Month: January 2010 Page 3 of 4

The Presence of Presents

On January 11, 2010

Yippee! I finally returned the last of the presents I bought for people in my family who didn’t want them, and the ones they bought for me that didn’t work out.

Presents are so delightful to open. How exciting to wonder what’s behind that pretty reindeer paper. Then I open the box and slide the tissue over to the side to discover a sweatshirt that’s a size too large and I’ve seen on my mother-in-law. Not that she doesn’t have good taste. She dresses more fashionably that a lot of other women her age – at least her tennis shoes are clean and her spiffy sweatshirt and elastic waist pants match. She dresses for comfort, and I don’t have a problem with that. I’m just not there yet.

My husband always feels compelled to buy me a nice piece of jewelry. By nice, I’m talking about anything over $49. I happen to enjoy cheap jewelry. If I lose it, I don’t have a conniption fit, and if I get tired of it, which I will, I can give it away without any remorse. A piece of fine jewelry – something with a microscopic diamond or two – will most likely wind up in a tiny velvet bag somewhere. I forget I have it, what with my extensive faux collection.

What’s amazing is that I’ve tried to take these more expensive pieces back, but the jewelry store won’t refund my money. They gladly offer to make an exchange for something else, even if I have the receipt, and even if I don’t see a thing in the store I want. Every time I end up going out of pocket to get a piece of jewelry that I might wear sooner or later.

Okay, you’re going to say I’m a b-word and should appreciate what I get. I am a b-word, yes, but I’m a darn thrifty one, and I don’t want my closet full of clothes I know I won’t wear or jewelry that hurts. Yes, hurts. The better quality earrings have thicker posts. After years of wearing cheap stuff, my ears cry out in agony, absolute agony, when I force those thick earrings in that tiny earlobe hole. Can I help it if I’m sensitive?

And if you’re thinking, “There’s nothing pleasing this b-word,” au contraire! I would be most pleased to receive a simple gift card to a store of my choice. It’s not as much fun to open, but at least I could try things on and make sure they fit and look nice on me. Back in the day I looked good in anything – even my mother in law’s sweatshirts. But now I’m fighting a cutthroat battle with Father Time, and he’s got me in a half nelson as it is. I can’t afford to give him any slack at all. I must be on guard at all times, vigilantly choosing attractive colors and the right fit to make my skin more lively, my jaws less saggy, and my spare tire less noticeable over my caboose. This takes hours and hours of shopping, and even then I may come home empty handed and fighting off tears. Those dressing room mirrors can be so cruel.

If you’re not feeling sorry for me yet, why not? My husband returns everything I give him. I’ll give him 4 or 5 items that I’ve lovingly shopped for, wrapped, and hidden until Christmas, and then he opens them and says, “I’ve got a shirt just like that,” or “Mmmm,” or “Pleats, really?” and so forth. I’m lucky if there’s even one thing doesn’t have to be taken back. I have to take my daughter with me to shop because I’ll end up returning all of my presents to her if I don’t. People can be so picky. My son is the only one who doesn’t return anything. He’d rather wear something he doesn’t like than do laundry.

One good thing is that all the birthdays and Christmas are done, and unless I forget and re-write this blog again, you may not have to hear about this particular whining for nearly a year. Yippee!

Hideous ID Picture

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 10, 2010

In Uncategorized

I enrolled in a class at the community college here, and I had to get a picture ID made. I hate these things because no matter how much attention I spend on my hair and makeup, the pictures always make me look like a haint.

I first heard that word, haint, from the good natured, funny neighbor of my Grandmother Wheeler in Pulaski, Tennessee, Miz Chapman. Miz Chapman, who my grandmother called, Miz Chat, lived across the street with her daughter, Geneva, and Geneva’s spinster schoolteacher daughter, Barbara Jean. Summer evenings, the widow ladies came out on their porches to sit in their wooden swings so they could sway back and forth enough to cool down after fixing dinner. They’d call hello to each other across the narrow street.

Once, when Miz Chat wasn’t on her porch, we went across the street and knocked on her front door. She answered on the second knock, pushing back strands of faded grey hair and clutching her apron. “Why, come on in, look who’s here, just come on in but oh my, my, don’t I look like a haint to be having company?”

“Miz Chat,” I said, “What’s a haint?” That was the funniest thing she’d ever heard in all her born days. A child that didn’t know what a haint was. “It’s a ghost,” she explained, tossing her head back to laugh. “Or a hag.”

It was a word I took an immediate liking to. I told it to my playmates, and we’d get a silly dialogue going, “You’re a haint.” “I haint no haint, you’re the haint.” “Haint neither.” Making fun of the way country Southerners talked was an infinite source of entertainment when I was growing up. Still is.

Miz Chat was pretty attractive for an old, old woman, I thought. It was her personality. She laughed at everything you said as if you oozed delight. She had a gigantic cat named snowball that coughed up hairballs as big as a lime. The cat lay on the floor swishing its fluffy white tail and you knew it would scratch you to shreds if you tried to pet it, the way that tail danced around. Cats can tell you a lot with their tails, and this one was clearly saying, “Back off and don’t mess with me if you know what’s good for you.”

Whenever I take a bad ID picture, which is 100% of the time, I say to myself, “You look just like a haint.” Right now the community college ID and an old ski pass ID are sitting in front of me out of sheer coincidence. I look like two different human beings, and both are hags. Friends will always ask to see your ID, and you beg off until they insist, then when they look they get quiet, and you say, “I told you I look hideous.” They’ll answer with something like, “Oh, you’re just too hard on yourself.” That’s the sure sign they agree you look hideous, because why wouldn’t they say something like, “No you don’t, you look great.”

No amount of practicing in front of a mirror has helped me improve these pictures. I’ll tilt my head down and grow extra chins. If I remember to lift my head, you can see up my nose. My hair hangs limp, and there are dark shadows under my cheeks and eyes.

Anyone who takes good ID pictures, be very very thankful. Because the vast majority of us haint got a prayer of looking good.

In conclusion, I’d just like to say thanks to Miz Chat, for giving me such a good word. It comes in handy every time I take out my wallet.

My Moaning Mutt

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 9, 2010

In Pets

I like alliteration almost as much as puns. My dog isn’t really a mutt. She’s a Yorkie Poo, so that makes her only a half-breed and not a Heinz 57. But I couldn’t resist the title.

When my dog wants something, she comes into the room and moans. I find this pretty entertaining. The first time she moans, the sound is low pitched, almost inaudible. If you don’t respond right away, the moans get higher until they reach a soulful whine. Even though I don’t understand dog language, but that dog makes it very clear what she wants.

There are two places she moans the most. In the kitchen and in my office. She can be in the furthest reaches of the house when I sit down at my computer, and just like she’s got computer chair radar, she’ll come on the fly, as if she’s saying to herself, “What? What? She’s snuck off to the computer room? I’d better leave the back bedroom closet and get right in there.” When she comes in, she moans until I put her in my lap.

What she’s doing in the back bedroom closet is burying cheese cubes that she gets from us when she starts moaning in the kitchen. She gets practically under your feet and then moans to remind you that she’s down there, starving to death, and you’re a selfish oaf if you don’t share something with her RIGHT NOW. These escalate in pitch and volume, and can accelerate right up to barks if left unattended. To hush her up, we give her little chunks of cheese.

Did you know that’s where the name hush puppy came from? In the South, from which I hail, people would be frying up the leftover corn meal mush from breakfast, because everything gets fried down there sooner or later, and the puppy dogs would hang around the kitchen barking and begging and making a nuisance of themselves, so the women would throw them a wad of that fried up mush and say, “Hush puppy, hush.” Being dogs, they’d snatch it into their mouths and have it swallowed before they realized it just came out of a scalding frying pan, and it would burn their whole insides as it went on it’s steaming way to their stomachs, and they’d let out a baying yelp that could be heard three farms away and race like cats with their tails on fire to the livestock pond and dive in, trying to lower their internal temperature by 20º as quick as possible. Back in the kitchen it would be real nice and quiet, and you can trust this story because it’s mostly a true piece of fictitious folklore from the south.

We trained our dog on cheese. We make her go through her whole routine – sit, bark, roll-over, shake, stand on her hind legs, turn in a circle, and stay. Then we give her a piece of cheese after each. That’s all the tricks she knows, and we feel it’s important for her development to practice them all, you know, the old “use it or lose it” theory. But that adds up to seven cubes of cheese. She only weighs nine pounds, so she fills up and sometimes takes the remaining cubes and buries them in the clothes on the floor in the back bedroom closet.

She goes back there a few times during the day, checking on her chunks, We’ll find her lurking around in there for no good reason, and if we look under a pair of jeans, we’ll find a hard orange cube. If she suspects we’re hunting for her dried up stash, she’ll take the cheese and go into another room and hide it.

My daughter has been reading in bed and the dog will slink in and walk around her bed slowly. There are plenty of clothes on the floor in there. “Mom, this dog’s acting weird,” she’ll yell. I’ll come in and see a little telltale orange color in her mouth – the dog’s, not my daughter. She looks up at you and the whites of her eyes show underneath like little hammocks, and she’ll mosey out of the room, looking back over her shoulder, as if to say, “I’m just having an innocent look around, don’t mind me.” She’ll go off and try to find another place to hide the cheese.

What’s odd is, she didn’t start moaning until the last year or two. She’d just look at you and you were supposed to know what she wanted. To get out so she could go piddle, she’d make eye contact with you and just stare. No bark, no standing by the door, no indication whatsoever that she needed to go outside. So you’d say, “What is it? What do you want?” and she’d continue to stare. “Are you hungry? Do you want some food?” Stare. “Do you need to go outside?” At the word “outside” she’d turn her head toward the door, and that’s how you found out she was going to wet the carpet any second if you didn’t get up quick.

I don’t mind the moaning. Or finding chunks of cheese whenever I lift anything off the floor. I think it’s cute. But I think everything this dog does is cute. She’s a nine pound black curly dust mop of cuteness, and I’m easily entertained.

Tightrope Inspiration Falls Short

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 8, 2010

In Friends

If you read yesterday’s post, and I’m sure you did, you’ll know that I was all excited about watching “Man on Wire,” a story about a guy who crosses between the World Trade Center towers on a tightrope in 1974.

I was inspired by his leadership – how his friends supported and helped him propel this crazy dream to completion. I turned the TV off and wrote the blog right after he’d completed the walk and been arrested as a trespasser but at the same time hailed by the media as a wonder.

I thought of my life and how I had, at one time, led my friends on adventures – road trips to Myrtle Beach and Fort Lauderdale and Key West with very little money and sometimes no transportation – camping and hiking trips through the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, and several road trips across country, one from Florida to Oregon and others starting in Tennessee and leading to both coasts. I don’t think about them much, but I really should write some books because many of these adventures were pretty entertaining. However, I’ll have to wait until my children are adults, if you catch my drift…

So I left the blog and turned the documentary back on, and lo and behold, Philippe Petit fell from grace in my eyes. (How do you like that “fell” pun? Actually, they say when you have to explain or point out your jokes, they weren’t that funny in the first place…)

How did he fall from grace? As he was walking out of the police station to the hoards of media, a pretty little thing came up and put her arms around him and said she wanted to be the first to help him celebrate. A tightrope groupie, I guess you’d call her. I wonder if she had dreams of being a groupie and went down the list: rock band groupie? No; political groupie? No; tightrope groupie, YES! All of the above, hmmm, maybe I should check this one…

So Philippe’s accomplices – one of which was also arrested, and the others on his team, and his girlfriend who had pretty much abandoned her own life to be his love interest and athletic supporter – were all waiting for him totally jubilant about his (and their) success and wanting to jump up and down and high five each other, they were left to anxiously look down an empty hall or await a knock on the door while he goes off with this groupie and bounces on her waterbed for awhile (which is shown in the film – I’m not sure if they used a body double, but this Philippe liked being in his birthday suit, I think). He calls his friends and girlfriend on the phone to tell them he’s being “interviewed” and will catch up with them as soon as he can tear himself away. There are many jokes I could make right here, things like, “Cheah, more like enterview!” but they’d all be puns of some sort, but I’m not sure you’re up (get it) for that.

Nothing happened to him legally with the trespassing charge. He was even asked by New York’s attorney general to entertain some kids with juggling for publicity. His other arrested friend, however, was kicked out of the US, for good, I presume.

On the flight home, he tells the friend who appears to be his closest one, “Well, for our next trick…” and his friend says, “Nope, don’t count me in, enough is enough.” These aren’t exact quotes, but the gist of it, and who can blame him? He and the crew did so much work and had so much at stake – what if Philippe had fallen? – and didn’t really get anything from it except the joy of giving themselves over completely to Philippe’s whimsy and have him abandon them at the time of their mutual success. The movie doesn’t say, but it appears Philippe and this friend had a falling out because the friend appears to have regrets during his last interview.

I think it could be said without a robust argument that men seem to let the little head do the thinking for them at the worst possible times. It happens constantly – it’s in the news daily – just think Tiger Woods. He’s the example handiest right now but there is a list that could circle the globe a million times. So Philippe’s fall is not shocking (that I continue using the “fall” pun is, however).

He even admits in the movie that he “betrayed” his friends and girlfriend. I liked her a lot. She never once says a negative thing. Even at the end she describes how she could see Philippe’s life changing as he became famous, and that it was time for their love affair to end, and surprisingly she was ready for it to end, too. I want to be like her, having tact and grace, but I’m negative and a b-word. I would not have been so kind.

I said yesterday I wanted to be like him. That’s no longer true. I was like him, on a much smaller scale. I had friends who went along with my adventures, and I don’t think they were disappointed. I’m still in contact with my old friends, though distance separates us and the contact may only be through Christmas cards. When we get together we talk about the present, but mostly we remember the things we did and wonder how we survived them.

The movie ended with Philippe alone in his yard walking on a tightrope. All the scenes prior had his friends splayed around in the grass. What has his life been like since 1974? Did he find taller buildings to conquer? Wider distances? I’d never heard of him when it happened, and haven’t heard about him since, but I live in a vacuum. It gets pretty dusty in there. Get it? Vacuum.

It was an amazing feat, and I still recommend the movie, but his story is just like life. It has its ups and downs, highs and lows. When we’re on top of the world, it’s exhilarating, but sure as the sun rises, we’re going to fall (pun) sometime in the future, and it’s nice to have a safety net of friends to cushion us.

Inspiration on a Tightrope

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 8, 2010

In inspiration, Movies

I’ve just been watching the coolest documentary called, “Man on Wire” about a guy who did a tightrope walk between the World Trade Center buildings just after they were built in 1974.

This guy is amazing. He could be a child, flitting around on a unicycle through the streets of Paris, dodging in and out of traffic as horns sound all around him. He’s exactly like one of those people who you would call weird in school and either avoid or stare at with your mouth gaping.

His name is Philippe Petit and he’s got a group of friends who are totally devoted to him and his schemes. They help him string a tightrope on Notre Dame’s cathedral, knowing full well they could be arrested.

I want friends like that. I remember my friends and I doing some pretty crazy stunts, but nothing like this. These guys have to plan for months to set up the wire, what it will anchor to, and so forth, and they are gleeful and very serious about it.

What is it about this tight ropewalker that inspires his friends to risk so much so that he can realize his dreams? They have nothing to gain – they aren’t going to be in the spotlight. I want to be like him.

On the other hand, people are always trying to talk me into doing things, and I’ve gotten so tired of it that I refuse to try and talk others into something. What I forget sometimes is that I get talked into things that turn out very well – like my daughter convincing me to go to Paris summer before last. I had a fantastic time, but she worked on me for months before I said yes. Now I’m inspired, again, to lead people. I used to have that ability, and generally practiced it to generate mischief or have adventures.

From watching him, he’s got this childlike wonder that is infectious. He’s not handsome at all, and yet he decided on a girl and pursued her with such enthusiasm that she jumped on board and allowed her life to meld into his.

He and his friends were practicing in a field what they’d need to prepare for the World Trade Center. They had to get the wire between the buildings – a space of 200 ft. – and came up with the idea of shooting an arrow across the distance with a string tied to it. The friend shot several arrows but they couldn’t go the distance because the string would snag. Finally they tried fishing line on a spool and it worked. The two men ran across to where the arrow landed and rolled in the grass with delight. They were grown men who let themselves be loose and free and delighted and excited enough to roll in knee-high grass. Oh how I envied them as I watched.

I am halfway through the movie and very anxious to finish. My brother was here tonight to watch the BCS championship, and he’s the one who told me about the movie. It’s on the Free Movies on the Comcast On Demand station, and it’s on the Sundance channel, and you can see a trailer at http://www.manonwire.com/

I am going to go and watch this wonderful little Frenchman achieve the impossible with no more than a dream and some very good friends who just want to grab hold of him and take whatever crazy ride he leads them on. I want to be him because he’s totally alive. I hope after I finish the documentary that I discover he still is…

Ringing in the New Year with New Phones

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 6, 2010

In Gadgets

I gave my mother-in-law cordless phones for her birthday because that’s what she wanted. I picked a middle of the road model – I didn’t figure she needed six handsets since she’s the only one in the house.

I bought a set of phones for my family a few years ago and got 4 handsets. I thought this was such overkill – we already had several landlines so where would I put all those phones? But it was a good deal so I bought them anyway, and we always had a phone handy when it rang – for the first week. Then my daughter took a handset to her bedroom and it got smuggled up in her comforter and was never seen again.

My son took one outside and lost it – either that or a raccoon got a hold of it. Raccoons like electronics – and flip flops. We found one of my daughter’s, half chewed, in the crotch of the tree the raccoons like to hang out in, along with coins, plastic toys, a keychain, and assorted other by-products of young children. Which left us with two phones, and neither of them work anymore because the batteries won’t hold a charge.

The family took my mother-in-law out to dinner, then I offered to go to her house and set up the phones. It wouldn’t take more than 20 minutes I figured, but you know where this is leading, don’t you? I’m going to tell you anyway. I get there and we have tea, which was nice and wonderful except my eyelids kept drooping because Mexican food makes me so sleepy, and decaf tea was like drinking a sleep aid.

After the same amount of time that I could have taken a nice nap, we went to the computer room to hook up the phones. I had already charged them for her – 16 hours of fighting off my kids who couldn’t stand that there was a new “toy” in the house that they couldn’t play with.

Turns out the phone I’d be replacing had a power cord that was wrapped together with several other cords all neat and inaccessible. I had to spend an inordinate (long) amount of time getting the cord out of the tangle, then had to put the new power cord back into the tangle and wrap clamps back around them. But I was soon successful at getting the phone plugged in and the telephone line to work.

That’s when the headaches started. I don’t know why gadgets have to be so complicated. I finally had to resort to the instruction manual, which in and of itself was complex enough. My mother-in-law busied herself pushing buttons so that different things lighted up on the phone and occasional interesting noises came out. She went through ten ringtones that sounded like fire trucks, Christmas bells, and police whistles. Who would choose such annoying rings without being tortured into doing it?

We got the ringtones back where we wanted them, set the date and time, though this took many, many tries, and got all the caller ID entries erased because I kept calling with my cell phone to test the latest rings and volumes and racked up quite a few missed call messages on the display of the phone, which was distressing us both. We couldn’t figure out how to erase them, and the manual was being quite obstinate. Finally we found the passage buried on page 496 and followed the instructions to the letter, which was a long process of pressing the menu key, then the delete key, then the key to the city, and the caller ID key. My 20 minute setup had turned into two hours.

When it was all said and done, it was, indeed, all said and done. The phones rang melodiously, the caller ID field was cleared, and we were both exhausted but happy that we saw the job through to the end.

So now my mother-in-law has three new phones, two of which are in her TV room because she doesn’t need another phone anywhere else but we had to do something with it. She’s delighted. As for me, my ears are ringing. Yuk. Yuk. I couldn’t resist.

When You Care Enough to Give the Very Best

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 5, 2010

In Holidays

I mentioned yesterday that I had three birthdays at the first of this month, so tonight I went out to buy cards. I usually go to Hallmark because they have my same sense of humor. Their Shoebox cards are hilarious.

But tonight I was lazy and stopped at a close-by department store. I read card after card and came to a couple of conclusions about a certain card company’s humor: (1) they believe with all their hearts that if the word “fart” is on the card anywhere, it’s funny. There were pigs, cows, and goats passing gas, old women, men, and newborn babies passing gas, and gassy humor about standing too close to a lit birthday cake. I love a good gassy joke more than the next person, but some of these were too juvenile even for me. I just can’t picture a pig holding a long match and talking to a cow about her recent explosion. Sure, cows are known for passing a tremendous amount of methane gas, which scientists believe contributes to global warming because of the millions of cattle on the planet eating grass all day long. With four stomachs that turn grass into gas, each cow is an assembly line for noxious, flammable emissions.

But that is neither here nor there, nor funny either, in my book. Blatant fart jokes don’t appeal to me. What kind of person am I going to give a birthday card to that has an old woman farting and saying, “Hope your birthday is a gas?” The saying went out with Elvis to begin with, and I can tell you that none of my girlfriends, nieces, nephews, in-laws or anyone else would appreciate getting such a card. On the other hand, Hallmark did an amusing spin on this subject that I’ve given to a couple of people. It has two cartoon snakes on the front of the card, and one snake says to the other, “Pull my finger.” Now that’s funny. I’m laughing out loud right now.

This is so funny because it’s subtle – Hallmark assumes everyone who has been a kid in the USA knows what “pull my finger” means. My brother used to ask me to pull his finger all the time. I did it once, and we all know what happened. I was a quick study, and every time after that I said, “NO!” but he never gave up. From about age 5 to 23, I bet I heard that line 80 million times. For that matter, I still hear it.

The other thing that is so funny about that card is, (1) snakes don’t have a finger, and (2) I never knew them to be in the family of gas producers. If you had two bulldogs or pugs on the card, I don’t think it would be as funny. Everyone knows that these breeds would rather pass gas than eat or sleep or scratch or breathe. This is why I like Hallmark cards, they appeal to a little classier consumer, like me, who can appreciate the subtleties of bodily functions and present them in a tasteful way.

Hallmark had another card that I bought for a girlfriend who always gives me mean cards. She’s such a witch. I hate even opening them. She picks out these sweet cards with little flowers and nice sayings, and then you open them and they have some spiteful comment about how old you are. She throws her head back and laughs like a lunatic, then passes it around to everyone so they can laugh at me on my birthday and make me feel horrible. Just kidding, I’ve grown to like the cards now that I know I’m going to be slapped in the face when I open them. So I’m giving this one to her. On the cover it’s got that cartoon old lady, Justine, who says, “You’re not getting old…” and you open it up and it says, “Hell, you were old last year.” Touché!!!!

The other thing I didn’t like about those supermarket cards was their predictability. On one it had a cartoon drawing of a pretty cake and said, “I was going to give you a cake for your birthday…” and then you open it up and, SURPRISE, there’s an empty cake plate with some crumbs and a comment like, “but it was chocolate. Oh well, happy birthday.”0 I can guarantee you that any card starting out with, “I was going to….” will have a “but” on the inside with some lame excuse why you will only get a card and not the thoughtful item mentioned on the front. This simply highlights the person’s cheap, inconsiderate nature. I’ve gotten a couple of these kinds of cards, and you know who they’re always from? Some cheap, inconsiderate bastard who freeloads off of you whenever s/he can and wouldn’t think of being generous for even one day of the year.

Finally there was a card with a sexy guy’s belly in low jeans whipping up some whipped cream on a table about the height of his you know what. Splatters of whipped cream were on his jeans and tanned six-pack. The caption was something about licking it off. I guess this would be humorous to give to a single girl, but it was just so crass I can’t think of any of my single friends I’d give it too. Who wants to lick whipped cream off of blue jeans? Besides, if that idiot was whipping cream in my kitchen and splattering it all over the place, I’d give him a lickin’ all right. I’d scream like a banshee and hand him a sponge and stand over him until he cleaned it all up, then I’d make him take a shower and wash that sticky mess off. But that’s just me.

I finally purchased three of the least offensive cards I could find, but next time I go by Hallmark, I’m going to stock up again so I don’t have to wade through so many tacky cards. And no, I’m not being paid to say this by Hallmark, but if you’re listening, Mr. Hallmark, send me a card – and please enclose cash.

Post Christmas Blues

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 4, 2010

In Holidays

I’ve got the post-Christmas blues. I get ‘em every year because there is so much going on over the holidays – parties to attend, relatives to visit, shopping, cards, trees. Tossed in is my birthday and my husband’s birthday just before Christmas, and then New Years. If I weren’t sick enough of being in stores buying birthday and Christmas presents, along comes my mother-in-law’s birthday and my daughter’s and one of my closest friends, all before mid-January.

What’s given me the blues, though, is the lack of activity, which is pretty crazy because during all the pre-holiday activity, all I can think about is just getting a few moments of peace and quiet. Then when January 2nd and 3^rd come along and a little lull with nothing to look forward to except buying those other birthday presents and getting all the Christmas crap out of my house and back into the attic, I get sad.

Part of the sadness has to do with the stripping down of the house. When I put all my Christmas stuff up, I’m so excited – it’s been boxed up for 11 months and I forget how darned cute all those Santas and snowmen and nutcrackers are. When I put everything out it looks so warm and inviting. But after three weeks, I look at those things and start thinking, “clutter.” There’s a figurine or stuffed reindeer holding a Christmas tree on every surface of the house. A ceramic Christmas teddy bear sits in the kitchen waiting to be filled with cookies, along with assorted holiday towels and cutesy trays. It’s almost like a Santa whorehouse in here. Everything is red and sparkly and cheap looking. I’ve got some fake poinsettias sitting around collecting dust. The little villages everywhere have burned out lights that I fixed for the first couple of weeks but now I don’t care.

But the thought of collecting all this menagerie and trying to get it back into the Christmas tubs is really depressing. I won’t throw anything away, and I get a little bit of new stuff each year, so the laws of physics say those tubs aren’t going to hold everything. I have to rearrange and reposition ad infinitum.

I’ve probably made you sad, too, with my tales of woe. Good. Misery loves company, and I’m in no mood to be cheerful. My daughter and I pulled all the ornaments off the tree, getting pricked continually by needles so dry they felt like syringes. They broke off and fell to the floor in little green waterfalls. I tried to keep the tree wet but let a day go by without watering it, and when I got on my hands and knees the next day to pour water in, I discovered that the poor tree had sucked up every drop of water and the butt of the tree had sealed itself up so it couldn’t drink anymore. You have to keep a juicy tree butt if you want it to stay fresh. The tree stand has been full of water ever since because the tree hasn’t drank a drop.

My house looks like Thing 1 and Thing 2 swept through here with red paintbrushes and green confetti. I dragged the tee, upright and still in the container, through the living room to the sliding glass doors and forced it, crackling and snapping, through the doorway as far as it would go so I wouldn’t spill the water in the tree stand, then tilted it so the water ran out on the patio. There is a trail of faded dry needles six feet wide and eight feet long. Plus I prepared for the dismantling of the decorations by bringing in all the red tubs. There are plenty of them sprinkled throughout the living room.

And I’m going to bed. I’ve done enough and I couldn’t possibly get all this junk put away tonight. I got a late start because I had to get to the mall and buy gifts for all those birthday people.

Is it any wonder I’m sad? But one good thing is that there weren’t many people at the mall – their good sense meant I didn’t have any lines.

I guess even the Christmas blues have a silver lining.

Resting Doesn’t Mean Shopping

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 4, 2010

In Uncategorized

Today I was looking forward to a rest day after all my adventures at the Rose Bowl and long drive. Instead I went to IKEA with my husband because he has been home alone for four days and was stir crazy and wanted any excuse to get out of the house. My plan to lounge on the sofa all day got redirected to wandering through a six square mile store, which had things he wanted in every nook and cranny.

I really like IKEA. The problem is, I’ve got a whole house full of furniture, nicknacks, kitchen utensils, storage equipment, bookshelves, dishes, rugs, fabrics, couches, beds, dining room tables, etc. Immediately my husband saw things he wanted. “Isn’t this a cool vase?” he said, “let’s get it.” “Where are you going to put it?” I answered. “I don’t know, but it would look good in our house.” “Okay, but first figure out where to put it and what has to go to Goodwill if we buy it.”

We went by the rug section and he really liked one of the rugs, but cut me off before I could repeat my objections again by saying, “We’ve got plenty of rugs, don’t we? – rugs on top of rugs.” I smiled – he was catching on quick.

When someone is first starting out, it’s so fun to buy new things that you really need. But when you’ve got everything you need, it’s like going in a candy store when you’ve just eaten a whole cake by yourself. Even though you would love the taste of everything in there, you’re stuffed.

I was exhausted after walking through the store. My husband picked up everything and examined it, mulled over what he’d do with it, then put it back down and picked up something else. My feet started throbbing. Finally we decided on two lamps that I knew would not look good in the house but it was the only way I could get out of there.

Then he decided we should go to Target and look for a long ottoman we could put on the end of the bed so the dog could get up without assistance. The bed is really, really tall, and even though the dog is only nine pounds and stands about ten inches high, she can leap up on the bed if it’s made. However, if you’re in it and the covers are rumpled, she doesn’t think she can clear that extra few inches so she’ll whine for you to lift her up. Which is okay if it’s only one time. But while my daughter and I were at the Rose Bowl, she’d jump off the bed every time a car went by thinking it was us coming home, and then go back to the bedroom whine until my husband lifted her back up. This went on all night long for four days.

So we went to Target and luckily found the perfect ottoman. We had to mosey around and look at some other things too. Which makes me wonder, how come men are in such a big hurry to get out of a store if it’s something you’re looking for, but they’ll fondle every item in sight if they’re the ones looking? We had to take some folding chairs down off the display and sit in all of them, contemplate the value of getting one over the other, and then decided not to get any, which made me dread that he’d propose us going somewhere else.

I’m usually a shopper but, like I said, today I wanted to rest from my trip.

You get home from a trip and you have to unpack, do laundry, wash the dog, straighten the house, answer a new pile of emails and phone calls, vacuum the car, open the mail, and all you really want to do is rest up before going back to the real world.

Ah well, I did my wifely duty of being dragged around shopping today. And sure enough, those lamps look awful, but I think I’m going to just keep them anyway. I sure don’t want to box them back up and return them because that will mean having to go look for them somewhere else, and quite frankly, I’d just not up to it.

Rose Bowl Road Trip

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 2, 2010

In Uncategorized

This is going to be another short post until I can flesh it out, but not tonight. I just got home from a 16 hour road trip from Pasadena to Portland, and I’m beat.

All I can say is that I’d rather walk on hot coals than do another long road trip. I’d rather eat slugs and drink radiator fluid. But it was fantastic fun, and I’d do the whole thing all over again if I could have it exactly like it happened (except I’d have the Ducks win).

It’s good to be home….