I know that for me to be free I need to be naked. Clothes, no matter how well-intended, always say something about you–where you’ve been (“I LOVE NY”), your job, your interests, your sense of humor, where you shop/your spending habits, etc. By shedding my clothes I could be me…and that means all the parts of me now. I want to go to a nude beach and walk around in the sun, letting it kiss the parts that are so white they look like a white bikini. I want to feel my drooping breasts bounce as I walk, and feel the muffin top I can’t get rid of jiggle. I want to feel the sand squish between my toes, and the salty air lift my hair so that the gray underneath sees the light of day. Most of all I want to feel weightless–not a mom, not a wife, not a teacher, not a daughter or sister or friend. Just me, the way I came into the world–a blank slate.
Ok, a much bigger blank slate.
So just imagine, all you soul-searchers out there just dying to be free of your life for a few minutes. It’s time to take them off. Walk around your house if you can’t go outside. Make sure the family isn’t there–this is definitely a by-yourself-thing. And you’re probably banking a lot of therapy hours for your kids already, so why add more?
Feel the air, open a window and stand just out of view–the breeze will still get you.
The best part of doing this is you can pay it forward by telling someone else about it. No post office fees, no badly-fitting dress to hem or take in.
Just you.
Naked.
Blank slate.
Filed under: Exercise | Tags: Garlic Man, gym, humor, southern, The Sprinkler, workouts
Everyone knows that going to the gym will make you happier, healthier and less stressed. Everyone also knows that when you go to the gym there’s a certain amount of grossness you have to put up with. And because gyms are so full of random body fluids, they’re a great way to build up your immune system. I know that when I go, I most likely haven’t showered yet, and I was probably melting in a soccer-mom chair the day before watching Daughter #1 elbow, trip and push other girls for 90 minutes, or I was at a barn with Daughter #2 getting horse sweat all over me. So God only knows what comes off of me as I hit high gear on the elliptical (a.k.a. the “I-limp-and-drool machine”). But nothing at the gym can compete with Garlic Man and The Sprinkler.
Garlic Man is there everyday for at least an hour. He wears Middle-Age-Man’s uniform: too-long shorts with the wife-beater-that-looks-professional-so-it-must-be-workout attire-shirt. The wife-beater shows off arms that look like duck pin balls have been stuffed under his skin. Out of the too-long shorts poke hairy little toothpicks. His legs have been ignore, I assume, because the gym mirrors only go to knee-height. With skinny chicken-legs and a massive upper body, Garlic Man resembles Sponge Bob, minus the tie and the irritating laugh that goes straight through your spinal cord.
But the worst aspect of Garlic Man, as you can guess, is that he REEKS. No matter when I go, he is there, and he always manages to get on the I-limp-and-drool next to me. Ten minutes later, I am annoyed. The acrid smell of recycled garlic wafts across the eighteen inches of space separating us. After twenty minutes, Garlic Man has a miasma of funk surrounding him. My eyes water, my nose involuntarily wrinkles up, and I do a double check just to make sure it’s not me. Eventually, I am forced to hold my breath and retreat, leaving numerous casualties behind flailing at the arm-thingies on their I-limp-and-drools as they gasp for air.
Second only to Garlic Man is The Sprinkler. He looks innocuous enough: a mid-fifties, Flashdance-headband-wearing guy who probably works a lot from home. I give him that polite elevator smile as he climbs onto the machine beside me, then tune him out. At first I try to convince myself it’s someone using the disinfectant spray (and by the way, no one in the world is going to convince me that leaving ionized water on sweat-soaked hand thingies for 10 seconds is going to disinfect them!), but a quick glance shows no one is wiping anything down.
That can only mean one thing: The Sprinkler is beside me.
I look over and see sweat droplets pop off of his body, landing on my arms, the floor, his equipment, and the people in surrounding counties. If we could make all The Sprinklers from all the local gyms exercise in Lake Chesdin each summer, there would no longer be pontoon boats mired in the droughty mud–just a new brackish ecosystem.
Gagging, I leap from the I-limp-and-drool, hastily spray the useless disinfectant all over myself and the machine and huff over to the mats. I add my nastiness to several other layers of sweat and fluid that only a 10th of the population ever bothers to wipe off. The same for the arm and leg machines. After the last set of reps (that’s gym-speak for doing a few, getting tired and pretending you meant to stop for a minute “to rest your muscles”), I grab my keys and stalk out the door.
The endorphins have kicked in, and I am definitely happier, less stressed, and ready to face the world. Yep, nothing is healthier than going to the gym.
Subourbon Mom 