Cooking Failures

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  • Roll With It… The Thanksgiving with No Rolls

    “Please don’t insist on making a whole turkey this year,” my mother begged me. 

    I was slightly insulted because I had loved making a whole turkey for Thanksgiving the last two years. But then she reminded me that they were both disasters and at least one, and possibly both, were still frozen. I guess I’d forgotten that part.

    I just remembered the excitement of feeling like I was in a Norman Rockwell painting when I stuffed the little bird with a lemon and an onion and I tied up his cute little feet. I made a little butter mixture with herbs, and I rubbed it all over him like I was giving him a little massage. I talked to him while I gave him a little massage. I told him how cute he was and what a good little bird he was as I got under the skin. I was having so much fun rubbing all the goop into him, that I think half an hour had passed before my mom said, “I think he’s good.”

    I’ve always wanted to be able to make a perfect Thanksgiving turkey. The kind you see in cheesy Christmas movies that are brown and sitting on the table with happy faces surrounding them. That was going to be my Thanksgiving.

    But I do remember last year I called my mom in the kitchen with a finger to my lips and showed her that the turkey was not done at all. Together, we played it off though, and she cut off the parts that were cooked, and she cooked them a little more and we hid the frozen turkey parts. It worked fine and nobody questioned why there was such a small amount of turkey when they saw me massaging a great huge turkey earlier in the day. No one knew that the Thanksgiving turkey was a disaster and still frozen. Well, except my mom and me.

    I was telling the story to a friend who said, “Well, why didn’t you look online and get a turkey recipe there?”

    “Really? What? That’s a brilliant idea. Did you think I just came up with an idea in my mind on how to make a Thanksgiving turkey? Of course not! Of course I looked online and I got a recipe for the best Thanksgiving turkey ever!” I replied sarcastically.

    I was a little offended that he didn’t give me enough credit to look up a recipe online before I attempted to make the best Thanksgiving turkey ever.

    “Well”, he said, “you don’t follow the instructions when you make brownies.”

    Nobody follows the instructions when they make brownies. Especially not me. I don’t need instructions for making brownies. I’ve been making brownies for 40 years (although ever since my sister pointed out that I made the brownies wrong a couple months ago, I am more careful about reading the instructions but this is completely different).

    I was telling another friend this story and she said, “Well, you know, you have to defrost it in the fridge for days, right?”

    Yes! Of course, I know that. And I did just that. I defrosted it for like five days! And it was still frozen. I don’t understand.

    “Did you defrost it in the fridge or in the freezer?” my friend asked.

    Gosh, people must really think I’m an idiot. I guess if I have a blog called Cooking Failures and people have read about my many cooking mishaps, I can understand them questioning my cooking knowledge.

    But yes, I looked it up online. I looked up multiple recipes to find the best one. The one I used had the word BEST in the title so I figured that would be the best. I defrosted it for the suggested time. I poked it and it was nice and soft. I followed the directions perfectly and still; it came out a disaster.

    I think the year before nobody ate it. They said it was great but yet, nobody ate it. Except my mom. She eats everything. I don’t even think my brother ate it and he eats everything, too! There were tons of leftovers for Mom.

    Don’t forget that I’m a vegetarian so I don’t actually eat the turkey. So, I really don’t care what it taste like as long as everyone else eats it, even if it’s only to be polite. I guess I should have a serious talk with my family about that.

    So, this year, my mom begged me not to try the whole turkey thing again and just get a turkey breast. I was a little sad about giving up my dream, but also, sometimes you just have to give up.

    I did spend days after the past two Thanksgivings worrying that I gave my family salmonella so it will be nice not to have that worry. I have plenty of other worries though so don’t worry about me being worry free.

    Honestly, I wasn’t even really sure what a turkey breast was. I just knew it was simpler than a whole turkey. Don’t people always buy turkey breasts from the grocery store? And isn’t it always on sandwiches and stuff?  I figured it would be easy to cook, and I wouldn’t have to do any prep work. 

    I had been ordering groceries for Thanksgiving all week. I’ve had them all in my cart and I was adding them daily. I figured I would pick them up on Wednesday so they won’t sit in my fridge too long and besides, that gives me up until the last minute to put in everything I may have forgotten. I always forget something. 

    I pick up my groceries and I’m patting myself on the back for being all prepared as I’m putting them away in the refrigerator and singing Christmas songs. Then I pull out the turkey breast and it’s frozen. Frozen?!?! A turkey breast is frozen too? I flip it over and skim the instructions and it says it needs to thaw 1 to 3 days. 1 to 3 days?!?! Oh no! This is a disaster. For some reason, I thought I was ordering an already thawed Turkey breast! Do they not have that? Is that not a thing? I should’ve ordered my groceries earlier!

    It’s OK, I tell myself. It’s early on Wednesday. I have plenty of time to figure this out, so my family does not once again, need to eat a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving. I decide I will run to the grocery store and I will just buy an already thawed turkey breast. I will save this frozen one for another day.

    I go to the fancy grocery store. I’m proud of myself for my genius idea to save the day. Well, ALL the turkey breasts in the grocery store are frozen. I guess that’s what they do? Obviously, I’m not a turkey breast expert. I didn’t go to turkey breast school.

    So, I start googling it and I skim the back of the turkey breast again and it says that for the size of the turkey breast I have, it only needs 24 hours to defrost. Phew! because we have 24 hours. That was a close call.  

    The really funny part is, the next day on Thanksgiving, when we were taking the thawed turkey breast out to cook, my sister, (who’s really good at reading instructions), said, “Oh wow! You can cook this turkey breast from frozen. It doesn’t need to be thawed. See?” And she shows me where it says COOK FROM FROZEN on the front in big letters. 

    I really know that I need to read things more carefully and stop just skimming things thinking I can get the point.

    So this Thanksgiving, the turkey breast was a hit. It came out perfectly. But what was not a hit were the rolls.

    My youngest son has celiac so, weeks before Christmas, I searched for gluten-free stuffing(which was a huge hit by the way), gluten-free desserts and gluten-free dinner rolls.

    I found a company that looked good and ordered some gluten-free dinner rolls from them. They said they would be delivered between November 24 and November 26, which was just perfect. They ended up just being delivered yesterday, December 1, so that was out for Thanksgiving.

    Months ago, I had ordered some gluten-free crescent rolls. They came in a little packet, and I almost died when I read the instructions on the back because they were so complicated. You had to freeze butter and grate the butter into the flour? I always looked at those crescent rolls and then decided the instructions were too hard and I put them back on the shelf. “I’ll save them for a day when I really want a challenge,” I said to myself. But surprisingly, I never wake up and say, “Today is the day I want a challenge.” Especially not a making-gluten-free-crescent-rolls challenge.

    But the gluten-free crescent rolls were all I had so I guess I was up for a challenge on Thanksgiving. Once again, I skimmed the directions. I thought I was all ahead of myself too because I saw that it needed frozen butter so the night before I cut the right amount of butter and put it in the freezer. Once again, I just skimmed the directions and at the bottom, it said bake 16 to 20 minutes. So that is what I was planning on doing. Once again patting myself on the back for being so prepared.

    The turkey was almost done, and I figured it was time for me to start on these crescent rolls. Gosh, I wish I took a picture because they just looked like a disaster. But the directions were so specific and said things like “use a pizza cutter” and “cut it into 14 squares and roll it this way and that way.” Nobody has time for that so I just took little balls in my hand and shaped them as best I could into crescent rolls shapes.

    I just crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. How important could all that stuff be? And then I read the instructions more carefully and it said sit them in a warm place for 75 minutes until they double in size! What??? 75 minutes!!! But Thanksgiving dinner is just about ready!

    So, what ended up happening was that we all just ate Thanksgiving with no bread. With no rolls. I had bought the delicious Hawaiian rolls for the rest of the family, but it would be so unfair for everyone else to eat Hawaiian rolls while my little son with celiac has no bread just because I couldn’t read the instructions (which, by the way, I had skimmed multiple times).  We ended up making those rolls anyway later and they tasted like sand, so I’m glad we didn’t wait the 75 minutes to eat.

    The whole family decided to forego Hawaiian rolls all to not hurt a little boy’s feelings. They all gave up the best part of Thanksgiving, so one little boy would not feel left out. 

    That’s really what Thanksgiving is about, isn’t it? Being caring and considerate and thinking of other people’s feelings. It’s about sacrificing even something as delicious as Hawaiian rolls, to keep someone from feeling sad.

    There was plenty of food to eat though and I doubt anyone even really missed the bread. But I will tell you as soon as my youngest son went upstairs, we all did shove our faces with Hawaiian rolls. They are so good! Why do we only buy them at Thanksgiving? 

    The turkey was a success, but the rolls were a disaster. I guess every Thanksgiving needs some sort of disaster. 

    Really, this Thanksgiving taught me that I just need to slow down. Sure, I need to read directions more carefully, but also I need to slow down in life. I’m always in such a rush that I skim instructions, I skim emails, I even skim my daily readings in the morning and even sometimes the book I’m reading. I’m always thinking about the next thing on my list. I’m always thinking about what else I need to get done. I’m always rushing.

    It’s not a race. I don’t need to get to the finish line first. I don’t even need to get everything accomplished in one day. I’m going to slow down. I’m going to take my time. And hopefully next Thanksgiving, I will have read all the instructions perfectly and we will have that Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving. With bread on the table and everything. 

    But this year I am thankful for my mistake. Thankful that I was rushing and messed up because it showed the kindness and compassion of the human spirit. It showed me what family is really all about.  It showed the sacrifices we make for the ones we love. Even if it’s just the Hawaiian rolls.

  • Old broken plastic dog toy bins

    Is there anyone else who just doesn’t like new things? A new phone, a new car, even new clothes…. they just don’t excite me. There’s something about the old, the familiar, the well-loved, that just feels so comfortable. It feels like home.

    I wear my clothes out until they’ve disintegrated to nothing. My favorite pair of black pants has holes in the butt, but it’s fine, I just wear black underwear, and no one can really tell. No one’s really looking at my butt that closely.

     I had a favorite gray long sleeve waffle knit shirt that I wore and wore and wore until it fell apart. The collar had come off, the cuffs had come off, the holes in it were too big to keep wearing it, even around the house. I still miss that shirt over 20 years later.

     It’s also as if my old clothes know me. They know how I like them to fit; they know how I like them to feel and when I get up off the couch they say, “ Oh, are you going to get yourself another glass of wine?” Then they high five me  because my clothes know if they are lucky, I will spill some on them and they will get some wine too!

    New clothes are all tight and stiff, and uncomfortable. They try to be all high waisted. No one likes a high waist! I like a low waist. I know that’s your name and what you were made to do, but don’t try to do that stuff around my house. Go low.

    They’re also very judgmental and questioning. “Are you getting ANOTHER glass of wine?” They also freak out when I spill stuff on them.  “Quick! Get the stain stick!” They yell. “Oxy Clean! Shout! Where are you?!”

    “Chill!” I tell them. “You don’t need a stain stick! Or any of that other stuff. We love stains around here. It gives us character!”

    And then there’s my car. I’ve only had it for eight years, but I’ve put over 230,000 miles on it. The back right door doesn’t close properly; the left turn signal doesn’t work unless you push it down really hard. If you just push it down normally, then the right turn signal will come on. I give it a break because sometimes I confuse my right with my left also. 

    The air vent on the far right doesn’t work, the paint is peeling, it has more than a few dents and scratches, and the radio is very finicky. The radio sometimes stops working, but over the years, I have found that I can easily reset it with my earring.

    “Oh, not this again,” I say pretending to be annoyed with the radio and I drive along, pull my earring out and reset it quickly.  Usually resetting the radio fixes it. If not, I just wait until the next day and then it starts working again magically. I guess you need patience with used and well-loved things.

    My car knows me. It knows what I want to listen to, it knows that I like to go below the speed limit and it doesn’t give me a hard time about it. Not like some rental cars that I’ve been in that just want to go fast. My minivan likes going slow and enjoying the view. Just like I do.

    I was going to say it knows exactly how I like my seat, but I just discovered last week that I can adjust the seat so there’s not a big bar sticking in the middle of my back! Who knew?  After eight years? I guess you can still learn new things about old cars no matter how long you’ve known them. And people too. With all its quirks and inconveniences, I love my car and I’m hoping it’ll last another million miles.

    My phone was the worst though. It was really old and well loved. It knew me so well. I don’t think another phone could ever know me so well. I know, I know, people talk about an Apple ID and you just sign in on the new phone and all of a sudden, all your stuff is there and then the new phone knows you too. I don’t really believe that. I got a new phone and I tried it. It doesn’t understand my typos, like my old phone did. This new phone corrects my typos to actual words!!! 

    “That’s not what I meant at all, New Phone! Old Phone would have totally known that” I actually said out loud the other day.

    It doesn’t know that I lose my phone all the time and there’s no reason to panic. Old phone just sits there and rolls his eyes and waits and waits for me to figure out where I left him. 

    New Phone is all panicky. “Where have you been? Why did you leave me alone? I thought you were lost forever!!!”

    New Phone needs to chill out.

    I do think it is pretty cool though how you can put one phone next to the other phone and they just transfer information and send stuff between them. How do they do that? It’s like magic!

    My old phone got to the point where it just wouldn’t send texts sometimes. (Maybe it knew I really shouldn’t send those texts, but still, it should do what it’s told) It just wouldn’t receive texts sometimes. I would get a notification that I got a text, but I couldn’t find it when I opened my text messages.

    There was also NEVER enough storage on my old phone so every time there was an update I have to delete everything. And still, there was not enough room for the update. Sometimes there was not enough storage for me to clock in on my work app. And don’t even get me started on pictures! There was never enough storage for me to take pictures.

    Sometimes I would delete and delete and delete a bunch of pictures I didn’t necessarily need (although I really wanted) and still there would be no room for me to take one picture. 

    “I just deleted 30 pictures!” I would say to Old Phone. “And you won’t even let me take one?”

    My phone said “no.” I get it. He was tired. I am too.

    I was at the vet’s office and they had the cutest little sign saying if your dog has anxiety, take this little bandana and lay it over her/him because it has been sprayed with something calming. (Well, the sign said it in a much more eloquent way. That’s why I wanted to take a picture!)

    I thought it was the cutest little sign, and I took one bandana and laid It over my dog. It had autumn leaves on it, and she looked so cute! I wanted to take a picture of the sign and take a picture of my dog to send to my family chat because I knew they would love it. But Old Phone said “no.”

    Even after I deleted so many things I just begged it for just one more picture and it said “no.”

    Also, the camera only worked in selfie mode. I’ve gotten pretty skilled though at taking every picture I need to take in selfie mode. I mean, doesn’t everyone just want my face in the corner of every picture I take? OK, probably NOT everyone.

    So I finally got a new phone, and I don’t know what the hype is about a new phone. I don’t know why people are so excited. It’s just a phone. It’s fine. It sends my texts. It receives my texts. It lets me take pictures. But really, I just miss Old Phone. My old phone was comfortable, well worn, and well loved, even with all his bad habits.

    Sometimes I think I want nice new things. The other morning, I was sitting on my couch looking around my house and I thought to myself that I really needed new baskets for the dog toys. This was after I woke up that morning and said to myself that I’m not going to buy anything unnecessary today.

    The current baskets are not even baskets! They are plastic bins the dog toys have been in for years. (and they have NEVER bothered me) They were bins that used to hold my kids’ toys when they were babies. These bins are over 15 years old. They don’t match and they are cracked down the side and cracked down the back. They are just not very pretty. Doesn’t my dog deserve better? For the toys she NEVER plays with. And besides, wouldn’t it just make my house look so pretty?

    So, I hopped on Amazon, and I bought my dog two new matching baskets for her toys. We have one in the front room and one in the back of the house. Honestly, she doesn’t even play with toys. It was the other dog that played with toys, but they are all still here.

    The new baskets are very pretty. They are woven baskets with a the cute little dog bone on them. 

    I was all excited when they came and I switched out the dog toys and showed them to my dog who didn’t care. She loves old well-loved things the best too.  After all, she loves me.  

    After three days of looking at them and how pretty they made my house look, I decided that I didn’t like the new dog toy baskets. 

    They were too nice and too new and too fancy. And the old ones reminded me of my kids when they were babies. They also reminded me of my old dog too who would often pull out all the toys.  And not clean them up.

    Good thing I hadn’t thrown the old bins out. I just threw them in the garage. I dug through the garage and found those old plastic broken bins and I returned those new dog baskets. It’s funny how you don’t really realize how much you love something sometimes. It is funny how they look perfect to me now.  Mismatched, well loved and all.

    It’s like that with people sometimes too. We get old and we get broken and we get worn out and we get boring. I hope no one will ever trade me in for something new and shiny. 

    That’s the thing though, we learn to love people just like we learn to love things. We love them with their faults, and with their broken parts. We love them because we know them so well, and even their annoying habits become endearing. We love them because they are not perfect. And neither are we.

    The world would be such a better place if we were happy with what we had instead of wanting something new and pretty, if we appreciated a little more our old well-loved things that brought us comfort, and if we were just happy with our old broken plastic dog toy bins.

  • The boss of the house

    Who is the boss of the house? The cat. Of course it is the cat. For those of you who have cats, you understand.  

    In 2008 we decided we should get a pet for our almost one year-old. We thought a cat would be a nice easy pet for him. Ha! Nice and easy.  We didn’t want a kitten that was wild and crazy and would claw him as he walked by, so we decided on a somewhat older cat. A two-year-old cat would be perfect. 

    So, we went to our local PetSmart to adopt a cat. They said, “a two-year-old cat? We have just the one. Here! This cat is two.”

    She was a sweet little gray tabby named Juniper. For some reason, one that I cannot remember now, we changed her name to Lulu. How rude! Why do we humans think we can just change a cat’s name after she’s already lived with it for two years? And we expect her to listen?  (kidding, we all know cats don’t listen but changing her name makes it especially hard to listen)

    “Lulu?!?? Who the heck is Lulu? My name is Juniper!” I can hear her thinking to herself. And for the life of me, I cannot remember why we didn’t like Juniper. I think it’s a great name. Isn’t it funny when you get older you really can’t remember anything? Or is it just me? It can’t just be me.

    Anyway, we brought Lulu home and introduced her to our wild one-year-old.  If you’ve read my blog from the beginning, you will know what I’m talking about when I say he was a wild almost one-year-old.  If not, go back and read the very first blog post called cooking failures. Then you will have a better understanding of just what my sweet little wild one-year-old was like.

    The introduction went well. Dylan was thrilled to meet the little kitten. We sat him on the couch and put the kitten in his lap and Dylan was gentle and kind. I had images of them being best friends. Images of them playing with toys together and reading books together. I imagined myself getting up in the middle of the night and tiptoeing down the hall to check on Dylan and finding he and Lulu snuggled up together. I couldn’t wait for them to grow up together.

    Well, to put it nicely, Lulu did not like Dylan. The first morning, she walked out all proud like she owned the place. But then Dylan woke up. He ran around the house like a crazy person, he threw toys and books, he climbed on chairs and tables, he jumped on the couch and he was really, really loud. 

    Poor Lulu cowered in the corner for most of the day looking very confused. This is not what a home is supposed to be like, I pictured her thinking to herself. This is not how they described it in the pet store. They described it as a calm and loving place where people would give you lots of attention and you will be safe. Nobody mentioned it had a Tasmanian devil.

    Oh, and when Dylan saw Lulu, his eyes lit up! He ran at her full speed ahead before I could get over there, and he grabbed her and hugged her and pet her and by the look on her face, you would think she was being tortured. I guess she kind of was. No matter how many times I talked to Dylan about being gentle and modeled the gentle petting the cat and took his hands and tried to help him be gentle, this kid really had no gentle in him.

    A few mornings later, I woke up, I fed Lulu, and we watched the Today show together while I drank my tea. This is how I pictured having a cat. 

    Then Dylan woke up.  And Lulu disappeared. I could not find her anywhere! I searched the whole house. Every single part of it. I called my husband at work, crying that I lost the cat. He assured me she was fine. Don’t men always do that? Just say everything ‘s fine. How do they know it’s fine? How could it be fine? I lost the freaking cat! She was nowhere in the house! It was not a big house so I could easily search every single part of it multiple times. I spent a whole day looking for the cat trying not to cry so Dylan wouldn’t worry. First of all, of course I was worried about Lulu and worried if she was OK. But also, I felt like a failure of a pet owner. How could I lose my cat? Does that happen to other pet owners? Please say it does. 

    As soon as Dylan fell asleep, my husband and I sat down on the couch to watch some TV and suddenly Lulu jumped right up on the couch in between us. I was so surprised and thankful. I think I started crying right away. I’m not a terrible pet owner! I did not lose my pet! Oh, and also, I’m so happy you are ok, I told Lulu. 

    “Where were you?” I asked Lulu. But of course, she just ignored me. Cats like to do that.

    The next day, the same thing happened. I know it sounds silly, but once again, I thought I lost my pet. I searched the whole house, called my husband, crying, he said it was fine, I didn’t believe him, and I spent the whole day worrying. But that night, as soon as Dylan fell asleep, there was Lulu on the couch, snuggling with us. I guess Dylan really did make her nervous.

    Poor Dylan did figure it out and would ask where Lulu was every day and I said, “well she goes to work, just like daddy goes to work. Hopefully she’ll be home from work before you go to bed, but sometimes daddy’s not home from work before you go to bed either.”

    Dylan went off to preschool and told everyone there that his cat goes to work every day. No one really questioned it because he was three. If anyone ever asked me about it, I would’ve said I have no idea what he’s talking about.

    When Lulu was about three, we took her to the vet for extremely bad breath and found out she was allergic to her own teeth, so they had to pull them all out. But when the vet looked at her teeth, he said she was probably eight or nine years old. What?!?! We thought she was three. So, there’s really no telling how old Lulu is. The papers we got say she was born in April 2007. But maybe she was born five years earlier. It’s a mystery. I just don’t put a number on her birthday cake every year. I don’t want to tell her we really don’t know how old she is.

    Over time, Lulu got used to Dylan. And Lulu loved Dylan. He would read her bedtime books before he went to bed. I guess some relationships just take time. I did have to tell him that Lulu quit her job so she could spend more time at home with him when she started coming out more. I’m sure he went to preschool and told everybody his cat quit her job and is now home more often to play with him. 

    We lived in Chantilly for five years and Lulu had a litter box under the sink in the downstairs bathroom, and she used it. Although when we left, we noticed the floor was pretty messed up under the litter box, so she must’ve been going down the side or something. But she used the litter box.

    And then we moved to North Carolina. We got her a cute little leash for the car ride down even though it was only 5 1/2 hours. Cats can definitely go that long without going to the bathroom, but we figured she would need to stop and relieve herself, so we bought her this cute little blue leash so we could take her out at rest stops and she could pee. I don’t know if any of you guys have ever gotten a leash for your cat, but please tell me it did not go so well? Lulu just lay flat on her stomach. She wouldn’t get up, she wouldn’t walk, the kids dragged her down the sidewalk thinking they were walking her, and she was enjoying it. She definitely did not go pee on a leash. She did not seem to enjoy it one bit. And she absolutely did not believe me when I told her that I really thought she would like it and I thought I was doing something nice for her. She just cat scoffed at me. We never used that leash again.

    We got to our beautiful house in North Carolina, and I found room for the litter box in the downstairs bathroom in between the toilet and the wall. I showed Lulu where the litter box was, and then I walked away, brushing my hands together, thinking that was taken care of. I mean, I told her where she was supposed to go to the bathroom. I put her in the litter box and talked it up to her. “Wow! Look at this awesome litter box! It’s blue! Your favorite color! Great place to go potty! And look! There’s a chicken picture on the wall to look at while you do your business. Your dad saw it and just had to have it. Who has to have a chicken picture? Anyway, enjoy!” Simple. Of course she would listen. What could go wrong? 

    But Lulu did not want to pee in the litter box. I don’t think she wanted it in the bathroom. I don’t know why. I don’t know why she thinks she’s in charge of where she’s going to go to the bathroom. I told her that no cats get to decide where their litter box goes and she just has to go where the litter box is. Does she think when a cat moves in the house the owner says, “I want you to be as comfortable as possible here. Please tell me where you would like your litter box. Even if it’s where we eat.” As you can imagine, that went over really well. Nobody else listens to Brita, especially cats who probably don’t listen to anyone. If your cat does listen to you, please don’t tell me. It will only make me feel bad.

    We had a CARPETED dining room and that is where Lulu wanted to pee and poo! I told her it was not happening and there was no way I was putting a little box in my carpeted dining room, and she just has to go in the litter box in the bathroom. She pretty much cat laughed in my face and kept going in my carpeted dining room. 

    There was a power struggle for a couple days with me saying no and putting her back in the litter box to show her where to go and cleaning up pee and poo off the carpet in my dining room. But finally, I relented. Come on, we all know the cat was going to win this power struggle. Cats win all power struggles.

    So, I put a litter box in the dining room right over where she likes to go. “Happy dear?” I asked Lulu. That is one of my favorite lines from the movie Beaches. Bette Midler leaves her towel on the bathroom floor and Barbara Hershey’s daughter (who is not a fan of Bette Midler) tells on her. She says, “Mom! Cece left her towel on the floor!” Then Bette Midler marches out of her bedroom, with her hair wrapped in a cool towel, and then hangs the towel up on the towel rack. She turns to the kid and says, “Happy dear?” Full of sarcasm. I don’t know why we loved that line so much when we were little and my sisters and I would always say it to each other. Anyway, I said it the same way Bette Midler did. A little snippy and sarcastic, but I didn’t really think Lulu would notice. But obviously she did. Cats know these things. 

    Guess what she did? She went poop 2 inches to the right of the litter box on the carpet. So, I cleaned the carpet and moved that litter box two inches to the right thinking I just placed it wrong. Then the next day she pooped two inches to the left. I kept cleaning the carpet and moving the litter box around to exactly where she wanted to go to the bathroom. She just sat in the corner, watching me and laughing.

    Eventually, I got to the perfect spot where she wanted it. I literally marked the carpet with tape so I would know exactly where she wanted it. She’s very particular as you can tell. Believe it or not she went in the litter box. Mostly. I have a feeling she did pee on the carpet because that room started to smell a little bit, but at least she was doing the poo in the litter box, mostly. And I admitted defeat and Lulu won. And we just stopped eating in the dining room. That is what the kitchen is for. Lulu can have the dining room.

    So, life ran smoothly, mostly, and then we decided to get a dog. Well, we had to get a dog. I put off getting a dog for years every time my kids and husband asked because dogs are a lot of work, and I know I was the one who was going to take care of the dog. We got hamsters and a bearded dragon and a fish all to avoid getting a dog. But on my son’s seventh birthday after he blew out his birthday candles, he looked at me and said, “I make the same wish every year, and it never comes true.” That broke my heart! I asked what the wish was, and he said every year he wished for a dog. So, I turned to my husband, and I said, “Gosh darn it! Now we have to get a dog. We can’t have a seven-year-old thinking birthday wishes don’t come true!”

    So, we got a dog, but I was very worried about how Lulu would do with the dog. I’m not sure why I was surprised, but Lulu put that dog in her place the second she walked in the house. She showed that dog who was boss, and that dog was slightly terrified of Lulu.  If Lulu was sitting in the middle of the hallway and the dog wanted to get past, she would go all the way around the house to avoid walking by that cat. I sure wish I had some of that in me. Nobody is terrified of me. Nobody avoids me. Well, maybe they do and I don’t know it. 

    One time my sister came to visit and brought her puppy with her. Her puppy was potty training, so she had all the doggy pee pads and they were all over my house. I guess we left them down after she left and a couple days later, I noticed that there was pee on one of the pads! I ran around the whole house, asking everyone in it if they peed on the pee pad. Of course, they didn’t and that is how I came to discover that Lulu likes to pee on doggy pee pads instead of in a litter box. But of course, you have to have the pad in the exact spot so it took a bunch of moving it 2 inches to the right and 2 inches to the left and 3 inches below to find the exact spot where Lulu would like her pee pad. Still, I think it’s much easier than a litter box. Even though she doesn’t always get all the pee exactly on the pee pad. Just close to it or on half of it. That is when I threw out the litter box, and we just started using the pee pads. There is still a lot of mopping up pee, but I was happy with the direction it was going in. Also, we had gotten flooring put down in the dining room by then so that definitely helped with clean up. 

    Life gets crazy, things happen, I moved out, and Lulu and I were separated for three years. My ex recently gave her back to me. 

    Of course, I unnecessarily worried about how she would get along with the dog, so I got baby gates to separate them. But once again, she walked in that house and showed the dog who was in charge.

    I feel bad for the dog because Lulu bullies her a little more than she used to. She will get up in her face when the dog is minding her own business and hiss and a swat at her nose. 

    You know what I saw the other day? The poor dog was just standing at the water bowl, drinking water and minding her own business. Lulu came up behind her, put her paw up and tried to swipe her leg right out from under her. My brother and I both saw it and our mouths dropped open! 

    I gave Lulu a lecture about how there’s no need to be a bully and she needs to keep her paws to herself. Hissing is one thing, but actually putting her paws on the dog is not OK. I’m sure she listened very well. Now I just follow the dog around like her personal bodyguard to protect her from the little cat.

    Lulu did decide though that she didn’t want any furniture in the dining room. Except the dining room table, but she didn’t want any chairs. She would just pee under the unnecessary furniture until I finally cleaned out the whole dining room and moved it all into the garage.  Now it’s just like she likes it. Who needs real furniture in their dining room anyway? Thanks for helping with the decluttering, Lulu.

    Every morning, she sits with me on the couch while I drink my tea. She jumps up in my lap while I’m on Zoom meetings and sits on the couch with me in the evenings and we watch TV together. She sleeps in my bed, but I always leave the door open so she can get up in the middle of the night and go potty. She is an old lady after all. Then she comes back to bed and snuggles some more.

    She’s very picky about her food and one morning she will not like a particular type of food and I will have to throw it out and give her a different one. She’s also very demanding when it’s time to eat. 

    She’s also teaching me balance and to watch where I’m walking because she loves to walk right in front of me. She zigzags in front of my feet while I’m walking to try to trip me. I’m proud to say it hasn’t worked yet, but I am very careful about where I step now. I should thank her for teaching me to pay attention.

    Sometimes when we’re hanging out, I can’t believe that I’ve known this cat for 17 years. We’ve been buddies for that long. And I think that I should really be more like Lulu. Maybe we should all be more like Lulu. Stand up for yourself! Don’t put up with anybody pushing you around no matter how big they are. Make people move furniture if you don’t like it. Make them pay attention when they are walking. Go to the bathroom where you want to. Bully big dogs who secretly intimidate you. Love your people unconditionally and always just do what makes you happy. Hide for a day, or a month, or as long as it takes until you are comfortable. OK, maybe we shouldn’t follow the go to the bathroom wherever you want or bully people ideas. I think we should all just stick to toilets, and nobody likes a bully. But there’s still a lot of other lessons to learn from my old toothless, stubborn, mean sweetheart of a cat.

  • Home (un)improvement


    I have never really watched those home improvement shows but the few times I have they look fun. And pretty easy too.

    A few years ago, I moved into a little rental house. I’m really good at taking care of houses. I keep them clean and well cared for, but accidents happen. Like burning the countertop with a candle or burning the siding while using a grill and a few other things.

    When it was time to move out, I was worried about how much of my security deposit they would take so I decided to fix every last thing I could. By myself. Well with my brother of course. He’s usually around for most mishaps. Usually, an active participant.

    First project was the blinds. We had broken blinds due to dogs and kids throwing balls in the house. I have heard that they will charge you an arm and a leg for that so it’s best to just replace blinds yourself.

    Well, how hard can it be, right? I watched a YouTube video about it, and it seemed simple enough. I was searching all around the house for a measuring tape so I could measure the blinds, but I just couldn’t find one.

    And then I remembered when I was little my mom would measure things with her hand. If she wanted to see if a couch or dresser would fit in a space, she would just stretch her thumb and middle finger out one time and put the thumb where the middle finger was and then do it again from that spot. That’s how she would measure things. 6 hand lengths, she would say.  This dresser will fit in this spot because it’s six hand lengths. What a brilliant and accurate way to measure I remember my 7-year-old self thinking. I was always impressed with anything my mom did.

    I figured I would just measure my blinds like that. Aren’t there just standard size blinds? So, I did my little hand measurements just like I watched my mom do when I was little and measured the blinds. They were 4 hand lengths, and one finger. Easy Peezy.

    I walked into Home Depot. Someone asked if they could help me and I told them I was looking for blinds, so they led me to the blind aisle. I told them I was looking for the cheapest blinds. They asked me what size, and I said “oh, I measured with my hands”, with proud look on my face.

    “You measured with your hands?”
    ⁃ Home Depot blinds lady with a very perplexed and confused look on her face

    “Oh yes, it is four hands and one finger. See? I do it like this!” And I started measuring with my hands down a box of blinds.

    Looking carefully, though, I’m noticing that the measurements are so exact and within inches of each other. Hmm…

    Who makes that many different size blinds? Are there really that many different sizes of windows? I was thinking this might be a little trickier than I thought. But I couldn’t show my doubts and insecurities.

    Full of confidence, I grabbed the box that looked like it was four hands and one finger length, and I told her confidently that this is it!  This is the one I need. 4 hand lengths and one finger.

    I didn’t want her to think I was an idiot so I told her I realize there was extra room in the box and the blinds did not fit perfectly from each end of the box and I have taken that into consideration.

    Ok, bring them back if they don’t fit.
    -Home Depot blinds lady

    I won’t! They will be fine.
    -I say cheerfully over my shoulder

    Feeling smug, I brought my blinds home. I took them out of the box and you guessed it. They were absolutely not the right size. That day I learned that you can absolutely not measure blinds with your hands. I blame my mother for this.

    I also learned there is an infinite number of different size blinds.

    When I was retelling the story to my mom, she laughed and said that you can’t use that method for exact measurements. Well, how was I supposed to know that? I just saw her measuring things like that when I was little, so I figured that’s how you measure things. She should have clarified that 43 years ago. I still blame my mother.

    So then I actually got my brother to help me find a measuring tape, we measured them exactly, returned the ones we had and got new ones that fit.

    I felt like I was doing the walk of shame bringing those blinds back in hoping the same blinds lady would have gone home by then.

    Of course she hadn’t.  She started laughing out loud when she saw me.

    “I figured you’d be back she said,” and we both had a really good laugh.

    At least she now has a funny story to share at the dinner table about the crazy woman who measures with her hands. I like being people’s entertainment.  Makes me feel like I am contributing to the world.  In my own Brita way.

    It made me feel a little better that I was only a couple inches off. I think that’s pretty good considering what I now know is an imperfect measuring technique. Now I know how important it is to be exact with measuring blinds. Learn something new every day I guess.

    Do you know those LED lights that were super popular and all the kids wanted them around the top of their rooms? The ones where you just peel off the sticky back and stick along the wall near the ceiling and they just seem so easy?

    Those are great! Both my kids wanted them, and we put them up in their rooms and it was so much fun. Until it’s time to move and take them down. They just stick on so when you peel them off, they should easily come right off without ripping off any paint underneath. Right? Wrong!

    I don’t know if that always happens or if there was just a shady paint job done in this particular house but when I peeled them off, paint just came off every few inches.

    After a little gasp, and a moment of panic, I pulled myself together and I told my brother that we can easily fix this. We will just paint the top 2 inches of the room. I know I saw paint in the shed. It’ll be easy. We’ve got this. I think I actually even high-fived him as I walked out of the room.

    We went in the garage and there were two different paint cans. I like it how they have a little drop of the color on the lid so you can see what it looks like. This particular room we were painting was a little green and the rest of the house was more beige.

    I picked up the can that looked greenish to me and I brought it inside. I sort of held it up against the wall. This is definitely the one, I told my brother, full of confidence.

    My brother and I each got a paintbrush and poured some paint into a little plastic cup and he started at one end and I started at the other end and we started just painting over the spots where the lights ripped off the first layer of paint. We were talking and laughing and having a great time.  See how fun home improvement can be?

    The color looks a little light I thought and I asked him what he thought. He agreed with me, but then I said, “Paint always looks different when it dries so I’m sure it’s the right color. Let’s just keep going.”

    So we kept going, and I kept doubting whether it was the right color, but then I just kept convincing myself that it was absolutely was the right color and it will just look different when it’s dry.

    Do you know when you’re too far into something that you can’t admit you were wrong, even though you know you are wrong? I kind of felt like that. It was too late to turn back now. But also, I said a little prayer because you know, miracles can happen.

    So we finished painting the top 2 inches of the room and it looked a little off, but I said we’ll just let it dry for a couple hours and then check back. I’m sure it will be fine.

    So I shut the door and went and had a glass of wine because sometimes wine fixes things like the wrong color paint. Or maybe wine really doesn’t fix anything and it’s all in my head.

    When it was dry, and we went to look at it and as you can guess, it was absolutely the wrong color.

    My brother said, maybe it’s just the lighting, and he turned off the light and used the flashlight on his phone to shine on wall. It did match when he did that but I am sure people were going to turn on the light I said.  I was laughing so hard at that I almost peed my pants.

    So I guess it is the other can of paint in the shed. We went back out, and we got the other can of paint, and we redid the whole thing and guess what, it was perfect! I guess I confidently picked the wrong color to start with. Isn’t that how life goes? We often confidently make the wrong choice.

    We fixed it! Mission accomplished, even though it did take a little longer to get there, but, if you’ve been reading my blog, I never do things the easy way. Then I would have nothing to write about. There are always second chances and try agains and do overs I eventually get where I want to be.

    And can we just talk about those command strips? They look perfect! Have you seen the videos? Have you read the instructions? Have you used them? What an amazing way to hang things up without putting any nails in the walls. They look like the greatest invention ever! And so practical for renters.

    I was determined not to put any nail holes in the walls because I did that in my last rental house, and it was just a pain to fix all those little nail holes. (little did I know that these stupid command strips would be even a bigger pain)


    When I moved in I bought probably at least 50 of those little commando hooks and strips and I hung paintings and pictures all over my walls. I am one of those people who want their walls full of pictures from when their kids were little. I am NOT one of those organized people who has school pictures from every year for every kid in a nice neat row on their wall although I have ALWAYS have been jealous of those people and wanted to be them.  Mine are just a splattering of my kids’ pictures in no order at all.  The point is I like my walls to be very very decorated.

    I even used those command things to hang up curtain rods! These are amazing I thought. All proud and smug like I usually am. And it will be so simple to take them off when I move out. I probably even patted myself on the back when I was finished hanging everything up.

    And honestly, they worked great. Until I was moving out and it was time to take them all off the walls.

    Well, I don’t know if anyone else has ever tried to remove one of these things, but if you don’t pull that little sticky thing in exactly the right direction and exactly the right angle, half the drywall will come off with it.

    And if you do pull them in the correct way, they will snap off and hit you in the face. The hitting me in the face thing I can take, but those huge holes in my drywall were very upsetting especially since this was the exact thing I was trying to avoid.

    I’m not even kidding! I watched videos and I read directions after the first mess up, and I tried to perfect the technique and maybe half of them came off the way they were supposed to. How am I a well-educated, 50-year-old woman who cannot get these stupid command strips to come off my wall like they’re supposed to? Why did I bother trying to do things the easy way? 50 nail holes would be way easier to fix than this mess.

    So we went to Home Depot, and we got the spackle and the little scraping tools that come with it. I really like the purple color by the way. It’s bright and cheerful and it makes you think this can be fun. I’m always trying to make the best of a bad situation.

    But it’s a lot more difficult than it seems. I mean do people have to go to spackle school for this? I put too much on and then I tried to scrape it a little flatter and then it’s all indented because I scraped too much so then I put some more on, and I don’t want to scrape it too low but now there’s just a big bump. So I scrape it too low again and then I add more and there’s a big bump and I do this repeatedly about five times until I realize I really should just leave the big bump. Which I guess is how it’s supposed to be because then you sand him down after he dries? Redoing and undoing the same spot five times is just going to make this process really long.

    You would think after it dries that it would be pretty easy to sand it flat but it’s not! I thought I sanded it flat and then I walked away, and I looked at it and there was still a big bump! So I sanded it flat again, and then I walked away and then when I looked at it, there was still a bump! How does it look flat one minute and then the next it’s not? “Am I on Candid Camera or something?” I thought. “Is this a big prank?” It wasn’t. Seriously, how do the spackle and sanding guys get it so perfectly flat? It must be a talent. I have a newfound respect for them. This stuff is a lot harder than it looks!

    After trying about 10 times I decided that a little bulge was just fine. Was anybody really going to notice?

    So we did the best we could and we got the correct color out of the shed this time, and painted over those multiple little speckled bulges all over the walls.

    Surprisingly, we did not get charged for them so I think we did a pretty good job of doing it wrong, but still somehow fooling people. I guess sometimes it doesn’t have to be perfect.

    As i said, I was never one for watching those home-improvement shows. I found them boring. Maybe I should start watching them.

    It seems like I’m pretty good at unimproving my house. Maybe watching those shows will improve that.

    Or I should just give up and hire someone who actually knows what they’re doing. But what would be the fun in that?

  • What the heck is a packing cube?

    Have you ever heard of packing cubes? Are they really a thing? How come I haven’t even heard of them? They’re not even cubes. They’re just bags. 

    I was going on vacation and of course, because I don’t want to pay for a carry-on, I am only allowed a personal item. With very specific measurements. I was worried about fitting all my stuff in my bag and a friend mentioned packing cubes. 

    My friend told me packing cubes would save so much space. I looked into them, but I don’t understand. To me it looks like I’m just putting clothes in a bag to put in another bag. Adding an extra bag to a suitcase? And an extra step? Why would I pack all my clothes into small bags to put in my big bag instead of just putting all of them directly in my big bag. I asked all these questions, and my friend tried to explain that the packing cubes compress the clothes inside them so they actually take up less space. I still had a million questions since I don’t have a scientific brain, so he ended up just sending me a video about packing cubes. 

    This video was over 12 minutes long! Who can talk for 12 minutes about packing cubes? After the first two minutes, I felt like I was doing everything wrong, and I didn’t know the first thing about packing. I don’t travel often, but I am 50 years old, and I have traveled plenty in my life and survived just fine without these packing cubes or whatever they are called. I even backpacked around Europe for four months with one backpack on my back. And I sure didn’t have any packing cubes back then. I’d never even heard of them. But to be fair, I’d never really even heard of them two weeks ago.

    This guy in the video had national parks packing cubes. A different national park on each packing cube. (It’s pretty cute actually.  I mean who doesn’t love national parks?) Is that how you learn your national parks? What does it matter what’s on your packing cubes? Don’t they just go in your suitcase? Something pleasant for the inside of your suitcase to look at? Now I also need to worry about pretty packing cubes? Educational ones? That teach you something while you pack? Now I need my packing cubes to be prettier than everyone else’s packing cubes? Will my packing cubes be prettier than my sisters? Will they be educational enough to keep the inside of my suitcase entertained and busy? This is getting a little ridiculous and stressful. 

    Hey, if one can learn the names of national parks from packing cubes, maybe I can learn a language? Do they have packing cubes that can teach you French while you pack? Oh, maybe packing cubes that can teach you different types of wine! A different type of wine on each packing cube with a little description. And a pretty picture of the wine. Hey, I think I’m onto something. Educational packing cubes. Do you think there’s a big market for that out there?

    So to alleviate some of my stress, I decided to pack three days before my trip.  My bag was so full, I had to sit on it to close it. And even that was a struggle. And then I patted myself on the back for my successful packing job and promptly realized I forgot a few things. (More than a few things) I would have to unpack and repack. Good thing I started three days before my trip.

    After complaining about this to my friend he decided to loan me his packing cubes so I could try repacking with packing cubes. I was willing to give it a try since my regular packing job did not go so well. His packing cubes are just plain. Black and gray. The gray ones actually have netting material on the top. Breathing holes? Is that so the clothes can breathe? The inside of my suitcase is going to be bored. My friend really needs to step up his packing cube game if he’s going to be a walking advertisement for packing cubes. The dude with a national parks packing cubes sure showed him up. 

    My friend did have a super fancy packing cube. It had a hard bottom, and a folding board slips out of it. You know what I’m talking about, right? The kind they use at the Gap or the Limited to fold the shirts so perfectly? I used to work at Express, and I honestly loved folding all the T-shirts like that because they look so pretty. But I was getting paid for it. Nobody has time for that in real life. My friend was very excited about this and said if I use this one, I should definitely use this folding board to fold my clothes before I put them in because they fit perfectly that way. I told him to keep that one because I’m definitely not using a folding board to fold my clothes to put them in a packing cube to put that packing cube in my suitcase. Another ridiculous extra step. 

    He gave me five packing cubes. One can be for underwear and socks, the next one can be for T-shirts and so on he explained. 

    “Can my underwear and socks not touch the T-shirts? This is segregation! What if my T-shirts want to go in the same packing cube as my underwear? What if they are best friends?” I asked dramatically.

    “So put them in the same packing cube,” my friend said. Huh! I won that argument. Which wasn’t even really an argument I realized.

    I unpack my whole bag and spread everything out and look at the packing cubes. “OK, do your magic,” I say to the packing cubes. Nothing happened. Wouldn’t it be great if they invented packing gifts that would just actually pack for you? Like in cartoons where the clothes would hop up and fold themselves and jump right in the packing cube? That is definitely something I would use. If any inventors are reading my blog, they should really get on this. Are there even inventors anymore? Has everything already been invented?  Is that even still a profession? It’s probably called something else.

    I picked out three packing cubes.  I’m going to put all my clothes in three of these packing cubes and then put these packing cubes in my bag? Isn’t that just adding three extra bags to my already stuffed suitcase and the same amount of clothing I had before? It just doesn’t make sense. But a lot of things don’t make sense and still work.  Like toilets. And airplanes. And life.

    I had never used packing cubes, but as I started packing, it seemed like I could always fit one more thing in the packing cube. It’s like my mom and her fridge. She always says there’s room in the fridge for one more thing. Even though her fridge is so stuffed you think there can’t possibly be room for one more thing, my mom makes it fit. I feel like it was like that with these packing cubes. 

    Because you don’t want any extra space, right? Aren’t they supposed to compress your clothes? How are they going to do that if there’s all this extra space there? Doesn’t it need to be packed really tight in order for them to do their job? If not, isn’t it just taking up more space with all that space in the packing cube? 

    So I stuffed three packing cubes, and I had to sit on all three of them to get them to zip. Then I put those three packing cubes into my bigger bag which I also had to sit on to get it to zip.  I’m a sweaty mess when I finish wrestling with three packing cubes and my bag, but it’s done and it’s all in there. But the question is, when I unpack it in Florida will I be able to get it all back in there? That’s a worry for another day.

    I sure hope that I don’t have to open it to get something out of it at the airport because that’ll be really embarrassing to have a whole airport watch as I’m sitting on my bag, sweating and fighting with it just to get it to zip.

    Also, it weighs a ton!!! Probably more than me but somehow, I managed to swing it onto my back. My next worry, of course is will the little airline man tell me my carry on is just too big? Hopefully we’ll get a laid-back airline person who won’t look at it too hard and pull out a measuring tape. Luckily though, I put on a big smile and just walked right onto the plane.

    My next worry, of course, is will it fit under the seat in front of me? (as you can tell with me, there is always something to worry about) It’s hard to picture exactly how big the area is under the seat in front of you is, so I just cross my fingers and hope for the best. When we get to the seats, they are so much closer together than I remember them being! I can barely fit in between them, so how is my bag going to so I can get it under the seat?!?!  I literally stand on top of it with both feet and jump to push it down until I smush it down in between the seats and under the little area, but it fits! Of course, I smile sweetly at people who are watching me jump on my bag just so they know that I’m friendly. Success! I breathe a huge sigh of relief.  Now I can enjoy my flight. Which would be more enjoyable if only I had a little bit more leg room.

    I get to the little house we rented in Florida and I unpack my things and hang them up nicely in the closet. They are very wrinkled from being stuffed in the packing cube like that but it’s a good thing that I wear wrinkled clothing. I don’t even own an iron.  My ex took it with him 4 years ago and I have not needed it once since. It’s just my style. Wrinkled.

    Do you want to guess what percentage of the clothes that I brought I actually wore? Less than 50%! I didn’t wear half the clothes I brought. And also, I did laundry twice because my poor kid only has two pairs of pants. Why did I pack so much? Did I think there would be an impromptu fashion show during vacation, and I would need these three extra dresses that I packed to show up my sisters who didn’t overpack? Why do we do that? Why do we always think that we will need so much more than we actually do? 

    We stayed in the rental house for three days and then everyone else left and I was spending the last night with my dad. I was worried the whole trip about how everything would fit back in the bag. As I said, I always need something to worry about. I kept telling myself it all got in there so it all can get back in there again somehow, right? Wrong.

    I tried to repack before moving out of the house, but it didn’t work. One full packing cube would not fit in the bag! I did my sitting on it trick and everything, but it still did not work. I carried a bag of clothes to my dad’s house. I was thinking that the packing cubes were getting back at me for talking crap about them at the beginning. I had a day to figure out how to make it up to the packing cubes so they will like me and work for me again. I spent the rest of the day praising the packing cubes. I was telling them how smart they were and how well they worked. 

    By some miracle, after three tries and a lot of sweat and tears I managed to put everything back in that bag. It was honestly a miracle. I don’t know how it fit. I have all the same worries flying back home. Except my new worry was that my bag was surely going to explode because there was so much stuff in it. I imagine the zippers just giving way and the bag flying open and all my clothes flying all over the airport. I imagine some poor old man waiting for his plane, reading his book when suddenly a pair of my underwear lands on his head. Oh wait, that won’t happen because everything is packed tightly in packing cubes. Thank you, packing cubes. For saving that poor stranger at the airport from having my underwear land on his head. Does anyone else worry excessively or is it only me?

    I will tell you, everything looks so nice and neat while using packing cubes. And despite my messy life, I do like things neat and organized. 

    I was just exhausted when I got home from my trip after all the stress with the packing and the packing cubes. Did the packing cubes help? I don’t know. Did the packing cubes make things worse? I don’t know. I think the solution here is really just to pack less. Or just go ahead and pay for a carry-on! I think I have learned my lesson.

    I have a wedding to go to in Wisconsin in September, so I’ll let you know how packing for that goes. I have a feeling it will be exactly the same. Do we ever really learn? I know I usually don’t.  I’ll keep you updated though. I’ll hold onto these packing cubes just in case. Packing miracles can happen.

  • The worst place on earth

    Can we just talk about how hard grocery shopping is? Is grocery shopping hard for anyone else? Yes, I’m a 50 year-old woman who has been grocery shopping for over 25 years now but I still dread it. Why am I so bad at grocery shopping? I didn’t even know it was possible to be bad at grocery shopping. Is grocery shopping a talent? Did I just invent a new thing to be bad at? I hate it! I’d rather go to the dentist. Well that’s not fair because I love the dentist. But that’s a story for a different blog post.

    I can never find anything in the grocery store! I even go to the same grocery store so you would think I would know where things are, but I still have no idea!

    Why can I never find peanut butter or honey? Why don’t they have a sign above the aisle that says peanut butter or honey? I know the signs above the aisles are helpful but what about all those other things you’re looking for that there’s no sign for above the aisle? Why isn’t there a sign for honey? Or peanut butter? Or pine nuts?

    The only thing I do know the location of is the taco stuff. That’s because, if you’ve read my blog, tacos are the only thing I can make successfully. Although lately my kid has not been eating them. But at least I know where taco things are in the grocery store. In case anyone asks me, I can seem knowledgeable. If you see me in the grocery store, please stop and ask me where the taco stuff is just so I can feel like I know something and can be helpful. Taco seasoning, taco shells, I’ve got it, and then after that, I’m lost.

    Does anyone else lose their cart in the grocery store? It happens to me all the time! I can’t be the only one. I remember telling a friend about it who looked at me like I was crazy. Do you know when you’re pushing your cart and you realize you’ve missed something? Which is pretty much how I grocery shop. Do normal people shop so efficiently they don’t miss one thing? When this happens are you really going to turn your whole cart around and push your whole cart all the way back to get that one thing? Or, wouldn’t it be more efficient, to leave your cart there and run back to grab that one thing? So much more faster! That just seems more sensible and logical to me so I do it but when I come back, I can’t find my cart. It’s not where I left it. Or maybe I forgot where I left it, but I think, most likely, it’s not where I left it. I think there’s someone who follows me around the grocery store and moves my cart just to make me feel crazy. (Probably hired by my ex husband. kidding…)

    Also, why do all the carts look the same? It’s so easy to lose my cart if they all look exactly the same. Shouldn’t they switch them up? Different colors or something? That might help. “Oh, I lost my cart but I know it was pink. Let me look for a pink cart parked randomly in the middle of an aisle,” I imagine myself saying.

    Oh! Or what about those wine charms! You know how you go to a fancy party and everyone’s glass of wine is the same so they have those cute little wine charms that you hook to your glass so you don’t you lose your glass? I don’t have any of those wine charms but I think they’re adorable and I feel so fancy when I go to a party and someone hands me a wine glass with a cute little wine charm. They need those for grocery carts. Grocery cart charms. They should keep them by where you get your grocery carts. You pick one and you clip it to your cart and that’s how you know.

    “I’m sorry, sir, that is not your cart. It has the brown teddy bear charm on it and that was my charm. Good try, thief,” I imagine myself saying as I grab my cart back from a little old man. And then roll two feet away to realize it’s really not my cart because there’s salmon in it and most likely there’s more than one teddy bear cart charm. OK, I still need to perfect the grocery store cart charm method, but I really think I’m onto something. Wouldn’t grocery shopping be so much more tolerable if the carts were fun? Maybe I wouldn’t lose mine so often.

    Grocery shopping has always been such an ordeal for me. I don’t know where anything is, I don’t know what I need, I buy too many things I don’t need and nothing that can actually make a meal, and I spend way too much money, and come home to realize I didn’t buy anything I actually needed!! And then I need to go out for essentials like toilet paper and stuff. After I was just at the grocery store. It’s exhausting. I’m tired just thinking about grocery shopping.

    I know, I know, you will say, “Brita, have you ever heard of making a grocery list?” Yes yes, I have. I make grocery lists all the time. I either lose them, forget them or don’t write important things on them. Is it just me or do you think of something really really important you want to write on your grocery list and then by the time you actually have the list and the pen you have no idea what you were going to write? Does that happen to anyone else? So grocery lists are really a great idea unless of course you don’t put the important stuff on there. Or you can’t find it when it’s time to go to the grocery store. Oh I know, there’s a thing called the phone, and a thing called the digital list, but I’m not a technologically-advanced girl. I still get my Mary Englebright planner for Christmas every year and write everything down with a pencil in my planner that I keep on my desk. Maybe someone should try to teach me how to use technology. But it sounds too hard. And I was going to say if it’s not broke, don’t fix it! But maybe it is broke? Shouldn’t it be broken, not broke?

    If you’ve been reading my blog, you will see that I really have been trying to cook. I look up all these recipes. I write down the ingredients, I go to the grocery store but seriously, how am I supposed to find the ingredient if I don’t even know what it is. What the heck is xanthan gum? Where is it? Is it gum? Would it be in the candy aisle? Arrowroot flour? What the heck? Lupin powder? Grass fed butter?!?! Does butter even eat?!? And if it did why wouldn’t it choose something more appetizing than grass?!? How am I supposed to know what these things are? Do I have to Google items before I put them on my grocery list to see what they are? That’s so much work!

    I dread going to the grocery store. There is nothing worse! I don’t know how people like it. Do you know that scene in Three Men and a Baby when it’s Tom Selleck’s turn to change the baby’s diaper and he’s on his way to work and he says, “I will give you a million dollars if you change the diaper?” Or something like that? And he’s completely serious? That’s how I feel about grocery shopping. I would give someone a million dollars if I had it before I would step foot in a grocery store.

    That’s why this online ordering has completely changed my life. When I do it right. The other day I did it and I know I ordered three cases of water and when the nice grocery lady brought out my groceries, they weren’t in there. I asked about it and she said well we should look at my receipt together since she was there and sure enough I didn’t even order them. I know I ordered them but then I thought I got the wrong size so I tried to erase them and put the right size, but maybe I erased them all together. So I went through all the effort of ordering online so I would not have to go in the grocery store, but yet I still had to go in the grocery store because I forgot my water! Well, that’s disappointing.

    What about those people whose job it is to grocery shop for people?!!? Could there be a worse job?!?! I can’t think of one.

    Also, grocery stores are so chaotic and confusing they make me feel all emotional and vulnerable. One time, a couple years ago, I went to the grocery store when I was having a really tough day. And also, I couldn’t find the tortillas. Why are they not with the bread? Wouldn’t that make sense?

    On this day, a man stops me and introduces himself. He says he’s my neighbor and he lives up the road and he sees me walking my dogs all the time. And then he asks me how I am? I mean really sincerely asks me how I am. Although he could have just been being polite. Well, I don’t know if it was just the stress of the grocery store or my failure to locate the tortillas on my first try, but all of a sudden, I just started bawling. I started crying hysterically to this stranger in the grocery store that I didn’t even really know! He just stopped me in the grocery store to say hello. I just couldn’t help myself. Feeling stressed, emotional, and lost in the grocery store and someone asks how I am? I fall apart! Poor guy! I bet he sure learned his lesson. Never stop someone you know in the grocery store and say hi.

    I can picture him from now on with a baseball cap pulled low so he can’t see anyone while he’s pushing his cart really fast in the grocery store, just trying to get his groceries and get out of there as fast as he can. He’s probably traumatized from that one time he was trying to be polite and say hi to a neighbor.

    Come on, am I really the only person who has cried to a stranger in the grocery store? I totally blame the grocery store. If someone stopped me in the library and asked how I was, no matter what kind of day I had been having, I would’ve been filled with positive things to say because, you know, it’s a library. Not a grocery store. I feel all Zen and stuff in the library.

    How are you?
    -random neighbor in the library.

    Great! Because, well, books!
    -I’d say while gesturing to the walls of books around me.

    Libraries always make me feel better. Grocery stores never do.

    If I ever win the lottery, the first thing I would do would be to hire someone to do my grocery shopping. Not just do my grocery shopping, but also to read my mind and know exactly what groceries to get so I don’t even have to think about groceries ever again. My kitchen would just always be full with exactly what I want without me doing a thing. Like magic!

    Most people would pay off debts if they won the lottery or buy a boat. I would just ensure I never had to think about groceries ever again.

    Until I win the lottery, I guess I will have to continue dealing with the worst place on earth.

  • My lawn mower hates me

    You have all seen them. The people who make mowing the lawn look easy. Those people who are just walking peacefully after their lawn mower in their yard. They are walking at a leisurely speed while barely exerting any effort to push their lawn mower. Some are actually even going fast. They make it look effortless. Some even look like they’re running and some even look like they’re enjoying it! I’ve always seen people like that and thought to myself that mowing a lawn is probably easy. Anybody could do it. Even I could do it!

    I call BS on all these happy people mowing their lawn in an effortless manner. Mowing is not easy. Or maybe I’m just really really bad at it. If you’ve been reading my blog, it’s a very good possibility. I’m naturally bad at cooking so I could very well be naturally bad at mowing a lawn. If that’s even a thing. Maybe no one has been bad at mowing a lawn before. Maybe I invented being bad at lawn mowing.

    Before I got separated, ex-husband just always took care of the lawn. He wanted to. He enjoyed it. Or if he didn’t, I didn’t know. It just seemed like a man kind of thing. It’s a man’s job, I thought. The feminist in me is very disappointed in myself at this thought. All the lawn responsibilities just somehow fell on him so for over 10 years I never even thought of lawn care. It never even crossed my mind. He made it look easy, so I figured it couldn’t be that hard.

    In 2021 my husband moved out and here I was with a big old lawn and no idea how to take care of it. As I said, everybody made it look so easy so I thought it would be no problem at all. I thought it would even be FUN! I could do it. I am a strong, independent, intelligent woman, so mowing the lawn would be a piece of cake, right?

    With my head held high, and walking tall and proud, I march right out to the garage and introduce myself to the lawn mower. I explain to him that we were going to be best friends and from now on I would be hanging out with him. I know he probably really liked my ex, but I am actually way more fun I tell him with a wink. I wheel him out in the grass, and I look at him realizing that I have no idea how to start a lawn mower. I watch a YouTube video, but honestly, I don’t know how anyone learns anything from YouTube videos. People always report that they learn so much from watching YouTube videos, but I just don’t. I can’t concentrate that long. I get bored. But still, I sort of watch one and then I’m ready.

    You just pull that little stringie thing, right? That’s how everybody does it in the movies. Simple simple. So, I pull the string and nothing happens. I talk to the lawn mower nicely and say, “look, I know you and my ex had a great relationship, but it’s just going to be us from now on so let’s make the best of it.”  And I high five his cute little lawn mower side. Then I try again, and I try again, and I try again. I will not be deterred, I think to myself, but the darn thing won’t start. I look up and see my neighbor across the street. I hate asking for help but I’m out of options.

    I walk over there and ask him very nicely if he will teach me how to use my lawn mower. He comes over and he says first of all, I should change out of flip-flops. You’re not supposed to mow your lawn in flip flops?!! I do everything in flip-flops. That doesn’t make any sense, but I’ll listen to him. (A couple weeks later I meet a friend for lunch and I was telling her the story and she told me it’s absolutely fine to mow your yard in the flip flops. Ever since then I always do. I have one pair of lawnmowing flip-flops. My feet are always grass stained and disgusting when I come in that they need a good scrubbing. It’s all worth it to not have to wear real shoes. Anyway, that’s probably too much information so let’s get back to my story.)

    My neighbor shows me how to check the gas. I feel a little silly because I did not know how to check for gas and I didn’t even think of it.  But the mower had gas so that wasn’t the problem. Then he shows me how to push this little button up front. Who knew you had to push a little button? My YouTube video didn’t tell me that. And then he shows me how you pull the string (just like I’d been doing) and it starts right up. That’s easy! I thank him and then I go inside to change out of my flip-flops.

    I come back out and check the gas even though we checked it together and it’s fine, I pump the little button, I pull the string and nothing happens. I pull it again and again and again and finally I have to go back over there and ask my neighbor for more help. It was just that I wasn’t putting enough muscle into pulling the little string. After I learned that, I successfully mowed my lawn for the first time. I thought I was going to die from heat stroke, but I was so proud of myself you would think I had just climbed Mount Everest. And can we talk about how hard it is to turn the lawnmower around?! Why is it so hard to turn?  I struggled while backing up and going forward and backing it up again. It is like I was making a five-point turn after every row.

    That mower is really hard to push, and my yard is a lot bigger than it looks. I remember my ex-husband complaining about it for years and saying we need a ride on mower. I told him he was just being a wimp, and we did not need a ride on mower. I told him our lawn was not that big, and he could easily do it. Well, now I kind of see his point, but I would never admit that and please don’t ever tell him that if you know him. We don’t want men going around thinking they’re right about things. Kidding! I love men. They are right sometimes.

    And that is how my lawnmowing adventure began over four years ago. You would think I would get the hang of it. You would think it would be easier. You would think the lawn mower likes me by now. You would think we are best friends. But for some reason, it’s just gotten harder and harder and harder. There was a point when the lawn mower wouldn’t even start for me. I would go out there ready to tackle the lawn and I would try and try and try to start the lawn mower and then I would just give up and go back inside. When my brother got home, I would tell him that the lawn mower was just not starting, and he’d go out there and start it on the first try. I tried not to take it personally, but it really felt like my lawn mower just didn’t like me. But that doesn’t make sense because everyone likes me! Does my lawnmower not realize how cool I am? I say the same thing about my children. Children and lawnmowers. They really just don’t appreciate us. Someday they will, I am sure.

    I swear that the grass grows six inches in one day around here. Every time I turn around the lawn needs to be mowed again. But also, it rains every day, so the grass is wet. I know they always say, don’t mow wet grass, and I know that, but the grass is always wet because it’s always raining. If I didn’t mow the grass when it is wet I would NEVER be able to mow the grass. I swear the backyard is up to my knees after three days. In this day and age, with all the advanced technology, how has no one invented a lawn mower that can cut wet grass?!? That is what the world really needs. And a few other things too, of course.

    A couple of days ago there was a break in the rain, and I saw neighbors out mowing their lawn with no trouble so I figured I could do it too. Mine was looking pretty bad. If they can do it, I can do it I thought. I went out and checked in with the grass. It seemed dry. It felt dry. It will be fine, I thought.

    But it didn’t work out as I planned. Every minute or two the lawnmower would die because it would get stopped up with wet grass. I would have to flip it over, pull the soggy wet gross grass out with my hands and throw it somewhere.  I would have to give it a little pep talk, wait five minutes, and try again. This went on for about half an hour, and I realized in my mind that I was actually wasting my time but I couldn’t let myself give up. I couldn’t even get a whole row done before it would die. It’s like the definition of two steps forward and one step back.  Except in this case, it could have been one step forward and two steps back.

    Is something wrong with my lawn mower? Am I doing it wrong? Have I been mowing my lawn for four years and I still don’t know how? Why is it so hard to mow a lawn? Does anyone else have these problems or is it only me? I have never seen anyone struggling in their yard like I do.

    Finally I found a trick! If I mow 6 inches, pull back 2 inches and lean it on its back wheels, then the grass sort of flies out from under it, and it doesn’t die. But that’s getting very little done and exerting a lot of energy. My hands are also sore and blistered after mowing that way. But is there any other way? I need to get this lawn mowed because the weather app says it’s going to rain for the next nine days. That’s not a surprise. 

    So I continue with that strategy for a row or two, but then once again it dies, so I clean it out, give it a little pep talk and a pat on the back, wait five minutes, and try to start it again. Every time this happens, it takes me at least four tries before it actually starts. But I get it done.

    I was mowing like this last night in my front yard, and I saw the neighbors across the street sitting in their garage, having a drink and watching their dog and kids play in the front yard. I hope they weren’t watching me. It’s really embarrassing that I’m so bad at mowing a lawn. I hope I gave them a good laugh, but I think probably they just felt really sorry for me.

    My mower is really hard to push. Even though it’s one of those self-propelling ones where you pull in the handle and the front wheels turn. I didn’t figure that out for the first five times I mowed the lawn, and I was really worried I had lost my muscle mass or something. But even with that feature, sometimes I don’t think I’m going to be able to push it. My lawn is lumpy. It’s not one of those perfectly flat lawns. We had trees and bushes that got knocked down from the hurricane and in those spots it’s not completely flat. So sometimes when I get to a lump, no matter how hard I push, the lawn mower doesn’t budge.  I push with all my might but it’s at this point I always worry if this is it, if this is when my lawnmowing career comes to an end. I wonder if I will just have to leave this lawn mower at the bottom of this lump in my front yard forever because it just can’t be moved. But then after pep talks to both me and my lawn mower, and a little extra energy, it goes over the lump. Until the next time. Does anyone else have a lumpy yard or a hard time actually pushing their lawn mower? You can’t even really see the lumps until you get to one with the lawn mower. And I’m a strong woman. I carried my kids up to bed until they were probably eight or nine even. But even my muscles are sometimes no match for lawn mower.

    I listen to books on tape or podcasts while I mow to try to make it more enjoyable. While I was mowing this last time, I was listening to Wild by Cheryl Strayed. She was talking about how difficult, how excruciating, how exhausting it was to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. I said girl, you don’t know anything about difficult and exhausting until you’ve tried to mow this lawn on Province Drive. At that moment, I honestly thought it would be easier to hike the Pacific Crest Trail alone for 100 days than it is to mow this freaking lawn. Looking back, I changed my mind about that but at the moment, that’s honestly how I felt.

    I FINALLY get the front yard mowed although it probably took 20 times longer than it should have.  I sit back with the feeling of accomplishment. Real accomplishment. Probably how Cheryl Strayed felt after completing her 1000-mile hike on the PCT.

    The next morning when I walk out and there are all those clumps of dried grass on my lawn from when I had to stop and clean it out. They have dried and turned brown so quickly. You know those little horse drawn carriage rides downtown? You know how sometimes there are big piles of horse poop on the ground before they clean them? That’s exactly what the dried grass looks like on my lawn. Big piles of horse poop. What do you do with that? I don’t see that on anyone else’s lawn! Am I supposed to shovel them up? And put them where?  In a bag? Do you just leave them? What’s the proper protocol here. What does everybody else do and why don’t I see horse poop looking dried grass clumps on anyone else’s lawn?!? Once again, am I doing this wrong?

    I was thinking about that bag that you put on the back of the lawnmower. I have one, but I’ve never put it on. I don’t really understand how it works. Wouldn’t it get in my way? Am I supposed to be using that? Anyway, I wonder if that is the problem. I should probably google it, but I never do. I just keep doing it this way.

    Why do we do things the hard way? Why are we set in our ways and stuck in our habits that we don’t even Google if there is an easier way. And if there is an easier way, will we actually try it? Does it take more effort to change to an easier way than just keep doing things as you’ve been doing them?

    Is this kind of thing like life? Where you look at Facebook and everything looks so easy for everyone else? Is mowing the lawn like that? Something that people just pretend is easy when really it’s hard as heck? Is this just something that no one talks about? Like how hard parenting is or marriage is? Or doing your hair? Or wearing not flip flops? Or is it only me? Or is it my lawn mower? Is mowing your lawn hard for anyone else?!? If not, just ignore this post and I will keep blaming the lawn mower.

  • Death at a Winery

    We all have that one friend who talks to everyone, right? The type of person who will just talk to a stranger for 20 minutes about their stubbed toe. I have a friend like that. I can’t take him anywhere without him having conversations with strangers, adding half an hour to our trip. The other day he talked to the woman who worked at Port City Java for 10 minutes about some experience he had buying donuts at the Donut Inn. And there was even a line behind us!

    And don’t even get me started about going out to dinner with him. He spends half of it talking to the server. He has all his normal lines. I can predict what he’s going to say right before he says it. The sweet little server comes over and asks if we have any questions. He laughs and he says, “I have plenty of questions. Pull up a chair. Or did you just mean about the menu?” Then he laughs at how hilarious he is. I swear I think there are servers who see us sit down and then they pay a different server 50 bucks to take the table for them.

    I’m kidding, it’s funny and sort of entertaining. I’m just not that kind of person. If I see someone I know in the grocery store, I will duck my head and turn the other way and hope he/she doesn’t see me. Even if I really like them! I don’t even know why I do it. I guess I just don’t particularly like talking to people.

    Now, if my friend saw someone he knew in the grocery store, he would literally start running, tripping over his own feet, pushing his cart as fast as he can just to talk to some PTA mom or other acquaintance.

    We recently took a little trip to the mountains. We got away for a few days. We walked around little towns and looked in all the quaint shops. Of course, my friend had to talk to every shop owner for 10 minutes about this antique or that antique or some casserole dish that his grandmother had.

    During this trip, we went to some wineries. I love wineries. I do my tasting quickly, I pick my wine, and I go find a peaceful place to sit and drink and enjoy the company of the people I’m with. Obviously, my chatty friend does wineries differently.

    It just so happened that the owner of the winery was the one who was doing our tasting. As you can imagine, my friend had a field day chatting with the owner. He’s really a very friendly and charming guy and people enjoy talking to him. People who enjoy talking to strangers that is. I’m not one of those people. But I just smile and drink the wine. By this point, she knows all about his record collection and his boat that he can’t drive.

    Finally, the tasting is over and I pry him away from the poor owner, who probably has a job to do like running a winery, and we go outside and enjoy our wine.

    We know the winery closes at five so at about 4:55 we finish our wine and collect our glasses to go return them. I can’t wait to get some dinner. I’m starving by now. I send my friend to return the glasses and I go and use the restroom.

    When I come out of the restroom, of course he is talking to the owner and when he sees me, his face lights up and he says ,”the owner just asked if we would like a private tour and see where the wine is made.”

    Ummm….. no.

    His face is beaming with excitement. But my mind goes somewhere else. Why would the owner do that? It is closing time. Doesn’t she want to just kick everybody out so she can clean up and enjoy her evening? Is my friend really that charming and chatty that she wants to spend more time listening to him?

    I got a little suspicious at that point. I do read too many thrillers and watch too much Law & Order, but I was very skeptical about this overly friendly winery owner who wants to take time out of her day, after the winery has closed, to give us a little private tour.

    But of course I don’t say any of that so I just put a big smile on my face and say “ Oh! Wow! That would be amazing! That is so nice of you.”

    She leads us through these heavy wooden doors to this huge dark room full of wine vats. She starts telling us about the room and how it was built by hand and with refurbished wood or something like that. I’m not listening. I’m pretending to listen but looking for the nearest exits. At this point, my friend is talking about how great he is at recycling because he rinses out every single container and lets it dry before he puts it in the recycling. Umm… does the recycling really care if it is dry or not?

    She’s telling us how the temperature stays cool even on hot days. She talks about how her husband ‘s family built it. And of course, my friend is fascinated. He’s asking so many questions and talking about his similar experiences. Although he’s never owned a winery or built a room with big wine vats in it that can stay cool even in hot temperatures, I’m sure he can relate somehow.

    I, on the other hand, am getting more and more suspicious the farther we go into the deep, dark, very large room. This owner could kill us and throw our bodies in one of these wine vats, and we would never be found! Never be found!

    Don’t be silly I tell myself. There’s no way she can get us in those vats I think to myself. She’s not He-Man. She can’t just pick us up and toss us up and over.

    She eventually leads us to a dark winding staircase. There is an awkward looking man at the top who steps aside to let us pass. I wonder if he’s her partner and they’re secretly going to kill us together.

    My friend sees him, and a big old smile fills his face (oblivious that these might be our last few moments on earth) and ask him how his day was. He says, “quitting time, huh?” And then gives him a pat on the back or a high five or something like they have known each other since childhood.

    Now I’m getting even more nervous because I have realized that this is how she’s going to get us in the vats. From here, it will be easy. She will just kick us over the railing, and we’ll fall headfirst into one of those vats down below. They are so perfectly placed below. I can’t imagine they are for anything else. Well, maybe wine.

    I sure hope it’s one that’s filled with wine that we get thrown into. I think it would hurt if it was empty and at least if it was a full one, I can drink all the wine I want before I die there thanks to my friend being overly welcoming and trusting everybody. I give him a look, trying to let him know to stay as far away from the railing as possible, but he just smiles at me and actually leans over the railing taking it all in like it’s the most majestic view in the world.

    The owner then says, as a very special treat, (which she NEVER does she says), she will show us the lab. This is where the chemist works she explains. She takes us into a small room that looks like a high school science lab with beakers, droppers, and microscopes. I’m already scanning the room looking for something I can use as a weapon.

    There is a little room off the to the side. She is very excited about that and says, “Oh, come over here. Come in this room.” I put my shoulder and my head in that room, and she says, “No no, come all the way in this room! It’s soundproofed.”

    What??? Soundproofed! I’m so scared I nearly pee my pants! Oh gosh, this is it. This is how we’re going down. In a soundproof wine tasting room in the middle of nowhere!

    I look at my friend who has the biggest smile on his face and is just chatting away happily about music and some band he used to travel with and some soundproof recording rooms he’s been in.

    He has no clue that we are about to be murdered by the winery owner. No clue!!! It’s up to me to save our lives! Us women literally have to do everything.

    She explains that they need a soundproof room to taste the wine so they can taste it better. Why does it need to be quiet to taste wine? You don’t taste wine with your ears! It’s definitely an excuse to lock us in a soundproof room. I shoot my friend a terrified, “what the heck are we going to do,” face and he gives me an odd look and ignores it.

    I think back and try to remember all the self-defense moves I learned back in 1999 when I took a woman’s self-defense class before going into the Peace Corps. Elbow on the collarbone was all that I could remember. I start preparing to do the elbow on the collarbone move, if needed. My friend looks at me quickly, and I do an elbow up and point to my collarbone move hoping he will understand that we must do the elbow on the collarbone move together if necessary. One on each collar bone. He looks at me a little confused but then continues chatting away happily to the winery owner.

    I’m getting claustrophobic in this small, soundproofed room and I just know I have to do something fast to save our lives. When the winery owner glances at me, I quickly make the, “I’m watching you” sign that Robert De Niro makes in Meet the Parents. You know the two fingers pointing to my eyes and then out to her.

    I think that scares her. She knows I’m on to her now, so she lets us out of the soundproof room. Huge sigh of relief, but we were still not out of the woods. I wouldn’t even know my way out of here. And those doors looked heavy, and I bet she locked them behind us. I pressed my body against the wall across from the railing as we made our way back to the staircase. Yes, it looks weird, but I was not getting near that railing.

    She tried to let me go first down the stairs but, uh uh! No way! She wanted me to go down first so she can easily kick me down the stairs? I don’t think so, Mrs. Winery Lady. I once again do that, “I’m watching you,” sign and insist she goes first.

    Then, as a special treat, she says as she’s leading us down the stairs, she will show us where they bottle the wine. She once again says she never shows anyone that. Then why? Oh, why? Is she showing us? We are not that cool. We are not that nice. We don’t even know that much about wine. Is it because my friend is so chatty that she finds it endearing? Or is it because my friend is so chatty that she plans to kill him to put the rest of the world out of their misery? And she must kill me too because I’m a witness?

    I’m very aware of my surroundings. I’m watching everything. I’m not even listening as my friend chats about some article he wrote for some magazine about some brewery and how their canning station looked a lot like this bottling one. Blah blah blah, he’s sounding like the teacher from Snoopy to me with no realization we are in imminent danger!

    I must get us out of here and fast. The longer we stay, the more opportunities we have to be murdered, and the more relaxed we feel, the more we will let down out guard. Well, not me. Because I’m onto her.

    I can say I need to use the restroom!  But then she might lead me to a private dark restroom and lock me in while she murders chatty Cathy first.

    Then, I had a brilliant idea.

    “Oh no! I think I left my phone in the restroom in the tasting room.” I exclaimed, with a worried look on my face. “I’m expecting some important work emails. How do I get out of here?”

    The winery owner looks disappointed.

    I start walking quickly in the direction I thought we came from. After a quick scan of the room, I realize I was heading the wrong way. I spy the big heavy doors on the other side, and I walk as fast as I can to them. She must’ve had some secret button in her pocket to unlock them when she realized her plan was foiled because they push right open when I get to them. I look back to make sure my friend was following me because I really wanted to save his life also, but, if it came down to it, I would have to make a tough decision.

    Luckily my friend and the owner were coming out of the door. I went into the restroom knowing I wouldn’t find anything.

    I come out to more chatting, but I quickly cut my friend off and thank the owner politely.

    I drag my friend outside as fast as I can.

    “What in the world was wrong with you in there???” My friend looks at me with a concerned expression.

    “We almost died!” I exclaimed.

    “What?!?!”

    “That winery owner was going to kill us! She was going to murder us! I saved our lives.”

    “Ok….. thank you?”

    Hmmm… I question my behavior just a little at that point when we are out in the sunshine and fresh air. I guess maybe it’s possible she wasn’t going to kill us and was just being polite BUT better safe than sorry and it’s always best to be prepared. The world can be a dangerous place.

    “Geez, I can’t take her ANYWHERE,” my friend whispers to himself as he walks to the car and I can hear the eye roll in his voice.

  • Brownies

    My sister was visiting from Virginia, and it happened to be my brother’s birthday. We always make a cake on birthdays with candles because everyone needs wishes and candles to blow out on their birthday no matter how old they are.

    We decided on gluten-free brownies. We had the box mix, frosting, and all the ingredients that we need. While I was buying the ingredients, I decided to splurge and buy myself a new 9 x 13 baking pan. I don’t really have one. Every time I make cakes or brownies, which is only on birthdays, so it’s very rare, I just buy one of those little aluminum disposable ones. I know! Gasp! The Earth is crying, but it’s just so cheap and easy. But not this time! I’m going to save the Earth and by myself a pan that I can use every time I make brownies.


    I’ve been making brownies since I was probably 10 years old. We used to make them all the time when we were little as an afternoon snack. My sisters and I would make them, my friend and I would make them. I can make brownies in my sleep.

    So, we get the box, we get the bowl, I pulled the pan out, I look at the top of the box for the ingredients and I just start dumping them in a big bowl. This is how I’ve always made brownies.

    I am mixing them up all proud of myself when my sister actually reads the instructions and then tells me that I’ve done it wrong.

    I tsk tsk her but when I actually read the instructions, it does say that you’re supposed to add ingredients one at a time in a separate order and mixing these two up before you add the third.

    But why? It’s all going to the same place! Why can’t we just mix it all up together the way we want to mix it all up together?
    -me

    Because that’s not what the instructions say.
    -my sister

    But that doesn’t make any sense! They all end up all mixed together in the end, so I don’t know why it matters how we put them in.
    ⁃ me with confidence and authority. I probably even puff my chest out to show how mighty I am when it comes to cooking.

    I don’t know. I didn’t write the instructions, but it’s probably written like that for a reason.
    -my sister

    No, it’s fine. They are just being silly and trying to see if we actually do read the instructions.
    -me

    And obviously you don’t.
    -my sister

    Look! I have two boxes of gluten-free brownies. Why don’t we make them both? Why don’t we make one like this and then one with actually following the instructions and we can see which ones turned out better?
    -me

    Or we can just eat the ones where we follow the instructions because obviously, we are going to mess up the first one if we don’t follow the instructions at all.
    -my sister

    That works! I go on mixing my ingredients and I proudly pull out my new 9 x 13 pan to show her. She reads the directions carefully and says that it actually calls for a 9 x 9 pan.


    Whaaat!?!! What kind of pan is that? This is a normal brownie pan! I bought it specifically for the brownies. We always made brownies in these pans growing up. It will be fine. It’s only 3 inches different.
    -me

    4
    -my sister

    Well, I tell her I don’t really have another pan as I dig through my cabinets, and I pull out a 5 x 9 Pyrex dish.

    This is perfect!
    -me

    Still 4 inches short.
    Do you read instructions at all?
    -my sister

    Of course! But you don’t have to follow them exactly.
    -me

    No wonder you have a cooking failure blog.
    -my sister

    Well, we made the brownies that I messed up and in the pan that was 3 inches short. And somehow, miraculously, my sister dug through my pots and pan cabinet, and I had a 9 x 9 pan! I don’t even know where that came from! I had no idea I had that! I guess I should organize that cabinet sometime.

    So, we followed the instructions perfectly for the second batch, thanks to my sister. But do you know what the funny thing is? The one we messed up, the one we did everything wrong with, turned out to be the better one. The wrong order of the ingredients, the wrong pan size, and it was much better than the one where we followed the directions perfectly. I guess that goes to show that you don’t always have to do things by the book. You don’t always have to follow the directions exactly. You can wing it, you can lose a few inches, you can do things in the wrong order, and it can still come out beautifully.

    So, for all those people who don’t do things exactly right, who don’t do things in exactly the right order, who don’t follow the instructions perfectly even though they really mean to, life can still be beautiful. Things can still come out perfectly. I mean, not every time, as you’ve read from my blog posts, but sometimes, it can just all work out even if you mess it up.

    So, here’s to getting things wrong. Here’s to trying your best. Here’s to miracles from messes every once in a while.

  • There is a Hamster in My Closet

    Our dog recently passed away. It’s heartbreaking to watch your kids so upset and you will do anything to alleviate the smallest bit of heartache for them, so when my son asked for a hamster, what did we do? Against all better judgement, we ran out and got him a hamster… and all the accessories… and the largest cage around, because my sweet son was worried the cheaper cage would not be big enough. This didn’t seem like the time to point out that it’s called a hamster cage, so, obviously it’s big enough for a hamster. We got a rat cage instead. Why do rats need more room? Because of their tail?

    Oh, hamster memories. Hamsters are not my friend. This is not our first hamster. We’ve had three. The first was named Sammy G and, if I remember correctly, I think I forgot to feed him… and he died… and my oldest son found him. He was so traumatized he had to stay home from school that day. I really thought I fed him, but maybe I didn’t. Maybe he didn’t like my cooking either.

    A couple years later, my youngest wanted a hamster for his birthday. As you’ve come to realize, I cannot say no to my kids, so we went out and we got him a hamster. He named him Cupcake. Cupcake was a sweet little guy, and he would let the kids hold him and kiss him. The boys loved Cupcake, and they played with him all the time. I think they played a little too rough with him because it got to the point where Cupcake just turned grumpy. He didn’t want to be held or even touched. Those sweet little boys still tried though but he had developed a bad hamster attitude.

    There was a little latch that opened on the top of Cupcake’s cage, and I constantly reminded the kids to make sure it was closed all the way. Well, I’m sure you can guess what happened.

    One morning I sent the boys off to school, and I went about my morning chores, which did involve feeding the hamster. See? I can learn from my mistakes. Sometimes. Well, the latch was not closed, and the hamster was gone. (insert Brita’s worried face here)

    At this point, we had two dogs in our house and one cat. Two dogs that love to chase and eat little critters like a hamster. One was a hunting dog and the other a pit bull. I was sure there was no way that Cupcake could have survived being free in that house. I imagined my sweet little doggies swallowing him whole. I was so sad about Cupcake and felt like a failure of a hamster mom. Again!

    Of course I searched the whole house thoroughly while calling his name loudly. Did I honestly think that would help? He’ll be hiding somewhere and when he heard his name he would come bounding out and jump into my arms? Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.

    After I searched the house, I sat each one of the pets down and questioned them. They all swore up and down and on my life that they had not seen Cupcake and had absolutely not eaten Cupcake. I kind of believed the cat because, if it was her, there would’ve been a body somewhere. Unless she had been in cahoots with one of the dogs. She kills it, he eats it, so I will never know what they were up to. Anyway, they all were very convincing, so I really had no further leads at this point.

    I completely freaked out, I called my then husband at work, and I told him we had to find a replacement. I told him we could not tell the kids that the hamster is missing and most likely eaten by one of their beloved other pets. We would have to call or go to every pet store in all of Wilmington and find a Russian dwarf hamster that looked just like Cupcake.

    You would think I would’ve learned my lesson with the pet beta fish the boys had. It kept dying and I didn’t have the heart to teach them about death yet, so we kept replacing that beta fish. Sometimes it was a slightly different color, slightly different size, but we told the boys that the food we gave him was magic, color-changing food. I think that’s actually what it’s called, but I don’t think it really changes the color that much, but the boys believed it. They had the only beta fish in the world that lived for 10 years. And even at the end, we didn’t have the heart to tell them, so we said he was at the fish hospital. Then he ended up staying there for a few more years.

    But back to Cupcake. Since we obviously did not learn our lesson, or I obviously did not learn my lesson (my then husband was not completely on board with any of these shenanigans, but he went along), I started calling pet stores. Do you know how impossibly hard it is to find a Russian dwarf hamster in Wilmington that looks exactly like Cupcake?!? First of all, we need more pet stores in Wilmington, and second of all, they all need to stock up on Russian dwarf hamsters. After hours and hours, we found one Russian dwarf hamster.

    He was half the size of Cupcake, and he had a mellow temperament, which was the opposite of Cupcake, but, beggars can’t be choosers, right? I put him in Cupcake’s cage, and then just acted like everything was normal. Whistling happily as I swept the floor and stuff.

    There was definitely some questioning.

    “Is Cupcake OK?”

    “Cupcake looks smaller.”

    “Cupcake is nice, now.”

    Those were some of the comments from my confused children, but I just brushed them all off.

     I said, “It’s fine, it’s fine. He’s lost a little weight. He’s been working out. He joined a hamster gym. Also, I had a big talk with him and he decided that life is too short to be grumpy, so he decided to be nice now.”

    They were a little skeptical, but I did a good job of convincing them and life went on as normal. Whew! I thought to myself as a high fived myself. You sure got away with that one! (sounds like famous last words, right?)

    72 hours later, I was putting my youngest son to bed. We read books in his bed together and then I would stay with him in his bed until he fell asleep. We picked our books out, and I was standing next to his bed about to get in when I felt something run over my foot! I nearly screamed but kept my composure because I didn’t want to scare my son. I was worried it was a cockroach or something like that, but I looked down and sure enough, there is original Cupcake! Looking fat and healthy and running right across the floor.

    How in the heck did he survive? He got upstairs and over to the opposite side of the house!?! He was gone 72 hours, without food or water! I acted all normal, but I watched him scurry into the corner of the room behind a dresser and a few paintings that we had been meaning to hang up.

    Of course, I couldn’t mention anything to my son, so I lay in bed with him with my eyes wide open fixed on that corner trying to make sure Cupcake didn’t escape. It seemed like that night it took him forever to fall asleep. When he finally did, I tiptoed out of the room and got a container for cupcake. I crawled back in the room with my phone flashlight and slithered around on the floor on my belly between the paintings and behind the dresser until I finally caught Cupcake!

    I immediately gave Cupcake some food, and that little hamster water bottle. I had to hold it upside down into the container because there was nowhere to attach it to the sides. Please drink, little guy. I can’t sit here all night, holding the water bottle in your container.

    I couldn’t believe that he had survived 72 hours without food or water and with predators lurking. I pictured it like he was in a video game, trying to avoid the vicious dogs and cat. I didn’t know what to do with him, so I hid him in my closet and shut the door.

    I immediately woke up my then husband.

    “Quick! Get up! I need your help!”

    I shook him awake.

    “What? What?”
    He pounces out of bed all ready to fight a burglar.

    “Come here! I’m here!”
    I dragged him to my closet and I open it.

    “There is a hamster in my closet!”
    -me

    OK.
    -then husband

    There is a hamster in my closet!!!
    -me harsher whisper

    Yes, I see that.
    -then husband

    There’s a hamster in my closet! A hamster in my closet!
    -me again with more urgency in my loud whisper

    You’ve said that.
    -then husband

    It’s Cupcake! He’s alive.
    -me

    Great!
    -then husband

    Not great! Now we have two hamsters!
    -me with desperation in my voice

    OK, not great. I’m going back to bed.
    -then husband

    What?!? No! You can’t go back to bed. There is a hamster in my closet!
    -me

    I am aware of that. But it’s four in the morning. I’m going to bed.
    -then husband

    How can you sleep when there’s a hamster in my closet?
    -me

    I can sleep just fine.
    -then husband

    Well, I can’t sleep with a hamster in my closet!
    -me

    Well, then put him in my closet.
    -then husband

    (Why do we ask men for help and advice?)

    But then there will be a hamster in your closet.
    -me

    I don’t know what to tell you. It’s the middle of the night. I have to work tomorrow. What good is it going to do if we both just sit up because there’s a hamster in your closet? How does that solve anything? I’m going to bed.
    -then husband

    I started to cry.

    Of course I was appalled! How could he sleep at a time like this? Rude!

    Looking back now it makes sense that there was really nothing to be done about it at four in the morning, but at that moment, I had to solve the hamster in my closet problem.

    I paced the floor thinking…

    Should I replace Original Cupcake? No, the boys will be even more confused that Cupcake got fat and turned mean overnight.

    Can you return a hamster?

    Can you return the wrong hamster?

    It’s fine, it’s fine, I told myself. I will just give away a hamster. There’s got to be somebody out there who wants a free hamster. I will just hop on Facebook and all the other pages I’m on and offer a free hamster. It will be great. When I wake up in the morning, there will be tons of replies of people who want this hamster. I could bring it to them when the boys are at school and the problem will be solved. I patted myself on the back for being such a genius and went to bed.

    Do you want to know how many replies I had when I woke up the next morning from people wanting a free hamster? None! Zero! Not one!

    That cannot be right. I thought my Messenger would just be flooded. Is my Facebook working? I’ll give it a couple more hours. I did post in the middle of the night and people are just waking up now and checking their Facebook so I’m sure by the afternoon there will be a list a mile long of people just begging for this free hamster. I will just have to keep him alive in my closet until then.

    I kept peeking my head in the closet when the boys weren’t looking.

    “Are you doing OK? Are you hungry? Do you want me to hold that little upside-down water bottle in there again for you for five minutes? Can I get you anything else? Hey- maybe you should write a book about surviving 72 hours with the predators in the Nicol house! Something to think about while you wait. Just hang on! I’m going to find you the best little hamster home ever!” (I think I even blew him a little kiss to show him how serious I was)

    Well, nobody wanted a free hamster. Unbelievable, right? So, after many tumultuous back-and-forth conversations with myself, I decided that I just needed to own up to what I did and tell the boys the truth. After all, won’t they just be thrilled that Cupcake is not dead? And super proud of his survival skills. We can get him on some reality survival show or something.

    “So you lied to us?” my oldest asked.

    “Well, that’s a bit of a harsh word… Something like that…. Sort of along those lines…. but I only did it because I didn’t want you guys to be sad if Cupcake was dead. But he’s not dead! Yay!” (Hands up in the air to convey my excitement, hoping it will rub off on them)

    “But, it is not OK to lie. Mommy should not have done that. Everyone makes mistakes. She will do better next time she kills a pet of yours.” OK, I only said that last part in my mind. Not out loud.

    But now, I told them they could each have a hamster. Cupcake would go back to my youngest and my oldest can have this new hamster which he immediately named Tyrone. Perfect! Cupcake and Tyrone. Maybe they will be best friends! Can two hamsters go in the same cage? Of course they can. There’s more than one hamster in those cages at the pet store, but just to be sure we called the pet store to ask.

    We were told that most likely they can get along, but sometimes hamsters just don’t get along with each other. The best thing to do was put them both in an empty bathtub together and see how they get along. Well, this sounds cute, doesn’t it?

    It wasn’t. The boys and I put these two little hamsters in the bathtub with smiles on our faces expecting some brotherly love stuff to go on. Well, it was like WW-whatever fighting (I can never remember the letters) where literally they just get completely beaten up. Cupcake went at sweet little Tyrone like he was a rabid dog who hadn’t eaten in weeks. I was literally scared to put my hand in there because I was sure I would lose a few fingers. Personally, I would’ve let them just fight to the death to save my fingers. I know it sounds cruel, but I’m really going to need those in life.

    BUT I had two innocent little boys standing next to me with eyes wide literally screaming in fear (I think I was screaming too) so I did what all good moms would do and risked my fingers and hands for my children. That might be the bravest thing I have ever done. I reached in and grabbed little Tyrone out of the bathtub. All three of us sat on the bathroom floor crying, inspecting Tyrone for injuries. It must’ve been my quick reaction, but somehow he survived unscathed. Physically. Not sure what emotional damage was caused.

    “Well! Looks like we get to go to the pet store and buy another hamster cage!”

    The boys were thrilled and had to buy every single hamster accessory, so I walked out of there after dropping $300. That is what I get for lying to my kids.

    Now I have to keep two hamsters alive and change their stinky cages regularly. Did I tell you that I never wanted hamsters? And actually, I think I’m allergic to them.