Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Parenting | Tags: Automatic, babies, cars, driving, haptic, humor, Intel, inventions, Middle-Age, news, Onesies, parenting, parents, sex, shopping, Smart Cars, teenagers, teens, travel
With every new year there are articles covering what’s going to be trending in technology. Some are pretty cool, and some… not so much.
Under the pretty cool category, I thought Lynette Jones’s touch-based (haptic) communications system sounded interesting. Haptic technology studies the sense of touch on human skin. For example, rescue workers trying to find buried survivors could wear a belt with buzzers that would alert them with a buzz on their skin, warning them of danger and the need to move left or right; or, a vision-impaired person could be buzzed on their left or right arm, indicating which way to turn as they maneuver through a city (http://www.livescience.com/37461-vibrating-navigators-shake-up-devices.html).
These goals are certainly admirable, but I thought of a different use: during sex, partners could wear a device (hopefully undetected by their partner) that would tell them when what they were doing was getting their partner aroused, based on pulse rate, etc. No more guess work, no more “That’s not it…a little to the left would be better…” (Of course, Hubby would like me to clarify that this issue is only something my girlfriends have complained about to me–we have none of these issues.) This might be especially helpful for the inexperienced lover, or for the next generation who will undoubtedly be unable to read facial cues because they are always looking at their phones. I’m sure with the right advances and some clever designer strategies, someone could come up with some fancy lingerie that would work.
Under the “Not-so-much” category is the onesie created by Intel that can measure a baby’s temperature, pulse rate and breathing rate (http://www.ideaconnection.com/new-inventions/intel-showcases-wearable-tech-07905.html.) The onesie would then tell a smart phone or smart coffee mug (who thought a coffee mug was the best choice for this?) when the baby is hungry, sick, or waking up. If the baby is hungry, the smart onesie could trigger a bottle warmer to begin warming up the baby’s milk. For a baby with health issues, or if there is an inexperienced babysitter, smart onesies could be a huge help.
But seriously… Someone actually created a device that would tell a new mother her child MIGHT be waking up?
Clearly, this was NOT developed by a sleep-deprived parent who, every thirty minutes, staggers to their newborn’s crib upon hearing the tiny, delicate scratch of a fingernail on the sheets, so exhausted they are unable to remember their own name. If my phone beeped at me because my baby might be waking up, I would throw the phone and the onesie into the diaper genie.
Another “not-so-much” device is Automatic, created by Automatic Labs in San Francisco. According to the website, Automatic is a device in cars that can record data about your car and your driving habits (like speeding, braking too hard, or accelerating too fast), and displays the results on your phone so you can save energy and money. It can also map out each trip using GPS, calculate gas usage and mileage, and gives you a driving score. The higher your score, the more money you are saving. It even remembers where you parked.
Okaaaaay…speaking as one with a lead foot and the occasional case of road rage, I don’t think I need another device in my car to “help” me be a better driver. I already have Hubby (who has commented on my driving since we first got into a car together), and Daughters 1&2 (who closely monitor my driving habits now that they are learning how to drive). As for braking hard and accelerating too fast, I’ll stop doing that when other people learn how to drive without being stupid.
Now that I think about it, Automatic would be helpful in monitoring Daughters 1&2. They certainly couldn’t turn off Automatic like they can turn off the Find A Friend App…
But the feature that remembers where I’ve parked? That alone would be worth the $99.95 price tag.
Tune in next week to “Inventions I Will Never Patent But Will Rage About When Someone Else Does…”
Filed under: Food/Drink, Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Posts | Tags: adulthood, Christmas, Crockpots, family, Food, Holidays, humor, lingerie, Lobster, Marriage, Middle-Age, news, ohio, reporting, south, southern, television, thelapine.ca
In the days immediately following Christmas, I turned the national news on and saw that the scrubs were in for the usual anchors. I should have known right then to just turn it off, but like a driver passing a wreck, I couldn’t look away. I watched as some intern’s work went out over the air, and I cringed.
The anchor was reporting on the delays UPS and Fed-Ex experienced during the holidays, explaining that bad weather, a shortened shopping season and the massive on-line purchases contributed to the delays. Naturally, it followed that they would interview someone who had been inconvenienced. Unfortunately, they chose to interview one of their employees, who was complaining that the dozen or so fresh lobsters she’d ordered for her Christmas Eve dinner were delivered after the event, and her Christmas was ruined.
I’m sorry…a dozen fresh lobsters?
Wow. Her life is HARD.
Nice choice, editorial staff. Way to make a point.
Disgusted, I turned off the news and continued to avoid the holiday clean-up ritual by incessantly playing Candy Crush and Pet Rescue Saga.
A few days later, I was surfing FaceBook (more procrastinating), and I came across the following news report:
Ohio Wife Torches Husband’s Truck After Getting Crock Pot and Cheap Lingerie for Xmas (thelapine.ca)
DAYTON — Police arrested 34-year old Tracy Waters yesterday morning after she allegedly set fire to her husband Dave’s 2013 Chevy Silverado Crew Cab in a rage over her Christmas gifts.
“He gave me a slow-cooker and these red nylon crotchless panties with a push-up bra,” Mrs. Waters told police.
“The bra had tassels for fuck sake. Tassels.”
Police have charged Mrs. Waters with arson, assault with a weapon (“a 4-gallon ceramic crock pot with corn-on-the-cob pattern”) and using foul language in public.
Mr. Waters told the Dayton Daily News that he was excited about his gifts for his wife and doesn’t understand why she became angry and turned violent.
“Good food, good lovin’, and a good truck were all I wanted for Christmas,” said the 37-year-old warehouse worker sporting a swollen-shut right eye.
Seriously, you can’t make that stuff up.
These are the people I want to see being interviewed on the national news. When I read the article out loud to Hubby (before thinking it through that our daughters were also in the car), nobody asked why nylons would be crotchless, or why anyone would want tassels. I was grateful and horrified at the same time.
Hopefully, they also now know that a crockpot counts as a deadly weapon.
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Parenting | Tags: adulthood, children, Christmas, Christmas Trees, family, Holidays, humor, kids, Letters to Santa, Middle-Age, mom, parenting, parents, Santa, subourbonmom, teenagers, teens, Traditions
Like everything with teenagers, Christmas at this age is a mixed sack of coal and gifts.
These days, we no longer have to scramble to hide their gifts and the special Santa wrapping paper (which I found out later they already knew about). Now, I just remind the family, “If you don’t believe, you don’t receive” (we all receive, and there is no mention of the questionable fat man in a body stocking stuffing himself into our chimney like a sausage.) We no longer stay up until 1:00am putting together brightly-colored plastic, cursing every Chinese company that decided heavy-duty plastic was a good idea. But we also don’t have those magical moments, like when the kids would pause at the top of the stairs and survey the loot under the tree like they had found the Holy Grail; or the morning Daughter #1 burst into tears on Christmas Day. When I asked her why, she said, “I’m just so happy!”
I also miss letters to Santa. Every year, the girls would carefully compose their letters to Santa, or dictate them to me. We would address them to the North Pole and stick them in the mailbox. About a week later, our wonderful mail carrier would deliver a hand-written letter back, addressed to each child by name. These days, I get gift list updates from my kids via email and text (from the next room), with links to the different catalogs and stores for my shopping ease.
But one thing that is definitely better is the tradition of getting the tree. We still go to the same lot, and we still wander around letting the girls make the decision. But now, the girls can articulate their opinions:
Daughter #1: “I don’t like this one—it has a hole.”
Daughter #2: “Your face is a hole.”
Me: Sigh….
Hubby: “What about his one?”
Daughter #1: “I don’t like it. It lacks originality.”
Decorating the tree is also better. Now the girls can put the ornaments higher than our knees. They re-hash the family trips we’ve taken, since we try to get an ornament form each new place (“Mom, do you remember the time Aunt Cindy tried to get on the ski tube and her face landed in your lap?”–followed by hysterical laughing). Unfortunately, they also like tinsel, and every year they glob it on heavier than Troy Polamalu’s hair, and every year I take a little off each day, trying to minimize the tackiness (of the tree, not Troy’s hair).
But the best thing about having teenagers during Christmas is that even though they send me shopping lists on-line, and they no longer burst into spontaneous tears of joy, they appreciate the family time. As I write this, they are decorating the tree, laughing over the toilet paper tube ornaments and debating whether the Redskins are worthy of having their ornaments adorn our tree (we’re hardcore fans, so they’re going on, but with serious reservations). They may not remember all the toys or the letters to Santa, but I hope they will remember the time we spend together.
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor | Tags: adulthood, Christmas, cleaning, dogs, family, humor, Middle-Age, silver, south, southern, Thanksgiving
The holidays are upon us, and for most people that means lots of food, shopping, and visits with family. If you’re from The South, that means re-hashing behind kitchen doors the latest escapades of our eccentric relatives, and saying “Bless her heart” a lot. Those same relatives serve a very important purpose during the holidays: they are the people who keep our own families from going at each other across the table. Why pick on your sister when the easier target just shot three holes in his roof while chasing an opossum that turned out to be Cousin Elgin’s old beaver hat?
The holidays also mean one other thing—cleaning.
I don’t just mean taking a swipe at the dust sprinkled on the dining room table. I’m talking about on-your-knees, hip-throbbing, “Oh My God There’s A Mouse Under The Bed—Oh Wait, It’s Just A Dust Bunny” CLEANING…
Mostly, I just let things go until company is coming, or the family is plucking that last nerve, and I clean to prevent infanticide. It just doesn’t bother me as much as some people. Years ago, one of my friends gave me the nicest, back-handed southern compliment ever when she said, “I just love how you’re so comfortable with your house like this.” But now, the holidays are here, and it’s time to break out the old elbow grease and see how much damage has been done since the last time I cared.
Polishing the silver is my least favorite part. Not only did I have to promise to use the silver (or it would be hauled back to my mother’s house, where it would once again have a loving home nestled in velvet), I had to promise to never use the instant polish. Not using the instant polish means that for one evening, usually during the Sunday night football game, I am camped out on the living room floor, rubbing silver with a toothbrush. If you’ve never polished silver, here’s something you may not know—it sucks all the liquid out of your skin for days, leaving you looking a zombie with withered, gray, corpse-like hands. Three days after the scrubbing, rinsing and wiping, I can still still smell the chalky, coppery scent on my fingers, and I incessantly rub Pond’s hand cream into the cracks of my hands until I look like Lady MacBeth after her killing spree.
But mostly, I like cleaning when it’s been awhile—there is something viscerally satisfying about seeing the dust and dog hair swirling around inside my bagless vacuum cleaner. Same with the steam cleaner–nothing gets me more excited when I’m cleaning then seeing that black, dirty carpet water pour down the sink. It’s like when you were little and you had to keep peeking at that really nasty scrape on your knee–you just had to peel back the band-aid to see how bad it was.
I do have one favorite new cleaning tool, and most people will probably find it disgusting, but it’s efficient. The wall where The Dog’s food bowl is kept is constantly covered with dried up flecks of dog food. For years I’ve tried everything to get the wall clean, even fading the paint job by using straight bleach. Once, I even painted over it (not a good idea, it just looked lumpy). But the other night, my neighbor brought his old beagle, Lucy, over for a visit. Lucy, bless her heart, licked at that wall until it looked brand new. I don’t know what is in Lucy’s saliva, but it’s way better than a Magic Sponge or bleach. After Lucy left, I wiped the dog spit off the wall and marveled at her secret super power. From now on, I’m just going to sprinkle some old bacon grease on the baseboards, call Lucy inside, and let her go to work while I watch Duck Dynasty.
Now you know who my cousins and aunts and uncles will be talking about behind their closed kitchen doors as they carve the turkey and mix up the stuffing.
“Bless her heart, she’s so worn out she lets the dog clean the floors for her.”
Filed under: Middle Age, Misc. Humor, Sports | Tags: adulthood, Corn Hole, family, football, games, humor, Middle-Age, south, southern, sports, subourbonmom, tailgate, Virginia, weddings
I have a new talent. It’s not very often once you hit your forties, you discover something new about yourself that doesn’t have to do with migrating hair or the fact that the doctors on Gray’s Anatomy all look like they’re children.
This summer, I discovered I’m pretty good at corn hole.
The revelation occurred during a wedding reception. Daughter #2 and I tossed our way into a corn hole victory, wearing summer dresses and aiming for a board painted with twining, pastel flowers. What a welcome departure from the typical wedding small talk over bacon-wrapped scallops and monogrammed mints!
A couple of weeks later, Hubby and his work buddies set up a corn hole game in the glass lobby of their office. After hours, we played several games, with the added risk of shattering three stories of glass on a mis-throw. As we played, I realized that corn hole is like dancing: one beer will loosen up the arms, but two or three beers produce uncoordinated, jerky motions that cause folks to shake their heads and back away.
I didn’t realize corn hole had become a part of my psyche until a couple of weekends ago, when we went to the Montpelier Steeple Chase races in Central Virginia.
Tailgates sported silver candelabra and flower arrangements that belonged in an issue of Southern Living. Colorful hats, feathers and scarves competed with the jockey’s silks against a backdrop of falling leaves. Southern men staggered around in khakis and button down shirts, clutching red solo cups filled with bourbon or gin while their dates grabbed an arm and led them over to the track to watch the races. Vendors touted overpriced boots, and hats, and artwork to grace libraries and sitting rooms.
One vendor was selling chairs and pillows covered with hand-painted watercolor animals and insects. I was about to move on to the tent with Kettle Korn and gyros, when I noticed a small pile of square beanbags that were also painted in the same style for $20 – $40 each. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would pay such a ridiculous amount of money for corn-hole bags. It wasn’t until I picked one up, felt its weight and caught a whiff of lavender that I realized they couldn’t possibly be corn hole bags. They were sachet bags–the kind that women sometimes put in their underwear drawer. (Does anyone even still use those?) The fact that I even knew this was due to my proper southern upbringing; but like tomato aspic or chicken gizzards, just because I know what a sachet is doesn’t mean I partake.
Having been introduced to the addictive world of corn hole, I’ve decided it should not be limited to NASCAR, football and weddings. I think the DMV should have them, as should the Post Office, women’s bathroom lines at concerts, and on the back of road construction trucks, ready to be dropped at a moment’s notice when traffic comes to a standstill on I-95. What better way to kill time and make a group of strangers come together in a spirit of camaraderie?
So grab a couple of boards, prop them up, and raid your kid’s toy box. You never know when you might need to make some friends, or just pass the time while life goes on around you. For those of you still too proud to admit you like corn hole, just tell people you’re throwing sachet bags around.
Subourbon Mom 