March Column for Michiana House & Home Magazine: Walk this way

My parents moved into their home on July 28, 1972. I know this because it was the day my mother was due to have me however, I did not feel like attending the festivities. Evidently I was not too excited about joining the planet or the prospect of having my own room because I didn’t show up the following day, the day after, or the day after that.

A week later, my mother was tired of hauling me around inside of her and so she called my aunt to come over and take her for a walk. Apparently a walk is the kind of thing that can encourage nature to take its course, but by the time my mother waddled around the block, she was no closer to having me than she was before.

However, it was enough time for an entire crew of contractors to set up camp on the lawn and reduce the front sidewalk to rubble. It was the kind of productivity that would impress any homeowner…if they had ordered the concrete work in the first place.

“What are you doing?” My mother asked the foreman.

“We’re installing your new sidewalk, lady,” he replied, rattling off an address that belonged to our next-door-neighbor.

To this day, I don’t know how they managed to misread the giant numbers posted near the front door, but they did and now there was a giant gaff. My mother was furious that her new home looked like a wreck. The neighbor was mad that her new sidewalk was being installed on the wrong property and how my mother didn’t go into labor right on the spot remains a mystery to me.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get it taken care of at no cost to you,” the foreman assured her, eyeballing her stomach.

And that’s exactly what they did. My parents got a new sidewalk at no cost. My neighbor got a huge discount on her project for the inconvenience and when I arrived a week later, they all had me to thank for it. Naturally, my mother recounted the story of my birth many times over the years, and there are several humorous anecdotes that are part of the saga: My father taking the time to shave and stop for gas on the way to the hospital and how I managed to have an accident all over myself on the way out of my mother’s body, but my favorite story is how my delayed arrival resulted in a free sidewalk proving good things come to those who wait.

 

 

 

 

 

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December 2016 column Michiana House & Home Magazine: Shoot The Dog

         My grandfather believed in putting production into everything that he did. Although he never performed onstage, he possessed the personality of a vaudeville showman and he never missed an opportunity to infuse a little “razzmatazz” into all of his projects. Never was this more evident than the year he bought my grandmother an automatic garage door opener for Christmas.

It was the early 1970s and a time in which such a gizmo was viewed with the same kind of gee whiz wonderment we reserve for keyless ignition systems and talking refrigerators. Garage door openers were expensive. They were considered a luxury and not something everyone could afford. In fact, it you were fortunate to possess such a device, it was a sure sign that you had saved your pennies.            Grandpa decided that the best way in which to surprise grandma with her gift was to install it that morning and then take her out to the driveway for a demonstration after the family arrived that afternoon. Unfortunately, he ran into a few technical problems and had to call in the reinforcement: my father. Needless to say my mother was none too pleased that dad had to go over to his parents’ house on Christmas morning while she was left to get herself and two kids ready, pack the car with gifts and cook her contribution to the holiday meal.

However if my mom was angry, that was nothing compared to grandma’s fury! She was so mad that grandpa and dad were holed up in the garage that she kept up a running monologue about her displeasure for most of the day. She only stopped when the dynamic duo came in to eat dinner and participate in the gift exchange. Then she said nothing at all.

Finally, when the wrapping paper, ribbons and bows were cleared away, grandpa led his thoroughly ticked off wife to the driveway where she was greeted by a stuffed toy poodle laying in front of the garage door. Grandpa handed her a small plastic water pistol. “Go ahead Ruthie, shoot the dog.” He stood behind her and pulled the small remote control from his pocket.

Grandma took aim and pulled the trigger as grandpa hit the button in his palm. The garage door opened and the stuffed poodle rose, revealing a sign that said, “Merry Christmas.” She fired again and grandpa closed the door. Up and down, up and down…I don’t know how long it took grandma to realize what her present was or what was really causing it to function, but her anger melted away and she was delighted by grandpa’s thoughtfulness.

Though I have never instructed someone to shoot an animal (stuffed toy or otherwise) I have been known to organize holiday scavenger hunts, pull out last minute surprise presents and conceal something extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary. You are never too old to enjoy the enchantment of the season, so it’s important to create a little Christmas magic whenever you can.

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October 2016 column Michiana House & Home Magazine: Wide Awake in Dreamland

       Everyone has his or her own unique was of dealing with stress. Some people are emotional eaters. Some go for a long run or walk while others swear by the concept of “retail therapy,” but I am a bit unconventional…I sleepwalk.

I’m not really sure when my nighttime jaunts began, but I know I didn’t do it as a child. That was my brother’s department. I vividly remember the night in which he padded down the hall and wandered into the kitchen in order to throw his pillow in the trashcan. On another occasion, he removed the drawers from his dresser and stacked them on his desk in a configuration that can only be described as “modern art.” There was also the time that he got up at 1 a.m. thinking it was time to deliver his afternoon paper route. He nearly made it out the back door before my dad caught him and put him back to bed.

When I sleepwalk, it’s just as scary. I am incapable of navigating the layout of my own home. I see people who aren’t there. I try to unlock doors that don’t exist and in my most recent escapade, I stood over my son’s bed and stared down as him as though he were lying in a casket.

“If your planning to audition for the next Paranormal Activity movie, I think you’ll get the part,” he told me the following morning.

“What are you talking about?” I asked him.

Evidently, I got out of bed to visit the bathroom, but for reasons unknown, I chose his facilities rather than my own. This required me to jump over the dog gate at my bedroom door. According to Boy Wonder, when I finished my business, I didn’t go back to bed but rather, took a tour of the entire second floor of my house. I went into my office and sat in my chair for a while. I wandered across the hall to the spare bedroom and for a grand finale; I entered his bedroom and spun around before paying my respects at his supine body.

“Seriously, I don’t know how you did any of that in the dark without killing yourself in the process.” He said as he concluded his tale. “It was really impressive. Frightening, but impressive.”

While I would love to tell you that the story has been wildly exaggerated for dramatic purposes, I know he’s telling the truth. I have a vague memory of needing to use the bathroom and then being in his room…I’m just glad I didn’t confuse the latter with the former. That would not have ended well.

“Oh no, you made it into the bathroom just fine,” he assured me. “As for everything else, I don’t know what you were doing. You just kept saying you were looking for something.”

“Did I tell you what I was looking for?” I asked.

“Yeah…you said you needed to find a pillow.”

I should have checked the trashcan.

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September 2016 column Michiana House & Home Magazine: Act Now

        I ordered a set of bath towels and ended up with a stalker. I’m not joking. I was young. I was newly married and I was trying to establish my credit at a time when companies did not issue Visas to anyone breathing oxygen.

And so…I ordered the towels: Four bath towels, four hand towels, eight washcloths and two fingertip towels (I am not totally sure what that is.) There was also a set of swan shaped salt-and-pepper shakers that were included as a bonus “free” gift as a thank you for your order. Naturally this was all available for the low, low price of (say it with me) $19.99 plus shipping and handling. I can’t remember the final total now, but I was expected to cough up four monthly payments of $6 and change.

But then, I couldn’t get rid of these people! Every day my mailbox was full of their catalogues, postcards and not-to-be-missed offers that I literally had to move out of the state in order to escape. Sometimes I got multiple, but uniquely different catalogues in the same day’s delivery. It was nuts.

I won’t mention the company’s name because I appreciate their special brand of capitalism, but after a while their persistence was a little creepy. The copy on their mailings addressed me by name and referred to my previous purchase as if it were the single greatest coup since Jefferson bought Louisiana! It was bath towels. Cheaply made, fall-apart-in-the-washing-machine-after-ten-showers bath towels! I had to wonder how they would react if I actually became a repeat customer. I had a feeling they would become so giddy with appreciation that they might decide to move in with me!

I really don’t know what possesses a company you have never heard of to send out one random catalogue or post card in hopes that you bite on whatever they are selling. And if you are crazy enough to put down some hard earned money on their unique products, then you have a friend for life. Not only that but they tell their friends about you and they all send you their publications in hopes of finding out just how gullible you are.

For 20 years, I managed to elude them. I had to buy a new house nearly a thousand miles away and enter the witness protection program, but I didn’t hear from them at all. To be honest, I thought the company along with their inexpensive home décor had long gone out of business, but then one night…I saw a commercial for them on television. Television! They’re baaaaaaccck!

I held my breath until the commercial was over, but I no longer feel completely safe. I’m starting to see their ads creeping into my local weekly circular and a few mailings addressed to “occupant.” I am not taking any chances. I refuse to take their bait, or even let them know that they are swimming in the right pond. They may have gotten me once hook, line and sinker, but I am not going to let them reel me in again.

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August 2016 Column Michiana House & Home Magazine: The Approaching Storm

        When I bought the storm door, I should have known there were going to be problems. After the closet door debacle, the Christmas tree light fiasco and an assortment of other home improvement nightmares, you would think I would learn. What can I say? I’m a hopeless optimist.

Things got off to an auspicious start with an intense “discussion” involving the saleswoman and the door’s advertised price. When I didn’t get anywhere with her, I broached the subject with the cashier which led to a staff meeting between two more associates, the store manager and the previously mentioned woman in the door department. A half hour later, my door was ordered and I made my way out to the parking lot…accidentally leaving behind over $50 in change that took two days to get back.

Two weeks later, the door arrived and I went to pick it up. That’s when I discovered the box was wider than my trunk by two inches. I called everyone I could think of who might have a truck and who could come and help me but it was Friday night and no one was home so I finally decided to throw money at the problem and have it delivered. I would tell you about the complicated paperwork involved in what seemed to be a simple solution to the problem, but suffice to say, it would turn Gone With the Wind into a short subject and I don’t have that level of time.

Over the next twelve hours, my husband kept insisting that before we could install the new door, we would have to modify the existing framing in order to make it fit. Now, I love the man but he makes me nervous when he tries to modify anything beyond a noun. He has a long-standing history of making mountains out of molehills and failing to measure twice and cut once so it’s no surprise that it took two days for him to buy the wrong board three times, nail it to the door jam, fill in the cracks with wood putty, sand it and paint it to match the rest of the frame. The manufacturer of the door claimed the whole thing could be installed in 45 minutes. (Dear Andersen, we should all have your level of faith.)

However, the door is now in place and for the most part, there is little left to do. Oh I still have to take back the $50 handle I was told to buy because the door didn’t come with one. (They lied.) And there is a small one-and-a-half inch space between the jam and the storm door, which is big enough to let in every bug and rodent in America, but my husband doesn’t seem overly concerned. We simply have to buy one small thing to adjust it. He swears this is no big deal but the Vegas odds makers disagree. I sense the storm isn’t over and you may want to place your bets.

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July Column Michiana House & Home Magazine: My Firework

       The earliest memory I have of my Aunt Sandy is set against the backdrop of a Fourth of July family cookout we had at her Irvington home. I was very young, between four and five at the most, but I distinctly remember the event. As my brother and I played Frisbee in the backyard, my aunt burst out of the back yard, clapped her hands together and asked, “Can we get a three-handed game going here?”

This amazed me for two reasons. 1.) It was the first time I remember an adult actually wanting to play with me, and 2.) I was unaware that my aunt even knew how to toss a Frisbee!

Eventually I would learn that my Aunt Sandy, who was as colorful as a firework knew how to do a lot more than that. She had an independent spirit and over the years, she taught me how to crochet, cross-stitch, make a meat loaf and a sure fire way for keeping rabbits out of my garden. She was a glass-half-full type who always found something to compliment whenever she stopped by for a visit, she told the best stories and although she was a very active adult, she always knew how to be in the moment.

Although she was not the kind of person for idle chitchat, whenever I called her, she always made a little bit of time for me. More often than not, I was calling to read her a draft of one of my columns for MHH. Whenever I wrote about my mom, dad or grandparents, especially if it were an over-embellished re-telling of a factual event, I worried that I might go too far and I wanted her to sign off on it, so to speak.

As soon as I began reading the copy, she’d start laughing. She had a great laugh. It was deep, throaty and genuine and I knew if she laughed, I must have hit a home run. She was my biggest fan and these columns would not be the same without her.

Not long ago, I received a call from my cousin telling me that my aunt had passed. Evidently she’d been ill for most of the year, but didn’t want anyone to worry about her. I saw her for the last time at my house in February. She walked into the living room, praised my housekeeping skills, laughed at my cookbook collection (even though I don’t cook) and asked if I was working on a new column.

“Always,” I told her.

“Good,” she said. “I love the way you write.”

She certainly did and as part of her final arrangements, she requested that I deliver her eulogy. It was a command performance that I couldn’t refuse and yet, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. The words were easy, of course it’s always easy to talk about someone you love…the hard part is realizing they are no longer there to bounce things off of or tell you when you got it right.

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January 2017 column Michiana House & Home Magazine: The Dixie Cup Debacle

     When my mother and father were married in the early ‘70s, they moved into an apartment a few blocks away from the neighborhood where they would eventually buy a home. It was a tiny cracker box of a place with scant furnishings and few accouterments however it did have something that was a bit of a luxury at the time and the envy of every kid who came to visit: A Dixie cup dispenser in the bathroom.

Now, my folks did not entertain much, but their frequent guests included my male cousin who happened upon the cup dispenser, mastered its features and decided to share the discovery with his three sisters.

“Psst, guys…come here, you have to see this…it’s amazing,” he hissed while gesturing wildly. The trio scampered into the bathroom, gathered around the innovation and marveled at it as though it were the Eighth Wonder of the Modern World.

“What is it?” One of the girls asked.

“Then you take a cup from it, a new one appears in its place every time. It’s like magic!” the boy declared. He yanked a cup from the dispenser, got an ounce of water from the tap and gulped it like a shot before throwing it into the pastic trash bin with a flourish. His dramatic demonstration was rewarded with a round of enthusiastic applause.

“Ooh, I want to try it!” His oldest sister said.

“Me too!” Another replied.

“No, me next.”

One by one they all took a cup, got a drink and threw their waste away going around in turn until their were no cups left. The adults in the living room continued their conversation oblivious to the fact that my cousins were holed up in the bathroom hosting happy hour. It wasn’t until everyone went home that my mother found a trash can full of Dixie cups and an empty dispenser on the wall.

“I’m going to kill those kids,” she vowed as my father tried to stifle a laugh.

She didn’t of course, but she did remove the Dixie cup dispenser from the bathroom the next time they stopped by and kept close tabs on their whereabouts whenever they were on the premises. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them, but she wasn’t about to deal with the aftermath should they find her pop up box of tissues, discover dad’s electric tooth brush or try to get a piece of candy out of my brother’s Mickey Mouse gumball machine without putting a penny in it first.

After all, they may have been curious, but my mother wasn’t crazy.

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June 2016 Column for Michiana House & Home Magazine: The Ninth Caller

            Somewhere during my childhood, I became obsessed with my local Top 40 radio station. I spent a lot of time calling DJs to make requests, chat during the wee hours of a slumber party (the fact that they were willing to talk to a group of 11-year-olds at 2 a.m. now strikes me as creepy) and trying to convince them to let me announce the Number One song on the “Hot Nine at 9.” I was also forever trying to win one of their contests. Never mind that I wasn’t 18, that my parents wouldn’t let me go to half of the concerts I was trying to score tickets to, or that with a rotary phone, I was unlikely to ever be the ninth caller, I kept trying.

One contest held me hostage in the house for nearly a week when I heard about it. The premise was simple: Be the ninth caller when the station played a certain four songs in a row. Although I can only remember one song on the list today, I clearly remember carrying a portable radio with me to every room in my house in order to catch this musical event when it occurred.

“Julie, take the radio off the dining room table,” my mother ordered as she brought in the pot roast and mashed potatoes she prepared.

“No problem,” I turned off the portable and flipped on the bigger stereo unit.

My father sighed. “You do realize that they could play these four songs in the middle of the night when you are asleep, don’t you?” He asked.

I hadn’t considered this, but it seemed unlikely. “They won’t,” I told him, silently planning to smuggle the radio into my bedroom at night just in case.

I skipped outings, no longer biked with my friends and turned down a McDonald’s run in order to stay close to home and my precious radio. Finally, as I played with my Barbies in my parents’ basement, I heard the first song…and then the second…this was it!!! They played the first two songs in succession three times to give the listening audience a heads up while I went nuts waiting for each song to be played. At the beginning of the final tune, I raced over to the phone we kept by my father’s desk and began dialing.

It took 30 seconds to make each call and naturally each time I finished, I was met with an unpleasant busy signal. Undeterred I kept trying thinking my persistence might prevail but eventually, I heard the DJ announce the winner’s name over the air.

“It’s not fair,” I told my parents later. “I gave up everything and got nothing out of the deal.”

With my parents unwilling to purchase a push-button phone, my career as a contest winner was limited, but I didn’t care. In an era where there was no participation prize, I had to take my lumps and realize I would lose more than I would win. There was no point in getting “hung up” about it.

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May Column for Michiana House & Home Magazine: A Space Jam

Mars

Recently, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when a sponsored Groupon advertisement caught my eye. Evidently, for the low, low price of $15, I can buy an acre of land on Mars. Now, I do not pretend to be an expert on interplanetary Real Estate deals, but I have a few questions about this.

For starters, who exactly owns Mars? It’s not that I don’t trust the oh-so-official-sounding Lunar Embassy, which is located in Nevada of all places, but how did they get to be the official Realtor of the Red Planet? Did the little guy from the Looney Tunes shorts hand over the deed to Mars in order to lay claim to Bugs Bunny’s hole? Was it some kind of a trade deal like that whole Michael Jordan thing in Space Jam? Why is he so keen to get rid of Mars in the first place? What does he know about it that we don’t?

Secondly, how did the head honcho of this Galactic Realty firm decide $15 was a fair price for Martian soil? According to the advertisement, this price represents a 57 percent discount off of the suggested retail price, which by anyone’s definition is an incredible deal, but I remain skeptical. For example, how do we know that an acre of land is the same thing on Mars as it is here? What if it is a different unit of measurement entirely? Has anyone actually seen the comps from other neighboring planets to tell us whether or not Mars actually appraised for this price and has it passed its inspection?
Exactly where are these available acres? Is the entire planet up for grabs or only a specific neighborhood? Will we be given the XY coordinates to our little corner of the universe or is Google Mars already up there taking a more modern image for us to see? I may not be a genius, but I do know location is a key factor when buying a piece of property. Does $15 get me an enviable spot in downtown metropolitan Mars, a sweet spot in suburban Mars or a remote, pre-war, pre-fab, previously uninhabited plot of Outer Mongolia Mars? I think we have a right to know. I also think we should be told what our taxes might be, what kinds of schools we can expect for that money as well as the government’s plan for a steady water supply, but hey, not everyone is as picky as I am.

I know I am probably going to kick myself for not jumping on this ground floor opportunity, but there are just too many unknowns for me to plunk down some cash on my Martian estate just yet. Although my friends tell me to stop analyzing the logistics just do it, I’m content to let other folks cough up their closing costs, invent a way to get there, fight off whatever they find and pave the way for the rest of us.

In the meantime, I am going to do something safe and have a star named after me.

 

 

Fabulous Fridays: #52Lists Project

This week’s list asks us to jot down the ways in which we can rejuvenate our space. 

1. Find something that makes you smile and put it in a prominent place.
2. Make something that gibes you pride and satisfaction.
3. Frame a favorite photo
4. Open a window (fresh air always smells great)
5. Plant something.
6. Sweep a floor (you won’t believe the difference that it makes.)
7. Play music
8. Air freshener (may seem obvious, but for some people it’s not)
9. New placemats (brightens any table)
10. Bake Cookies.

Tip of the week: Pick one thing you can do this week and notice how your space and your mood changes!) Be sure to let me know what you did!