Today Joe got out a jar of pickles. He set it on the counter and then strong-armed it open. Good for him, I thought, admiring his initiative. I waited to hear the sounds of him devouring the sour snacks, but none came. I turned around to see Joe, who usually dispatches pickles with relish (pun most definitely intended), curiously inspecting the jar. He was eyeing it from all sides. His face showed clearly something was amiss.

“What’s wrong?” I inquired.

“I think these are bad,” he replied, nose crinkled up.

“Do they smell bad?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Although I had no idea what a jar of bad pickles smelled like, I had to investigate. I sniffed the jar. Smelled just fine to me.

“There is nothing wrong with these pickles,” I asserted with confidence.

With a very dubious look, Joe bit into one. “They taste funny.”

I took a bite. “Ummm….they taste like pickle, babe. They’re just fine.”

He was still inspecting the jar. And, that’s when I saw it…the object of his consternation. There was a bit of rust on the outside of the jar where the lid had been attached.

“Are you worried about this spot on the jar?” I asked.

“I don’t think it was sealed correctly,” was my ten year old’s response.

“I heard the jar pop when you opened it, sweetie. It’s fine.”

“Is this the freshness date?” he asked, still examining the jar.

Trying hard not to lose my patience, I told him it was not a freshness date but that I was absolutely, 100% positive that he would not meet an untimely death from picklitis or some other ravaging, pickle-borne illness. Isn’t it enough that my spouse is food paranoid? Now he’s tainted my son? I can’t tell you how much food we throw out because hubby decides it’s questionable, but I can tell you it seems like a lot. Another food sniffer is NOT what we need in this house.

I am not all that paranoid about food. This morning I ate a container of Greek yogurt that supposedly expired on November 23rd, and I’m still here to tell about it.

Joe did finish the pickle he started, probably more out of fear that I would strangle him if he didn’t than out of any confidence I instilled when I told him they were fine. I won’t be one bit surprised if that child refuses to eat another pickle from that rust-dotted jar. Once food fear has taken hold, there is no cure. At least you stand a chance of recovering from salmonella or E coli. It’s too late now to save Joe. All I can do is hope Luke doesn’t become infected as well.

We went to IKEA as a family yesterday. The true purpose of the trip was to help Steve’s IKEA-virgin parents shop for a chair. They did buy a chair too, so the mission was a success. I have to wonder, though, how it is that I can go there to help someone else shop and end up with $230 in merchandise in my own cart?

I’m not complaining. For the most part we bought things we needed — or at least could justify. We got two sets of plain white dishes (12 bowls, small plates, and large plates), two full sets of  basic flatware (80 pieces), a small table lamp, a set of 300-thread count queen-size sheets, a couple decorative pillows, a stuffed rat, two stuffed mice, and a fry pan. We had been planning to buy the dishes and flatware to replace the items we received for our wedding over 16 years ago. The sheets were on sale and the decorative pillows match our new duvet so those, although not totally necessary, were a good choice. Hubby told me on the way in that he wanted to try out one of their small fry pans (I rolled my eyes, but let it slide). And the kids paid us from their allowance for the stuffed critters. The lamp I can’t explain. It seems to have hopped in our cart when I wasn’t looking, although it does look fabulous on our bedroom bookshelf.

As we were loading the items into the back of the FJ, we were reflecting on our IKEA experiences over the past decade, the items we’ve purchased, the furniture we’ve put together, the random stuff we somehow could not leave the store without. We came up with a bunch of new IKEA slogans, all based on the idea that IKEA is simply a Swedish phrase we Americans can’t understand. For example:

IKEA….Swedish for “We have all the crap you never knew you couldn’t live without.”

IKEA…Swedish for “Our pictograph assembly instructions are actually just replicas of cave drawings.”

IKEA….Swedish for “Our stores make finding your way out of Caesar’s Palace seem easy.”

IKEA….Swedish for “We can disassemble your marriage faster than you can assemble our dresser.”

IKEA…Swedish for “Your visit for a $5 meatball lunch will end up costing you $500 in furniture.”

IKEA…Swedish for “We offer free childcare when you arrive so we don’t have to find your lost children later.”

IKEA…Swedish for “Designed by Swedes, fabricated by underpaid Chinese, assembled cost-free by crazy Americans.”

Oh, IKEA. I tease, but you know I love you, darling. Although I know the tagline for your American stores is, “IKEA…The Life Improvement Store,” I still think any one of my slogans better represents the American IKEA experience. If you ever want to use one of them, let me know. You can pay me in meatballs.

New Year’s Resolutions traditionally mean way too much work for me. Lose weight. Exercise more. Keep a cleaner house. Be nicer to people. Blah. Blah. Blah. Such a lot of effort. So, I’ve been carefully contemplating a way to make resolutions that work for me without requiring me to do any work. I’m a smart gal. Certainly there has to be a way to make positive changes in my life without having to do a bunch of extra work that, let’s face it, I don’t really have time for. If I did, I’d have been living that way all last year and would have no resolutions to make this year.

Then this morning, I happened upon the perfect solution to my resolution conundrum. It happened like this. Hubby was in the bathroom dancing around. Why? I don’t know. There was no music. I rolled my eyes at him.

“You’re a goof,” I said.

“You should try harder to be more accepting of me,” was his reply.

“Ummm….I do accept you for who you are. I’d just prefer it if you were slightly less goofy.”

He considered this for a moment. Then he said, “I have a New Year’s Resolution for you. How about if you resolve to be nicer and more accepting?”

“Ugh. That’s so much work.” That’s when it hit me. “What if I didn’t have to be nicer because I had no need to? I don’t have to resolve to be more accepting if you just resolve to be more acceptable.” He rolled his eyes at me and left the room.

Problem solved!

 

(Oh, okay. I did come up with “real” resolutions too, but I decided to keep it simple. I resolve to improve my life in one hour a day: 15 minutes of reading from a book, 15 minutes walking my dog, 15 minutes cleaning or organizing something small that has been neglected, and 15 minutes either learning something new or trying something new. But..I still think my other idea has real potential.)

I’ve been told I’m negative. I’m too self-critical. I need to cultivate a better attitude. I need to stop taking myself so seriously. So, I’m going to work on a fresh, new, more positive and healthy attitude, especially with regard to my appearance. Starting right now.

Tonight when I put on my favorite, garish, sulphur-yellow sweatpants from J. Crew, I noticed that they fit. Yes. They fit. Sweatpants are meant to be baggy, aren’t they? Yet, this happens year after year at this time. Just before New Year’s, I realize that all those buttery cookies and glasses of wine, combined with my complete cessation of exercise, have turned me squishy again. Normally, this is enough to send me into a downward spiral of self-loathing and bitterness. I find myself paging through Us magazine, drawing Sharpie mustaches on that skinny, miso-broth swilling Gwyneth Paltrow. I seriously contemplate the diet benefits of chain smoking and calorie-free soda. I stop showering and wearing make up because, well…why bother? Then I curl up in bed with my laptop and order some bigger sweatpants so the tight waistband on my current sweatpants stops causing me reflux after the big old tamale dinners I can’t stop ingesting.

Well….that’s what the old me would do. The new me, the one with the positive, healthy body image is simply thrilled about my softness and the new fit for my sweatpants. It means that I’m comfortable in my skin and know it’s okay to go through phases, just like the moon. I realize I am the only one who notices the extra plump on my frame, and that it’s not as bad as I imagine it to be. I will not use the word “fat” to describe myself because I truly am not overweight by any measurement. And, I’m just going to go ahead and remove the drawstring from my sweatpants. It mocks with with its superfluousness. I no longer need it, so I’m just gonna pull that puppy right out and repurpose it. Maybe I can use it as a hair tie? I could put it in the camping first aid kit in case someone creates a need for a tourniquet while chopping firewood. Better yet, I’ll give it to my son, Luke. He likes to tie things up. I’m sure he’ll find good use for it in Barbie torture.

My current roundness is nothing to fret over. It’s just a temporary condition brought on by a season filled with yummy cookies and fudge and too little time to hit the gym. In a month, my midriff roll will be greatly diminished and my pants will all be slightly loose again. I’m just going to repeat this mantra to myself over and over again: “Even that skinny Gwyneth Paltrow had cellulite in The Talented Mr. Ripley.”

Okay. Maybe old habits die hard. Might have to take this one day at a time.

Okay. So my last post was a bit sappy and showcased my deeper, more intellectual side. Rereading it this morning, I realized that I sometimes present myself as a caring, open-minded, tolerant, and hopeful person. And, I am those things occasionally…when the sky is lovely or I’ve had a glass or two of really good Cabernet. Right after I reread my blog, though, I hopped onto a web site to sign hubby and I up for a wine school class in January, and the regular catty me returned. Why? Because lo and behold, what do I find right there in the first line of text about the class? A misspelled word. Gasp!!!

I’d love to give the wine school owners the benefit of the doubt and tell you that it was simply a typo. But, it was most certainly not a typo. They spelled “quintessential” like this —–> “quintecential.” I had to look at it several times to figure out what it was exactly I was looking at. It’s probably a common error with that word…mistaking the “sent” part of the word as “cent” without realizing that the essential part of the word is actually the entire word “essential.” I mean, quintessential means “the pure and essential essence of something.” (See. Some of us know how to use a dictionary.) Come on, people. You run a business. Certainly you can flip on spell check or hire someone to review your site before you go live. I understand you’re a wine school and not a grammar school and perhaps you were a bit tipsy while creating the site, but this is basic good business sense. If you’re not good with numbers, you hire an accountant. If you’re not great with spelling or proofreading, hire someone to do it for you or else your wine school might end up being the subject of someone’s blog post because of poor spelling and not great wine. 😉

 

 

 

I like to do puzzles. I know it seems low-tech and old-fashioned for a gal who is perpetually attached to her iPhone, but I enjoy the mental work involved in piecing together a picture. And, there is something so insanely gratifying about spending hours working on a puzzle and finally seeing it through to completion. Too many things in my life are never truly finished. I do laundry, put it away, and tomorrow morning dirty clothes have magically reappeared. There is no personal gratification. If I do a puzzle, however, I end up with actual physical proof that I accomplished something. It’s borderline miraculous.

I am truly OCD when I work on puzzles too. I will happily work along for hours in an oblivious fog. Eventually it will dawn on me that the house is unreasonably quiet. Looking up, I will notice that it’s 11 o’clock and my entire family has gone to bed without me. At that point, the obsessive compulsive bargaining begins. I’ll go to bed right after I find the next piece. It’s a little game I play with myself. Ask me how many times I find that piece and go right to bed. The answer is never. I often will end up getting three hours of sleep a night until I finish the stupid puzzle.

This week I opened a small puzzle (750 pieces), just enough to keep me busy in off times for a couple days. My family helped out, but mostly it was me spending hours staring at the cartoon drawing of One Hundred Dogs and a Cat. I was about two-thirds to puzzle completion when I got the sneaking suspicion that there might be pieces missing. I had my kids scour the floor for missing pieces. They couldn’t find any. Knowing all too well how not thorough they are in the “looking” department, I too crawled around on the hard wood floor under the dining table. Twice. Nothing.

Sure enough. When every last available piece of the puzzle was placed into the framework, there were three conspicuous holes in the art. Oh, how I hate that. It seems unfair to work so long at something only to have it not totally complete. It was a brand new puzzle too. I had opened the plastic package myself. I was diligent about carefully laying the pieces on the table and vigilant about making sure none were being swept onto the floor for the dog to mangle. Yet there they were. Three holes in an otherwise perfect puzzle. Oh…the humanity!

This same thing happened to me with two other puzzles in the past year: One Hundred Mice and a Cheese and One Hundred Elephants and a Mouse both were missing pieces as well. Not to sound paranoid and delusional (on top of obsessive compulsive), but I am now absolutely convinced that Ceaco (the puzzle company) is screwing with me. Somewhere in a factory there is some sick, sadistic puzzle maker who is purposely dropping a couple pieces from what would otherwise be a whole puzzle onto the floor at work just to mess with me. I hope he knows there is a toasty place in hell for him where he can work on incomplete puzzles for eternity. I hope you enjoy karma, jerk.