tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61091912654833019072023-11-16T07:17:33.919-05:00InsomniMom<p><big><big>Big world.</big></big>
<p><big><big>Little sleep.</big></big></p></p>Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.comBlogger1486125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-25791260676114272002012-07-31T23:13:00.000-05:002012-07-31T23:13:10.899-05:00RECIPE: Julie's Fruit Buckle of Awesomeness and homemade vanilla ice cream<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq9mTlOLKTLtT_Gc9OrNvqyBKWPDIih8XYabjoLAiSz7IX-eXDQNXSnDLX7PoN1_qz-go818JvqhJco7blbWVDp_Zs0YIFfzvzZPh0QZ-_0dWTzoYKUo-TCgA268m49bhW5n6VB2n3KkI/s1600/FOOD+-+Blueberry+buckle+and+homemade+ice+cream.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq9mTlOLKTLtT_Gc9OrNvqyBKWPDIih8XYabjoLAiSz7IX-eXDQNXSnDLX7PoN1_qz-go818JvqhJco7blbWVDp_Zs0YIFfzvzZPh0QZ-_0dWTzoYKUo-TCgA268m49bhW5n6VB2n3KkI/s320/FOOD+-+Blueberry+buckle+and+homemade+ice+cream.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
What is summertime, exactly, if not swimming pools and sweet corn, tomatoes warm from the garden and fireworks, blueberries and ice cream? One of my favorite memories of a book is from Laura Ingalls Wilder's <i>Farmer Boy</i>, when she described Almanzo and his brother and sisters using up all the white sugar to make ice cream in their hand-cranked ice cream freezer when their parents were gone visiting relatives for a week. White sugar was a valuable commodity in the 1870s and those naughty Wilder munchkins emptied out an entire barrel of it in their lust for sweet, creamy frozen yumminess. Almanzo had to do the majority of the cranking because he was the youngest. Eliza, the bossy one, put herself in charge of beating the eggs, I believe, so what the young Wilders were eating was actually frozen custard rather than frozen ice cream.<br />
<br />
What I've got for you here is frozen half-and-half, although if you want a sturdier result, you could substitute heavy cream with no problems. I do use an ice cream freezer: I think my husband and I received it as a wedding gift back around the time when the Wilder kids were growing up; they asked to borrow some of our sugar after they used all of theirs, but we told them no. You can also use a freezer method that involves whipping the ingredients with an electric mixer, pouring the mixture in a 9x13 dish and then freezing it for something like eight-thousand hours, but honestly, ice cream freezers can be had for such a small outlay of money, I'd buy one if you don't already have one. My freezer is not a high-end model and it churns (noisily, my gosh, the thing could deafen you) for forty minutes and you have ice cream before you can say Bob's-yer-uncle. If Bob is, indeed, your uncle.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">RECIPE: HOMEMADE VANILLA-CINNAMON ICE CREAM</span></b><br />
<br />
<b>INGREDIENTS:</b><br />
4 cups half and half<br />
1 can sweetened condensed milk<br />
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract<br />
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)<br />
<br />
<b>DIRECTIONS:</b><br />
Mix all ingredients together and pour into the freezer container of an ice cream maker. Proceed according to manufacturer's directions. When ice cream has finished churning, remove from freezer container and pour/scoop into an airtight tub of some sort (I just use Rubbermaid). Place in freezer for two hours to finish hardening.<br />
<br />
<u>FOR CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM:</u><br />
Add <span style="font-size: x-small;">1/2</span> cup cocoa powder to half and half mixture and one teaspoon of cinnamon, if desired.<br />
<br />
<u>FOR CANDY ICE CREAM:</u><br />
Add one cup of chocolate chips, Heath toffee chips, Butterfinger chips, etc. when ice cream is finished churning. Stir candy into soft ice cream and place mixture into a Rubbermaid container. Put in freezer to continue hardening, <br />
<br />
<u>FOR FRUIT ICE CREAM:</u><br />
Add two cups of mashed ripe blueberries, peaches,strawberries to mixture. Omit cinnamon, unless it just sounds good to you.<br />
<br />
<u>FOR PEPPERMINT ICE CREAM:</u><br />
Add one cup of crushed peppermint candies to mixture<br />
<br />
<u>FOR COOKIE DOUGH ICE CREAM:</u><br />
Purchase a log of chocolate chip cookie dough. Using about half the roll, cut into small chunks: refrigerate until firm. Prepare vanilla ice cream according to directions. When ice cream has been churned, remove it from the freezer container and place into a bowl; stir the chunks of cookie dough into the soft ice cream. Scoop into a Rubbermaid container and place in freezer for two hours to finish hardening.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>RECIPE: JULIE'S FRUIT BUCKLE OF AWESOMENESS</b></span><br />
<br />
The dessert recipe actually belongs to my friend Julie P., as much as I would like to claim it as my own. It is delicious, it is easy, it is cheap. It's comforting and homey on a cold, wintery evening and it's absolutely delicious with that homemade ice cream pictured above. Julie claims that it is actually a Paula Deen recipe, but Paula's recipe contains an extra stick of butter, which Julie felt was too gooshy. I tried it Julie's way and it was so good, I almost fell out of my chair in a happy little dessert coma, so I'm fine with just the one stick too.<br />
<br />
<b>INGREDIENTS:</b><br />
1 can fruit pie filling, any flavor<br />
1 can of crushed pineapple or pineapple tidbits, your choice<br />
1 box yellow cake mix<br />
1 stick of butter, melted<br />
<br />
<b>DIRECTIONS:</b><br />
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spritz a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Pour the undrained can of pineapple into the baking dish and spread it around to cover the bottom. Spoon out the fruit pie filling onto the pineapple and spread it around as well. Open the cake mix and distribute it on top in an even manner; pour the butter across the top, criss-cross, back-and-forth, up and down.<br />
<br />
Bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with a little cinnamon sugar if you'd like. Serve warm and prepare to be revered as a goddess.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-80655781213028979692012-07-06T20:04:00.002-05:002012-07-06T20:04:36.520-05:00For all the people I know who go to the lake...<a href="http://www.someecards.com/weekend-cards/summer-house-invitation-friendship-weekend-funny-ecard"><img alt="someecards.com - Just a heads up that you're running out of time to invite me to your summer house this weekend." src="http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/filestorage/summer-house-invitation-friends-weekend-ecards-someecards.png" /></a>Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-55625384936757840512012-07-05T13:01:00.001-05:002012-07-05T13:01:39.239-05:00How to Know When Your Daughter's Boyfriend is Officially Part of the Family<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyEWEwgkGrM9qyLgZ6pwHsnSxWw9Vl-zETejMsZANSArjU5kA2eDfnM8iqagb7jeuyRHx6qEpjhLjrMSiYP7IhH08hWz2BkQ2iT2jB32gh0EI3Aw_94c1bxyi_kbXnSN0723_StRVAFMw/s1600/brother+and+sister+fighting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyEWEwgkGrM9qyLgZ6pwHsnSxWw9Vl-zETejMsZANSArjU5kA2eDfnM8iqagb7jeuyRHx6qEpjhLjrMSiYP7IhH08hWz2BkQ2iT2jB32gh0EI3Aw_94c1bxyi_kbXnSN0723_StRVAFMw/s320/brother+and+sister+fighting.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Bobby and Meelyn haven't been a couple for long, but they seem rather permanent, which just goes to illustrate that when you know, you know. My husband and I are great believers in knowing, since we got married six weeks after we met. Bobby's parents got engaged after their third date. My parents showed a certain measure of restraint by waiting for something like eight weeks after they met before they tied the knot, but that's only because all the Saturdays at the church in Mt. Summit were already reserved. And considering that we've all been married, respectively, twenty-one, twenty-five and almost-fifty years, I think we have a good track record for being People Who Just Knew.<br />
<br />
So when Bobby isn't working, he's usually here. He does the kinds of things other family members do, such as sitting on the couch eating Pringle's potato chips, drinking a Coke and commenting loudly on the stupidity of whatever movie we're watching on Netflix. Or he's engaged in a debate about who, exactly, is going to get in the car and drive to the nearest Redbox to rent a different movie after we all give up on Netflix. Or he's making poop jokes while we're eating dinner, which has possibly done more to endear him to my husband than anything else I could think of. Or he's yelling, "SHUT UP!!! GEEZ!!!!" at the dogs, who deserve it.<br />
<br />
But the other day, something happened that confirmed Bobby's place in our family, which has suddenly not just added another person, but also added a lot more heart, although you may wonder if I've lost my mind when I explain the circumstance that marked him forever as One of Us.<br />
<br />
It was an almighty hot day and my husband was at work and Meelyn, Bobby, Aisling and I were hanging around the house, drooping limply over the furniture. I was so bored, I thought I was going to implode, and since I'd already done three loads of laundry and cleaned up the kitchen TWICE, I felt like I deserved a little break. So I grabbed my keys and said, "Who wants to go to Starbucks? I'm buying."<br />
<br />
The resulting stampede nearly knocked me out the front door and down the porch steps, and after we finally sorted ourselves out and shooed the dogs back inside (they're not allowed to drink coffee, even though all three of them like it and will totally slurp it right out of your mug if you don't keep a close eye on it) and got the people inside the hot van, Aisling and Bobby had started one of those pointless arguments that sounded like this:<br />
<br />
<b>Aisling:</b> No, it didn't.<br />
<br />
<b>Bobby</b>: Yes, it did.<br />
<br />
<b>Aisling:</b> No, it DID NOT.<br />
<br />
<b>Bobby:</b> Yes, it DID TOO.<br />
<br />
<b>Aisling</b> [<i>witheringly</i>]: Nuh-uh<br />
<br />
<b>Bobby</b> [<i>unperturbed, toying with her</i>]: Yes-huh<br />
<br />
<b>Aisling</b> [<i>yelling</i>]: NO IT DIDN'T!!!<br />
<br />
<b>Bobby:</b> [<i>raising his voice, mocking</i>] YES IT DID!!!!<br />
<br />
<b>Me:</b> AISLING! ROBERT! BOTH OF YOU SHUT UP RIGHT NOW OR GO BACK IN THE HOUSE!<br />
<br />
[<i>brief moment of silence</i>]<br />
<br />
<b>Bobby</b> [<i>very, very quietly</i>]: youuu got in trouuuuble....<br />
<br />
<b>Aisling</b> [<i>goaded beyond endurance</i>] SO DID YOU, YOU STUPID BUTT!!!!<br />
<br />
<br />
See what I mean? You can get to know people and you can really like them and all, but you will never really get them and they will never really get you, but they're very nice all the same. Then there are those people who can come to your house and fall in love with your daughter and eat your potato chips and know exactly how to torment her younger sister, giving her the opportunity to have the older brother she never had, and you can think, "Here are my kids. My three kids," and share that thought with your husband, who will say, "I know just what you mean."Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-27832183984878344922012-06-24T12:39:00.001-05:002012-06-24T12:39:18.970-05:00The Compleat (Bad) Gardener's Guide to Growing Things<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge2GKkwycTUpdHDMffFU4uiTQAxlycVTJ_lTsCzSBAvxa8xlzpB6UO3qaF6gKPB9QlllYDuvPmyR42xodAO1O4M_IaIgaGMjUyhZiPYH5PBEw_6fpSymjRkAl9IvLMmZDfaX2CnWaivBk/s1600/HOME+-+flowers+out+back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge2GKkwycTUpdHDMffFU4uiTQAxlycVTJ_lTsCzSBAvxa8xlzpB6UO3qaF6gKPB9QlllYDuvPmyR42xodAO1O4M_IaIgaGMjUyhZiPYH5PBEw_6fpSymjRkAl9IvLMmZDfaX2CnWaivBk/s320/HOME+-+flowers+out+back.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I do not have a green thumb of any sort -- kelly, hunter, lime, pea, you name it, I don't have it. And this in spite of the fact that I come from a long line of talented gardeners, which doesn't seem fair. Of course, I also come from a long line of accomplished drinkers and brilliant cussers, so that kind of makes up for the fact that I can kill living plants with a casual glance, doesn't it?<br />
<br />
Well....<br />
<br />
Anyhoo, in spite of the fact that I am the grim reaper of garden centers everywhere, I really like flowers. And I do have a measure of success with hard-to-kill varieties of flora such as marigolds, petunias, geraniums and impatiens. I have some nice hostas growing around the house. And, you know, grass. But other than those things, I register a big, fat FAIL on the scale of People Who Sing to their Ferns.<br />
<br />
So I wrote this handy little guide, not yet available in hardback, paperback, library binding or 99 cent e-book edition, to those who share this deficiency. Because there must be <i>someone</i> else. <i>Some</i>one. Anyone?<br />
<br />
The Compleat (Bad) Gardener's Guide to Growing Things<br />
<br />
1. Never trust yourself with plants you buy for full-price because you'll hate yourself when they die later. Ditto for anything bought at a plant nursery that looks healthy, robust and colorful. Limit yourself to plants purchased from, say, Lowe's. Or better yet, Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is famous for buying huge amounts of annuals and then allowing them to languish, un-watered, until they're on the verge of expiring and marked down to half-price. THAT, my friends, is the time to buy your hanging baskets, your flats of pansies. See, if it's already mostly dead, you won't feel like a failure later if you forget to water it for a week or so: It's already accustomed to such mistreatment and won't hold a grudge.<br />
<br />
2. While you're buying your plants, tuck a great big box of Miracle-Gro into your shopping cart. Miracle-Gro is one of those products that real gardeners scorn, preferring to use their own fertilizer from the compost bin in out in the yard. But for you and for me, Miracle-Gro is, well, a miracle. It can take a basket of vining petunias that are drooping limply over the edges of their container, trying to gasp out final instructions to their lawyers about the contents of their wills, and make them sit right back up and demand scrambled eggs and bourbon.<br />
<br />
3. Come home and distribute your plants wherever you want them to go. Then find a pitcher and pour in some red wine (Shiraz works), half a cup of sugar, two sliced oranges, one sliced lime, one sliced lemon, a handful of grapes, a sliced apple. Throw in a liter of club soda or ginger ale and you've got yourself an amazing little sangria that will....wait. This was supposed to be about Miracle-Gro. GET A PITCHER, gallon-sized, fill it with water and one tablespoon of Miracle-Gro, and go douse your flowers with it. Be generous.<br />
<br />
4. Pinch back any gangly, unsightly stems or stalks that are springing forth from the plant at strange angles; also remove, by using your thumbnail, any spent blossoms. Geraniums, in paticular, need this service offered to them because there is no flower that looks as ugly and unkempt as a gone-to-seed geranium. For other plants, like petunias, you can't just pull off the withered blossom, you also have to pinch off that little green part that the blossom sprang forth from. I learned this the hard way one summer, and made my mother double over with laughter as she observed my sad, sad baskets of flowers.<br />
<br />
5. Check out the internet and make sure that flowers that are supposed to be in the sun are actually <i>in</i> it, and vice versa. Change plants all around, wishing you'd thought of doing this beforehand.<br />
<br />
6. Water daily when it's super hot; continue to pinch back spent blooms. If you forget to water the plants for a few days, blame it on the sangria, not on me. Look, I was the one who told you right from the beginning that I was not to be trusted around flora, right?<br />
<br />
7. When late fall arrives and the flowers die and look all shriveled and brown and loathsome, leave them out for a little while longer, like until Christmas, so that your place assumes a slightly squalid, if not downright haunted, air. It works well at Halloween. This will make the neighbors love you. LOVE you.<br />
<br />
8. When it's finally time to throw out the hanging baskets, don't just pitch the soil and the dead plants, thinking that next year, you'll buy your annuals in flats and maybe purchase some lovely vinca and devise your own flower baskets that spill colorful blossoms recklessly over the sides in a sweet cascade that nearly reaches the porch floor. You and I know right now that it will never happen. You will end up storing five years' worth of plastic pots with those cheapo, coat-hanger hooks on them out in the shed or down in the basement, where they will eventually tumble over onto your husband, who will storm into the house or up the steps growling, "Please remind me WHY THE H*LL WE'RE SAVING THESE?"<br />
<br />
You will not have an answer that will satisfy him. You see, he knows you. Probably the whole neighborhood does. Just... let the baskets go, along with your tender dreams of window-boxes and trellises and flowering shrubs. It isn't going to happen.<br />
<br />
Just ask <i>my</i> husband.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-2473337361680819582012-06-22T16:00:00.002-05:002012-06-22T16:00:45.260-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPMfQ7xNGatiOCUJRYY1iuZzBa4C8QzZ7igCodD8Kev8zB2AVL2rksMu62F3DB_hJLxyg8cDFdMWhRL4F3Bz-790zvWZK1vztWGPoVLT2M0CIiRAPcX3-Y4HIpecJyVbt0BXMZIC7YFeU/s1600/House+Hunters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPMfQ7xNGatiOCUJRYY1iuZzBa4C8QzZ7igCodD8Kev8zB2AVL2rksMu62F3DB_hJLxyg8cDFdMWhRL4F3Bz-790zvWZK1vztWGPoVLT2M0CIiRAPcX3-Y4HIpecJyVbt0BXMZIC7YFeU/s320/House+Hunters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
It seems that on every House Hunters we watch around here, the couple searching for their dream home anxiously says to their realtor (a person who often looks strained to the point of screaming), "We want a private back yard. We don't want everyone staring at us and peering into our business."<br />
<br />
I, for one, want to know exactly what all these couple are doing in their backyards that they don't want everyone to see. Because, you know? None of the neighbors give a flying flip about your kids playing in the sandbox or you out there planting geraniums. They don't care about your pork chops on the barbecue or your dog pooping in the grass. So unless you're an ardent devotee of topless sunbathing or things of a more intimate nature done <i>al fresco</i> -- in which case, shame on you, were you raised in a barnyard? -- let me just tell it to you straight: THE NEIGHBORS DON'T CARE. They're not really interested in you at all. They are not spending their days eagerly hanging about by the patio door saying, "Oooh, I can hardly wait until the neighbors' kids come out to swing! And did you see that flat of petunias the missis bought yesterday? Do you think she's going to, like, <i>plant them</i>? Seriously, this is just as exciting as Christmas freakin' morning!"<br />
<br />
You're boring. We're all boring. We all do boring stuff at home that no one else cares about, because they're all at their houses doing their own boring stuff and they have no time to sit wistfully gazing at <i>your </i>boring stuff. Get over yourselves, House Hunters.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-64884230967727944802012-06-19T09:55:00.003-05:002012-06-19T09:55:43.190-05:00Husbands, take note<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Husbands, at some point or another in your marriage, your wife will turn to you with a suspicious look in her eye and say, "Surely you're not going to wear THOSE PANTS are you?"<br />
<br />
Let me stress that there is <i>only one right answer</i> to this question, and here it is: "These pants? Aw, no, I'm not wearing THESE pants. I was just wearing these pants until you tell me what pants you actually want me to wear. These pants are just like a holding pattern in air traffic: working fine at this moment, but not even close to the final outcome."<br />
<br />Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-15736645943179632372012-06-17T20:15:00.001-05:002012-06-17T20:15:18.534-05:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This was my husband's idea of the perfect Father's Day dinner: sausage gravy with nasty canned biscuits, potato puffs and scrambled eggs. He ate in perfect happiness, oblivious to the girls and I, who watched him inhale at least a pound of grease with an almost obscene amount of enjoyment. We elected to eat other food, to which he gleefully responded, "Oh, yay! MORE FOR ME!"<br />
<br />
*gulp* Happy Father's Day, honey!<br />
<br />Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-84569750975231789082012-06-17T20:11:00.001-05:002012-06-17T20:11:20.182-05:00.<br />
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My husband and I went to the opening night of Symphony on the Prairie at Conner Prairie in Fishers last night to hear Gershwin's <i>Rhapsody in Blue</i>, which happens to be the music we heard on our first trip to the prairie, which we think was probably about fifteen years ago. The music is performed by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra inside that big bandshell with all the pretty colored lights, and people sit in folding chairs or lounge about on blankets spread over the grass. There may be wine involved. Indeed, a great many of the audience members at Symphony on the Prairie take the relaxed atmosphere as a license to get pleasantly buzzed, and there's a giddy note in the applause after each piece of music, with some people lurching a bit unsteadily to their feet to shout "BRAVI!!!!" just before stifling a gentle burp.<br />
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When we go, we always take a substantial picnic in a basket, as well as a fully-stocked cooler. Ditto, folding chairs, a camp table, and the old king-sized comforter from our bed (the one Izzy ruined by chewing a black pen on it) and some pillows.<br />
<br />
But there's an awful lot of peripheral stuff that has to be packed too, in order to make the whole experience on the prairie more comfortable. Because, you know: NATURE. Nature will sometimes have her way with you, and out on the open prairie, she likes particularly to blitz you with heat and mosquitos. It's important to take stuff along not only to make your meal more easy to eat, but also to force Nature to keep her distance.<br />
<br />
Here's my list, not only for your information, but also so that I'll have it handy for my own reference. The ones I keep writing on paper disappear. I blame Nature. I know she's responsible somehow.<br />
<br />
<u><b>In the Picnic Basket:</b></u><br />
- at least two citronella candles, more if there are several people in the group: I like the three-wick kind that<br />
some in the little pretend-galvanized steel buckets.<br />
- an Aim-n-Flame, unless you can light those candles by the force of your will<br />
- a squirt bottle of Off or some other insecticide<br />
- several cardboard-on-a-paint-stirrer fans<br />
- plates<br />
- cups, if all your drinks aren't in bottles or cans <br />
- napkins<br />
- plastic forks, spoons, knives<br />
- salt and pepper<br />
- a bottle opener/cork screw (because if you forget these items, you might as well just go home)<br />
- a bag for your trash<br />
- some wet dishcloths sealed in a plastic bag, to be used to wipe off dirty stuff or the occasional bird<br />
offering: curse you, Mother Nature <br />
- a container of baby wipes or similar, for wiping sticky wine off self (don't ask); also for removing frosted<br />
brownie residue from fingers<br />
- binoculars, which come in handy for seeing the actual keys of the piano a special pianist is playing, ditto for<br />
violins and other instruments being played by a soloist<br />
- any non-chilled food items you plan to eat, such as potato chips, croissants, or the aforementioned<br />
brownies<br />
- a roll of toilet paper. Just. Because. Shut up. <br />
<br />
<u><b>In the Cooler:</b></u><br />
- the wine<br />
- the beer<br />
<br />
<b>And if there's room for anything else...</b><br />
- food that needs to be chilled, and this includes any CHOCOLATE you bring with you. Because if you put<br />
your chocolate in the picnic basket, you will be so very, very sad and sorry that you did<br />
- At home before we leave, I always fill a mixing bowl with some ice cubes and about six cups of cold water, adding one teaspoon of almond extract. Soak however many washcloths you need per person until they're completely saturated - the washcloths, not the people, silly - and press them gently to rid them of excess water. Put the wet, chilly washcloths into a plastic ziploc bag and seal it well: use them on the prairie for wiping off your feverishly hot forehead, arms and legs. Sometimes it gets really darned hot out there, and those washcloths always seem like a decadent treat.<br />
<br />
<b>And also:</b><br />
I mentioned above that we also take our huge old bed comforter, because the prairie is often so relaxing, you just don't feel like sitting through the whole performance. To that end, we also have a number of crummy-looking pillows that used to do duty on the couch, but which now are fit for nothing better than head duty outdoors. We also take folding chairs, our folding camp table and a wee little folding table I bought at Wal-Mart that is just the right height for putting your drink on if you're sitting on the ground. Basically, think of it as a three hour camping trip, although you obviously can't take a tent, an awning or a barbecue grill. Which is a shame, because Symphony on the Prairie is the only place on earth, I would ever remotely consider camping.<br />
<br />Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-21267320916212536802012-06-05T17:03:00.002-05:002012-06-05T17:04:25.776-05:00Humorless people suck<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Meelyn's graduation party is coming up this Sunday, which means that it's just about time to buy all the food we're planning to serve. Lots of it can be put together this coming week, but the bulk of it will be done on Saturday. Which means that the Big Shopping Trip will happen on Friday.<br />
<br />
Mee and I decided that the bulk of what we're buying should be purchased at the local Gordon Food Service, which is a store, like Staples, in which I could wander for hours and hours, lost to demanding clocks, text message notifications and pesky store managers who eventually want to GO HOME for the evening. Today, then, was a banner day for me because it was the day I got to go to GFS and use their Menu Wizard for the first time.<br />
<br />
The Menu Wizard is a nifty system which involves a store employee giving you a barcode scanner, much like the one you see in the picture above. You go through the store, clicking the little trigger at the barcodes of the items you which to purchase; when you're finished, all your info is magically uploaded into one of the computers at Customer Service, and when you're done clicking, you and an employee stand there and allow the computer to reckon up, say, how much potato salad you're going to need.<br />
<br />
As you can image, the highlight of this entire experience was getting to use that scanner gun. I was restrained enough not to point it at fellow shoppers and squeak "Pitchooo! Pitchooo!" at them, which is what I am absolutely certain Susan or Allison would have done. (Carol and Meelyn would have encouraged them to do it, and then gone to hide behind a huge display of barbecue sauce and laugh.) My restraint failed me when the store manager first handed the gizmo to me and said, "This is the Menu Wizard."<br />
<br />
I took it from her and said with great seriousness, "Oh, gee. I'm kind of disappointed. I thought the Menu Wizard would be a person wearing a robe and a pointy hat."<br />
<br />
She gave me a long look. "A person? In a <i>robe</i>? And....a pointy hat?"<br />
<br />
"Uhm, yeah. Because, you know. <i>Wizard</i>." I shifted back and forth from foot to foot while she stood there, clearly waiting for me to come to some kind of point. "A wizard? Like Harry Potter? Dumbledore? Hermione? He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Called-Voldemort?"<br />
<br />
"Oh. Well. I'm not a fan," she said crushingly. She proffered the scanner and I took it from her meekly and went off, feeling severely snubbed. I snuck a look over my shoulder and she was looking after me with a frowny face, like she thought I was going to take a wand from my purse (nine inches, pecan wood, rather whippy) and start making the packages of paper plates dance the Macarena.<br />
<br />
So, okay. Maybe that wasn't the funniest thing I've ever said. But honestly, don't you think it's kind of worth a smile, thinking about a guy with a beard and a robe and a pointy hat sitting back in the break room, smoking a pipe and reading <i>The Daily Prophet</i>, just waiting for customers to come in so that he could work his magic with the sliced Virginia ham and the colby-jack cheese?<br />
<br />
No? <br />
<br />
Shut up.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-51642740682111890962012-06-04T16:52:00.001-05:002012-06-04T16:53:09.723-05:00Suddenly this summer....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So I haven't written a single word on my blog since January 17, I've been told. One part of me feels like a complete slacker, because writing is supposed to be what I <i>do</i>, you dig? On the other hand, even my own mother doesn't read my blog, so for all she knows, I could have contracted some terrible disfiguring disease that caused all my fingers to fall off so that all my typing had to be done with my nose, which is why it has taken me SEVENTY-FIVE HOURS TO TYPE THE LAST THREE SENTENCES.<br />
<br />
No, seriously. I don't have a disease that made my fingers fall off. And, surprisingly enough, I haven't been avoiding my blog out of laziness, a character flaw that I heartily endorse in myself, but completely deplore in other people, especially people who are supposed to be bringing me a Diet Coke. Actually, I've been doing stuff. Mostly stuff like teaching some classes, not exactly what one could call full-time, but somewhat more than part time. Plus, Meelyn and Aisling both have jobs and schoolwork to keep them busy -- the two of them used to work at the same Hardee's, but in the past few months they've moved on, Mee to Ruby Tuesday and Aisling to Fazoli's (she comes home smelling delightfully of garlic butter) -- and both have been swamped with schoolwork, as is the norm at Our Lady of Good Counsel. I don't think it was Our Lady who advised, "Keep the little jerks busy and they'll stay out of trouble," but it's a good motto anyway, don't you think?<br />
<br />
Also in the news, my husband is still selling cars and he's also gone back to lifting weights, alternating that with his running so that he's looking way too cute for someone his age and the other day we were at a restaurant and a young server asked him, "Do you ever sell tickets to your gun show?" and I gave her a slitty-eyed look and said in a voice laced with cheerful menace, "That is MY gun show, sweetie, and those tickets sold out a loooong time ago." At any rate, he's looking so ripped, I've had to do my part so that he wouldn't be the only pretty thing in our marriage and now...I am, well -- and those of you who know me had better sit down -- I've been exercising. Yes. Swimming, actually. I love to swim, mostly because it allows me the solitude I need in which to be surly about exercising. If you walk on a treadmill, other people come in to the cardio room at the YMCA and they want to say hello to you when they get there and goodbye to you when they leave and I just can't stand it. When I go into the cardio room at the Y, my first thought is that I want the person who is already on my favorite treadmill -- the one in front of the big fan -- to die, and also the two people to the left and right so that I won't have to smile at anyone. The pool allows me the freedom to be who I am, and that is a big stinker. <br />
<br />
And yet there's more: Meelyn has been accepted to my alma mater, Ball State University, where she plans to study dietetics and exercise science (I don't know where I went wrong with that girl), and she also has a serious boyfriend, Bobby, who is just the nicest guy ever. They are so cute together that sometimes I have to go outside and quietly vomit into the shrubs, but most of the time, they make my husband and me remember what it was like when we were as shiny and new as they are, and that makes us do stuff like go out walking in the rain, holding hands. Plus, isn't it always the most awesome thing ever to find out that there are other people in the world to love and be loved by? I hold such a dim view of humanity that's it always comes as something of a shock, the most pleasant of surprises, to stumble across another person who is just...<i>good</i>.<br />
<br />
So here we are and it is summer vacation, and although I have a ton of prep work to do for the classes I'm teaching next school year -- Shakespeare, American literature, college prep composition, a composition class for middle schoolers and a Shakespeare for Grownups class -- I also plan to just do some sitting and some reading and some catching up here so that when, every now and then, someone asks me "So why aren't you writing on your blog anymore?" I can answer, "But I am!"Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-89000820976215597082012-01-17T20:44:00.003-05:002012-01-17T21:00:54.298-05:00Pass the Puffs<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjDnbzik5W7kyBNz23hX6OAq_tye2De6NXDR4hdMtc-WpTPineeCuSX29B26ht3qBcOipkUReVSv39hOsLeei-DWD3B3k54x3mrTlfafqf6vB4EkAK752nVV7vZ3qKZCt8YjgjJFg6xs/s1600/Buffy+Will+Patrol+Tonight.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 123px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMjDnbzik5W7kyBNz23hX6OAq_tye2De6NXDR4hdMtc-WpTPineeCuSX29B26ht3qBcOipkUReVSv39hOsLeei-DWD3B3k54x3mrTlfafqf6vB4EkAK752nVV7vZ3qKZCt8YjgjJFg6xs/s400/Buffy+Will+Patrol+Tonight.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698784670376236706" border="0" /></a>Once a winter, I get that kind of cold where I lose my voice. Not a total loss; just enough to make me speak in something between a breathy murmur (which bears no resemblance to the smoky purr of Marilyn Monroe when she sang the happy birthday song to John F. Kennedy) and a strangled squeak. My throat hurts when I talk, but that doesn't stop me because when you're a mother, when does something like a lousy cold stop you from doing ANYTHING, up to and including giving birth, hauling yourself out of the house to drive various children to various activities and baking a pan of hopefully un-coughed-upon brownies for the church chili supper.<br /><br />Naturally, this is one of my family's favorite times of the year, the time when they can, in all truthfulness, say that they didn't hear me calling them twenty-five times for dinner. Or telling them to take the dogs out. Or telling them to...oh, never mind. They just love it, that's all. And they never cease talking about how delighted they are that I've been reduced to a series of eye rolls, scowls, gestures and emphatic huffing sighs. It reminds me of the Buffy episode titled "Hush," where the entire town of Sunnydale lost their voices due to the influence of the super-scary Gentlemen, and Giles was forced to communicate with the Scoobies with plastic overlays on an overhead projector.<br /><br />So, like all mothers everywhere who will catch a bad cold or the flu this winter, I'm still patrolling, just like you. We're all still patrolling. I'm just thankful that I don't have to stake anything more resistant than the baking potatoes I'm getting ready to put into the oven.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-5632433086576690202012-01-12T20:43:00.002-05:002012-01-12T20:49:51.923-05:00Forecast: snow and wind, then more snow. With wind.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgod4WcCgygvo2eYTU0xhxxF61p9jCH2SFhaG8Pj3qkSAXCKxpDWJmVFjyMZVf2IEDdRWU5DZCBwLOTM-pJfUMxj81prhQeovLH1E6hXhfk27PoelMwg1YohHAUESD0ntZKmn8RVQNt4zA/s1600/1+Storm+Impact.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 290px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgod4WcCgygvo2eYTU0xhxxF61p9jCH2SFhaG8Pj3qkSAXCKxpDWJmVFjyMZVf2IEDdRWU5DZCBwLOTM-pJfUMxj81prhQeovLH1E6hXhfk27PoelMwg1YohHAUESD0ntZKmn8RVQNt4zA/s400/1+Storm+Impact.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696926518044812002" border="0" /></a>I don't know who made this "AccuWeather" map, but whoever it was is my personal hero. Not only for being funny, but also for making sure my area of the country is designated as part of the group that needs to hit the liquor store. Because I found out last year when the snow lay on the ground like a big fleece blanket with a deceptive three inch layer of ice underneath, you <span style="font-style: italic;">can</span> get through the winter without the whiskey to make a hot toddy, but why would you <span style="font-style: italic;">want</span> to?Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-58344055269598249672012-01-11T16:42:00.005-05:002012-01-11T17:21:41.031-05:00Maid service(Or how to make money in your spare time without ever leaving your home)Let's say I have this....friend.<div><br /></div><div>My...friend....has several friends who employ people to come in and clean their homes: these people are called "cleaners." People who clean the house but also answer the telephone and the front door are "maids." People who live in residence and supervise the cleaning are "housekeepers." In this economy, the job my....friend... inadvertently fell into, much like Alice fell down that rabbit hole, was a job as a maid.</div><div><br /></div><div>The house she currently works in, she already answered the phone and the front door bell, as well as letting the dogs in and out all day long. She also does almost all the laundry, cooks all the food, and loads and unloads the dishwasher about a hundred times a day, it seems. All in all, it keeps <strike>me</strike> her pretty busy, considering that she also has several part-time jobs, a husband and two teenage daughters.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is how she came to be a maid, and how you may also find yourself with a calling to do as she has done.</div><div><br /></div><div>This friend....she couldn't help but notice however much she ordered, begged, wheedled, cajoled, demanded, implored or nagged, those two teenage daughters - and lovely young ladies they are - were still inclined to leave their dirty unmentionables strung across the bathroom floor, abandon cruddy plates adorned with a half-eaten turkey sandwich and a banana peel on any available kitchen counter when the sink, and moreover, THE DISHWASHER, were sitting right there in plain view, not to mention various high-heeled shoes, schoolbooks, hoodies, volleyballs, earrings, iPods and other miscellaneous STUFF lying around everywhere until my friend was nearly distracted with the yuck of it all.</div><div><br /></div><div>One time, she says that she left a coupon for 40-percent-off-your-purchase-of-50-dollars-or-more from Ulta Beauty on her dining room floor for three days, just to see when one of the girls would pick it up. Even though they daintily stepped over it day after day on their way from the living room to the kitchen and back again, neither girl so much as stooped over to lift the rectangular piece of paper from the floor, even though this coupon was much coveted by both daughters, who had planned to each spend $25 at Ulta and garner that whopping forty percent discount. Finally, on that third day, my friend cracked. She leaned over, picked up that coupon with trembling fingers, and took it to the kitchen wastebasket, where she defiantly tore it into tiny shreds and then flipped the switch to MASH IT MASH IT MASH IT with the rest of the trash.</div><div><br /></div><div>She swears that not five minutes later, both girls were on her like weasels in a hen coop, demanding to know where their precious Ulta Beauty coupon was. She pressed her fingertips to her forehead, prayed a silent Hail Mary to the Blessed Mother with the plea that heaven's angels would hold her back from killing these two gifts from God standing before her with their accusatory stares and screechy voices and said, "Ladies, the coupon is gone. Yes, that's right. GONE. And do you know why? Because it laid there on the dining room floor, right where the two of you walk a hundred times every day, a bright pink and green coupon on our pale taupe carpet, and IF IT WAS THAT FRIGGING PRECIOUS, ONE OF YOU SHOULD HAVE BENT DOWN AND PICKED IT UP!"</div><div><br /></div><div>Both girls sniffed disdainfully. "I always have to pick EVERYTHING up, " said the older girl, whose propensity for leaving a clump of soggy hair in the shower drain after each shampoo was driving her poor mother to the chardonnay as early as 5:05 p.m.</div><div><br /></div><div>"You do not!" the younger one countered furiously. "I always have to pick everything up, EVERYTHING!" In spite of the fact that one of those "magic" bottles for feeding orange juice to baby dolls had been lying on the floor of her closet since she was seven.</div><div><br /></div><div>My friend, that poor woman, shouldered past the two of them and went upstairs to her bedroom, where she sank into the comfy chair, that chair in which she used to nurse her sweet babies before they were ambulatory and able to scatter bright plastic pieces of Fisher-Price throughout the entire house. "Back then, it was easy," she muttered. "And then when they learned to walk, we made cleanup a game. They'd bring me the little toys and put them in the pretty willow laundry basket and we'd clap after they threw each thing in....But now, here they are, old enough to DRIVE, one of them old enough to VOTE, both of them nearly out of high school, and it's like they think their hands can no longer be used to pinch and grasp and their spines no longer curve to pick up coupons or dirty laundry or HAIR from the DRAIN. </div><div><br /></div><div>"I feel like the maid around here, because both those stinkers know I can't stand a mess and if they leave something long enough, I'll just do it for them. But I am NOT the maid, I am the MOTHER, goshdarnit! I'd be getting PAID if I were a MAID, but I'm NOT, so...."</div><div><br /></div><div>And then a little light bulb went on over my friend's rumpled head.</div><div><br /></div><div>She could get paid for the little cleaning services she provided, doing it just the way a maid would: quietly, efficiently and steadily. No more shouting, no more nagging, just diligently getting the job done and then presenting her employers with a bill for services rendered. In this case, she thought, a dollar per service would be plenty. Both girls had the ability to hold onto their money more tightly than Lady Gaga holds onto a microphone, so even a meager little dollar would give them both a kick in the pants that would hopefully wake them up to the fact that piggish and slatternly behavior is rude and selfish in the family home, but even worse in adult life, when living, say, in a dorm. Or in a bachelor girl apartment with a roommate. Or with a brand new husband, who might be dismayed to find that his beautiful bride, with her sparkling eyes and sunshiny smile actually had the home management skills of a crack whore.</div><div><br /></div><div>So that's how <strike>I've</strike> she's made a nice little sum of money over the past few weeks, and frankly, it looks like she's found a cash cow, because both girls just keep on leaving empty milk cartons in the fridge and pencil sharpener shavings spilled on the desk and coats draped over the newel post on the staircase. Both of them are naturally indignant at being charged for their familial misdemeanors, but my friend is adamant: either pick it up yourselves, darlings, or pay to have it picked up for you.</div><div><br /></div><div>The house is tidy and my friend has been able to cut back on the chardonnay, and if her girls keep it up for a few more weeks, she may have enough money saved up to buy those really cute boots she saw at Macy's.</div>Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-86402946058816222732012-01-09T17:40:00.002-05:002012-01-09T17:55:12.956-05:00UnunderstableToday I was standing in front of the stove, grilling a hot ham and cheese sandwich for Aisling, when the smoke detector took umbrage with my method of sandwich-making and began to shriek in loud, long paroxysms of rage that made me want to grab the broom and knock it off the ceiling so I could stamp it to death.<br /><br />Would you like to know why the smoke detector moved me to such extremes? It's because last Thursday, my British Literature class came over for an evening of pizza and David Copperfield, and my husband went out to Pizza Hut and fetched the pizzas, putting them in the oven upon his return because I wasn't quite finished babbling about characters and point of view and genres and - one of my favorite topics - the Timeline of British Literature. As I was nattering on and on, talking about <span style="font-style: italic;">bildungsroman</span> and child labor and how Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, died of typhus, I started to smell something burning.<br /><br />But, you know, the smoke detector wasn't going off. It was completely silent. Knowing how it gets that urge to scream its head off if a biscuit so much as turns golden-brown, I decided that I was imagining things and kept on talking.<br /><br />A moment later, my eyes felt all itchy and watery, and the burny smell was stronger. "Excuse me," I said to my students, "but I think my kitchen is on fire."<br /><br />I went through the swing door from the dining room and went into the kitchen, which was full of smoke. Smoke, I'd like to add, that was going completely undetected by the SMOKE DETECTOR on the ceiling.<br /><br />Nervously, I yanked open the oven door and pulled out the pizza box on the lower rack which was, yes indeedy, BURNING on the bottom. I made haste with a dish towel and stifled it before it actually burst into flames, but it was darned scary. Which why I am holding a bitter grudge against the stupid smoke alarm, squealing up there above my head today over a grilled sandwich that wasn't even burning.<br /><br />Which is also why, if the Machine Apocalypse that takes place in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Terminator</span> movie franchise ever happens, I am going to be the sharpshooter in charge of going around and shooting all the smoke detectors.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-26777289513032961832012-01-07T15:17:00.003-05:002012-01-07T17:37:51.787-05:00Reversing the BucketNo, it isn't what you might be thinking and has nothing to do with the stomach flu my family was passing around two weeks ago. At Christmas, which is the BEST TIME EVER to be puking sick. But I digress.<br /><br />I was scouting around the internets yesterday, catching up on reading at some of my favorite news sites and blogs, and it seems that the latest craze to hit the blogging world - now that the nosy, intrusive and self-indulgent meme seems to finally be over, thanks all the holy saints and angels - is the reverse bucket list, the ten things you NEVER want to do before you die.<br /><br />Some of the things I read were pretty darned funny. Others weren't so much funny as they were relatable, making me shiver in sympathetic horror. "Live alone in a huge mansion with only my life-sized Victorian doll collection to comfort me," was an item on one person's list, and I can spot a person who read Stephen King's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Tommyknockers</span> twenty-five years ago and never, ever, ever forgot about that room full of dolls: I can spot that person from a thousand yards.<br /><br />The only stipulation is that the list has to include things you could actually do.<br /><br />So here's my Reverse Bucket List. Do you have one you'd like to share?<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Things I Never Want to Do Before I Die</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">1.</span></span> Remove 1970s groovy gold flocked wall paper from a room with ten foot ceilings. Again.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">2.</span></span> Stick my hand into the back of a baby's diaper while thinking, "I wonder if she pooped?" (I found out later that it's much easier to determine this status if you just hold the baby's diapered butt in front of your face and take a deep sniff.)<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">3.</span></span> Be on <span style="font-style: italic;">Survivor</span>. Because being hot and being hungry are never a good combination with me, plus I'd have to participate in all of those gym-class-from-hell challenges. It's not for me to be the plucky middle-aged mother figure who bosses everyone around and gets voted out either first or second and no one can even remember her ever being there after episode three.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">4.</span></span> Go to a Mass where all the music is the guitar-strummed kind and where we all stand around the altar holding hands during the consecration. And where there's a liturgical dancer. My experiences with being on the viewing end of liturgical dances? Negative, every last one of them.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">5.</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> Be</span> a liturgical dancer. Even though I do fit the demographic, which is middle-aged, lumpy, and not necessarily a great genius in the art of dance.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">6.</span></span> And continuing on with the performing arts thing, EVER EVER AGAIN play the piano for a friend's event, no matter how wheedling her voice, how hopeful her puppy eyes. <a href="http://insomnimom.blogspot.com/2011/09/serving-of-thoughts-on-side.html">See Item #4 from this post</a> if you'd like to know why.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">7.</span></span> Eat another raw oyster. Grandad once told me, when I was about ten, that he'd give me five dollars if I'd eat a raw oyster. He spoke to me of the horseradishy deliciousness of cocktail sauce, and how oysters were just fishy enough to lend a piquant air of the seaside to the sauce. He pointed out quite reasonably that he himself was eating an appetizer of a dozen oysters on the half shell, which he considered to be a particularly delightful treat. He would, he pressed, be happy to share one with me.<br /><br /> I should have known that there was something behind all this urgency because he was a prankster, a ruthless cutthroat gin rummy player and a twister of fairy tales, where the witch ended up eating Hansel and signing Gretel on as her apprentice. Anyway, I put the oyster in my mouth, which was not piquant at all, but tasted more like something that had washed up on the shore at high tide last week; it immediately grew to the size of a wadded up gym sock in my mouth, and UGH, so <span style="font-style: italic;">slimy</span>. Grandad was laughing so hard, he couldn't even make noise. I promptly went to the ladies' room and threw up, which made me throw up more, because regurgitated oyster? Looks even worse than it did before, which was pretty bad.<br /><br />Grandad apologized, tried to reassure me that his motives had been as pure as the water off the beaches in Bermuda, and gave me twenty dollars. I allowed myself to be only slightly mollified.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">8.</span></span> Learn to like football. It would make the previous forty-something years of my life, years I have spent telling people, "Look. SHUT UP," whenever they've tried to explain the game of football to me, such a waste of time. I plan to carry on being massively bored by football - and baseball, basketball, hockey and every other sport you care to name - for the remainder of my life.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">9.</span></span> Become a member of a certain political party, which I won't name because I don't want to hurt any reader's feelings or tick anyone off, but my mind just doesn't work that way and I wouldn't want it to if it could.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">10.</span></span> Go to the Indiana State Fair and leave without visiting the horses, the goats, the pigs, the cows and most of all, the zonkey. I don't care how stinky everyone thinks the animal barns are. I don't care if the whole family heads back home without me. I don't even care, much, if I step in something icky. I don't feel like I've had the whole State Fair experience unless I've gone to see the animals and petted the zonkey and remarked on how big the hooves on the draft horses are and how fat the pigs. Some people go for the food, some people go for the midway, but I like the farm animals and I'm tired of having to apologize for that. So YEE-HAW! Wilbur, here I come!Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-39983285044400080992012-01-07T09:52:00.006-05:002012-01-07T19:06:07.106-05:00RECIPE: Crustless Quiche Muffins<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipoBaAeaD-to0yGZ3NX-IurMqzh51zAbzqCdYAdP_3dWNdiwm3gWP8OgP56g8d4TDj5mAEcF2ZbFJNHf98odeXqnYjctR1AiYNoK2fGOIPhMXjfp-DEbmfYkillFLeQTG01mfJtZ_aQrU/s1600/FOOD+-+Crustless+Quiche+Muffin0001.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 339px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipoBaAeaD-to0yGZ3NX-IurMqzh51zAbzqCdYAdP_3dWNdiwm3gWP8OgP56g8d4TDj5mAEcF2ZbFJNHf98odeXqnYjctR1AiYNoK2fGOIPhMXjfp-DEbmfYkillFLeQTG01mfJtZ_aQrU/s400/FOOD+-+Crustless+Quiche+Muffin0001.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694904246684791154" border="0" /></a>This recipe for crustless quiche muffins is one I've been working on for several months, ever since the girls and I fell in love with the ones from Paradise Cafe and Bakery. What we <span style="font-style: italic;">didn't</span> fall in love with was the enormous calorie and fat count, because the quiche muffins from Paradise, while completely cheesy and delicious, are practically the nutritional equivalent of a 6-ounce prime rib. I thought it would be nice to have a quiche muffin for breakfast that was full of protein, low in calories and fat and reasonably portable for busy mornings; also one that didn't require me to skip lunch because I'd already consumed a jillion calories.<br /><br />These muffins are a good size and they're nice and dense. Eat one with a banana or an orange or even a container of yogurt and you've got a nice, sustaining breakfast that will stick with you. Or, heck, these things are so light in terms of calories and fat, you could have one for a quick snack in the afternoon when you need a jolt of energy-revving protein to carry you through the remainder of the work day and on into that dinner prep-homework-bath-and-bed-time routine.<br /><br />In spite of the long ingredient list, these muffins mix up in a big hurry: It's mostly just a matter of opening packages and dumping ingredients into a mixing bowl.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">CRUSTLESS QUICHE MUFFINS</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ingredients:</span><br />1 <span style="font-size:85%;">1/2</span> cups Egg Beaters refrigerated egg<br />2 whole eggs, beaten<br />1 cup skim milk<br />2 cups Bisquick Heart-Smart baking mix (or the regular kind, if you'd prefer)<br />1 7-oz package reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese<br />1 cup reduced-fat grated parmesan cheese (or, again, the regular kind, your pref)<br />1 <span style="font-size:85%;">1/2</span> cups chopped onion<br />1 16-oz package frozen spinach<br />2 teaspoons salt, or to taste (you can always use less in the recipe and add more to each portion)<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">1/2</span> teaspoon ground nutmeg<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">1/4</span> teaspoon black pepper<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">1/4</span> teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Directions:</span><br /> Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thaw spinach by emptying bag into a colander and running lukewarm water over it until soaked; allow to drain while you put everything else together. In a medium mixing bowl, combine all other ingredients and stir. Squeeze out the drained spinach in the colander, pressing it to remove as much water as possible (I always use the edge of a plastic measuring cup.) Add the spinach to the egg mixture, stirring to make sure all the spinach gets un-clumped.<br /><br /> Take two regular muffin pans and spray them thoroughly with non-stick spray. Then spray them again. And again. Why, you ask? Because I learned from painful experience that if you don't make those muffin cups as non-stick-able as possible, you will be prying your little crustless quiches out with a chisel, leaving half of them adhering firmly to your pan.<br /><br /> Fill the muffin cups all the way full - they will pouf up a bit into the traditional domed muffin shape - and you will get a yield of about 21 muffins. If you fill them slightly less full, your muffins will be appreciably smaller, but you can get a full two dozen out of your quiche mixture. Really, it's whatever you prefer.<br /><br /> Bake muffins for 35-40 minutes, until set and a toothpick inserted in a center muffin comes out clean. Allow muffins to cool completely before removing from pan. You may need to gently go around each one with a knife to loosen them. Store in the fridge (we put ours in gallon-sized plastic bags) and reheat by microwaving for about a minute per muffin. Delicious!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Nutritional Information:<br />Servings:</span> 21 muffins as prepared with lower calorie/fat ingredients<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Total Calories:</span> 136.7; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Total Fat:</span> 5.5g (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Saturated:</span> 1.3g; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Polyunsatured:</span> 0.3g; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Monounsaturated:</span> 0.6); <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cholesterol:</span> 36.1mg; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sodium:</span> 623.6mg; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Potassium:</span> 145.5mg; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Total Carbohydrates:</span> 13.9g (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dietary Fiber:</span> 0.5g; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sugars:</span> 1.6g); <span style="font-weight: bold;">Protein:</span> 8.7g<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Weight Watchers Points Plus:</span> 3 per muffinShelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-64554349604226684642012-01-03T21:32:00.003-05:002012-01-08T11:44:03.769-05:00On the first day of Christmas, or Why I Have Neglected My Blog for a MonthDecember is a busy month and a difficult time for blogging, what with all the other insane holiday crap women are called upon to do, so the next time you're wondering if the glass ceiling has been well and truly broken, look around and ask yourself: Who bought the gifts? Who wrapped them? Who planned the menu, did the shopping and cooked enough food to feed an army? Who cleaned (I noted that my last post here was the one outlining instructions on how to spiff up the house in case of an unexpected guest emergency)? Oh, I'm not saying that my husband did nothing. He's actually a great help and sexily muscled in our nine-and-a-half-foot Christmas tree into the house on his shoulder, which, if it were left to me, would have still been lashed to the top of the van. I think the problem is that, when it comes to household organization, particularly holiday household organization, the women are the quarterbacks and the men are special teams.<br /><br />So you know what I did in the few weeks leading up to Christmas, and I know what you did because we were all doing the same thing, right?<br /><br />But you don't know what I was doing on the actual Twenty-Fifth of December, and BOY IS IT WORTH THE TELLING.<br /><br />Here's a rundown, and I hope as you read it, you will see absolutely nothing in it similar to your own merry holiday.<br /><br />1. Christmas Eve - presents were all wrapped, except for the $#@% stocking presents, which I always forget to wrap until about 1:30 a.m. The house was pristine, all items for Christmas dinner were set out and ready for cooking, all systems go. Mass was at 6:30 p.m. and I even remembered to set out the Baby Jesus in both nativities.<br /><br />2. Christmas Morning - Up and opening gifts at 7:00; on the road to New Castle to open gifts at Mom and Dad's at 9:15. Arrival at 10:00, Mom had brunch underway, family sat down to open presents. Merriment ensued.<br /><br />3. Mom put breakfast out on the beautifully-laid dining room table. Poppy said a prayer and everyone tucked in. Two minutes later, my husband said, "I don't feel well. I think I'll go lie down."<br /><br />4. Everything went to hell from there. Let me take you through the next 24 hours with my husband:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">barfing feverishness saltine crackers tea with honey more puking headache and....other unmentionable agony, bathroom-related, more barfing, puking, heaving, hurling and heaving</span><br /><br />5. On Monday morning, the poor guy was better and able to sit upright, albeit remaining as white as salt, occasionally overtaken by violent shivering.<br /><br />6. On Monday afternoon, I was coming down the stairs with a basket of laundry and got to the landing, stepped down too many steps, and ended up hurtling down to the foyer floor, landing in a crumpled heap and surrounded by dirty socks and underwear.<br /><br />7. It hurt.<br /><br />8. A lot.<br /><br />9. I ached all over until very, very early on Wednesday morning, when I awoke from an uneasy slumber -- nothing like that "long winter's nap" spoken about so blithely in Clement Moore's poem -- with the certain conviction that I was getting ready to experience<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">barfing feverishness saltine crackers tea with honey more puking headache and....other unmentionable agony, bathroom-related, more barfing, puking, heaving, hurling and heaving</span><br /><br />10. Which I did, worse than my husband, and up until New Year's Eve, spent my days sitting in grey-faced languor on the couch, nursing my bruised ankle, shoulder, knee and hip and occasionally twitching.<br /><br />11. Meelyn and Aisling managed to avoid the horrible stomach virus, but caught a bad cold that required gallons of orange juice, Ny-Quil and hot tea to treat.<br /><br />11. On New Year's Eve, the four of us went to the Outback so that we could at least say we'd done something fun. We had a good time, but were back home by 9:00, changed into our pajamas and sat back down on the couch, me still twitching and both girls coughing, sneezing and blowing their noses. My husband said that he was still feeling kind of rocky, six days after the onset of the stomach virus.<br /><br />12. I concurred.<br /><br />13. We went to bed rather early, bemoaning the fact that, while our entire year has been really amazing and positive, the last week of it was so awful, we all wanted to salute it with a great, big, wet raspberry and yell "GOOD RIDDANCE!" out the front door.<br /><br />So! That's what I've been doing for the last month and the last week of that month.<br /><br />As I said before, I hope you experienced nothing like it.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-37988615968484171982011-12-18T12:05:00.002-05:002012-01-08T12:04:38.493-05:00Keep it to yourself, sonny boyMy office-away-from-home is the Paradise Bakery and Cafe at Hamilton Town Center on the Noblesville/Fishers border. I can be found there several days a week, hopefully at that one four-top table with the handy plug in for my laptop, surrounded by various sorts of Shakespeare stuff -- currently <span style="font-style: italic;">Othello</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Much Ado About Nothing</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">King Lear</span>, but also a with a copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">Beowulf</span> and another of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Canterbury Tales</span> and sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier, when all was said and done, to have become a fortune-teller or a traveling hobo, both of which are occupations that strike me as being less likely to drown one in a sudden avalanche of books -- and lapping up a cup of coffee. So I'm sort of a regular and I see the same people there all the time, which isn't that surprising when it comes to the counter staff, but maybe a bit more so when it comes to the clientele, who are obviously people using the restaurant with its cozy and cheerful atmosphere as their own offices.<br /><br />The two people who man the bakery counter where I order my sesame bagel are a couple of guys in their twenties who are always very polite and friendly and say, "Hi, nice to see you! How are you today?" Only the other day, one of them, the one with the glasses, made a misstep that embarrassed all three of us and reminded me of the many times when I have had to get the tire iron out of the trunk of my van to pry my foot out of my mouth.<br /><br />Through the doors the other day, laden down with my giant purse, the laptop bag and a satchel full of books, happy to see that I was the only person in line, since I felt very certain that my shoulder was about to be dislocated. I staggered to the glass counter and set down the satchel at my feet with an "Ooof!" and looked up to find both men smiling at me in their how-can-I-help-you sort of way.<br /><br />"Well, hello, <span style="font-style: italic;">young lady</span>," the one with the glasses said jovially. "Sesame bagel? Cup of coffee?"<br /><br />For some reason, his greeting took me aback and made me goggle at him slightly. Which I'm sure led to an attractive facial expression. It's just that I decided right then that there are times when someone my age can be addressed as "young lady," and those times, specifically, are times when I'm being spoken to by an elderly person. Because to them, I <span style="font-style: italic;">am</span> a young lady.<br /><br />But being addressed as "young lady" by a guy who obviously just graduated from high school - or more to the point, graduated from a bottle to a sippy cup -- within the past couple of years, well. It seemed cheeky and condescending, as if he was actually saying, "I am acknowledging the fact that you are two weeks older than dirt, but trying to assure you, through the medium of humor, that you look every day of your advanced years, plus a decade." And for me to reply, "I'd like a sesame bagel and a medium coffee, <span style="font-style: italic;">old gaffer</span>," didn't have quite the same zing to it. Since, you know, Cary Grant.<br /><br />It was awkward. I didn't really want it to be awkward because I don't think the young man was intentionally trying to be boorish in his behavior. But, you know, awkward nonetheless. The other guy sprang into action at the register, rang in my order and gave me my total; I handed over my debit card. The bold one with the glasses cleared his throat nervously and grabbed my bagel from the display case, turning his back to slice it and send it through the toaster. His very back seemed to be saying <span style="font-style: italic;">WhydidIsaythatWhydidIsaythatWHYDIDISAYTHAT?</span><br /><br />"Would it help," the other young man whispered, returning my debit card to me, "if I told you that he's on a work release program from an institution for the socially inept?"<br /><br />I laughed good-naturedly. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Because I am very, very old."<br /><br />But Young Glasses wasn't done yet. "Can I carry your bags to a table for you?" he gabbled, turning around with a tray holding my toasted bagel and a mug.<br /><br />I fixed him with a look, only slightly truculent. "Are you asking because you make a habit of helping ladies to their tables, or is this more a matter of you assisting the feeble octogenarians who come through the door?"<br /><br />Then we all had a good chuckle and he manfully shouldered my laptop bag and satchel - I carried my purse and the tray with my bagel and coffee cup - and when he set everything down at the table I indicated, I resisted the urge to pinch his cheek and say, "Aren't you just the sweetest boy? I bet your mommy is very proud of you!"<span class="st"><em></em></span><span class="st"><em></em></span>Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-74105998353062414922011-12-04T21:31:00.003-05:002011-12-04T22:30:57.550-05:00RED ALERT! (How to make your house presentable for unexpected guests)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemEbuQIYMeOftXu0SJqHnMWL6cPHpQWArk59U_QEsT4tbD13WBTZdkC_wNmwyvmTebgy0i98kSFTlx_IE45DMK_MqO19FuvMFg36hbeQ1AIBHbyVr6veliz7TQG0QjQZptdhKQ9otNMY/s1600/Endust.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemEbuQIYMeOftXu0SJqHnMWL6cPHpQWArk59U_QEsT4tbD13WBTZdkC_wNmwyvmTebgy0i98kSFTlx_IE45DMK_MqO19FuvMFg36hbeQ1AIBHbyVr6veliz7TQG0QjQZptdhKQ9otNMY/s400/Endust.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682466585982539330" border="0" /></a>My high-school friend Cathy had a very clever mother. Mrs. Watt designed a system for doing an inst-tidy on the house in the event of unexpected guests that she called the "red alert." If Mrs. Watt hung up the telephone right after saying, "Oh, it will just be so lovely to see all of you!" depending on the state of the household at that moment, her next words, addressed to the family were "RED ALERT!"<br /><br />This was the signal for everyone to hastily drop whatever they were doing and go to whatever station in the house had been assigned to them and start cleaning like they'd just heard that Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and the Pope were coming over to discuss the defeat on communism. (Yes, this was the 1980s.) I don't remember specifically what Mrs. Watt had everyone do, but I was reminded of the red alert when I was reading a magazine article titled "How to Get Your House Ready for Guests." I won't name the magazine because I generally like it very much, but this particular article was just all kinds of bogus.<br /><br />First of all, the piece laid out plans for what to do if you had two hours to prepare, one half-hour to prepare and fifteen minutes to prepare and one of the suggestion for the half-hour scenario was "Wipe down the kitchen cabinets."<br /><br />Huh? So I should wipe down the kitchen cabinets to impress my guests, but ignore the skillet with cooked-on scrambled eggs soaking in the sink? If unexpected guests are coming over to my place and I've got a bare thirty minutes to prepare for their arrival, wiping down the fronts of my cabinets is about the last thing on my list, coming right before "Wax the mailbox" and "Paint the house."<br /><br />There were a few other boneheaded instructions, one of them being "Change the sheets on the guest room bed." Now, listen to me. I've been keeping house since I was twenty-two years old, for five years as a single lady and twenty as a wife, and never once in all that time have I had an unanticipated overnight guest. I don't know: maybe word has gotten around about the comfort level of the mattress on that bed. But anyway, of all the overnight guests we've had, I knew about them enough in advance to change the sheets well before the two-hours-til-arrival stage. I might not wipe down the fronts of my kitchen cabinets more than a couple times a year, but I know what's what when it comes to having a freshly-sheeted bed ready for guests, and I bet you do too.<br /><br />So I made my own list. Here it is:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FOR GUESTS ARRIVING IN 15 MINUTES:</span><br /><br />If your house has that lived-in look ours invariably gets -- magazines and newspapers and books flung higgledy-piggledy on every available horizontal surface, a few dishes in the sink, crumbs on the counter, offensive globs of toothpaste clinging to the interior surface of the bathroom sinks, a light layer of dust, an empty toilet paper spindle on the holder -- here's my advice in one simple step:<br /><br />1. Go to the shed out back and retrieve the can of gasoline you have stashed there - you can tell the fire chief later that it was meant for the lawn mower -- and after all family members and pets are safely out of your home, douse the downstairs in gas and set the place ablaze. When your inconsiderate guests arrive, they'll find you weeping and wringing your hands on the sidewalk in front of your residence, and be forced to take you to the Olive Garden for a sympathy meal. Because we all know that, unless your family consists of fourteen Navy Seals, there's no way the place is going to be presentable to guests who have the temerity to give you only fifteen minutes' notice of their arrival.<br /><br />You can sort everything out with your insurance agent later, at a time when you're expecting no company.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FOR GUESTS ARRIVING IN HALF AN HOUR:</span><br /><br />1. Grab a laundry basket and tear through the house, picking up clutter and tossing it in. Don't forget your desk. Put the laundry basket in the laundry room and SHUT THE DOOR FIRMLY. Put a gun in the waistband of your pants at the small of your back so that you can sweetly threaten to shoot any non-immediate family member who tries to go in there. Dead guests tell no tales.<br /><br />Dirty dishes in the sink? My advice is to obtain RIGHT NOW one of those Rubbermaid plastic dishpans. Use it to stack dirty dishes in. Carry it to the laundry room, put it on the washer or wherever. If you want to, cover it up with a dish towel. Shut the laundry room door.<br /><br />2. Grab the duster - I have ones made of that lamb fluff because I think they work the best - and give it a spritz with Endust, which is a miracle product equaled only by the Swiffer line of housekeeping products. At a brisk pace, go through the downstairs and run that duster over all tables, the fireplace mantel, the piano, the bookshelves.<br /><br />3. Light some scented candles. Because that's what they're for, after all: to remove your funky family smell. Did you think they were designed to create a homey ambiance in your home? Well, that too, but trust me: Yankee can cover up a multitude of stinkiness.<br /><br />4. Fluff up the sofa cushions and throw pillows. Either neatly re-fold any sloppy-looking throw blankets or take them back to the laundry room and dump them in the basket.<br /><br />5. Go to the classical music channel on your cable and turn on something erudite yet soothing. It will make you seem cultured and unflappable. Who would ever dream that the same woman who has Mozart or Debussy playing ebulliently through the speakers is the same woman who, mere moments before, was galloping around her house shrieking, "PICK UP THOSE SHOES RIGHT NOW OR YOU ARE DEAD!"<br /><br />6. Go to the guest bathroom. Put out a fresh hand towel. Empty the wastebasket. Get that container of disinfectant wipes out and wipe down the toilet and the sink. Get out a Windex wipe and go over the mirror, any under-glass artwork on the walls and the faucets. The back of the toilet tank is a dust-magnet: wipe it down too. Note that when you have to do something fast, those containers of wipes are a fabulous thing to have on hand. Got a nice candle for the bathroom? Light it.<br /><br />7. If you can manage it, run the vacuum in the living room and entry way if you have carpet. If you have "hardwoods," as the House Hunters so often say, get out your Swiffer dust mop, attach one of those cling-sheet thingies to it and go over the floors fast.<br /><br />8. Don't forget yourself. Take a look at your hair, your top, the state of your makeup. Do whatever you can do as quickly as you can do it.<br /><br />9. Because it bears repeating: DO NOT LET ANYONE IN THE LAUNDRY ROOM.<br /><br />Naturally, all this will go faster if you have family members to pitch in and help, but I have proved that these things can be accomplished by one woman in one half hour, and I even managed to look moderately sane when the doorbell rang.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FOR GUESTS ARRIVING IN AN HOUR:</span><br /><br />1. Do everything on the above list, except at a slightly slower pace.<br /><br />2. If you haven't made your bed, go make it. Unless your bedroom is upstairs, in which case, keep everyone on the first floor.<br /><br />3. Here's a new thing I just learned: Keep some of these <a href="http://www.nancys.com/">cute little hors d'oeuvres from Nancy's on hand in the freezer</a>. They are delish and so easy: Just pop them on a baking sheet and put them in the oven. I try to have a couple of bottles of white wine available ( <a href="http://www.barefootwine.com/">always Barefoot, always chardonnay or Moscato</a> ) for my drinking friends and some two-liter bottles of Sprite and Sprite Zero for the teetotalers. That always seems a little classier than plunking a can of Coke down on a coaster beside a visitor. You will look like some kind of Martha Stewart whiz-kid, and it won't be any trouble at all.<br /><br />4. Still don't let anyone in that laundry room. Keep that gun ready.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-50967093310886008372011-12-04T06:02:00.003-05:002011-12-04T06:44:31.337-05:00Why I have a splitting headacheI woke up in the middle of the night last night and couldn't go back to sleep because that's just what I <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span>, and a maddening thing it is. Getting up in the small hours does afford me the opportunity to see some really quality television programming -- who doesn't enjoy a gripping infomercial touting the many benefits of wearing that new permutation (emphasis on the mutation) of the Snuggie, the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGIl1iwxe_s">Forever Lazy</a>. The primo advantage of wearing the Forever Lazy, a garment which appears to have been manufactured by Satan's minions in the lower realms of hell, is that it features a drop seat. To, you know, allow you to stay warm and cozy and un-pee-soaked. This attribute is spoken of in glowing terms in that commercial I linked to above. Lucky us!<br /><br />That commercial itself is freakish and awkward and only funny if you can quickly put yourself in an ironic frame of mind. The most awful scene, in my jaded view, is the one where the three couples are having a tailgate party, drinking beers and passing around the snacks, every last one of them attired in the Forever Lazy. I just have to say right here that if my husband ever made a triumphant appearance from the front seat of our van dressed in one of these....things....my first question wouldn't be "Who's lookin' awesome?" but "I wonder if the Forever Lazy is flame retardant?" But not to worry. My husband wouldn't wear one of those things, even if it came in the combined colors of Notre Dame, the Bengals and the Reds.<br /><br />The second as-seen-on-TV item I saw wasn't clothing-related, thank the holy saints and angels, but instead a piece of jewelry. It is called the <a href="https://www.titanicnecklacetv.com/?s_kwcid=TC%7C6289%7Ctitanic%20necklace%7C%7CS%7Cb%7C8970949939&gclid=CNa5gf-h6KwCFUHRKgodI0izJg">Titanic Coal Necklace</a>, and the commercial made me goggle at the television screen in horror, all my irony leaking out of my toes and into my furry slippers.<br /><br />"Commemorate the legacy of <span style="font-style: italic;">Titanic</span>'s tragic voyage with the 100th Anniversary Collector's Edition Necklace," the ad burbles. I sat there numbly thinking, <span style="font-style:italic;">Legacy? You mean the legacy of all those people drowning and/or freezing in the North Atlantic? The legacy where there weren't enough lifeboats, so the people in steerage were locked in to face their doom? Fun! I'd like four! Where's the phone number and my credit card!</span><br /><br />So this necklace is apparently crafted out of actual coal retrieved from the murky ocean floor, encased in "ocean blue glass." "When you wear the 100th Anniversary Collection Necklace, you're preserving and commemorating the memory of <span style="font-style: italic;">Titanic</span>." Scrumptious!<br /><br />The fact that this necklace is made of that ocean-blue glass makes me very suspicious that the makers, the R.M.S. <span style="font-style: italic;">Titanic</span> Inc. have been curled up in front of the television with some popcorn and a box of tissues, undoubtedly frocked out in their Forever Lazies, watching that execrable movie starring Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet as the passionate and soggy lovers, instead of reading the real history of the ship. That movie featured a huge, heart-shaped sapphire and diamond necklace that Kate's abusive fiance was going to give her as a wedding gift and Jack, Leonardo's character, drew an erotic sketch of a saucy Rose (Winslet), reclining on a chaise and wearing nothing but that piece of jewelry, her Forever Lazy lying crumpled on the floor at Jack's feet. It was fiction. FICTION.<br /><br />All this brings me to my weary question, my thought processes addled by lack of sleep: Why would anyone buy a Forever Lazy and would that person actually use that back flap? And why would anyone want to wear a necklace commemorating an underwater mausoleum?<br /><br />These are the existential things I ask myself in the middle of the night, bringing on an ennui that can only be cured by breakfast at Bob Evans.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-66862647284431085862011-11-29T13:10:00.002-05:002011-11-29T13:17:55.203-05:00How was that again?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjc-AvoUHGOVAJey3v2as78vDFVwMCy3g1EJClA6rdXhFpjteWGMr2mxCLMiVuKBOuXyrkIP8CGn5dCCNU0Wu0utAJzRoTpntNbIDbTEBJ9eWpXRhgEu6Dp4Fn0EO3yEs3F1hCzF0F9jU/s1600/surprised+elderly+lady.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 163px; height: 159px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjc-AvoUHGOVAJey3v2as78vDFVwMCy3g1EJClA6rdXhFpjteWGMr2mxCLMiVuKBOuXyrkIP8CGn5dCCNU0Wu0utAJzRoTpntNbIDbTEBJ9eWpXRhgEu6Dp4Fn0EO3yEs3F1hCzF0F9jU/s400/surprised+elderly+lady.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680482365539571474" border="0" /></a>I was driving Aisling to her piano lesson today and she spent most of the twenty minute ride telling me about a boy she likes and bewailing the fact that the males of the species are just so difficult to <span style="font-style: italic;">understand</span>.<br /><br />"Doesn't it make you feel so lucky that you're <span style="font-style: italic;">old</span> and have been married for a million years so that you don't have to worry about this stuff anymore?" she asked me with great seriousness.<br /><br />I turned my head to give her a long, appraising look. "You might want to re-phrase that,<span style="font-style: italic;"> dear</span>."<br /><br />She sat and thought for a moment, her brow furrowed. "You mean 'married for a <span style="font-style: italic;">thousand</span> years'?" she asked.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-54376329927291258062011-11-22T16:01:00.003-05:002011-11-22T17:09:53.257-05:0012 things I always buy at Dollar Tree<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisvvRgJadI-WP4SZanKSiSoVFLI48X-aC_iQ5WZWo7o_1CcjH_50lKakBBH3sOpqLlAQg0cRaodCR7Cw0t5FZn5tUldlLWZpdTPX0TohwqY8_yctt34RquiMYTltLiTPmb84ccjy_VV7A/s1600/DollarTree5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 231px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisvvRgJadI-WP4SZanKSiSoVFLI48X-aC_iQ5WZWo7o_1CcjH_50lKakBBH3sOpqLlAQg0cRaodCR7Cw0t5FZn5tUldlLWZpdTPX0TohwqY8_yctt34RquiMYTltLiTPmb84ccjy_VV7A/s400/DollarTree5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677928308190352066" border="0" /></a>Dollar Tree is, like, one of my favorite stores ever. Barnes & Noble is a strong contender; Ulta Beauty is definitely in the running. I deeply enjoy Hobby Lobby and Bed, Bath and Beyond. And I can always find time to go in Kohl's or Macy's. But Dollar Tree has a different vibe from any of those other places. It is homey, low-market (well, obviously, since everything costs a dollar), and the place where I will ONLY buy a number of commonly used household items, as follows:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. Dish towels</span> - If it's your thing, you can buy dish towels at Dollar Tree that are printed with wine bottles or latte cups or Santa: those things are at Dollar Tree in abundance. But they also have a large selection of neutral cotton dish towels in blues, greens and taupes that will go with anyone's kitchen and I just dare you to prove <a href="http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/striped-kitchen-towel/%3E">that you didn't spend $5 per towel on them at Williams-Sonoma</a>. The towels do the job you bought them to do, and the moment they start looking ugly, you can either toss them in the wastebasket or delegate them to dusting duty.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. Tea lights</span> - We seem to have a number of ornamental candle-y arrangements around the place that require tea lights, which are those teeny candles that come in their own little aluminum holder. I find these little candles to be much more easy to deal with than votive candles, which, while bigger, have that annoying habit of leaking wax all over, say, the china cabinet in the dining room or the fireplace mantel. At Dollar Tree, you can get a plastic bag of sixteen tea lights for $1, each of which burns for about 2-3 hours. A total steal, especially when you compare that price to Hobby Lobby's, which is significantly more.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Tooth flossers</span> - In this house, none of us like just plain old dental floss. We like those plastic doohickeys with the little piece of floss stretched on them. I don't want to get into a big (gross) thing about how all of us enjoy sparkling dental health due to the daily flossing our pearly teeth receive, but I <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> tell you that you can get a big bag of these handy flossers for $1 at the Dollar Tree. Compare that to the $2.89 you'd be spending on these very same things at Kroger, and even a math-impaired dork like me can figure out that you can get twice the flossing power at your friendly neighborhood DT.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. Gift bags and tissue paper</span> - Okay, some of the gift bags are ugly. But not all of them are. In fact, there are a good many cute ones available for any holiday you'd care to name. Well, except maybe ones like Arbor Day. And Columbus Day; I don't recall seeing any gift bags printed with the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria last month. But, okay: Christmas, birthdays, weddings, graduations, Easter and Valentine's Day, the Dollar Tree has them. Plus, they have a wide assortment of tissue paper, a really generous amount, and you can even buy brights and pastels along with the typical white. You will never be able to spend $4.95 on a gift bag from Wal-Mart again.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">5. Movie candy</span> - Going to the cinema? Need Milk Duds, Junior Mints, Charleston Chews, Raisinets, Starbursts, M&Ms, Goobers, Mike & Ikes, Laffy Taffy, Gummi Bears or any of a dozen other candies you can find behind the glass at the Loew's concession stand? Go to the Dollar Tree before your show and stuff your purse and pockets with $1 candy to avoid spending $5 per box on the<span style="font-style: italic;"> very same candy</span>. That'll leave you enough money left over to buy some popcorn, which the Dollar Tree also sells, but only in un-popped form. The ushers will give you the stink eye if you try to find an outlet to plug in a microwave.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6. Basic OTC medicines</span> - Pain killers like ibuprofen, acetaminophen and plain ol' aspirin can be found at the Dollar Tree, along with their store brand of meds like cold tablets, decongestants, cough syrup, anti-diarrheal medication, allergy tablets, triple anti-biotic ointment, you name it. I keep a first aid kit in my car stocked with items from the Dollar Tree, as well as the medicine cabinets in the house. I also use Dollar Tree medications to stock a little kit for my husband to keep in his desk at work. You can also buy stick-on bandages, peroxide, isopropyl alcohol and other little items of that nature.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">7. Little Debbie snack cakes</span> - My husband has a terrible weakness for Little Debbie cakes, a fondness that is not shared by anyone else in our home except for the dogs. Dollar Tree has a wide selection of snack cakes at $1 per box, all the regular kinds: Sonic Brownies, Swiss Rolls, Oatmeal Pies, Zebra Cakes, Fancy Cakes, Honey Buns, Fudge Rounds and Nutty Bars are yours for the purchasing. They even have seasonal cakes like Christmas trees and those cute (but inedible) little heart-shaped ones for Valentine's Day. After paying $1 a box, I can't bring myself to spend the $1.89-$2.09 per box elsewhere. And no, these aren't old, stale, nasty cakes. They're just as fresh as the ones you'd buy at the grocery, just like the candy.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8. Paper product staples</span> - Paper napkins, paper plates, paper towels, tissues, coffee filters and, if you're in a pinch, toilet paper. Just your basic white stuff, but it works great and it's cheap.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">9. Party balloons</span> - Dollar Tree has a big selection of both Mylar and latex balloons for a number of celebrations. Some of their balloons are pre-filled with helium, but if you want something special, a clerk will fill them for you, free. That'll make you think twice before going to Balloons, Etc. and paying $1.50-$3.00 per balloon. Dollar Tree also has a bunch of those cute little balloon weights to hold down your bouquet and keep it from taking off for the moon.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">10. Wine glasses</span> - I have to admit, my false pride makes it a bit hard to say, "Yes, I buy all my wine glasses at the Dollar Tree," but that's only because I'm an awful snob and need to be brought down a peg or two. But. But, but, but. Dollar Tree's wine glasses are virtually indistinguishable from a wine glass bought anywhere else, and I have to say that the time I've spent serving wine to my guests, I've never once had one smash their glass to the floor and say, "That does it! I am never coming here again and drinking your cheap wine out of your cheap glasses." So I buy the glasses and they're pretty and they're big -- *<span style="font-style: italic;">hiccup!</span>* -- and if you serve enough wine and some nice little crackers with some cheese and olives and a bowl of smoked almonds, who the heck is going to care where the wine glass came from? All that matters is that it stays filled, right?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">11. Disposable cooking containers</span> - You know how nice it is to take food to people, right? A lasagna, a pie or cake, some cookies on a platter, a loaf of banana bread - gifts like that are always welcome for hostesses or the ailing or whoever you know who needs some home cooking. But I don't have to tell you what a pain it is for the recipient to make sure you get your Pyrex baking dish back, right? Especially if the person you're taking food to is a new mother or a post-op patient: those folks don't have the time to wash your casserole dish or your platter and make sure it's returned to you. So go to the Dollar Tree and spend one hundred pennies on a disposable aluminum baking pan and don't even think of going to the grocery store and spending FIVE DOLLARS -- no, I am not kidding -- on the very same pan. The only difference is that some of the grocery store aluminum-ware come with those "lifter" contraptions that don't really work anyway, so why bother? The giftee will be so happy to not have to wash and return your container, and you won't have to spend months afterwards thinking to yourself, <span style="font-style: italic;">I </span>know<span style="font-style: italic;"> I have a nine-inch Anchor pie plate around here somewhere</span> before remembering that you used it to take an apple pie to your child's piano teacher. True story.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">12. Christmas cookie tins</span> - Speaking of containers, if you are a Christmas-cookie-baker, you can find adorable little festive tins in about three or four different sizes at the Dollar Tree. Line them with some of that above-mentioned tissue paper and you've got the sweetest and cheapest little vehicle ever for gifting someone with your homemade goodies. We stock up every year.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-59601175789962415972011-11-21T18:15:00.006-05:002011-11-21T18:25:51.412-05:00Signs that the Apocalypse is Upon Us<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6SzOFZE5UnTnt_b8AcXkU7AACpQAkGnKUZTYl1u2nEUC99FKbNMCEMQeJfWaMX0HeM_X-PUFkRmaW490cVvWukZ3CrvBFoX5NJEpkVcFL5YtOWbGc6sJBn-rMbirXSOoeHd7eORjF4cE/s1600/Angus+Young.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6SzOFZE5UnTnt_b8AcXkU7AACpQAkGnKUZTYl1u2nEUC99FKbNMCEMQeJfWaMX0HeM_X-PUFkRmaW490cVvWukZ3CrvBFoX5NJEpkVcFL5YtOWbGc6sJBn-rMbirXSOoeHd7eORjF4cE/s400/Angus+Young.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677592014884217474" border="0" /></a>Today I was at the laundromat washing the duvet from our bed and an absolutely riveting episode of <span style="font-style: italic;">Matlock </span>was playing at high volume on every single one of the flat-screen televisions hanging over the washing machines.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Matlock</span> is one of those television shows that, to me, is so incredibly boring, I can feel myself dying a little each and every second it is being broadcast in my presence, but I suddenly snapped to attention when a commercial break shifted us out of whatever hell dimension Andy Griffith and his band of do-gooder cronies inhabit when I heard the unmistakeable opening guitar riff of AC/DC's "Back in Black." This is a song that never fails to make me smile, and I'm often overwhelmed with the urge to bust out some major air guitar. Which I didn't do. Because, dignity? I don't have much, but the little bit I have left to me, I cling to like frozen pizza remnants cling to an oven rack.<br /><br />So I'm smiling, bobbing my head and mentally singing along with the lyrics, when all of a sudden I realize that I'm watching a FREAKING WAL-MART COMMERCIAL advertising their upcoming after-Thanksgiving Black Friday sales.<br /><br />I seriously wanted to just fall to the floor and scream "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" Lead singer Brian Johnson has <span style="font-style: italic;">nothing</span> on me when it comes to anguished howling.<br /><br />AC/DC. And flipping WAL-MART! Can you <span style="font-style: italic;">believe</span> it?<br /><br />I know. Me either.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-46378030558252381622011-11-15T15:55:00.002-05:002011-11-15T16:07:04.001-05:00Because I'm weak<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-PlxDP19lxJPaeftfyff-OacM-Pu50Fzj6DKgNEv059mUNZoYzgjzEWkWhB2ZqXdjtoEQlJ1ByUUdx-6ta2Q0NblJVDujA5hlXOjhdTQhPPQnacZfw50dzChT8Cd1SGIZtMON0sgSXSE/s1600/drycleaning.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 269px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-PlxDP19lxJPaeftfyff-OacM-Pu50Fzj6DKgNEv059mUNZoYzgjzEWkWhB2ZqXdjtoEQlJ1ByUUdx-6ta2Q0NblJVDujA5hlXOjhdTQhPPQnacZfw50dzChT8Cd1SGIZtMON0sgSXSE/s400/drycleaning.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5675329638789914050" border="0" /></a>I don't think it speaks well for my character that I blow right past the dry cleaning establishment that's four blocks from my house, but where you have to park in their lot and haul your sweaters and your dressy wool coat and your husband's autumn sport coat, while on my way to a rival dry cleaning establishment that has a drive-thru window. Where, you know, everything can just be bundled through the hatch while sitting in the comfort of your car and listening to the radio.Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6109191265483301907.post-39563306177018700862011-11-11T21:52:00.002-05:002011-11-11T22:34:19.566-05:00The Creature from the Madge Lagoon<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">You just knew it wasn't all over with Madge, didn't you?</span><br /><br />I scared her off the other day with my Teacher Look, but she must have been feeling under the weather, not quite her usual hideous self. Maybe she had a sniffle, a headache, or a sudden smiting with fire and brimstone from above. Who knows? Anyway, we had another encounter in the pool today and the old bat was in rare form.<br /><br />So I was in the pool, naturally, doing my usual routine. I'd been there for about twenty-five minutes and was deep into cardio and feeling good, which was, incidentally, a feeling that was going to be leaving me shortly.<br /><br />Madge came in - she's recognizable because she always comes in wearing a yellow bathrobe with a duck on the back - and I didn't worry about her because there were three open lanes. I was in my usual "step lane," the lane I always use because the lap swimmers don't like to use it: the set of steps that the handicapped use to get into the pool descends into the lane and shortens it by about six feet. So imagine my surprise when Madge came down the steps into the pool and hollered at me, "I'm swimming in this lane now, so MOVE."<br /><br />The aquatics director happened to be walking by on the pool deck just about then and her head whipped around, her mouth and eyes open in astonishment. Me, I wasn't really much surprised. So I was ready for her.<br /><br />I looked her square in the eye. "Can you say 'please'?" I asked with a tight smile.<br /><br />"No," she said shortly. "This is<span style="font-style: italic;"> lap swim</span> time and you're not swimming laps, so <span style="font-style: italic;">move</span>."<br /><br />"I'm not moving because you are so incredibly rude. You can't come in here and demand that people move," I said determinedly. Because, listen: I don't want to start things with people. I don't. I'm not that kind of person. However, I'm no stranger to the fact that some people don't respond to either niceness or reason, which leaves standing up for yourself in a dignified yet rock-solid manner. I'd never scream curse words at anyone, especially an ancient old lady who looks like a manatee. But I'll be squizzled if I'm going to let some pushy old harridan order me around like she's Catherine-the-Freakin-Great, either.<br /><br />The aquatic director spoke up: "Madge, this is not just lap swim time. This is lap swim and water jog time and you can't tell people to move."<br /><br />"THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN LAP SWIM TIME," Madge trumpeted, whirling about in the water like a hippopotamus preparing to charge.<br /><br />"Well, it isn't anymore," said the director, frowning and putting her hands on her hips.<br /><br />"I'VE BEEN SWIMMING HERE FOR <span style="font-style: italic;">SEVEN YEARS</span> AND I AM <span style="font-style: italic;">SWIMMING</span> IN THIS LANE," Madge shouted.<br /><br />I drew a deep breath and looked her straight in the eye, feeling like I was getting ready to draw my revolver to fire the first shot at the OK corral. "No, you're not, you big bully."<br /><br />Madge recoiled in shock. "You," she spluttered, "are MEAN." Which seemed a bit of the pot calling the kettle dirty bottom, but Madge is obviously one of those old folks who is more than willing to use her advanced age into manipulating people into doing her bidding.<br /><br />"MADGE," bellowed the aquatics director, looking like she was fixin' to jump into the pool and drag Madge out by her hair, "either move to another lane or GET OUT OF THE POOL."<br /><br />"You're not <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> swimming," Madge said bitterly, looking at me hatefully. "What you're doing doesn't <span style="font-style: italic;">count</span>." (Like that floating-on-the-back and using her hands as paddles maneuver she does is equal to a 500 meter freestyle at the Olympic trials.)<br /><br />"Maybe not," I said evenly. "But whatever it is or isn't, I'm doing it in <span style="font-style: italic;">this lane</span>."Shelleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13585609641158766024noreply@blogger.com0