Up In the Air

Greetings from O’Hare airport, where I have some advice for my fellow airfare travelers who seem to have ZERO prior flying experience (and also where I may have had a few too many Starbuck’s latte’s):

• You probably failed to notice this in your catatonic travel-trance, but there’s only ONE exit outta this bird for you and the 123 passengers behind you. Therefore, the proper way to exit a plane does not involve you drawing up sharp (!) as soon as you cross the threshold at the end of the gangplank. Yes – you need to find your connection…No, they do not generally post that information within the first 5 feet of the gate exit. Seriously, I know this feels like a strange-new-airport-world to you, but let’s go boldly in the direction of….traffic, shall we?
• Ummmm….the preceding advice goes for the ladies’ room exit as well
• Airline connection times do not adequately factor in a handicap for tall girls in pumps. I know I should be able to get from gate E37 to gate B24 in 39 minutes [and on casual Friday’s, I can]. However, when wearing anything higher than ballet slippers, I need at least an extra 20 minutes to accommodate the blister-nursing that must occur. Honestly, instead of asking me whether I need a vegetarian meal option, United should ask me to estimate my transition times and schedule connections accordingly.
• Just because they’re not marked does not mean airports don’t have traffic lanes - please respect them.  I don’t care how inviting Auntie Anne’s pretzel stand looks, do not make a left turn from the recycle bin across the way…especially when the tall girl in pumps is in the passing lane beside you.

 I think I will dial down my caffeine on the next trip.

Garage Sale Post-Mortem

Well, it’s done. The garage sale at my mother’s house that my sister and I were assigned to help with [ http://savemethecall.blogspot.com/2010/04/garage-sale.html]  is in the books. And here are a few words of advice for others considering such an event:

• When looking for garage sale assistance, consider someone more capable than me. A five-year-old, for example. Within the first 30 minutes of garage sale prep, I smashed a coffee pot canister, lost the key hanging out of a [locked] filing cabinet and threw away what looked NOT like the critical bracket to the giant awning, but just a piece of plastic. My garage sale contributions were upside down for the remainder of the event.
• The last week of July, also known as heat stroke apogee, is the BEST time to have a garage sale. Deadens the haggling senses.
• As my sister told us, “When you put the ad in the paper, make sure and reference ‘tools’”. McC: But we don’t have any tools. Sis: So what. Including “tools” really packs them in and we’ll just tell them all the tools were sold to the early birds.
• Also in the ad, make sure you put “absolutely no early birds”
• Keep in mind there’s a fine line [a 50¢ sticker, to be exact] between junk and merchandise.
• Do not let the owner of the junk merchandise supervise what gets added to the “sell” (vs. “keep”) stack. Exceptions were granted for too valuable, too new and too old. Why don’t we just call this a used book sale?
• Make sure the proceeds from the garage sale will cover the workers’ wine bill for the week day.

Finally….seriously consider outsourcing.  In my most significant contribution, I convinced my mother that the Goodwill is a “garage sale aggregator”. We may not have earned the $75 we had planned on, but we saved ourselves the knee-slapping good time that accompanies heat stroke. And no early birds.

The Night the Lights Went Out in Socal

Just when I thought I had completely settled into my San Diego digs [it has been 2 years since I moved, afterall] – I have experienced yet another episode of domestic absurdity. A couple of weeks ago, I came home from the gym needing to quickly get ready to go out. It happened to be one of those days here in SoCal where it is 74 degrees outside the house, but 84 degrees inside the house. [as you will recall from my earlier post, we do not have central heat/air. http://savemethecall.blogspot.com/2009/09/heat-wave.html]

So I cleverly thought I would create a freon oasis by ratcheting up both of the mobile air conditioners in the bedrooms [did I mention Rita was out of town?] and closing the hallway doors – my own walk-in cooler.

When I stepped outta the shower, I was alarmed not to hear the reverberation of jet engines taking off, which happens to be the oh-so-easy-to-sleep-to sound that the air conditioners make when running. The first thing I thought is “oh great, I blew a fuse.” Or fuse(s). Or the mother-of-all fuses that controls every stinkin room in the house except the kitchen. [sigh] The second thing I thought is “hmmm, I wonder where the hell the fuse box is” [what am I – A Real Housewife of Florida Canyon??? How do I not know where the fuse box is??]. The third thing I thought of was [of course] “call Nic”. [I resisted that last one.] After walking around the house for 30 minutes, however, checking. Every. Single. Vertical. Surface, I still had not found the $%#$@* fuse box. So my next thought was…. “Better hammer-call Rita”. [Because if someone is too busy to answer their phone the first time, they probably just need you to call them 7 more times.]

Unfortunately, my adorable neediness was NOT immediately rewarded with a call back from Rita, so I had to finish getting ready in the sauna-like kitchen...although…to my credit, I did resist the urge to get ready amidst the escaping coolness of the opened refrigerator.

Later that night, when Rita called me back, her first comment was “Honey, you can’t run both of those at the same time”. Hot, frustrated and now…volatile…”ummm thanks for that enlightenment?!? [sarcastic pun intended]…Were you afraid I wouldn’t connect the 200 lb air conditioning dots?” [Just a word of advice…when your lifeline calls you back, you should probably ratchet down the unwarranted surliness.]

The good news? I learned where the fuse box was (on the backside of the garage…how intuitive). The bad news – I couldn’t get the industrial-grade bastard open. [Real housewife indeed.] The even worse news? I had to go to the airport the next morning at 5 am [i.e., before the light-giving sun was up]. I’m a lousy packer anyway, but force me to pack by the light of my blackberry and it just isn’t pretty. [You know what you forget when you pack in the pitch black? Sunglasses, that’s what. I’m sure I won’t need those in Nashville anyway.]

I did feel better the next morning when John the Taxi Driver couldn’t open the fuse box either. But that’s the dog-sitter’s problem, now isn’t it??

Irish Twins

Some of you have heard this story already…

For my sister’s 40th birthday, I decided to put together a scrap book of old photos from when she was a kid. Since my sis is only 11 months older than I am [awk, my wee Irish Twin], most of her kiddie pics inevitably include me somewhere in the shot. Which is only fitting since most of the time we were dressed. Exactly. The. Same. You see, my mother made all of our clothes. As in....measure the kids, cut the fabric, sit in front of the sewing machine…make the clothes. [Are you kidding me? I can barely get my blouse buttoned straight and mom made every single outfit my sister and I wore during the 1970s?? Who’s child am I, anyway?]

Mom would buy one sewing pattern and make two outfits from it [unfortunately, even though I was younger…I always had to have the pattern adjusted out] So starting when I was about 3 years old, all the photos of me and sis include the two of us dressed alike. Except in every picture, Nic always looks cute as a button…blonde little ponytails, ribbons to match her outfit, white bobby socks…adorable. I, on the other hand, would have on the same little gaucho outfit as Nic [remember gauchos??], except my collar would be inside my shirt, my hair would be sticking up over some cut in my forehead and Pony’s had replaced my patent leather shoes. We consistently looked like “before” and “after” models. In one picture I was even wearing shorts under the skirt mom had obviously forced me to wear [I was a skort prodigy].

Then in about 1980, it all comes to a grinding halt. Either I just got too big [not tall] to make outfits for or mom finally figured out she could save herself 14 hours of sewing by spending $1.99 on kids’ clothes at Wal-Mart. Either way, individuality reigned..…unfortunately. So there I am, in the picture from the 1980 neighborhood Christmas party wearing a tan leisure suit and brown paisley shirt collar. The shoes didn’t make the shot, but if I had to guess….Hush Puppies. Are you kidding me??? And some people think gayness is a choice. If so, I was a pretty decisive 9 year-old.

Thank god I didn’t go any further with the pics. I have a terrible memory of a 1981 Halloween costume that involved an FBI outfit that I don’t care to revisit.

Dora the Explorer

For my birthday party a few weeks ago, Rita and I were trying to figure out something different we could do for the festivities….a sort of half-time between margaritas and more margaritas dinner. Rita decided to sponsor a Dora the Explorer piñata. Now…15 white girls swinging at a Spanish-speaking schoolgirl could be considered culturally insensitive. However, this particular Dora the Explorer looked less like a Latina adventurer and more like….well…the birthday girl:

Dora the Explorer bore more rapporta with the birthday senora. [Should you be worried if your birthday party involves an effigy? Ominous.]

The next step was deciding what prizes to use with Dora. [Candy, puh-lease. Know your audience, I say.] After much deliberation [and more expenditures than we had planned for], we complimented the candy filling with lottery tickets, rice krispie treats and little plastic bottles of "airplane" alcohol. We even included a couple of corks that could be redeemed for wine from Rita’s collection.

As the birthday girl, I got to take the first swing. Just a note of advice for those of you contemplating a piñata at your own festivities…when tomboys swinging a stick are involved, you MAY want to install some obstacles to make the game last longer than one batter. I would have thought the plentiful margarita’s would have been a sufficient handicap, but apparently this group I had some experience swinging a bat post-margarita [gotta love those church leagues]. Even with a healthy buzz, I de-legged poor Dora on the first swing. Luckily, the legs were stapled on and didn’t yield any of the good stuff, but poor Dora did NOT survive til the clean-up batter.

It turns out...people’s true colors come out when they are scampering for piñata loot. In fact, I think a black market developed in the driveway alongside the Dora carcass. [It turns out that one alcohol nip is worth 2 lottery tickets, all the rice krispie treats were cornered by the birthday girl and Julie will throw an elbow for a shot at Rita’s wine collection]. And I’m not naming names, but when we got Deb’s coat for her at the end of the evening, it was weighed down with 10 lbs worth of airplane alcohol [that’s right, we wear coats on July 9th – how’s the weather where you are? =)]

We’re STILL finding little bottles of Bailey's amongst the climbing vines down the driveway [Julie really swung for the fences].

One hot party

Rita & I were in Michigan this past weekend for a 40th birthday party. That party was positively….incendiary. And while it was one HOT party, I mean incendiary in terms of…”Did you see Ruth catch her hair on fire last night?”

First of all, no birthday candles were harmed in the making of this blog. Second of all, as far as hair burns go – it really was pretty minor. I’ve done worse myself [granted…I was five years old, but the key thing to remember is it all grows back.] Most importantly, Ruth was laughing about it, so I feel like I can too [plus I don’t know her and I hope no one tells her about this blog]. Out of the experience, I came away with some specific advice that we all could benefit from:

First: For those of you thinking of hosting a party in your home, I recommend that you not ensconce the fireplace mantle in a row of beautiful [but apparently dangerous] burning candles. Either that or you only invite really tall, really short or really bald party goers. Who knew there was a surprising risk that someone will lean their head back, perhaps to get the perfect angle on a picture, and dunk their hair into open flame like they were at the apple-bob at the county fair?

Second: It turns out that when the back of your head catches fire, you may be the last to know. Therefore, friends who begin beating you about the [admittedly on fire] head should probably explain themselves first. Otherwise, the enflamed guest believes herself to be under random attack, which only leads to other, completely unrelated, issues [“I told you if you ever hit me again you crazy bitch…”]
Third: I don’t care how insensitive it was, “the Ruth, the Ruth, the Ruth is on fire” was simply the best line of the night [after it was extinguished, of course!]

My final piece of advice? If you accidentally set your hair on fire at a party [and who hasn’t?] in addition to perhaps paying more attention to your surroundings, you should probably wait until morning [when slightly fewer cocktails have been consumed] to begin cutting out the damage. Turns out that scissors can do WAY more damage than flames.

R I P

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while….I’ve been in mourning since I quit working. Turns out it’s not the hustle or the bustle that I miss…not the job…or the people – it’s the to-do list.

Those of you who are “listers” know what I’m talking about. When I was working, I had an elaborate listing [and re-listing] system that kept everything on a tightly wound schedule [air traffic control for the counting of beans]. That’s right, I can’t remember to pack my power cord half the time, but I can keep track of what a dozen direct reports are doing every hour of the day…because it is written on a little yellow notecard…in black ink…in size 3 font…prioritized as an A, B or C (in pencil). [I’m revealing too much, aren’t I?]

I’ve tried to keep the to-do list feeling going even while I’m not working, but it just isn’t the same. I only have 11 things on the list right now and one of them is “wish my brother happy birthday”. First of all, his birthday is still two days away. Second of all, it’s the same day as mine…do I really need to write it down to remember it? [but I can’t cross it off if I don’t write it down!].

Rita was working on the plane ride home Monday and I think I was actually getting to-do list envy. There she was, adding item after item, in neat little hand writing.  Dammit. I took out my own to-do list and wrote down “buy black pens”.

Rita keeps trying to give me a to-do list for the house, but me being home not only doesn’t result in anything getting crossed OFF the list, it actually makes the list longer. [“get broken coffee maker fixed; replant tomato plants that McC told the gardener to pull out”].

Oh well, I’ve got to run now or else I won't be able to cross off "Watch World Cup Soccer" from my to-do list.