Please Stop Saying That?

List of what I can NOT STAND to hear one more time:

• Long time No see! (This is the worst, so I listed it first)
• No worries
• You'll have that
• Been there. Done that.
• No problem
• Yup, you'll have that
• Seen that 
• Same
• Ain't that something?
• Whassup?
• No Problem! No Worries, Mate!
• Where yuh been?
• What yuh been up tuh?
• Told you so
• Yup, I told you so
• Didn't I tell you so?
• I warned you (or any variation of this)
• It's been a while
• Yer shittin' me!
• Nope
• Yup
• Don't think so
• Hell no!

This list is by no means finished. Nope. Hell no. It ain't.

Sweater Weather--COME ON!

Summer is not some girl I don't like or some woman I've had a spat with. Summer is a season I spat with. A hot, humid, skin burning, cancer causing season...

No good comes of summer other than spending time IN cold water, not near it. And you can do that in your tub. And the only reason one would want to spend ANY time in a cold tub would be to cool off because of summer! Well, that's not entirely true. You can swim in a brook. Stay there all day, though, don't go home til way after dark.

HOT CHORES:  I hate mowing my lawn. It is always too hot to do it on weekends, for some odd reason, and it rains in Vermont almost every single week day evening! Every single one. We get that "lake effect" coming from Champlain, it blasts over the Greens and drops hard, cold rain on us in the Lamoille Valley. Almost every  after-noon or evening. Then when one tries to mow the lawn on the weekend? It's all mossy and thick with moisture, making it a nightmare to mow. And forget vacuuming. Just forget it. It's a sweaty, heart thumping job in the WINTER, say nothing about in 90% humidity.

Length of days mean nothing to me. I hate the long days and nights that go on forever. My sleep rhythms get all out of wack and I can't fall asleep until way after dark and oh yes, low and behold (BONUS) it's LIGHT OUT early too! 

And don't even get me started with the mosquitoes! Every single night you try. You try to go out on the porch. Maybe there's a full moon. Maybe even shooting stars. And seconds go by and Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Yup there they are. Coming for you. Coming to suck the life out of you.

I hate sticky clothes, having to wear clothes at ALL, when men (most of whom have no business doing so) parade around topless. I dread getting into a hot car and having to use the air conditioning. Keying into a locked (humid) house and having to use more air conditioning. Not ever being able to sleep without a fan. 

And it's damn bright out too! I hate having to wear sunglasses, squinting all the while because the only truly good sunglasses? Are ones that you end up smearing with SPF 500.  And I hate friends of mine who actually LOVE summer. Who are these people and why the Hell am I friends with them? I ask myself. 

Yup. Summer sucks and I am glad when it is almost over. 

My absolute favorite day of the year is the day (and it does happen one day every year) that it is about 7 degrees colder under any shade tree than in the sun around it. That day? Signals cool, calm breezes, the colors of autumn leaves, smoke curling out of chimneys, wood piles stacked high and dry. Yes, that day? Came four days ago and now we are sliding and gliding in fall. 

Summer be damned! We are now on our way to sweater weather!

A Crappy Toilet Seat--some clean reading

A Crappy Toilet Seat

As a new homeowner, and one who never had to change out an old toilet seat, I was pleasantly disgusted in finding that my pet rabbit, Dory, had successfully chewed the plastic off the top of the hinges that attach the seat to the...well...base. I mean, I have definitely carried dirty toilets OUT of houses, head literally inside the bowl at one bump in the road...but that is another story...

Now you might say "pleasantly disgusted" is an oxymoron. Well, hold on and and listen to this logic. If Dory hadn't chewed through and probably swallowed that white plastic covering that covered the white plastic screws?  I? Would never have had to clean that area and seen how gross and poopy it was! And I never would have seen the plastic "+" sign and thought, "Hey, wait a minute, I wonder if that thing can be screwed off with a Phillips head screw driver!"

So, while on "vacation" the other day, I went after that thing with a vengeance and low and behold yes, I could just turn the screwdriver in a clockwise motion (I know, normally it's righty tighty/lefty loosey) and the whole thing started loosening up! Well, my mind started getting really excited about this home improvement effort and soon I thought that I would get this thing off and go buy another one! Brand new toilet seat! Yipee! (yeah, I know how pathetic that sounds, even now...) 

And the thing was? That crappy toilet seat had come with the house AND it never fit the actual toilet to begin with. Now, I'm a germiphobe about only a couple of things: toilet seats and bathroom sinks. Nothing turns me off more than going to some guy's house and seeing a big poo stain in a toilet or pube hairs in the sink. OK, long hairs in showers gross me out, too, but not as much. I mean, if you think about it hairs in sinks OR showers must be relatively clean...but I digress.

That toilet seat that I was dealing with? That vacation toilet seat? Was a "round" one but the toilet? Is an oval one. And for whatever reason? Either the folks before me were unusually tall or used a step stool to mount the thing, but suffice it to say that this toilet was never a friend to me (e.g. I sit there like a child swinging my legs until they go numb each time I use it.) Family members may or may not have mentioned it and guests would never have dared, because it was abundantly clear to anyone who knew me that I? Was way in over my head with this house. All they had to do is look at the ever-growing list of "home issues" I had listed on the fridge, on the wall near the calendar, in my journals, on my ARM...and know that mentioning an obvious ill-fitting commode situation? Would send me right over the edge of my rain gutterless roof.

It never once occurred to me in three years of paying the mortgage on this "fixer upper" that I could a) change a toilet SEAT without having to change out the whole toilet or b) well, maybe there was just an "a" to this foolishness. I mean, I had SEEN toilet seats hanging around on hardware store walls! Why hadn't I put one and one together? And why in the HELL had I put up with that stupid sliding around, pinching my butt, nasty as- misfit of a toilet seat for three years?

So I took that thing off, threw it on the porch and because the germiphobe thing comes and goes? I briefly thought about carrying the old one with me to the hardware store!  I peered at it one last time and thought, "That thing has seen one too many derrieres and has probably soaked up a whole lot of stank in its time." So I took a quick pic of it, ran down my front steps without even locking my front door, drove to the hardware store and picked out a nice clean new one, paid for it and drove even faster back home. 

Now, if you know me you know that I didn't bother reading the instructions because I always have to do things twice. My way and the right way. I waste time, get myself whipped up into a horse lather and always regret it but it's a stuck-in-the-mud pattern, one that I would need therapy for but I don't have time for because of this kind of thing. Three/ok four stupid things happened:

• I put the wingnuts on upside down and had to re-do them
• dropped the screwdriver in the toilet--twice
• slammed the toilet seat on my knuckles and
• got the whole thing done in the reverse order and had to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.

Yup. That is me. I am that. But now I have a clean toilet seat, one that not only fits my commode, but my arse, the arses of those who will one day need to use it and now? All I have to do it saw it down a little or build up a little throne step.

That? Is next on the list.

I'm Such a Sap

I cry.
I do.
I would never admit this to anyone other than readers. But it is true. My sister, Prim, tells me about her son looking at colleges, and how he says things to his little (15 year old sister) like: "Simmi, there's a Chinese restaurant in that town and it's reported to be really good. I'm thinking you could come and see me sometime at college and we go there for dinner?"
That? Made me cry.

And when Hallmark makes yet another movie or movie series (they are so wholesome and Christian) and it's all about a family that is struggling and something miraculous and wonderful happens...and the people in the movie do not know or like one another until mid-movie? And the viewer can sort of see it coming, but we are lulled into a false sense of security and then BAM! it all falls apart because of a misunderstanding, an assumption or a lie that is yet to become undone...it breaks my temporary heart. And I am hooked and I am hopeful and I cannot stop watching this movie.

And, in my own life? When a man I once loved in college reaches me and we talk and email and text for months and then years? One day gets together with me and we end up spending a night together in a really nice hotel? Says he loves me and that he always did and always will? That makes me cry.



More to come...

No Lines. No Waiting.

No Lines. No Waiting.

There we were in that same cemetery we had been in to bury so many relatives. Again. It was a cremation and so it wasn't as hard watching the Vermont granite box with "Grammie Dot" etched into it being lowered into the small hole as it was Lucinda's wooden casket. But it was by no means easy, either.

I walked away and wandered around the head stones, decorated with American flags and plastic flowers, sat on one of the benches, read the markers...

At one point I looked up and saw my 1/2 cousin, Jeanne walk past her own departed husband's marker up to me. What possible words of wisdom does this one have? I thought.

"You know," she began, the way most people in my family begin sentences. I looked at her and frowned, the way most people in my family listen to sentences.

"When Ma died, somebody told me a story and it changed my perspective about death. Let me share this with you, if it's alright to do so. I know it's hard." 

What was I going to say to that? "Sure," I said, with trepidation. 

"Here we are," she began, "all upset because your mother is gone. We are heartsick and so upset, asking ourselves ' Where did she go?WHY WHY did she have to go?' "

Tears came to my eyes and Jeanne forged on.

"But all of your family, your dad, your grandparents, her brothers, your sister? All the ancestors...They are all up there running toward her clapping and laughing and saying, " Where is she? There she is! Here she is!"  

There are no lines in Heaven. No waiting to get in. I really believe Mother died when she did, after her own daughter and her own granddaughter so they could welcome her to eternity, clapping and shouting and dancing and laughing, and probably holding fists of wildflowers, just like they did when we were little.

Ladies? Learn to Dress the Body You Have!

When I was a kid, my mother dressed in shifts, lace trimmed black dinner wear, or in jeans (and those only for gardening and outdoor chores.) She dressed us girls in cute cotton and woolen dresses, and those hemlines were never more than 4 or so inches above the knee. As I grew up, I dressed myself, of course, in maxi skirts and midi skirts (between the ankle and knee). So the clothing styles of today that the girls are sporting? Not familiar. No likey. 

The newest thing is the short short dresses the girls today are wearing and this is nothing really new because in MY DAY or a few days before my day, meaning in my older sisters' day, teens wore what were called mini skirts. Today they are dresses, and I have to say they are VERY CUTE baby doll type affairs. You know, empire waist and just hang down like the ladies in the first season of Downton Abbey? Or they are Lucille Ball, Donna Reed types with the tight waist and the flair skirt. Cotton. One color. Blue. Red. Black. Sometimes they throw a cardi over it and sometimes wear heels, but usually pair the dresses with flats or strappy sandals. Very sweet. I do have fleeting thoughts that these co-eds look like 5 year old girls who just drank that Alice of Wonderland concoction and grew big fast, but their dresses stayed the same size. So at first glance you may smile and think of your own childhood Sunday school dresses, minutes later you may have to suffer the embarrassment of following them up the stairs of a Bed and Breakfast or stand down-under a ladder for one of these girls as she reaches for a vase at the bath store.

The tights masquerading as PANTS get me every time. Now, I don't mind yoga pants on anyone. Or sweats, pajama pants or those lounge pants the college kids roll out of bed in and wear to classes. Even if they are ridiculously baggy or tight. The "leggings" are really just thick tights and on ANYONE they leave me in jaw-dropping horror. Mostly because nobody looks good in them and one can see through them. Plus? I am pretty sure they were made to go WITH those shorty skirts instead of substituting for them. 

Another fashion faux pas is dresses that are just too tight over underwear that is also too tight. I don't want to see that and I'm relatively certain nobody else does, either. And let's blame it on spouses of these women. They may not dare say anything, but they really owe it to the rest of us to do so. When a woman dresses for the evening and comes out of the bedroom looking like she parachuted INTO the outfit she's wearing? Its time to say something. Steer her away from the outfit she "likes" and toward the one that actually holds in her ass.

Let's face it. A man in this society can wear a greasy, bloody, sleeveless T shirt and have his hairy chested gold chains hanging down past his navel while sporting black, way too tight Speedos and he will not get the crap a woman will get if she dares eat an actual bagel and show her "muffin top." And as unfair a statement as that is? You know it's true. Men don't judge women, either, on the way we look. It's other women. Women like me, I guess.

As we age we really need (like Stacey London says in TLC'S "What Not to Wear") to dress the body we have; not the one we want. It's really sound advice. And although diamonds may have been a girl's best friend back in Marilyn Monroe's time when women ate salads for lunch and martini olives as dinner...right now? A full length mirror is a girl's best friend. Get yourself one or get one for a friend and then she will see what we all see, and although it will make her shop/stay home more and take longer to get ready to go out into the world? It will all be well worth it when she gets compliments instead of gasps. Smiles instead of grimaces. It's really a win-win situation, if you ask me.