Archive for May, 2009

3 Tips for Wedded Bliss (No Sharing of Feelings Required)

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Wedding season is officially upon us. I attended a beautiful wedding just last weekend (my cousin’s) and it got me thinking…what have I learned from being married lo these many (almost five) years?

Now, I believe you should talk your feelings out, and never go to bed angry, and share, and not keep secrets, blah blah blah. All true. But what I could have used as a newlywed were some truly practical tips for sharing your home and your couch with another strange, quirky, often messy human being, 24/7, without freaking out. So, here are my ultra-practical tips for a happy marriage. Feel free to add your own in the comments section!

Check the pockets. I don’t care who’s doing laundry, whose “turn” it is to do the laundry, or which person’s laundry you’re actually doing. Before you, personally, insert a garment into the washing machine, check the pockets and remove anything you find. You’re always better off without an unexpected pocket object floating around in the wash – whether it’s a Kleenex, a lipstick, or your spouse’s paycheck. In fact, you’re so much better off that it actually does not matter who left the object in the pocket, or how many times you have nagged that person about this behavior. The nagging won’t work. Checking works every time. And sometimes you find good stuff in there. Meaning cash money. Whatever you find goes in YOUR pocket. That’s the rules.

Share your money. Put it all in one big account. Then keep track of it online, because with two people going around with debit cards, you are never, never ever, going to even come close to getting all the receipts back so you can balance your checkbook. Even if you meet your spouse at the door and empty his/her wallet like some debit card Gestapo, you’ll never get them all. There will always be a receipt stuck in the console of the car, or (gasp) stuffed into a pants pocket in the bottom of the hamper. Then the checkbook will never come out even, and you’ll be cranky.

Make your spouse do it! You’ve got a whole other fully functional adult in your house now. If you have something you really hate doing (or are really bad at), the other person can do it! For example, my husband and I used to go grocery shopping together. Bob hates food shopping, because he never quite believes he is getting a good deal. There’s always the possibility it might be a nickel cheaper somewhere else. I, on the other hand, don’t care. I comparison shop with the circulars, but I’m not going to spend a dollar in gas driving across town to save a quarter on a can of refried beans. So we struck a bargain – I’d take care of the shopping, and he’d handle changing the cat litterbox. Seems totally fair to me.

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Flea Market Madness

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

My husband and I are fortunate individuals. We live just minutes away from a major flea market. Any weekend day when the weather’s above, say, 40 degrees and it’s not actively hailing out, you’ll see people down there buying and selling. This past weekend, we packed up a truckload of junk and joined them.

We soon learned that there are two distinct types of person at the flea market: Those, like ourselves, who, craving more space in their homes, care mainly about unloading their stuff. We’re the people who are tempted to say, “I’ll pay YOU to take this,” when someone shows more than a passing interest in the giant metal satellite dish pole. We just want it gone. At the end of the day, our goal is an empty pickup truck.

Then there are your professional flea-market entrepreneurs, who will actually purchase items, on purpose, just so they can sell them at another flea market. Or even the same flea market, two tables over.

I learned this firsthand when I’d taken a break from the selling, and I was wandering around the flea market flipping through libraries of DVDs and poring over NASCAR licensed fleece throws, when I started to recognize my own items at other people’s displays. Hey, could that be my copy of Adam Sandler’s Going Overboard? And some of these knick-knacks look really familiar….

“Dear, guess what I sold while you were gone?” Bob said when I returned.

“Let me guess,” I replied.

Flea markets also tend to attract some very talkative folks. I got hairstyle advice from a guy selling Star Trek memorabilia, free lipstick from a lady who bought some of my paperback books, and many stories of beloved pet birds, now gone on to their eternal reward. (We were selling a parakeet cage for $10, because my beloved budgie passed away last year. It was a hot item, and really got the conversation going.)

When the day was done, we’d netted $90. Minus our booth rental fee ($10) and our lunch from the nearby restaurant ($18), this was still pretty good for four hours’ worth of sitting there. But the experience and the memories…priceless!

Bob

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The Bee Tree and Me

Friday, May 15th, 2009

To you this tree may look like an ordinary redbud, but to me it is the Bee Tree, because every spring it fills up not only with bright pink flowers, but with pure, concentrated evil. Er, I mean bees.

A Very Evil Tree

If you know me personally, or if you’ve been out in public in northern Indiana and observed a weird screaming woman running from what appears to be nothing, you know I have a severe fear of bees.

This phobia began in early childhood, in the state of Rhode Island, an area of the country that holds only two clear memories for me: The arrival of my baby brother, and Getting Stung by a Bee. I was about 4, and I’d reached into some kind of shrub to pick a flower.

Later, living in Maryland – which I came to think of as The Land of Evil Honeysuckle Bushes – the trauma deepened. When it got hot out and the school air conditioners were useless, well-meaning teachers would open the classroom windows in hopes of a breeze, windows with honeysuckles beneath them. Honeysuckle is like crack for bees. So invariably, a crazed bee or two would get in. Well, I could not concentrate with a Bringer of Doom cruising around the room. (No wonder I got a D in Math that year….)

One scorching afternoon I was standing at Field Day, innocently waiting my turn to run some relay race, and one of those big black-and-yellow fur-covered bees with a buzz louder than an F-14 landed on the front of my shirt. I stood there, speechless with fear, waiting for it to fly away, praying please don’t sting me please don’t sting me. It marched across my shirt, past my raised arm, and around to the back of my shirt, where it just decided to hang out for a while. Or not! I didn’t hear it fly away. Couldn’t see it. Was too scared to ask one of my classmates for fear they’d scare it or smack it and it would sting me.

When my turn came, after a few moments of sick panic that surely cost my team the win that day, I finally took off running, waiting for that sting that I knew would take me down! But the sting never came. The bee had flown away, taking small pieces of my sanity with it.

When we moved to Florida, which is well-known as The Land of Dangerous Nest-Building Insects, I always had a can of that bug spray on hand that shoots a stream of killing power 20 feet in length. Bees and wasps in Florida will nest in any object that’s outside for longer than, say, 10 minutes. You gotta be ready.

So it’s with amusement and irony – and an underlying layer of cold fear — that I look out at the Bee Tree in my backyard. As long as there’s a window between us. And a can of Spectracide at the ready.

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Posted in Gardening, Humor | No Comments »

Dude, Pass Me My Foam Finger

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Two weeks ago, my husband bought a Harley. That was when he officially became one of the guys who, as a teen, I was not allowed to date. (Motorcycle Guy and Van Guy were the two types of guy against which my parents voiced strong objections.)

Shortly after he purchased this vehicle, he started asking me when I was going to ride it with him. I had all the appropriate equipment – a DOT-approved helmet, a heavy leather jacket, boots, and an official Harley-Davidson girly shirt with little rhinestones on it. Ready as I was gonna get.

Monday, we went for our first ride together.

Me: “Is my helmet on tight enough?” Him: “Yes.”

Me: “Do I lean with you or against you on turns?” Him: “Don’t lean at all.”

Me: “So, not the opposite way from what you’re leaning, either?” Him: “No. Don’t lean at all.”

Me: “Do you think this seat-back is all the way bolted on? Like, maybe they just put it on for the showroom and never –” Him: “It’s bolted on.”

Me: “So what do I do if you have to stop suddenly?” Him: “Hold on.”

Me: “To what?”

Me: “Aaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Our first ride lasted about an hour. We cruised down the backroads of rural LaPorte County, avoiding potholes and looking at the scenery, which at this time of year consists mainly of blooming trees and unplanted cornfields. Somewhere, someone was burning last year’s leaves or starting a bonfire. On a motorcycle, you really notice how different the outdoors smell as you’re flying past. (Note to Mom, Dad, and law enforcement: By “flying,” I mean “obeying the posted speed limit.” Really.)

I found out later that, despite our 52 miles of riding, that motorcycle ownership is really not about riding the actual motorcycle. It is about living the “biker lifestyle,” by which I mean cleaning and polishing the bike. This seems to be the main activity involved in motorcycle ownership. Every evening since buying this thing, my husband has retired to the garage to improve the appearance of his “chrome” (the shiny silver parts). This very manly activity invariably attracts other neighborhood guys to the area, which also seems to be a big part of The Biker Lifestyle – large groups of burly men discussing things like “baffles.”

As we congregated in the garage to observe the nightly polishing of the chrome, my husband made the following statement to the guy standing next to me:

“Dude, pass me my foam finger.”

This was a special polishing mitt he had been using to buff the chrome. But I thought to myself, how else but by living the Biker Lifestyle could you hear words put together just that way? So I said, “Dude, that is so going in my blog.”

Allison on motorcycle

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Posted in Humor | 2 Comments »

So, Like, What Do You DO on Twitter?

Friday, May 1st, 2009

“I want to get on Twitter. But…I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”

I’ve heard this question many times from people I’ve worked with on media projects. At first, Twitter seems simple. Sign up, find and “follow” your friends, and then post 140-character “tweets” that answer the question, “What are you doing?”

Simple. Yet so complex! Because while thousands of people do just that, every minute clever folks find a new use for this functionality: Breaking news, spreading content virally, organizing events, tracking the spread of swine flu, keeping tabs on Oprah Winfrey…. Well, you get my point.

What DO we do on Twitter? The answer is…in all seriousness, EVERYTHING. You can do anything and everything you want on Twitter, provided you do not break one cardinal rule: Do not be annoying. At least, not consistently.

OK: Use Twitter to answer the question, “What are you doing?” Hey, this is how it was designed. Example: Watching reruns of Eight Is Enough.
Annoying: Answer the question, “What are you doing?” every few seconds, in minute, disgusting, and/or boring detail: Clipping my toenails. Unless the boringness is so boring that it becomes, in itself, intriguing. Because gross as it might be, Clipping my toenails and watching reruns of Eight Is Enough makes a fine tweet.

OK: “Follow” your friends and folks who look interesting. (Such as the Pizza Hut interns. Hey, they might have coupons! By the way, follow me on Twitter!)
Annoying: Follow everyone who follows you. This will just annoy you, because your friends’ updates about their kids’ tee-ball games and how they felt about last night’s Survivor blindside will quickly get pushed to the bottom of your screen by the stream of tweets of a bunch of Twitter-happy people you don’t even know, who you just followed because they followed you and you wanted to be polite.

OK: Use Twitter to occasionally post links to new and interesting content you’ve created.
Annoying: Use Twitter constantly as your personal announcer. New blog post! New quiz I made! Click here and check out this cool site! Links once in a while are okay, but no one wants to have to click on every tweet. Don’t go link-crazy. Especially if they’re your links.

OK: Always make your tweets interesting: Parked in my hammock, sipping sangria.
Annoying: Always make your tweets beg a question: Parked in my hammock, sipping sangria, and pondering the horrible news I just got. What happened? Are you okay? Is somebody dying? Did you get laid off? What? What?!? And then it turns out to be something stupid, like the American Idol results show. Don’t incite panic. That’s annoying.

OK: Re-tweet (that is, repost something someone else posted) stuff that is super-cool.
Annoying: Re-tweet everything. While Re-Tweet Guy can be your best friend if you’re promoting yourself – which you’re doing, but only occasionally, right? — people DO want to hear what you, yourself, have to say. Even if it involves Eight Is Enough reruns.

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Posted in Humor, Media, Twitter, productivity | 3 Comments »