(Not so) Random Ads

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So… I’m on Facebook today, and a random ad for Home Depot pops up. Well, I’m not really going to say it was “random” because I was on the Home Depot website earlier today looking for a new umbrella for my deck. The wind apparently took mine the other day when I wasn’t home. [This time, I think I’ll get a base and some clamps….]

But this pop-up ad was a bit surprising. It was for a “Life Pod Shelter,” purportedly for protection from tornadoes. The one for which I had an ad was a “14-Person Underground Storm Shelter,” for the bargain price of $7865. A similar storm shelter that will hold four people is only $3809.

Now here’s the thing. I live in New England, which is not known tornado country, though tornadoes have been known to strike upon occasion and under the right circumstances (perhaps that’s what happened to my umbrella…). I have not been searching for any kind of storm shelter, fallout shelter, or even a garden shed. In fact, I live in a townhouse, so I couldn’t bury one in my backyard if I wanted to (which I don’t). So I’m wondering if anyone else has similar ads popping up on their social media sites. Since the political climate is glaringly volatile right now, perhaps Home Depot thought they would be proactive in promoting this product.

Not surprisingly, this product “isn’t currently sold in stores.” I imagine storing these pods in your average big box store could be quite a challenge. However, you can order one with standard shipping (curbside delivery at the bargain rate of $55…) and it will arrive at your house between September 5 and 11. I’m afraid that might be too late. It seems the danger may be more imminent than that, but if you start excavating your yard before it arrives….

If you are curious and want to check it out, go to Home Depot. It’s listed under “Storage & Organization.” No kidding.

{Image credit: FreeImages.com / Michael Kaufmann}

Positivity Post: Useless Gems from the Past

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Recently, I have taken on the job of sorting through stuff. The stuff in question consists of items that were hidden in long forgotten boxes stashed in the attic of my childhood home—old family photographs, school papers, letters, greeting cards, books, newspaper clippings… you name it. Every now and then, in amongst the useless stuff, I encounter a rare—albeit worthless—gem, and sometimes, I feel the need to share it before I throw it out.

Being a woman of a certain (non-youthful) age, I was immediately intrigued when I came across a 1941 booklet entitled “The new way to a Youthful Figure.” I am most likely the exact target demographic of this publication, though two generations out. In fact, I have finally hit the point where I can put on a pound or two just looking at ice cream, which does not thrill me. So I opened the booklet to see what the 1941 trending logic was to maintain—or regain—a youthful figure.

What I discovered is that the dieting information of yesteryear is pretty much the same information as today. There is information on alkaline versus acid: “If you would feel at your best, be quick on the trigger, physically and mentally, you should let the alkaline-forming foods be slightly in excess of the acid-forming ones.”

There is a 3-day cleanse to begin. And we are assured, “By Monday morning your system will be thoroughly cleansed. You will be so hungry that the reducing menu will taste delicious.” Ah, now that’s the ticket to a successful diet—starve yourself first so you are happy to have anything edible! Your stomach will be happy, but your brain might be foggy.

In the back of the booklet, there are menus to help limit calories each day, and there is a lengthy list of 100-calorie portions. Pretty typical. “The reducing menus, pages 15-19, provide all the nourishment your body requires. Moreover, if carefully prepared, appetizingly served, they are not only satisfying but delicious. If you follow them carefully, with absolute honesty even for a few weeks, you may look in your mirror some morning and cry, ‘Eureka! I have a waistline! And behold this faint blush of rose in my cheeks! It’s amazing how fit and lively I feel!’” I don’t know about you, but the day I talk to myself in the mirror this way is the day I might need to be moved to a safe location.

Should you feel the need to read this booklet, I would be happy to scan it and send it to you. Heck, I’ll just send it to you, so you can have the original! And I will go back to sorting my stuff. I’ll be sure to share any more gems I find.

Meanwhile, I am caught between advising readers to sort through and dispose of their own clutter so that others won’t have to do it and advising readers to save a few completely useless items just to give future generations a laugh or two.

Fine

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“This is the camp nurse,” I heard through the phone in the shallow end of Friday morning’s sleep. This was the third call I’d received that morning and the one that truly woke me up. I’ll admit I was sleeping late, but in my defense, I am recovering from surgery—and minor or not, it’s a perfect excuse to savor extra time behind the hazy veil of sleep where there are no demands on my time and energy.

“Your son is fine,” she continued. No, I thought. If my son was fine, there would be no reason for you to call me. I have been around the sun more than once, he’s my third kid, and I understand if the camp/school/health center nurse is calling me, all is not fine. I held my breath as I sat up too quickly, waiting for her next words.

Low-grade fever, sore throat, general achiness, she outlined my son’s not-so-fine physical state. A virus, it seemed, or possible strep. “Since he works in the kitchen…” she stopped and let me fill in the rest of the sentence. Yes, he would need to be seen by the doctor.

As an educator, I completely understand. But in the back of my mind there is the nagging lack of fairness that even though it’s fine for the campers to get my son sick, it’s not as fine for my son to get the campers sick. I drove to camp earlier than expected to take my son to the doctor where he was pronounced fine, as I suspected. Well… there is no doubt he has a virus, but thankfully, no strep.

In fact, on the way back from the doctor, we remembered that last year, when he was a CIT, he had the same symptoms at almost exactly the same point in the summer,  so we’ve dubbed it “camp crud.” Next year, when I get a call from the camp nurse during week five, I’ll know to say, “Oh, it’s just camp crud. He’s fine!”

Aimless

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Lately, I have been aimless, so I have decided to post an aimless, wandering blog post. Perhaps doing so will help to spur something interesting in my brain, something that is so deeply hidden that only wandering over it will help to pull it out of the weeds. In the past week, I have started numerous posts, but none has stuck. I have been entertaining myself with television and surfing the Internet, and my blog has suffered.

In truth, I have not been totally aimless. I have been completing my work—on schedule, I might add—despite the extenuating circumstances of my life. I am grateful that my online summer work allows for a relaxed work environment while still providing a paycheck.

This evening, I eavesdropped on a conversation of my children discussing the boxes in which they receive gifts. “What are those shoes?” one teen asked another, who quickly explained that that was just the box the gift was in.

He replied, “If everything you ever got was what belonged in the box, you’d have a lot of weird stuff.” I had to laugh as he proceeded to list the items my children would receive: Girl Scout Cookies, DHC Skincare products, dance shoes….

And then my cats became fascinated with the summer beetles and moths that were drawn to the outside light by the front door. I could hear the click of their claws as they batted at the bugs through the glass of the storm door. When I went to check on them (and close the door) I found some impressive two inch bugs making their way up the door. It’s good they stayed outside.

And finally, I will report that the message of my message blocks was finally… well … changed. Even though I wrote about changing the message back on May 31, it never happened. Now, I won’t say that the kids left the message completely alone. There were some small changes made to the spelling, the orientation of the letters, etc. There were comments made about the fact that the message remained unchanged, even after I had blogged about changing it. But no one could quite bear to rearrange the letters. In the end, it was appropriate that the cat—who sleeps on the shelf—pushed the message onto the floor. Dad was a fan of cats and would’ve loved this one. She has quite a purr-sonality! Maybe we’ll put the blocks away for awhile… at least until the cat can keep her paws off them.

Or maybe not.

When Aliens Move In

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I was having a conversation with my neighbor recently, and midway through our discussion, she said, “Was your son home the other day? I said ‘hi’ to him, but then I wasn’t quite sure it was really him. I thought it was, but he’s changed so much….” Her voice trailed off.

I get it. We have lived in our neighborhood for the past 13+ years, and the kids were very, very little when we moved in. Now, they are hovering on adulthood, driving, working. They have grown from knee-high to taller than Mama. Their schedules are busy, and they don’t cross paths with the neighbors as much as they used to. So it doesn’t surprise me that recognizing them might be a challenge.

There is this subtle change that all kids experience on their journey from childhood to adulthood. But then there is the not-so-subtle change when they are suddenly much more adult than they were yesterday; one day—quite suddenly—they almost seem to be different people altogether.

It usually happens after a feeding-frenzy when they have somehow managed to consume every edible morsel in the house. They go to bed and the next day, or the next week, they wake up, come into the kitchen for breakfast, and you think, Is that really my child at the table? As you look at said child, you notice that the face is more angular; the shoulders are a bit broader; the voice is deeper and the vocabulary is more mature; moods and attitudes vary from moment to moment; and wait… my child would never have worn those clothes yesterday. Where did he even get that outfit? You rack your brain trying to remember if you purchased that shirt, or from whom he might have borrowed it.

As you begin to get used to this taller, louder, hungrier being that now inhabits your home, you simultaneously start to wonder what happened to your child. Where is the child who—just yesterday—was climbing trees and catching frogs? Where is the child who cuddled up next to you while you read bedtime stories? Where is the little one would get up from a Lego-building session and come into the kitchen for a hug?

In fact, I will admit that last summer, I dropped my son at camp, as I had every year for several years. A week later, when I went to pick him up, I could not find him in amongst the crowd of boys all dressed alike. I even spotted him at one point, only to continue scanning the crowd because that kid just didn’t look like my kid. Seriously. My own kid.

And then there was the day over the last year when I called home on my commute from work. A man answered the phone and my heartbeat quickened. WHO IS THIS?? I almost screamed, but then I heard a lilt that I recognized in the strange male voice. Oh, wait…. Perhaps this is the new voice of my kid…?

It’s been a process, but I’m beginning to get used to the new kids who share my house with me. Because with these new kids come some unexpected adventures and new idiosyncrasies. These new kids help each other, they work together, they brainstorm solutions to their own problems, they have goals and dreams, and through their daily experiences, they are developing the grit to reach the goals they set for themselves.

And every now and then, I know they are the same children who have always lived here. When I am really lucky, one of them will come into the kitchen and surprise me with a spontaneous hug.

Sunscreen

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The morning was sunny as I helped my daughter apply sunscreen for a trip to the beach. I was responsible for covering her back, and I worked to slather the lotion on her skin around her bathing suit straps. I was careful to apply a liberal coat in hopes that all of her back would be protected.

When I was done, I launched into a disclaimer about the fact that while I tried the best I could, there was no guarantee that I had actually covered every bit of her exposed skin. If she were to burn in strange blotches, I apologized. But as this disclaimer was tumbling out, a brilliant idea momentarily slid into my brain. “They should make a sunscreen that’s color changing. That way, you’ll know if you are completely covered. For example, it could go on blue and then change to clear after a minute or so….”

“That’s disgusting, Mom!” my daughter argued, not even giving my idea half a chance. Color-changing technology works for other things like bathroom cleaner, baby bath thermometers, ceiling paint…. (Although, color-changing technology didn’t work for the large swatch of unpainted ceiling in my kitchen, but that is a story for another day). “What if you were putting it on at the beach?” she questioned. “That’s just wrong.”

Actually, I think color-changing technology could be a brilliant solution to this age-old problem. Though I have to admit, it might be somewhat off-putting to be an innocent bystander and watch people smearing themselves with bright blue lotion at the beach.

Potato Chip Rant

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My kids eat potato chips. Now, I’m not going to say they eat a lot of chips. They actually have fairly healthy diets, but chips are an “extra,” bringing crispy, salty goodness to snack time. If you’re trying to feed hungry teenagers, sometimes you go for the high calorie, filling foods. But in truth, don’t potato chips count as a vegetable? P-O-T-A-T-O-E-S, after all.

If you buy a “regular” bag of potato chips—and for the sake of our argument, we are using Wavy Lays in the red bag—you will get 7.75 ounces of chips. One serving of Wavy Lays potato chips is one ounce, or “about 11 chips.” [I’m sorry… eleven chips? First of all, who counts out eleven chips? What does “about” mean? Can I have eleven chips or can I only have ten?] Anyway, in the “regular” bag of potato chips, there are “about 8” servings, but I can do the math, and I know the eighth person is going to get gypped. Therefore, I would say there are “about 7” servings in a bag. That way, all seven people get a bonus chip (especially with the chintzy, eleven-chip serving size).

If you buy a “Family Size” bag of potato chips, you can still only eat those eleven chips, but now (because you are part of a family), you will get ten ounces of chips. The “Family Size” bag offers 2.25 ounces more than if you were a single person buying the regular bag of chips, I suppose because a family is only slightly bigger than one person. It doesn’t seem that a two-and-a-quarter-ounce difference justifies the denotation of “Family Size,” but maybe most families are different than mine. The nice thing about the “Family Size” bag is that there are ten servings. None of this “about 10” servings with the last person being gypped. Because chip makers knows how families work. And families must be fair to all parties so as to prevent World War Three.

Now, if you are really going to go hog wild on the chip-eating thing, you might splurge on the “Party Size” bag because then you will get a full fifty percent more than if you are only in a family. Yes friends, you will get 15.25 ounces, allowing you to invite half the number of people in your family to your “Party” as long as your guests count out their eleven chips. I am thinking they should see how many ounces they might cram into the “Hungry Teen Snack Size” bag.

And speaking of hungry teens, about this eleven chip serving size…. Whoever determined that eleven chips is a serving has most likely never even met a teenager, never mind eaten with one. Perhaps, they have never even met someone who eats potato chips….

Grocery Receipts

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When I was a kid, and I mean a very little kid, I used to think a long grocery receipt was so amazing—in an awesome sort of way. I would watch the receipt poke its way out of the cash register and lengthen with each item the cashier keyed in during our weekly grocery trip. At first, the paper would loop around on itself. But soon, it would spill over and inch closer and closer to the floor, moving under its own weight. When the cashier pulled it out, she would wind it back and forth like an accordion until it was the same size as the bills, handing Mom a neat pile of dollars, receipt, and green stamps. How exciting it would be, I thought in my little girl mind, to get such a long strip of paper as a receipt. When that happened, it would mean I was truly an adult.

Back then, the receipt was a tally of every single item, unlike now when some things that are bought in a quantity of more than one might only count as one line on the receipt. And back then, each item was keyed in by the cashier. There were no scanners in my childhood, but we didn’t seem to mind the wait in the check out line. Of course, we didn’t have a choice.

Today, I am here to say that if a long grocery receipt is the sign of adulthood, I have (definitely) made it! Not only have I made it, but I will be back at the local grocery store in the middle of the week. Because no amount of food lasts long in my house. The reality… that 2.7 pound bag of cherries I bought at 2:30 this afternoon that I thought would last the week? That was a snack for a hungry teen.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how our perceptions change as we grow older. Nowadays, I am likely as not to cringe at the long grocery receipts. What did you used to think would be really cool, but now makes you cringe?

Painting Rainbows

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It’s been almost six months without Dad. In those six months, the grief comes and goes in waves, but lately, the waves have been farther apart. I think this perhaps because I am not in the car as much during the summer, not alone as much, and therefore, I don’t have the opportunity to cry. As much. And some days, that creates an illusion that the grief is subsiding.

But on Sunday, I had one of those “sneak attacks” of grief I had been warned about. I was at my daughter’s dance recital, and I was enjoying the show. I had remembered years when Dad had been in this very auditorium watching his only granddaughter perform, but I was able to bury that thought. That is… until the kindergarten class took the stage. The little ones are always the cutest, but then their music came on, a rendition of “Baby Mine” performed by Alison Krauss. And suddenly, feelings I didn’t know I was having came bubbling to the surface in a figurative storm of emotion. It was a whole mixture of Dumbo and circuses and Dad. And sitting there in the dark, I cried.

That afternoon, after a literal storm, there was a rainbow. It was the second that weekend and was followed by two more the next day. These rainbows were gifts that lifted my spirits and filled my heart.

When Dad passed away back in January, I found—tucked in a drawer with some other papers for safe-keeping—an old card that he had sent me when I was living some distance away on the other side of the country. On the front of the card was a picture of two painters on ladders, each painting opposite ends of a rainbow. The card, and the message inside, became the basis for my words at Dad’s service. I talked of the notes and silly poems that he wrote, and I ended with the following:

When we were in college, Mom and Dad would send care packages at exam time, and Dad would write poems to encourage us to study hard, to do our best, but also to let us know he believed in us. Before I returned home this time, I searched through a few old letters I had hanging around. The best of the notes are in storage boxes, but I did find one he sent to me when I was in California. This one was “just because.” After a brief newsy letter, he ended with a poem. It started out, Wish I could… and went on:

Paint you some rainbows

Write you some prose

Find you some fellows

(Even more of those!)

Bake you a cake

Offer you some laughter

Give you a break

Help you get what you’re after

Not many dads take the time to write poetry for their daughters. But my dad—he was the best. So Dad, we send you off with all the love we can muster and a promise to miss you forever. And if you’re listening, paint us some rainbows.

This year, I have seen more rainbows than usual. And for me, every rainbow is a gift—a very special gift—that lets me know Dad is still with us in some way, and he is letting us know he is thinking about us.

 

Positivity Post – Caring from the Inside Out

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I have always loved to bake. More importantly, I love to bake for others. In my early adulthood, I was a member of the dorm staff of more than one boarding high school, and my living quarters were accessed from the dormitory floor.

Back then, when I baked treats, students were well aware as the scent of baking cookies [muffins, cupcakes, etc.] wafted through my door and out onto the hall. They knew that when study hours were over, there would be freshly baked snacks. This was one of the ways that I let my students know I cared.

Nowadays, I am still committed to baking for others—for my family, my students, my coworkers, my children’s friends/parties/bake sales, etc. And every now and then, I have this strange urge to combine unusual ingredients. Last week, I had an avocado that needed to be used up, and I considered using it to make muffins.

A quick Google search, and I found Gimme some Oven, where I scored this recipe for blueberry avocado muffins, a healthy and amazingly delicious alternative to the traditional blueberry muffins. Because these muffins are both healthy and tasty, I will definitely be making them again! This is one of the ways I let my family know I care.