Category Archives: Whimsies

Thursday Thoughts

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The Bee’s Knees
We couldn’t be happier with our new carpeting, and are both relieved that the remodel is finally over. The day after the installation, I eagerly began putting my office back into order, determined to really clean out my desk and files. In the course of going through my things, I came across this photo…..

I had seen the photo before, but had forgotten about it. The girl on the left is my mom when she was about 15 or 16 years old. That’s kind of a guess based on Bill taking a gander at the car in the background and guessing what year the car was built. I believe that the other girl was one of my mom’s cousins, though I know her not. The photo makes me happy. I love how she’s holding the light pole in downtown Cedar Rapids, Nebraska. Rest assured that Cedar Rapids doesn’t look that much different today.

Before Clowns Were Scary
Speaking of photos, while Bill and I were most recently in AZ, we went to a pizza joint which purported itself to be genuinely All Things Chicago. We were fairly unimpressed with the pizza, but quite impressed with the Chicago paraphernalia hanging on the wall. One of the photographs was of Bozo the Clown, who was the main character in a WGN television program called The Bozo Show……

As a side note, Bill’s sister Kathy was one of the lucky recipients of a bicycle awarded by Bozo the Clown. The catch was that the bike needed to be claimed that day. Bill’s mom was tied up for the evening and his father was watching the kids. He had to gather them up and haul them to downtown Chicago from their house on the South Side to claim the bike. As for Bozo, judging from his photo, I believe he might be blamed for the fear some kids have of clowns. He looks positively terrifying to me.

New and Improved
The carpet installers managed to get the project completed within the promised eight hours. Quite frankly, it was probably the noisiest of all of the jobs we had done to our house. I have never heard so much thumping in my life. Our downstairs light fixtures literally shook. One of the men told Bill our carpeting was so old that type of carpeting is no longer manufactured in the same way. Surprisingly, no one came running up to nab some of the carpeting that was being tossed…..

It’s About Time
The carpeting installation put me behind on some household chores, most specifically laundry. Sure, I could have done it the next day, but I was so busy putting my office back together. But yesterday morning, when I looked in my laundry basket, I noticed Bill was down to using his travel underwear. You know, the underwear made of nylon that dries quickly when you hang it on the line in your hotel room. That’s always the sign: RED ALERT. TIME TO DO LAUNDRY.

Ciao.

It’s the Little Things

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Some thirty years ago, when Bill was newly divorced, his three kids would spend every other weekend with him. In addition, however, they would go out to eat every Thursday night. He could have cooked for them at home, but Bill McLain doesn’t cook. He assured me of that when we were first married. “I will take you out for dinner any time you want, but I can’t — and won’t — cook,” he told me firmly. So, he and his kids would dine out each Thursday.

I wasn’t included until a few years later, but from the stories I heard, they ate at the same place every week: Chili’s. There was one near the kids’s house attached to a now nonexistent shopping mall. After dinner, the four McLains would walk through the mall and window shop, all the while imagining what they would buy if they had the money. Rolex watches and diamond jewelry were among the most popular items.

Bill tells an unusual story about one of their dinners at Chili’s. Apparently about halfway through their meal, a man at a nearby table had a heart attack. (Don’t blame the Old Fashioned Burger with Cheese and french fries that he was eating. It could have been genetic.) At any rate, according to McLain lore, the servers didn’t miss a beat. They just passed the food across the man now lying on the floor, narrowly missing the paramedics who had been called and were performing life-saving maneuvers.

Now here’s the thing: as the old joke goes, How do you tell when a McLain is pulling your leg? His or her lips are moving. Keeping that in mind, all four of them insist that the man died right there on the floor of Chili’s. They also insist that it didn’t deter them from eating at Chili’s the next Thursday and many Thursdays after that; however, they claim that they always asked to not be seated at the Table of Death.

Bill tells me that whenever they would dine at Chili’s, he would nearly always get the same thing: the chili soft tacos. He loved them, and for good reason. They were delicious. They weren’t anything particularly special, simply Chili’s chili in a soft flour tortilla, with lettuce, cheese and tomato. When I started coming to these meals, they were what I almost always got as well.

And then they stopped serving them. Yep, just took them right off the menu. They started adding things like grilled salmon and Chicken tortilla soup. For a while, you could get them if you asked nicely. And then that option ended, because they simply stopped making the chili. It was a sad day.

Yesterday, Bill came home from a meeting and he was starving. A burger is what he wanted, and the Old Fashion Burger with Cheese sounded good. Let’s go to Chili’s, he said, and so we did.

I opened up the menu to the lunch deals, and what should I see? Glory be to all that is good! Chili’s soft tacos 1975. Seriously, that’s what they call them. And they not only are offering them again, but they taste exactly the same. Hallelujah!…..

 

And they come with a salad and a side of chips and salsa. Eight bucks for lunch. They have them for dinner as well, and you get three and pay more. Still, Bill and I couldn’t have been more excited.

It’s the little things, my friends. And best of all, no one died at the next table.

Christmas is Coming, Tick Tock

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Bill has been known to cheerfully announce that drinking caffeinated coffee before bed doesn’t keep him awake. In fact, it makes me sleep better, he has been heard to say. Night before last, I wasn’t surprised to see him make himself a cup of coffee using our Keurig somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 o’clock. I was, however, surprised to see him fix himself a second cup around 9 o’clock, just before he went up to bed.

He learned a valuable lesson. While the caffeine doesn’t seem to keep him awake, the side effects of drinking a diuretic or two before bed resulted in him not getting the best night sleep he’s ever experienced. And I won’t give you details.

The good news is that he is able to go back to sleep almost immediately. All four or five times. The bad news — for me, at least — is that I didn’t. The fact of the matter is that when he awoke the first time at about 2:30, I awoke as well, and immediately went into Christmas Gift Psychotic Mode. True Story: It’s November 28, and I spent the entire last third of the previous night worrying about what I’m going to get everyone for Christmas.

I love most everything about Christmas. I love the lights all around my house. I have been enjoying listening to Christmas music as I have been doing my holiday baking. I bought tickets to the Messiah performance by the Colorado Bach Ensemble that I so enjoyed last year.

It’s the damn gifts that make me crazy. I know people who shop all year long for Christmas presents. They’re the ones sitting in front of the fireplace drinking hot buttered rums and looking lovingly at their already-wrapped presents. One of my Facebook friends posted prior to Halloween that they had their shopping done. I wanted to egg their house on Halloween, but they live too far away.

I like giving gifts. I truly do. I even like buying gifts for those I love. What I don’t like is trying to figure out what to give everyone. When I’ve asked my grandkids what they want for Christmas, some of them suggested toys with about a million pieces that I know will drive their parents crazy. A few took their lead from Lucy of Peanuts’ fame and asked for cash. Tens and twenties will do. Kaiya’s ask was simple. Nana, I need more glue for slime. Nothing like opening up a colorfully wrapped gift to find a bottle of Elmers’ Glue. It may come to that…..

Last year Kaiya got into the spirit of gift opening.

Bill always tells the story of the year that his mother gave him cash for Christmas. She gave it to him a few days early. Being a bratty teenager, he went out Christmas Eve and used the cash to buy himself clothes, which he then wrapped. On Christmas Day, he made a show of opening the gifts and oo-ing and ah-ing about each item. I’m sure his mother was greatly amused. I’d have given him coal the next year.

But I will tell you that I understand why Wilma did what she did. Sometimes it seems easier to just hand them some cash and call it a day.

But despite my tossing and turning the other night, I am certain that I will have presents for my loved ones by Christmas Day. Santa Claus has a way of figuring these things out.

Bill’s gift is easy — a couple of pounds of coffee that he can drink before bed.

The End of an Era, Or So It Seems

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Today — perhaps even as you read this blog post — the final portion of our remodel project is being completed. We are getting our new carpeting for the bedrooms. The remodel — much of which we’ve done ourselves (and when I say “we” I mean Bill) has been going on since May 2017. Of course, for a several months of that time, we were in AZ. Still, for 13 or more months, we have lived with the sound of pounding and the unending layers of dust on the furniture and grime in the air and the smell of paint and varnish.

There is more we could do, of course. The cupboards in the family room and the kitchen should be replaced. The kitchen lighting needs to be updated. BUT WE’RE DONE. FINISHED.

Throughout the remodel, people kept asking us if we were preparing the house to put it on the market. It’s probably what we should do, since the prices that homes in our neighborhood are selling for are astonishing. But that’s not why we undertook this project. I have said many times before that we have lived in this house 26 years, and for the most part, we have done only a wee bit of updating. It was built in 1972, and much of the home looked like it could have been occupied by The Brady Bunch. All it needed was to hear Electric Light Orchestra playing in the background.

My housing needs are simple. I don’t need expensive furniture or contemporary lighting or bathroom sinks with spigots that look like a waterfall. But we both know that the point at which we will be prepared to sell this house gets nearer all the time. It may be five years from now; it may be 10. But neither of us wanted to be placed in the position where we needed to make some of these updates just to make the house marketable, and not be able to reap the benefits. So we bit the bullet and did all that we felt we should do.

The carpets were left for last. It appears that it will be a simple matter. All we were responsible to do was make sure electronic equipment was disconnected and there was nothing on the closet floors. Boom. Done.

One of the benefits of any remodeling, however, is that it requires you to come face-to-face with all of the extraneous crap that lives in your house. As I went through my closets, I found clothing that not only would only be appropriate at an above-mentioned Electric Light Orchestra concert, but which I wouldn’t ever dream of being able to fit into even if there was a time warp.

And frankly, as I threw away shoes after shoes (all of them too worn out to even give to Goodwill), I felt a sense of freedom. I haven’t seen my bedroom closet floor in a decade. I was even able to finally throw away a pair of slippers that I retrieved from my mom’s closet after she died in the mid-90s, slippers that I never wore even one time because they were too small. Every time I would go to throw them away, I simply couldn’t. But yesterday I heard my mother’s voice in my head telling, “Oh for the love of God, toss them in the trash!”…..

Can you imagine that someone could hang onto caramel colored carpeting for so long?

Our upstairs bathroom currently holds just about everything we previously had in our closets, and more, at least until the end of today…..

On a more pleasant note, I got my Christmas trees decorated this weekend, and Bill put out his train, something he hasn’t done for over five years. Cole will have a lot to say about this train…..

…..and we watched the Broncos beat the Pittsburgh Steelers while eating Court’s homemade turkey noodle soup, made from the carcass of Thursday’s bird.

Best of all, by the end of today, I’m going to not only have beautiful new carpeting, but I will also be done with construction. Hallelujah!

Saturday Smile: Gratitude

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I take my good life for granted, so it’s a good thing that Thanksgiving comes around once a year to remind me of my blessings. We celebrated the day with our family, but missed the ones in Vermont…..

Court and his family were among the Thanksgiving guests…..

Our Thanksgiving table was bountiful, and we all enjoyed the food and the company. Allen takes a break following dinner to prepare for dessert…..

You saw the magnificent pies that Maggie Faith prepared, with just a bit of help from Nana…..

And now that we have officially entered the Christmas season, I have started putting up my trees…..

It has a ways to go, but today is another day.

Have a great weekend.

Thursday Thoughts: Wednesday Edition

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Two Down
Among my contributions to our Thanksgiving table are the pies. While last year we had a cast of thousands at our Thanksgiving table, we are a reasonable number this year. Nevertheless, I am making six pies — three pecan, two pumpkin, and an apple. I will make the pies today at some point, but I made my crusts yesterday. Here’s what I learned about myself: I can make two batches of double pie crusts before I turn stupid. The third required a total dump-into-the-trash-can-and-start-over. My mistakes were ridiculous, with leaving out the shortening being perhaps the dumbest. Furthermore, when I disgustedly stormed outside to our big garbage can and dumped the entire contents into the huge but empty can, I realized that I had also dumped the blade to the food processor into the can. It required a rake to get it out. But the crusts are happily sitting in my freezer from where I will soon remove them and begin pie-making activities. Maggie Faith has promised to help me……

But Then There’s This
Yes, she promised to help me, but her maternal grandmother is looking considerably more fun than I am these days. Over the weekend, Grandma Lynne brought home her new puppy — a Toy Schnauzer they have named Piper. I say they, because the grandkids have full-out taken possession of the dog, up to and including naming rights. They are on Fall Break, and spend every waking minute loving on the dog. And wouldn’t you?…..

Betsy Ross
The past couple of weeks that we spent in Phoenix were not among the most restful we’ve ever had. We had the problem with the cannula inserter. Then, we were hit with awful colds. Making it a trifecta was the fact that Bill ripped the bag he uses to carry his pump as he was getting out of the car. But never fear. Bill-the-Tailor to the rescue. He simply sewed himself another bag…..

On the First Day of Christmas
I am hoping to begin putting out some of my Christmas decorations this afternoon between pies. Yesterday Bill helped me put our evergreen wreaths on the door. Sometime in the next few days, I want to get lights on our bushes outside and both of our trees up and decorated. The best laid plans.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum

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Bill and I flew back to Denver on Southwest Airlines yesterday. I really like Southwest Airlines. Unlike Frontier, you are allowed two suitcases plus a carry-on bag at no cost. You also can make changes to your flight plans without them requiring you to give them your first-born child. Still, the process to attain a seat assignment is challenging.

If you’ve flown Southwest, you know that you are able to confirm your flight exactly 24 hours in advance of your flight. At that time — and not before that time — you will get your designated place in line. The closer you are to the front of the line, the better your chances of getting a good seat. Of course, you can pay cash money and get a seat assignment, but what’s the fun in that?

Our flight was scheduled to leave yesterday morning at 11:35. So Sunday morning at 11:34, Bill had entered all of our information and had his finger poised just above the button confirming our tickets. He watched the clock on his computer tick down, and the second — THE VERY SECOND — it said 11:35, he pressed the button. We were given the B41 and B42 spots.

HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?

Anyhoo, we made it to the airport in plenty of time, because we are the opposite of our kids and want to allow time for any kind of delay. We, of course, had no delays. However, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10:30, the Southwest people made an announcement that our plane was going to be delayed by an hour. You had to have the hearing of a superhero to understand what the Quiet Talker was saying over the intercom, but I could understand enough to know that it had to do with the mechanics of the plane. And then, about 15 minutes later, they announced: never mind, the plane (which was in the air on its way from Denver to Phoenix) seems to be fine and we are going to leave on time after all. Hmmmm. Did the pilot have a Swiss Army knife that he used to repair whatever had made them nervous 15 minutes ago? Maybe some duct tape? Chewing gum and a rubber band? I’ll never know, but we made it home safely.

Bill and I are heap big Uber riders. It’s nice to not have to burden our friends or family by asking them to take us to the airport. Because who can say no? I changed most of their diapers. So Uber is the answer. We have had interesting Uber drivers in the past, but the one who drove us to the airport in Phoenix yesterday was one of the more interesting drivers I’ve met.

When in AZ, I always ask the drivers if they live in the East Valley, because Phoenix is SPREAD OUT. Many do not, but he said he did. He lived about 10 miles south of us in a community called Queen Creek. But he went on to tell us that he only drives Uber twice a day for a total of two trips. His office is in one of the West Valley cities. So he will pick up a customer — often going to or from the airport — on his way to and from work. That way he can write off part of his mileage as a business expense, and use the HOV lane to boot!

I asked him how he determines the destination of his passengers since they don’t have that information until they accept the rider. He said that Uber drivers are allowed to designate their destination twice a day, thereby making it more convenient when they are starting out from home and returning later in the day. So he just puts in his office address in the morning and his home address in the evening. He doesn’t always luck out and get a airport passenger, but he always gets someone reasonably on his route.

Now we’re home and today I will move onto Thanksgiving preparations.

The End

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Every once in a while — more often than I would hope — some person or group comes forth with a date certain that the world is going to end. They generally have worked out the date based on the writings of a long-dead philosopher or some numerology statistic or from something gleaned from the Bible.

I hate when I hear those predictions, and I always have. Once a year, the Catholic Church gets us ready for Advent by scaring the hell out of us via a Gospel from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John that reminds us that the world will end some day. Be prepared, they tell us. Like the fig tree. Like the women with the oil lamps.

I’ve never seen a fig tree and I know I would be one of the women who doesn’t have enough oil for the lamp. Dang.

When I was a little girl, I dreaded that particular Sunday. I recall clearly that I would do one of two things. 1) I would FORCE myself to not listen to either the Gospel or the homilist’s subsequent and inevitable message about end times; or 2) listen to the Gospel and the homily and experience what I now know to be panic attacks. I’m serious. My heart would pound and my breathing would quicken and I would want to cry but wouldn’t. Instead, I would sit closer to my mom.

…..the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. – Mark 13: 24-25

This fear followed me well into adulthood. In fact, I was married to Bill when one of the predictions was made. I recall admitting to him that end-of-time predictions scared the hell out of me. I will never forget what he told me.

But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. – Mark 13:32

That quote, of course, is what Jesus told his friends when he was pointing out to them that humans are only on this earth for a short time, comparatively speaking. But Bill paraphrased Jesus, reminding me that only God knows when the world will end. And God isn’t letting anyone — even his own son — in on the secret.

When you’re a little boy or girl, the end of the world seems impossible and incredibly scary. As you age, the idea of end times — like death — becomes a little less scary because you recognize that you’re not going to get out of the world alive.

So these days, instead of hyperventilating, I am trying to think of ways to make sure that when my days on earth are over, I have a place in heaven. I need to be more generous and less cranky. I want to be kind and less judgmental. I vow to pray more and better. I’m going to deserve heaven.

And I might go find myself a fig tree to keep an eye on.

Saturday Smile: Cry Me a River

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This past week was a good one. I got to spend time with ALL of my siblings, if not necessarily at the same time. Austin and Lilly always make me smile. Yesterday we hired a new maid to help keep our AZ home clean. Meet Hazel….

I got to eat at two of my favorite AZ food establishments: Portillo’s…..

…..and Oregano’s…..

But Jen told me a story yesterday afternoon that made me laugh out loud, and I chuckled most of the afternoon when I would think about it.

The Denver Bronco’s awesome defensive linebacker Von Miller is known for many things. Quarterbacks know him for his tough sacks. Fans know him for his infectious grin. And everyone who knows anything about him knows that he talks trash on the playing field. First-class, get-under-your-opponents’-skin trash. The Broncos play the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday, and their QB Philip Rivers is known for being vocal on the field. A local sportscaster asked Von this question: Philip Rivers is known for talking trash on the playing field. Do you think this will bother you and get in your head?…..

 

Von gave his characteristic grin and answered, “When Philip Rivers talks trash, he points his finger at me and says, ‘Ha! First down, sucker.’

I guess that’s a step up from nanny nanny boo boo, but it isn’t going to put a dent in Mr. Miller’s game.

Have a good weekend, and go Broncos!