Can You Hear This?

I thought, at one time, only someone who had survived divorce could appreciate story like this but I’ve since learned you don’t have to be divorced to “know” what I’m talking about.

To truly appreciate all that will follow, I have to tell you about some of my very bestest friends. They are lovely girls, and all have certain charming eccentricities as is common among Southern women. They are all bright and learned in various subjects, bless their hearts, the exception, of course, being their occasional choices in men. (Not that I have any room to brag!)

We have all been pals for many moons. Following the demise of our marriages to the fathers of our children, we found, when we compared notes, that they were very similar in some ways. We asked ourselves then and since what we ever saw in them but haven’t found any truly great answer. (What can seem absolutely brilliant at 20, is often known to be blatantly stupid at 40……………….but such is life!)

Now there were obvious differences between our erstwhile husbands, yet in some instances they seemed to be like “peas in the same pod”. They shared a particularly significant similarity. It was an unexplainable belief in the superiority of their intellect as it compared, in their minds, to ours, their wives and, often, the rest of you mere mortals. They didn’t quite grasp that we never saw them in the same “light” as they saw themselves, so to speak!

So, seeing as how they believed they were far smarter than we were, the following excerpts from the annals of our history with them, became fondly known to all of us as “The Stupid Husband Stories”.

(Please note here, dear readers, that these annals are far too numerous to be contained in one post, so I’ll have to tell you about them, one or two at a time. I hope you’ll bear with me! Most important, any seemingly unkind portrayal of any individual in these stories is unintentional, coincidental or a total figment of their imaginations! )

I’ll start with my favorite. “The Wash Out!”

A year or so after we bought our first home, the former husband and I, decided that it needed to be painted. We did all the things you do when you start a home project like that and on the next weekend began painting. About half-way through the first day, my ex was setting up to paint the stairwell which had a landing halfway-up. He set up a chair or step ladder and opened a new can of paint. A few minutes later, I was drawn from the wall I was painting by the sounds of a crash and much cursing.

There on the floor of the landing was the entire gallon of antique white paint creating a lovely lake in the middle of the dark beige carpeting. He thoughtfully began trying to scrape up the paint with his hands and put it back in the can. After a short discussion, it was agreed that I would go to the nearest retail establishment which rented carpet cleaners, get one and return to clean up the spill. I raced off to the store believing the situation at home was under control for the moment.

I returned promptly, dragging the cleaner and all it’s various parts and supplies into the house, and heard the sound of water splashing. Imagine my angst as I turned the corner and viewed the stairway landing only to see “the smart one” pouring water from a a mop bucket right on to the carpet. Once I recovered from the shock and regained my voice, I asked just what in the &*#$@ he thought he was doing?

His response, to this day, shocks and amazes anyone whom I regale with this tale: He said he was pouring the water directly onto the carpet and had been since I left the house. He had decided that he could just wash the paint all the way through the carpet and sub-flooring. With enough water, the paint would be flushed all the way through and run through the crawl space and wash out from under the house. He told me, if I didn’t believe it would wash all the way out, I could go look for myself. We lived on a fairly high slope above a golf course fairway at the time, I ran out on the deck in the back of the house and looked down.

Sure enough, there was a river of milky white water running out from underneath the house down toward the fairway. In addition to the fact that I’m certain the local golf club members were not amused, I asked him if he realized soaking the carpet and sub-flooring enough to get the paint to wash through created a significant risk of permanent damage to the sub-flooring which could be hazardous. Apparently, this thought hadn’t crossed his brilliant mind while he was planning his little “wash out”.

Will wonders ever cease…………………although the creak in the floor boards became somewhat worse and the sub-flooring did experience minor damage, it, thankfully, did not require replacement, but, according to my contractor friends………it was a small miracle.

Next entry: “Landscaping 101″

Sur·rey ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sûr, sr)n. pl. sur·reys
A four-wheeled horse-drawn pleasure carriage having two or four seats.

Often, when I begin to tell a story, one of my family will say something like, “she’s hitched up the Surrey and we’re going for a ride!” Truth is, they enjoy it or they wouldn’t listen, but they get a kick out of teasing me, too! So, in order to provide fair warning to ya’ll, I’ve added “Surrey Rides” to the catagories of this site. If you see an entry identified as a “Surrey Ride” and you’re not interested in the scenic route, proceed to the exit, located here!

I’m addicted, I confess! Since about age 2 I have had a love affair with the bean………the coffee bean. I’m a fan of all things made from coffee. I like it hot, black, expressed, perked, dripped, pressed, frothed, iced and ice creamed. I have my moods when one form or another appeals to me more than others but I love it just the same.

I’ve been told that it’s the caffeine jolt I crave but I proved that false when I switched to decaf for a while. I still craved the flavor, richness, and smell. I have since boycotted decaf as, despite those that tried to dissuade me, I CAN taste the difference. No one would dare tell a wine expert that h/she couldn’t taste the subtle differences between one year of a particular wine versus another, so why is it so impossible for people to believe that you can’t tell the difference between differently processed beans????

Coffee is one of my comfort foods. It warms and comforts me on hot summer days as easily as it does on cold winter mornings. The difference between summer and winter for me is that I drink less coffee when it’s hot than when it’s cold but I still want my cup or two in the morning even in summer. I love sitting around the table with my family and friends, over my morning cup ‘a joe, enjoying their antics. (You may have read about a few of them here.)

I refuse to drink bad coffee, too. As much as I love it, if I go somewhere and order coffee and it tastes like some kind of black sludge, I just send it back and have hot tea instead. I like teas a lot, too. Black, green, red, white…….they all have their unique distinctions and flavors. Beans are the same way. I like Arabica, Sumatra, Kona and, of course, Jamaican Blue Mountain.

As Paul Harvey would say, “now here’s the rest of the story……….”

Coffee originated in the Middle East, most believe somewhere in Ethiopia. As coffee became popular throughout the Middle East, coffee houses were established, long before anyone had ever heard of Starbucks. The proliferation of coffee houses caused intrepid adventurers and tourists to fall in love with the brew as well. Of course, they wanted to transport coffee back to Europe. As soon as it was available to Europeans, it became fashionable among European nobility to drink this wonderful brew. (Except for the British, who to this day, still love their tea.)

As those who had coffee crops in the Middle East wanted to maintain control over the production of coffee, they roasted the beans prior to shipment so they couldn’t be used to produce new plants. This process only served to increase the rich flavor and its popularity. Louis XIV was given a prized coffee plant and he raised it in a greenhouse as it was discovered the weather of Europe was too cold for coffee plants to grow.

Later, a French ship captain stole several coffee plants to transport to the Carribean islands. His ship faced fierce storms, nearly sunk, and was then was be-calmed. The water shortage on board became so bad that all the coffee plants died save one that he kept alive by sharing his own water ration with it. That plant was the first to be planted and provided the source of beans for coffee crops across the islands.

Now you know more about the bean than you may have cared to……………oh, well, I just hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride! Me, I’m gonna sit back and enjoy my morning mocha java.

Doggie is as happy as a pig in mud these days. He has decided that his puppy palace is quite suitable and I have reclaimed the garage for my little car. Doggie resides in his house during inclement weather and in the mulch of the flower beds when it’s hot. So far, he’s managed not to trample the flowers, either!

He latest joy………..riding in Darlin’ Boy’s truck going to the drive through window of any fast food establishment. It’s a big truck with an extended cab and Doggie gets the whole back section to himself (he fairly well fills the entire space when standing). Doggie LOVES to go for a ride. He gets to ride to school in the morning with Beau and to pick him up from football practice in the evenings. He rides to the cleaners and barber with Darlin’ Boy and to Lowe’s with me.

But when we pull up to that speaker box of any fast food drive-through, he understands it means something different and tasty is about to be served. His current favorite are the kid’s meal chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-a. He loves the waffle fries too. If Chick-fil-a ever wanted a puppy endorsement, Doggie would be happy to oblige. He hasn’t quite solved the puzzle prize that came with the nuggets, but he’s working on it……..as soon as he finishes, we’re calling Ripley’s!

The companies that make the packaging for the stuff we buy must be making twice as much as the companies that make the products in the packages. What’s up with that?

I love movies but I hate trying to get a DVD open once I bring it home from the store. It has cellophane around a plactic case and three strips of impossibly sticky tape on the opening edges of the case. If it’s shrink-wrapped, why the sticky tape, too? And if it’s a music CD you’re buying you get cellophane wrapped around a paper box, around a cellophane-wrapped plastic case with 3 strips of sticky tape. The cost for all this extra packaging is factored into the price we pay for the item and all that extra stuff just fills up the trash can.

If you buy an inkjet cartridge from the office supply it’s in a molded plastic container. If you can ever get that open then there is a paper box inside the plastic container. Open that and you’ll find a heavy foil-type wrapper and then finally the inkjet cartridge. I could write a tome in the time I spend opening packaging for an item not much larger than a box of matches.

You can fill up a landfill with the containers used to package other packaged items. Those molded plastic containers cover everything from ink cartridges, to kids toys, to disposable razors, to items found in the hardware store. It’s ridiculous!

You need one form of packaging per item and a price tag, thank you very much! And, no, I don’t think a bar code that has to be swiped by the clerk who’s annoyed you asked for a price in the first place is acceptable. While I’m in the aisle at Lowe’s comparing widgets, I want to know the difference in price between brand x and brand y.

I do understand extra packaging for some items such as OTC medication. They don’t want people in the store tampering or kids thinking it’s a new style candy, but I find those foiled bubble paks inside a box really annoying. For heaven’s sake, just put the stuff in a bottle with a child-proof cap. It’s been working great for years and you don’t have all that packaging filling up your garbadge cans.

Since most of this extra packaging is made from a plastic material, hence a petroleum product, those costs are going up too. Time to change, folks!

I don’t want to have to work that hard to get to the items I purchase and I don’t want to fill the trash up with the extra packaging, do you?

Back to school is an event that never fails to amaze me each year. My sweet boy is entering high school this year and I can hardly believe it. It was just yesterday that I took him to his first grade orientation to meet his teacher. Now I’ll be lucky if he lets me pull into the school parking lot to drop him off. I won’t be surprised at all if he asks me to let him out a block away so he can saunter up looking “cool” instead like he doesn’t yet have his own car, let alone a driver’s license.

By the way, has there been some flash-back to the previous century I missed somehow? Beau actually used the word “groovy” earlier this week. What’s up with that? Do idioms come back in style like clothes, handbags, belts and shoes? (I have this thing for handbags and belts and I will save them for years.) Hard to imagine, but, yes, I’ve still got items that have managed to come around again. Oddly, enough, they’re old but this time the “distressed” look is in, so I’m covered! Truthfully, I thought the styles of the 60s and 70s were ugly in the 60s and 70s, I have yet to figure out what possessed designers to repeat these fashion faux pas. Trying to recapture their youth?

Face it people, hip huggers, bell bottoms and halter tops barely look acceptable on Twiggy, they certainly don’t flatter anyone over 20 years of age or 110 pounds. So why would you even try to go there? I absolutely refuse to consider the “peasant” look which seems to be popping up everywhere. I was actually floored to see a woman who had to have been at least 50+ in the grocery store yesterday wearing a skin tight tank top, a peasant skirt and platform shoes. Maybe it’s the “if you can’t beat ‘um, join ‘um” mentality of clothes shopping.

I much prefer the tailored, classic looks of the 40s and 50s but that doesn’t mean I want to be June Cleaver and wear my Chanel two-piece and stileto pumps while on a step ladder electroluxing my door facings. (I actually saw her doing just that in one episode and I didn’t watch that many. But when you only have one black and white TV with 3 channels, you often had to take whatever you could get—assuming the foil was properly adjusted on the rabbit ears!)

Then there are the school supply strategies of the local soccer moms that I just can’t deal with. Buy at least one of everything, two if you’re not sure whether they’ll need it or not. It’s a case of pushing, shoving and grabbing of the highest order, barely short of a riot. Just so you know, I’ve failed as a super mom since I didn’t stock up on every conceivable office supply item available at Wal-Mart. ME… go near that mob, are you crazy??? You’d think it was the double discount rack at Stein Mart. Beau has decided that it’s okay since he doesn’t have any clue yet what the teachers will require this year for supplies. He’s decided he’ll just go to school and wing it a couple of days until they give him a list.

Back in the day when I went off to high school the first time, it was ever so simple. You had a three-ring binder with some new notebook paper in it and a writing utensil or two and you were set. We didn’t have backpacks, we actually carried our books in our arms. Beau acts “put upon” if he has to carry more that one thing in his hands as he expects anything going back and forth should fit in his backpack or computer case.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that our school district has been providing laptop computers to all students from 6-12 grade? My former alma mater didn’t even provide a pocket calculator let alone a personal computer. (Yes, personal computers were around, they just weren’t real portable back then.) Beau is even taking a language class via teleconferencing! Boy have things changed!

The way I figure it, observing technology developments from my school days to now, books will soon be obsolete, and before you know it, “Scottie” will be beaming the kiddies back and forth to class. With the price of gas these days, the sooner that happens the better!

Once again we can appreciate the great wisedom of women! My mother sent this to me via email.

These are wonderful, witty, true and wise words from women who’ve “been there, done that……..and have that t-shirt (sometimes in more than one color! ).”

Inside every older lady is a younger lady — wondering what the hell happened.
-Cora Harvey Armstrong-

Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut her up with cookies. -?

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
-Lily Tomlin-

A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car.
-Carrie Snow-

Old age ain’t no place for sissies.
-Bette Davis-

A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. A woman must do what he can’t.
-Rhonda Hansome-

The phrase “working mother”! is redundant.
-Jane Sellman-

Every time I close the door on reality, it comes in through the windows.
-Jennifer Unlimited-

Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
-Charlotte Whitton-

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.
-Caryn Leschen-

I try to take one day at a time — but sometimes several days attack me at once.
-Jennifer Unlimited-

If you can’t be a good example — then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.
-Catherine-

When I was young, I was put in a school for retarded kids for two years before they realized I actually had a hearing loss. And they called ME slow!
-Kathy Buckley-

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb — and I’m also not blonde.
-Dolly Parton-

If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them.
-Sue Grafton-

I’m not going to vacuum ’til Sears makes one you can ride on.
-Roseanne Barr-

When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country..
-Elayne Boosler-

Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
-Maryon Pearson-

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.
-Margaret Thatcher-

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.
-Gloria Steinem-

I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.
-Zsa Zsa Gabor-

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

Cheers to Women Everywhere, You’re All Great Gals! Laugh, giggle and be silly at least once everyday, you’ll live longer and enjoy it more! Darlene

I should have known it was only a matter of time. Doggie has now found his way into the house—not the puppy palace, mind you—-our house! I arrived home from an evening meeting and found Darlin’ boy ensconsed in the family room and Doggie wondering around……. apparently on a sniff-a-thon!

I realize the smell center on a dog is significantly greater than the one on me………but you’d think that we had t-bone steaks hidden behind every potted plant and under every sofa cushion the way he was goin’ at it. Maybe I’m just displaying my ignorance as a new puppy owner, but I’m quite convinced now that every conceivable area of the first floor of our house has been thoroughly sniffed-out by Doggie. Once satisfied the t-bones were not hiding anywhere he could readily access them, he settled down onto one of my nice rugs and tried not to shed excessively.

Actually, I doubt he gave the first thought to whether or not he was shedding, but I was grateful the rug didn’t look like it needed to be shaved or mowed once he retired outside for the night!

The puppy was pleased as punch over this new treat—–coming inside the house. I am drawing the line here, however! My car has already been displaced, the cat is terrified to step foot on the patio and I simply refuse to relinquish any of my interior square footage to Doggie. He might be able to come in periodically for a visit but that’s all!

One swish of his tail can take out every item on the coffee tables and he can lay his head on the kitchen table without straining the least little bit. It’s a hazard………. no matter how you look at it.

Don’t think for a minute that I have lost my first case of puppy love, no sir-reee, but you have to be realistic when you have a dog the size of a small pony.

I didn’t design and/or decorate my home interior with this type pet in mind. Like I said, I’ve always had cats…………just cats. While I’m willing to make certain accommodation for short visits, he got his own house…………….I’m not giving him extended rights to mine!