All in all, I’d rather polish my nails with a power sander than go shopping for blue jeans. You think that the old pair would take pity and hold out at least until President’s Day, but apparently old blue jeans don’t make New Year’s resolutions. (Old Jeans: I resolve to band my fibers together to uphold truth, justice, and ten pounds of pumpkin pie.)
The stroke of midnight saw the Old Year pull one last trick and jam the zipper on my trusty blues like the door of Cheesecake Heaven on Weight Watchers graduation day.
I want to be like Michelle Obama. I can tell just by looking that she can walk into a department store and pull on a pair of jeans like Batman with a new set of pointy ears; no wrinkles, gaps, or gathers, everything fits where it’s supposed to, and you can sit down without accidently blowing your nose.
The last time I tried on jeans, the seat grabbed my thighs like a ravenous Koala clutching a pair of chubby bamboo stalks and tried to chew through to freedom. I still have a nasty zipper tattoo inside my knee, and ugly memories of an unfortunate incident with a reinforced seam.
Fastening your jeans shouldn’t be like arm wrestling a wolverine. The first time I tried to put on my jeans after the holidays I think I invented a new Yoga position, Downward Moon Salutations, followed by a new jump for figure skaters, the triple klutz. These days when I pull the wretched things out of the drawer, the dogs take up strategic positions under the coffee table. I saw one using the fruit bowl as a crash helmet.
It’s not that I don’t have admirable intentions for the fate of my physical condition in the coming year. I intend to commit acts of exercise that will make a profound difference on the shape of my horizons. This is the year I will see my knees without the aid of a three-way mirror and a headband with a periscope attached.
But if all else fails I may need reflective safety tape, a video camera, and a trusted comrade who can keep a secret.
Wonder if the dog can handle that camera.
Laugh
Showing posts with label zipper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zipper. Show all posts
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Have Gun Will Ravel
I make up for my lack of gardening skills with an amazing ability to annihilate craft projects. You would think the Author of the Universe in his unbounded wisdom would have given me the glue gun talents of a sharpshooter. This is not the case.
One sister tried to teach me to crochet. She said she never saw anybody crochet backwards.
My other sister tried to help me make a banner for Son One’s soccer team. I sewed the thing to the leg of my pants. Gold craft felt stitched into the inseam of extra-large stretchy pants in a series of festive darts and puckers is not a desirable fashion statement.
When I was in high school, my mother took pity on me (GOOD LORD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!) and finished my home economics project. Who would have thought zippers would be so hard to install? I had more trouble than a presidential candidate trying to get the thing to stay closed.
My niece has a businesses creating hand-painted jewelry that people pay actual money for. I painted the South Carolina crescent and palmetto tree on a pendant. It looked like a banana bush.
My relatives began to meet secretly to have crafting parties. I happened to visit one Friday evening, and at my knock heard muffled voices and the sound of heavy furniture being shoved in front of the door.
“Hello?!”
The blinds shifted slightly. Whispering followed.
“I know you’re in there!”
The door opened a crack. “We can’t come out. We’re quarantined.”
“I’m so sorry. Can I get you anything?”
“Could you leave a pizza by the door?”
“What sort of disease do you have that you’re quarantined but want pizza?”
Silence. Then, “Acrophobia?”
“You’re in quarantine because you’re afraid of heights?”
“Leave the pizza down low.”
“You people are making crafts in there, aren’t you? Let me in or I’m coming back armed with tacky glue and pinking shears!”
Furtive dialing.
“And no calling 9-1-1!”
I went around to the back door, entered through the kitchen and came up behind a group of my closest friends and relatives wielding cotton balls and tiny paintbrushes like they were heavy artillery.
“Can I at least water your plants?”
A mad scramble ensued leading to a tangle of arms, legs, and cotton balls. It looked like an Easter Bunny gangland rumble. A glitter haze filled the air and a paintbrush stuck through my sister's pony tail like a hairpin.
The good news is that the plants are going to be fine. But the crafting group cemented themselves into a freeform sculpture. They’ll be okay once we find an antidote for Gorilla Glue.
Meanwhile I’ve taken up scrapbooking. Has anybody got a nail gun I can borrow?
One sister tried to teach me to crochet. She said she never saw anybody crochet backwards.
My other sister tried to help me make a banner for Son One’s soccer team. I sewed the thing to the leg of my pants. Gold craft felt stitched into the inseam of extra-large stretchy pants in a series of festive darts and puckers is not a desirable fashion statement.
When I was in high school, my mother took pity on me (GOOD LORD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!) and finished my home economics project. Who would have thought zippers would be so hard to install? I had more trouble than a presidential candidate trying to get the thing to stay closed.
My niece has a businesses creating hand-painted jewelry that people pay actual money for. I painted the South Carolina crescent and palmetto tree on a pendant. It looked like a banana bush.
My relatives began to meet secretly to have crafting parties. I happened to visit one Friday evening, and at my knock heard muffled voices and the sound of heavy furniture being shoved in front of the door.
“Hello?!”
The blinds shifted slightly. Whispering followed.
“I know you’re in there!”
The door opened a crack. “We can’t come out. We’re quarantined.”
“I’m so sorry. Can I get you anything?”
“Could you leave a pizza by the door?”
“What sort of disease do you have that you’re quarantined but want pizza?”
Silence. Then, “Acrophobia?”
“You’re in quarantine because you’re afraid of heights?”
“Leave the pizza down low.”
“You people are making crafts in there, aren’t you? Let me in or I’m coming back armed with tacky glue and pinking shears!”
Furtive dialing.
“And no calling 9-1-1!”
I went around to the back door, entered through the kitchen and came up behind a group of my closest friends and relatives wielding cotton balls and tiny paintbrushes like they were heavy artillery.
“Can I at least water your plants?”
A mad scramble ensued leading to a tangle of arms, legs, and cotton balls. It looked like an Easter Bunny gangland rumble. A glitter haze filled the air and a paintbrush stuck through my sister's pony tail like a hairpin.
The good news is that the plants are going to be fine. But the crafting group cemented themselves into a freeform sculpture. They’ll be okay once we find an antidote for Gorilla Glue.
Meanwhile I’ve taken up scrapbooking. Has anybody got a nail gun I can borrow?
Monday, October 12, 2009
College Bound
Son #2, who generally packs for a trip by shoving a video game in the pocket of his camo jacket, was putting a few things in the car to take to college.
He tossed a box of Pop Tarts in the glove compartment and scored a Yoo Hoo out of the fridge. There is nothing at college that cannot be improved with proper nutrition. Unfortunately, artificial flavoring is his favorite building block on the food pyramid.
I couldn’t help thinking a little motherly advice would get him off to a better start. The Boy Scouts don’t pledge to Be Prepared because they hope to get lost in the wilderness, but somewhere in time there must have been a Scout Mother who preached the “you can never be sure” sermon effectively.
“Why don’t you take some extra paper and pencils?”
“No thanks, Mom. Could you hand me that slice of pizza off the bottom shelf?”
I handed him a slice of double cheese swathed in aluminum foil. If he made his bed the way he packaged pizza, we’d never find his pillow.
“How about your books? Change for the drink machine?”
“I’m good.”
“You never know what you need til you get there. How about a change of clothes?”
“Mom.”
I paused, trying to stuff the toy lamb he brought home from the hospital when he was born into his backpack.
“Yes, dear?”
I’m going across town to the city college. I’ll be home before supper.”
I popped Lambie in his backpack, tossed in a handful of change, and closed the zipper with a flourish.
He may be college-bound, but some truths never grow old.
You can never be sure what emergency will come your way. But Mom will pack something embarrassing in your backpack just in case.
He tossed a box of Pop Tarts in the glove compartment and scored a Yoo Hoo out of the fridge. There is nothing at college that cannot be improved with proper nutrition. Unfortunately, artificial flavoring is his favorite building block on the food pyramid.
I couldn’t help thinking a little motherly advice would get him off to a better start. The Boy Scouts don’t pledge to Be Prepared because they hope to get lost in the wilderness, but somewhere in time there must have been a Scout Mother who preached the “you can never be sure” sermon effectively.
“Why don’t you take some extra paper and pencils?”
“No thanks, Mom. Could you hand me that slice of pizza off the bottom shelf?”
I handed him a slice of double cheese swathed in aluminum foil. If he made his bed the way he packaged pizza, we’d never find his pillow.
“How about your books? Change for the drink machine?”
“I’m good.”
“You never know what you need til you get there. How about a change of clothes?”
“Mom.”
I paused, trying to stuff the toy lamb he brought home from the hospital when he was born into his backpack.
“Yes, dear?”
I’m going across town to the city college. I’ll be home before supper.”
I popped Lambie in his backpack, tossed in a handful of change, and closed the zipper with a flourish.
He may be college-bound, but some truths never grow old.
You can never be sure what emergency will come your way. But Mom will pack something embarrassing in your backpack just in case.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Ten Commandments for My New Neighbor
Living in a duplex, I go through neighbors like a family of cats goes through a five pound bag of litter that freshens with every step, and I have some friendly advice. If you want to make a go of it in this neighborhood, you’ll listen up and not staple this list to the hood of my car like the last guy did. If you want a reference from him, he is residing peacefully at Happy Acres Memorial Gardens. Feel free to use my name.
1. Old tents and ripped cushions in lawn furniture may be acceptably repaired with duct tape. Back windows in old Fords or open wounds on small children may not. Neither is it a substitute for nails and a willingness to locate a hammer when your mailbox has been detached from its post. A mailbox trussed to a wooden spike by thirty rounds of silver adhesive looking like a tin can with a toothache causes undue stress in an already unstable housing market.
2. John Deere makes a wide selection of lawn tractors. That six month old goat you’ve got tethered to a hubcap with three feet of heavy links like he’s the anchor man on a baby goat chain gang is not an acceptable substitute. Let’s send you out on a short leash to get the morning paper and see if you effect a change of heart.
3. Also, in the future please Just Say No to the idea of mowing the lawn clad only in your underwear. Indulge in a roomy pair of gym shorts and you’ll find yourself zipping up the neighborhood popularity poll before you know it.
4. A privacy fence is for, well, privacy. Please don’t launch your youngest child over the top of the fence like a punted football to find out what we’ve got cooking outside. We are not responsible for stray grill marks.
5. If you have a taste for loud music, please play something I know or can understand the words to. Having the tune to a rap song I don’t know stuck in my head will lead to my hanging about in your bushes trying to find out what words sound like “scratch my itch.”
6. A swimming pool is commonly used for swimming. I’m sure your new bass boat will skip over the lake like a flat stone, but trying out your new outboard motor in the above-ground will result in an appearance on Funniest Home Videos. Remember there’s nothing to impede your progress toward the slime pit across the street except that scraggly row of dandelions you call a flower garden.
7. Please don’t sneak over under cover of darkness to partake of the blueberries on my bushes. I’ll be glad to share. Just like you’ll be glad to share that mess of freshly caught, cleaned and chargrilled trout with me next summer. Also, I don’t mind if your kids climb the tree in my back yard to purloin fruit. But keep in mind the results from a morning filled with little green apples leads to an afternoon filled with personal aerobics of a stressful kind.
8. I understand if your Uncle Earl had an evening of social entertaining that leads to a hearty headache the next morning. But if any more of his “nieces” ring my doorbell at three in the morning clad in leopard-print hip boots and a leather halter top and ask to use my litter box, I’m calling Animal Control.
9. This is the South. We surpass just about everyone in the number of per capita lawn ornaments. But those plywood cutouts of Granny bending over to show her polka dot bloomers have been done to death. At least get something classy like one of those windmills that look like the roadrunner’s legs are going in a circle.
10. Close your curtains. The neighbors don’t need to know that the Jaws of Life was summoned to your home for the sole purpose of retrieving your wife from the Jacuzzi. Nor do we care how she plans to remove the dirty bathtub ring.
Attached you’ll find a request for samples from your garden for quality assurance purposes, a form absolving us of liability in cases of kitty prints found on the windshield of your Corvette, and a sterile baggie for DNA testing. Welcome to the neighborhood.
1. Old tents and ripped cushions in lawn furniture may be acceptably repaired with duct tape. Back windows in old Fords or open wounds on small children may not. Neither is it a substitute for nails and a willingness to locate a hammer when your mailbox has been detached from its post. A mailbox trussed to a wooden spike by thirty rounds of silver adhesive looking like a tin can with a toothache causes undue stress in an already unstable housing market.
2. John Deere makes a wide selection of lawn tractors. That six month old goat you’ve got tethered to a hubcap with three feet of heavy links like he’s the anchor man on a baby goat chain gang is not an acceptable substitute. Let’s send you out on a short leash to get the morning paper and see if you effect a change of heart.
3. Also, in the future please Just Say No to the idea of mowing the lawn clad only in your underwear. Indulge in a roomy pair of gym shorts and you’ll find yourself zipping up the neighborhood popularity poll before you know it.
4. A privacy fence is for, well, privacy. Please don’t launch your youngest child over the top of the fence like a punted football to find out what we’ve got cooking outside. We are not responsible for stray grill marks.
5. If you have a taste for loud music, please play something I know or can understand the words to. Having the tune to a rap song I don’t know stuck in my head will lead to my hanging about in your bushes trying to find out what words sound like “scratch my itch.”
6. A swimming pool is commonly used for swimming. I’m sure your new bass boat will skip over the lake like a flat stone, but trying out your new outboard motor in the above-ground will result in an appearance on Funniest Home Videos. Remember there’s nothing to impede your progress toward the slime pit across the street except that scraggly row of dandelions you call a flower garden.
7. Please don’t sneak over under cover of darkness to partake of the blueberries on my bushes. I’ll be glad to share. Just like you’ll be glad to share that mess of freshly caught, cleaned and chargrilled trout with me next summer. Also, I don’t mind if your kids climb the tree in my back yard to purloin fruit. But keep in mind the results from a morning filled with little green apples leads to an afternoon filled with personal aerobics of a stressful kind.
8. I understand if your Uncle Earl had an evening of social entertaining that leads to a hearty headache the next morning. But if any more of his “nieces” ring my doorbell at three in the morning clad in leopard-print hip boots and a leather halter top and ask to use my litter box, I’m calling Animal Control.
9. This is the South. We surpass just about everyone in the number of per capita lawn ornaments. But those plywood cutouts of Granny bending over to show her polka dot bloomers have been done to death. At least get something classy like one of those windmills that look like the roadrunner’s legs are going in a circle.
10. Close your curtains. The neighbors don’t need to know that the Jaws of Life was summoned to your home for the sole purpose of retrieving your wife from the Jacuzzi. Nor do we care how she plans to remove the dirty bathtub ring.
Attached you’ll find a request for samples from your garden for quality assurance purposes, a form absolving us of liability in cases of kitty prints found on the windshield of your Corvette, and a sterile baggie for DNA testing. Welcome to the neighborhood.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Key Issue
This afternoon as I fished hysterically in my purse for my stupid car keys that were hiding from me on purpose, I had an idea.
For me, having an idea is a bit like giving birth to a ten pound porcupine. It’s a tedious process, fraught with peril, but quite sharp in the end. What I need is a Global Positioning System that can tell me where in my Super Organizer Bag to find my car keys.
That way I won’t be late for the school pick-up line while I thrash around unsuccessfully in my purse for twenty minutes sifting through stale M&M’s and used Kleenx before attempting to unlock my door with a Number Two pencil and a Twinkie wrapper.
The GPS KeyFinder is sure to be a moneymaker if properly engineered, using language that normal people who don’t factor pi for a hobby can understand. None of this “proceed north past the checkbook for 6 centimeters, turn east at the lipstick, circumnavigate the compact” sort of thing.
My basic concept of direction is this: North is up, South is down, East is left, and West is right. My WWII Navy Dad cringes whenever people ask me for directions. He says if I were in charge of Japanese navigations, Pearl Harbor would have remained untouched. But those elves at the North Pole would still be rebuilding reindeer pens.
I need basic directions. “Plunge hand into the middle compartment with the zipper that’s jammed with the soccer sock. Bypass the garage door opener and orange TicTac, turn left at the chewed cinnamon gum wrapped in foil, continue for the length of the nail file, then shake purse twice firmly. Keys are affixed to the melted Snickers bar by hardened caramel.
I’m not even going to charge the GPS people for this millionaire-making idea. A simple thank you and the knowledge that mommies everywhere will make it to school pick-up on time will be my reward. That and some pizza coupons. And a car with keyless entry.
Now, if I could only find my cell phone, I’d call and tell them. I know it’s here somewhere in my purse. . .
For me, having an idea is a bit like giving birth to a ten pound porcupine. It’s a tedious process, fraught with peril, but quite sharp in the end. What I need is a Global Positioning System that can tell me where in my Super Organizer Bag to find my car keys.
That way I won’t be late for the school pick-up line while I thrash around unsuccessfully in my purse for twenty minutes sifting through stale M&M’s and used Kleenx before attempting to unlock my door with a Number Two pencil and a Twinkie wrapper.
The GPS KeyFinder is sure to be a moneymaker if properly engineered, using language that normal people who don’t factor pi for a hobby can understand. None of this “proceed north past the checkbook for 6 centimeters, turn east at the lipstick, circumnavigate the compact” sort of thing.
My basic concept of direction is this: North is up, South is down, East is left, and West is right. My WWII Navy Dad cringes whenever people ask me for directions. He says if I were in charge of Japanese navigations, Pearl Harbor would have remained untouched. But those elves at the North Pole would still be rebuilding reindeer pens.
I need basic directions. “Plunge hand into the middle compartment with the zipper that’s jammed with the soccer sock. Bypass the garage door opener and orange TicTac, turn left at the chewed cinnamon gum wrapped in foil, continue for the length of the nail file, then shake purse twice firmly. Keys are affixed to the melted Snickers bar by hardened caramel.
I’m not even going to charge the GPS people for this millionaire-making idea. A simple thank you and the knowledge that mommies everywhere will make it to school pick-up on time will be my reward. That and some pizza coupons. And a car with keyless entry.
Now, if I could only find my cell phone, I’d call and tell them. I know it’s here somewhere in my purse. . .
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