Month: June 2010

Baggy Eyes

On June 8, 2010

I have a perplexing problem. I have awakened this morning with bags under my eyes. The perplexing problem is that I ONLY get bags under my eyes if I wake up and then go back to sleep. It doesn’t matter if I’ve only slept 3 hours or if I’ve slept 12 hours, I will not get bags under my eyes if I sit up right away. In other words, for those of you who still give a rip but aren’t comprehending what I’m saying, it is not the lack of sleep but the LACK OF GETTING UP that causes the puffy swelling under my eyes.

Here’s a pop quiz. You don’t know me, but can you guess what one of my top ten favorite things to do in the universe is? If you cannot guess this, you have the brain of a cabbage. Nothing personal, it’s just the truth.

Answer: Lying in bed is one of my favorite things to do, no matter what time I wake up – even if it’s 7:30 and I have a 7:45 appointment. I like listening to the birds, planning my day, trying to remember what day it is, and pretending to stretch my ankles and legs to buy more guilt-free time under the covers.

I could do all of this sitting up, and I do that when I’m going to be seeing people early in the day. By “people” I mean individuals who haven’t seen me looking like this and gasp when they first see these golf balls under my eyes. My family and friends, of course, have seen it and no longer suck in air and bug their eyes when they see me, for the most part.

If I have an early appointment, I have to get straight out of bed, or at least sit up. I’ve been doing this all my life because I got these bags even during college. I can tell you that the last thing I wanted to do after a late night fraternity dance where I’d spent the evening with my favorite party companions, Jack Daniels and Ezra Brooks, was jump out of bed. I found on those occasions that it was way more practical to just stay in bed all day rather than worry about being seen with bags that look like bubble gum bubbles hanging under each eyeball.

I just went to Google to find out why we humans get bags, and Google says it’s because it makes it easier to carry our groceries. I redefined my search and found out that it’s because there is fat under the eyeball that does not want to be discriminated against. The fat under the belly, in saddlebags, under upper arms, etc. gets to show itself day in and day out. Why does the fat under the eyes have to be hidden? That’s what eyeball fat wants to know. So it chooses to show itself, especially as we get older because it gets more and more pissy about it as the years go by.

Google also said the bags come from too much salt or other random excuses that don’t fit my situation. Then they talked about cures, which all sound unpleasant. One is surgery. Not for me, Miss I-Hate-Needles. Another is putting cold tea bags or cold cucumbers on the eyes – or asking someone to cold cock you. The resultant swelling and bruises will distract you from the bags.

The final cure was rubbing Preparation H on the bags. In case you live in outer Peoria and don’t know what this medication is used for, it’s supposed to reduce the painful itching and swelling of hemorrhoidal tissue.

I just went to Google to find out how to spell that word (I don’t want to type it again) and discovered that men are rubbing Preparation H all over their torsos before they go out to clubs at night because tightening things up, they think, will help them “get lucky.”

Now there’s a blog topic! But to end this one, please tell me if you have this same problem and what you do about it. Not the problem of getting lucky, silly, the problem of bags under your eyes after staying in bed. I wonder if going back to bed in mid-morning has the opposite effect – it might get rid of the bags. I’m going to test that out right now and I’ll get back to you.

What Is a Guy’s Guy?

By Suzanne Olsen

On June 7, 2010

In Relationships

I’m still in central Oregon without wi-fi, and continuing with my observation of men.

People say my husband is a “guy’s guy.” What does this mean? I have this vague idea that it’s someone who acts like a stereotypical guy and likes to hang around with other people of the same ilk.

If you try to define ilk, you’ll lose track of this topic, and even though more than anything I want to know exactly what “ilk” means, I have no connection to Google, the source of answers to all my brilliant questions. So I will not stray from the subject, but just this once.

If you want to define how a guy acts, I suppose the list of characteristics would be someone who scratches his privates and spits (as in a baseball player), farts and belches and is comfortable walking around in his underwear (as in Will Farrell), and someone who likes to drink beer and see something naked (as in Jeff Foxworthy – he does this really funny comedy routine about what a guy is thinking. He says, “Ladies, if you want to know what a guy is thinking, it’s simple. All we think about is two things, and nothing else. These are the two things: I’d like a beer and I’d like to see something necked”).

Guy’s guys verge on being uncouth, but they’ve been taught socially acceptable norms. They know how they’re supposed to behave; they aren’t totally white-trash clueless. They just choose to default to the lowest common denominator of behavior, allowing their bodily functions to be the boss of them, and finding great amusement in others who do the same. There is also a laziness in their actions – they will choose to do the easiest thing. Not in all situations – they can be very hard working, but in social interactions they’ll do what’s easier. For instance, it’s easier to look at someone and find a flaw rather than finding something to compliment. They’ll say, “You’ve put on a little weight,” rather than, “That dress is pretty.”

These are stereotypes, yes, but they fit the vast majority of people I’d call guy’s guys. They’re perfectly happy sitting and watching TV, commenting on the stupidity of the plot/actress/Democrat/female politician/woman driver/feminine hygiene product commercial and so on without actually conversing. They like hanging out with other guys and watching TV while doing all those same things. Other comments are generally “what an idiot” or “man, that thing is HUGE” or “look at the tits on her” or something along those lines.

Phil, our host over here in central Oregon where, again today, the sun is shining, does not seem to me like a guy’s guy. I can hear him again in there right now trying to make conversation. There have been long stretches of quiet, but when there are words being said, he’s the one who’s starting them. He’s the kind of guy who takes pictures of his daughters and puts them together in a slide show for their birthdays. He will sit and talk to you about any subject and not act like he’s just putting his time in until he can politely say, “I have to go mow the lawn now.” My husband does this all the time when women are around. Sometimes he’ll mow grass that he just mowed to get out of a conversation with a woman.

In looking at this whole guy’s guy thing under a microscope, I see lots of interesting things – some of which look like cooties. There appear to me to be 3 different kinds of guys. Your guy’s guy as described above (perfect example is Al Bundy in “Married with Children”), and, at the other end of the spectrum, there’s the girly guy, who is gay and is a girl in a man’s body and loves doing things girls love to do, like chitchat, shop, gossip, decorate, flirt, exclaim “OH MY GOD!” every few minutes, and so forth. And then there are men like Phil – cultured, polite, sensitive, romantic, couth, but who also like beer and have, perhaps on rare occasions, passed gas, but only on accident and never in front of guests (I hope).

My question is, what do you call these guys – the not gay guys and not guy’s guys. Let’s all ponder this for a day or two. If you have ideas, please send them in along with your surplus money.

What Guys Talk About

By Suzanne Olsen

On June 7, 2010

In Relationships

I am over in central Oregon right now without wi-fi. If you are reading this it means I found some somewhere, but if this is not on the post day, then it means I found some but not until I got back home.

Finding wi-fi is not always easy. At my own house I’ve looked under the sofa and behind the dresser and couldn’t find it. I’m not even sure what it means. I think the “wi” stands for wireless. So does the the “fi” stand for fireless? These questions weigh heavily on my heart right now.

Here in central Oregon it is sunny, as opposed to western Oregon where the rain drove ANOTHER slug into my house. I put the “another” in all caps to show that it wasn’t the first, and so you could hear the exasperation in my voice. But the weather is not the subject we will be looking at this morning. We’re going to talk about guy’s guys.

We’re staying at a friend’s house, it’s 7:30 a.m. and I’m in the bedroom blogging while my husband and our host are in the living room. I can hear them talking, and they’ve so far touched on the stock market and sports. These are what I’d call typical “guy” subjects.

My husband doesn’t go in for a lot of idle chatter. He uses words functionally. He says things like, “I’m hungry,”or “you’ve told me this before.” The rest of the time, he’s either quietly observing the world or asleep with the remote control clutched in his hand. Our host, however, is a salesperson and used to talking a lot. He’s chatty.

What’s interesting is that women always wonder what men talk about. At least I do. I’m always saying to my husband, “Are you this quiet around your guy friends? When you’re golfing with them for 4 hours, do you just walk along side by side without talking?”

He answers, “We talk when there’s something we need to talk about.”

Right now these guys don’t know I’m awake listening to everything they’re saying. I’ve noticed that Phil has initiated the conversation in every case. He says, “How about those Ducks?” or “Can you believe the stock market?” My husband responds with the obvious comment, like “yeah, can you believe it?” then Phil responds back and they have this little back and forth until that subject is exhausted about 45 seconds later.

So ladies, if you want to know what guys talk about, I can vouch for these two. They aren’t talking about anything worth listening to.

Since I’m having a little vacation, I think that’s enough blogging for one day, but tomorrow I think I’ll blog a little more about men.

PS: I did not find wi-fi, though I looked in every nook and cranny. I’m back home now. Sorry for the lapse in posting.

Ways to Get Rid of Your Surplus Money

By Suzanne Olsen

On June 4, 2010

In News

This morning I went to hang one of my photographs at Starbucks and heard a snippet of an interview on NPR. It was about a lady who started sending requests in the 1980’s to people asking for donations to help bring down America’s debt. She and a bunch of other people sent hand-addressed letters to thousands of people.

What a crazy idea! Asking people who already pay taxes to contribute more money to the gov’ment (that’s how I learned to say it in the south, just like I learned to call the police “the law.” Just thought you’d want to know).

The even crazier thing is that people responded by sending money. These people got thousands of people to send thousands of dollars to help reduce the national debt. After they’d counted it all, they took a month-long trip to Hawaii and spent most of their days being pampered with massages and foot rubs by cabana boys. Ahhhh, doesn’t that sound good?

Of course I’m kidding. That’s how the story would have ended today, because we Americans (pronounce the “mer” in this word like the “mer” in “mermaids” if you want to sound Southern – or should I say like an East Tennessee hick?).

Hand up in the back? You want to know the difference? Let me explain. A “hick” is someone who ain’t got no edgy-cation and thinks possum is the other what meat (insert “white” for “what” if you don’t understand. I think you got that edgy-cation was education. No? Well, it was). So you got your “southern” accent, and then you got your “southern hick” accent.

The difference between the two is in the way the words are pronounced. So a southerner might say the word “education” like this: “ed-u-ki-tion,” so the “southern” part of the word is changing the “ka” sound to a “ki” sound. I changed the “c” to a “k” for 2 reasons. (1), I didn’t want to confuse you by making you think the “ci” was pronounced like “sigh,” and (2) I’m going for a Guinness Book of World Records on how many of these (“) things I can put into the body of one blog.

Where was I? Oh yeah, hick. The difference between a “general” southern accent and a “hick” accent is where the emphasis is on the word and the way it’s pronounced with a wad of Skoal in your mouth.

Let’s hold the questions until the end, because I’m trying to tell you about the lady on the radio. She claimed there are still people sending in donations. Last year they sent 1.3 billion dollars! (or something like that. I’d suggest you do your own fact checking because I can’t vouch for these numbers, this lady, or whether I dreamed all this. It was 5:30 in the morning and I had not yet had my coffee, for crying out loud. Be sure to let me know if I’ve misstated because I truly give a damn).

I can see that we’re running out of time. The point of bringing this up was to inform you that there are people out there with surplus money. It is up to each and every one of you to figure out how you can get your hands on it. When you come up with a way, please don’t hesitate to let me know. Hey, I just had a great idea! If you find that you have surplus money laying around just getting in everyone’s way, don’t keep tripping over it. Send it to me, preferably in a plain brown wrapper. 20’s are nice. It’s for a good cause. You’ll be glad you did.

Rain, Rain Go Away – and Take the Slugs with You

By Suzanne Olsen

On June 2, 2010

In Weather

It has been raining in the Northwest non-stop since October. We realize that it rains a lot here. We take pride in the rain. The University of Oregon athletic teams are called the “Ducks” because everybody around here has “web feet.” Pretty clever.

Every year at this time people in the Northwest start getting really, really sick of the rain. But this year, we got sick about a month and a half ago. It’s too much of a good thing. Even the slugs are sick of it.

If you don’t know what a slug is, it’s a snail without the shell. They are everywhere here because – take a wild guess – they like moisture. When I go out my front door to get the mail, I’ll pass a minimum of 5,000 slugs on the way to the mailbox and back. You have to dodge them because you DO NOT want to step on them because they’ll stick to your foot and leave a permanent slime trail that soap and water, harsh chemicals, or even sandpaper can’t get off. You have to shed that layer of skin before the slime goes away.

How do I know that even the slugs are sick of the rain? Because I have found two slugs in my house. TWO!!! IN MY HOUSE!!!!

These guys are desperate to get refuge. It’s like some mass migration to find a dry spot somewhere…ANYWHERE. I found one on the carpet in the dining room – hundreds of miles (in slug miles) from any entrance. I think he got there by jumping on a passing shoe as it walked by, hoping to get out of a puddle.

I had seen the other one when I went out to get the newspaper earlier in the day. It was on the sidewalk, coming right straight for the front door, traveling at the rate of approximately 2 inches per hour. I stepped around it, but wondered what it would do when it got to the door. There is a small crack under the door, but surely not big enough for a slug to slide through.

A few hours later I found that same slug IN MY ENTRYWAY. I knew it was the same one because they all have different coloration and markings – just like different breeds of dogs. You’ve probably heard of the “banana” slug – the big granddaddy of them all that can grow to be 3 feet long in the Northwest and has been blamed for the disappearance of small dogs or cats. Then there are the finger-length slugs that are about as long as your arm and have brown spots on a tan body.

The slug in my entryway was grayish tan with spots AND stripes, which is an unusual combination. That’s how I knew he was the same one I’d seen earlier heading for my door. He had two little eyes sticking up, checking everything out and wondering where I kept my goldfish. Luckily, I found him before he could wreak much havoc and I scooped him up into a napkin and marched his little slug bottom right back outside and dropped him into the grass. Actually I tried to drop him but he was clinging to that napkin like he’d been super-glued to it. He wanted to stay in the warm, dry house. I shook and shook but he just stared at me with these big, pleading tentacles. At one point I think I saw a tear. Finally I just put the napkin on the ground. The rain pounded it into the earth and the slug slithered off, shaking his fist at me. He was headed straight toward the door again.

If I wake up in the night and that thing has crawled in bed with me and is about to chomp down on my throat, I’m going to be really, really mad.

How a Morning at Starbucks Defined the Dictionary Part 2

By Suzanne Olsen

On June 1, 2010

In Home Life

(In our last episode we left Merriam returning from the bathroom with extraordinarily sweet smelling hands, while Webster was sitting at the table with a mouthful of spoon bread and a maddingly obsessive tickle in his throat.)

…Webster tried to grin. At this very second the tickle brought out the big guns.

It called on the mouth to send reinforcements in the form of saliva. The mouth was more than happy to assist, ordering the saliva to migrate slowly over the tickle like a glacier. Webster, feeling the trickle sliding over the tickle, was defeated by the onslaught and coughed with a mighty roar just as Merriam settled himself into the booth.

The spray from the cough hit Merriam like a shower without one of those flow restrictors on it that you find in old motels. It slammed his head back against the booth with such force that the woman on the other side thought it was an earthquake and ran screaming from into the street where she spotted another Starbucks and went inside to order a replacement latte.

Luckily no one was injured. Courteous Starbucks employees ran over with fresh white towels and wiped Merriam down. He sat wide-eyed, apparently in shock, as they buffed him up like he was at a car wash.

Webster took a long drink of scalding coffee, which laid the tickle to rest – until next time. “As I was saying, we will have the dictionary set up so that words like “winterize” will not have to be defined other than saying something like, ‘making ready for winter.’ If that’s not enough to satisfy them, they can go to the dictionary again and look up winter which we could define as “the season between autumn and spring comprising in the northern hemisphere usually the months of December, January, and February or as reckoned astronomically extending from the December solstice to the March equinox.”

Merriam came out of his trance, buffed up spiffy as a chrome bumper, and said, “Hot damn, word man, you’re brilliant!” He’d forgotten all about the saliva and pumpkin bread shower he’d just been subjected to. “Why, they won’t know what equinox means, and they’ll have to look that up, too.”

“Yes! Yes!” exclaimed Webster, “Now you understand! They’ll have their noses in our dictionary all day long. It will be like a wonderful scavenger hunt, with words as the only clues!”

“We must get on this right away, before someone steals our idea.” Merriam said. “There’s just one thing that I’m confused about.”

“What is it, man, speak up!” said Webster, anxious to get started.

“What does ‘wintercation’ mean?”

“Oh, I’m very excited about that word. Very excited. It’s one I heard in a commercial just yesterday. It combines two words – winter and vacation – into one. Don’t you see the possibilities? We can have these words listed individually, and then we can combine them and people will have to look up both root words!”

“Yes, yes, I see,” said Merriam. “We could combine any number of words and create new words. Let me see if I can come up with one….Here’s one: ‘frenemy.’”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a word I saw on a website – it means a friend who is, at the same time, an enemy,” Merriam said. “They also used the word ‘complisult’ which is giving an compliment which is also an insult.”

“Use it in a sentence,” Webster said.

“You have a nice face except for all the wrinkles,” Merriam said.

“Who-a,” Webster said. “Do you think it’s okay to just take any two words and smash them together like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

“Why not?” Merriam said gleefully. His happy disposition accounted for the ‘Merri’ part of his name.

“By George, you’re right! Why not? Especially since they’ll be paying us by the word!”

So blog readers, you now have the true** story of how to pad out a blog when you’ve run out of ideas. You’ll notice that I turned the word “spunky” into a two-day blog, and for that I give myself credit.

For those of you curious as to the definition of spunky, I will again consult Merriam and Webster, who are hunched over a drawing table playing a game of tic-tac-toe. They say that spunk is “a woody tinder…any of various fungi used to make tinder.” They also said I could look up the words: mettle, pluck, spirit, and liveliness, but I’m okay with that first definition.

As to the original topic of this blog, I noticed that I am more like my mother than I previously thought, and the flaw that I have imitated (unbeknownst to me) was the flaw of being too lenient and trusting. One of my adolescents got into some mischief, and even though adolescents will be adolescents, as they say, it might not have happened if I’d been more suspicious and ruled with an iron fist.

So it is with a mouthful of pumpkin bread (it’s really is good) that I apologize to those people whom I said were lazy. Even us woody tinders fall into the bad habits of our parents, which is not to say we will give up the struggle. We just have to ground ourselves, much like the way I’ve grounded my child for the aforementioned shenanigans, and hope we all learn something from it. **And FYI, none of this is true except, or including, the grounding.