Quick! Hire a teenager now while they know everything.

Posted in College, Education, Humor, Motherhood, Parenting, Teens, Weather by Shelley Sackier

Long ago I made a point of no longer saying, “I told you so,” to my kids.

But I NEVER promised to stop making the I told you so face.

And I make it a lot.

Sometimes several times a day.

Occasionally, I just keep it there until the next needed time comes around to save my muscles the unnecessary exertion of popping them back into their default setting—which according to my kids rests somewhere between a scowl and the expression that suggests intestinal blockage.

Lately, I’ve been doing a little motherly worrying that I only have six months to go before one of my fledglings will fly the coop. Is six months time enough to impart those last bits of needed wisdom before I drop her and her bags off at the door of what every parent surely feels is the opening credits of Animal House?

After last week … I’m not so sure.

Yes, there are different definitions of intelligence—and for this I am extraordinarily grateful. Because measuring mine by what I’ve retained from my schoolroom days would send my past educators into a vortex of surround sound tutting so energetic it would be like sitting in the middle of a field full of judgmental crickets.

So, booksmart? … I ain’t so much none more.

Street smart? I’m fairly confident I’m making the honor roll. My daughter? Well, let’s just say she’s probably one or two notches above Elmo.

My daughter is a violinist. A very fine one. And she plays a fair amount of gigs, so she knows (with the occasional reminder from me) that instruments—like people—must have a maintenance schedule in order to achieve optimal results. Just before Christmas, she noticed one of her strings fraying badly and was about to play a three day running show. I swapped out the ready-to-snap bad string with an old spare, purchased her a set of new strings, and reminded her to bring her violin to the shop for its “annual.”

Amid a slew of, “Yes, yes, I’ll get to its,” I left it at that.

A couple of days ago she mentioned the headmaster of her school had asked that she play for an event he would be speaking at. Mentally calculating her holiday break activities, I could not recall her recounting a trip to the violin maker’s shop and raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’m fine. It’s fine. I’ll get to it.”

The night before curtain call, we were advised by our local newscasters to prepare for icy road conditions the next morning. In fact, we’d found all of the local public schools delaying a couple of hours to allow the frenetic worker bees to get to their stations ahead of the big lumbering school buses full of sleepy-eyed children. All schools, apart from my daughter’s.

As a freshly minted driver, I warned her that she must be prudent and give herself plenty of extra time to firstly, check road conditions before leaving, and secondly, drive slowly to be cautious of slick spots. Her mind was occupied with other things. Mainly, cramming for a calculus test the next morning.

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

“Mmm hmm.”

“How was rehearsal today?”

(Insert a series of mumbles that folks studying the fundamental notions of convergence of infinite sequences will understand) and then, “My string snapped.”

“What? You mean you still haven’t taken your fiddle in?”

“I’ll play on my electric. I’m fine. It’s fine. I’ll get to it.”

Cue seven a.m. the next morning.

“Mother!”

I was still ten blissful minutes away from my traditional sounding alarm clock, but rose to this one instead.

“Well??? How are the roads?” she asked.

Normally full of pithy remarks at the crack of dawn, I was surprised when nothing but a croaky, “Huh?” came from my throat.

“MOM! I HAVE TO LEAVE! I HAVE REHEARSAL BEFORE SCHOOL AND I’M ALREADY GOING TO BE LATE!”

This did not sit well with me and had me out of bed, searching for my bathrobe and pulling on my wellington boots. The perfect choice for getting a firm foothold on frozen water.

The first step out of the house was slick and shiny. A little farther out, the pebbled courtyard of the driveway would have been a disappointment to most ice skaters, but was still capable of flipping you onto your backside. The blacktop driveway, for the few tentative steps I took, appeared safe. Ish.

“Well??? How is the driveway?”

I watched my daughter lug her electric violin and an amp nearly as large as her Volkswagen beetle toward the trunk of the ice cube she was about to drive.

I shook my head and looked at the crusted over windscreen. “The first ten feet are super. I cannot account for the remainder of the mile.”

Knowing that the remainder of that mile was pitched at an ungodly angle downward and included at least three or four deadman’s curves, if it was covered in ice, I could imagine her car would no longer be a car but instead a fancy toboggan. I hoped she’d changed her mind. But apparently, she was a potential casualty whether she stayed home or went, as not turning up for the rehearsal was in essence a fate worse than death.

She left for school. I left for the shower and brought with me the prickly panic that would accompany me until I’d heard she made it safely into her parking space.

Fifty anxiety-ridden minutes later (as she forgot to text me when she first made it to school and went straight to rehearsal), and mere moments before I called the school to hunt her down, I received a thumbs up text and then left for an in town appointment myself. Halfway there I receive a second text that said:

Hey, Mom? R u coming into town this morning?

Me—at a stop sign: Already on my way.

Her: Turns out I left the cable that connects my violin to the amp at home.

There is no I told you so emoticon for texting, but somebody should make one. So I substituted: It’s fine. You’re fine. You’ll get to it.

Six more months and the roads are dicey.

~Shelley

It’s time to reveal January’s winner for the Gotta Have a Gott calendar! We hope you all voted, but if not, you’ll have another crack at it at the end of February (and all the months through November). For now, come see the past month’s winner.

Don’t forget to check out what we’re cookin’ in the Scullery and what we all talked about down in the pub. Plus, you can see more of Robin Gott‘s humor–all from the only pen carved from a human funny bone.

25Jan2014

Purrrly Whites

Posted in Health, Humor, Pets, Teens by Shelley Sackier

The cat and I share very few similarities other than we both like to have food available to us 24/7, and we want everyone to leave us alone.

Today, we had another similitude.

We both had dentist appointments.

With different dentists, mind you.

I remember when we first plucked this lionhearted kitten out of a mass of squirming furballs at the animal shelter. She was less than thrilled at being disturbed from her nap amid her breathing blanket, and upon making eye contact with me, swiftly assessed I was less than qualified wearing my new hat of ‘caretaker.’

I could see her point. I’d broken the cardinal rule we both share:

Unless I come to you, don’t come to me.

She breaks our cardinal rule far more often than I do. She brings me a dead leaf approximately the size of a mouse in exchange for one of those doodads in the treat jar on the counter. A dozen times a day. In her mind, gluttony is justification for her behavior.

Plus, rules are for schmucks.

Brushing a cat’s teeth is not a job for anyone hoping to retain either their hypothetical friendship with their cat, or the same amount of blood they possessed in their body before starting the procedure. It is an adventure one goes into with the understanding that it will be pleasant for no one and likely fairly fruitless.

Chances are it would make an entertaining YouTube video that may have better than average odds at going viral.

Three years ago, upon securing this peevish puss, my daughter also amassed a collection of references in order to aid her on her journey of surrogate motherhood. The cat was “hers”—a birthday gift long awaited and finally realized. The gift also came with a few caveats that were not so gifty.

– Feed her

– Amuse her

– And dispose of her deposits.

PS. You get to brush her teeth. Good luck. Love mom. And remember pretty is on the inside.

The scratches didn’t leave scars, thank God, but we did figure out that a glass of wine helped to make the whole job easier. We also figured out that the cat preferred bourbon, so I took over with the glass of wine. Brushing the feline’s canines was clearly a two man job. My daughter wrestled the cat into submission while I sipped my way into oblivion.

It was a win win.

Eventually, our bicuspid brushing bash trickled down from our twice a week joint shout of “SHOWTIME!” to my daughter’s “Yeah, I’ll get around to it,” and settled firmly at the bottom of my vet’s “Now, I’m not suggesting braces—you can decide that later after you’ve had a chance to discuss it at home—but your cat would surely benefit from scraping the three pounds of tartar off her teeth.”

Well, at least she’ll only be two pounds overweight once they’ve finished the job. Bonus.

It’s often said that it’s an easy slip to let the cat out of the bag, but getting the cat INTO the bag is usually more of my problem. Some cats do not see the appeal of a bag no matter how many pieces of dried chicken strips and dead mouse toys you throw into it. But I am not one to wither and give up. Plus, I really didn’t need that second eye anyway.

Getting my teeth cleaned is not such an anxiety-ridden affair any longer, but stopping the whole procedure to answer my cell phone can be tricky. Talking to anyone with a mouthful of foam, a suctioning tube hissing away from the side of your mouth and a tartar pick embedded in the side of your cheek can be extra tricky. Telling your dentist to back off and give you a second can be trickiest of all—especially since he’s still within reach of all the sharp, gleaming surgical instruments and is running behind by thirty minutes. One must be delicate.

It turns out that the vet was calling to let me know a few quick things:

Firstly, the cat voiced an immediate complaint about her new lodgings and was not the warm fuzzy wuzzy widdle kitten you said she was upon dropping her off. A note has been made in her chart. And if you’re aware of anyone with even the minimum amount of experience and training, would you please pass on the word that the office is now short and in need of a kennel technician and receptionist.

Secondly, one must pay extra for anesthesia when the staff must employ the tranquilizer gun.

Thirdly, no more sugar for the cat—no matter how much she gazes longingly at the supersized bag of Sour Patch Kids.

Finally, why don’t we give her a few more hours before you come by to pick her up? Just to be safe.

Why so long? Surely her meds have started to wear off by now, I say.

At the moment we’re just waiting for her to stop hissing and spitting at everybody.

What? I thought you said she’d received anesthesia.

Well, to be honest, we’re not entirely sure that it ever kicked in.

Did you have to remove any teeth?

‘Have to’ is a relative term. We voted and decided that in all likelihood, any tooth that we originally had our eye on is bound to come out sooner or later of its own accord.

So the cat is back home, more pissed off than ever, partly because we’re back to the old tiny teeth brushing routine, and partly because I ran out of her favorite brand of bourbon. But after nearly choking on the bill presented by the vet, I announced she was just going to have to get used to generic.

Here kitty kitty …

“SHOWTIME!”

~Shelley

**Gotta Have a Gott**

Last week, Rob and I announced that his sketches will be available toward the end of the year in the form of a 2015 calendar! And our readers would get to be the judges and voters for which doodles they’d like to see selected for each month. We’ll reveal the winners one by one, and come November, If you’ve Gotta have a GOTT, you can place your order. Click here to see the cartoons in competition and to cast your vote.

Don’t forget to check out what we’re cookin’ in the Scullery (here) and what we all talked about down in the pub (here). And to see more of Robin Gott‘s humor–all from the only pen carved from a human funny bone–click here.

18Jan2014

Now that’s some fancy footwork.

Posted in Health, Humor by Shelley Sackier

I am a saver.

Some folks would call me a hoarder.

I’d settle for ‘thrifty pack rat.’

Yes, I still have a few t-shirts from when I was about thirteen, but that’s because there’s still good wear in them. And because I just finished reading an article about one hundred ways to reuse, recycle and refashion your old t-shirts. I’m now going to start on a latch hook rug and make a colorful wardrobe of tea cozies for the coffee pot. I’ve also sent out for the free blueprints on how to reupholster your car’s interior. Savvy, eh?

Of course, I do make mistakes in hanging on to a few things that should have been utilized before they became useless. Like everything with an expiration date. But if someone gives me a gift of luscious chocolate or expensive perfume or much needed tooth-whitening strips, I tend to put those bits up on a shelf and glance at them daily with a simple nod and a casual statement of, “Pretty soon, just waiting for the right celebratory moment.”

Then two years later, in a flash of what I consider to be weakness, I unwrap the chocolate to find weevil larvae, I spritz the perfume to find thick, rancid oil and I hunt down the whitening strips only to discover that the dog got to them first because he has a wonky addiction to toothpaste. But his teeth look fabulous, so who am I to complain.

Last week, I finally got around to cashing in a gift certificate given to me by my mother for my birthday. Not last year’s, but probably one from 1992, or the one falling after the millennium. The voucher was usable dependent upon whether or not we’d all make it through the Y2K impending doom. Thinking we wouldn’t, I stored it with my emergency reserve of chocolate. It was for an hour of reflexology–which, at the time, I mistook to believe was like tarot card reading, or crystal healing, or saving up a supply of apricot pits in case I’d fall victim to a case of severe toenail fungus.

It wasn’t.

It was simply a foot massage set to a lush film score.

After seeing the gift certificate perched among the plethora of shoes I have—and don’t wear, but might one day if the situation called for it (like reintroducing my combo high heel/chia pet shoes or the treadmill trainers with the built in CD player)—I finally called the reflexologist and reminded her that somewhere around a dozen years or so ago, she cashed a check from my mother and could I now book an appointment.

She graciously did not feign ignorance, but I thought I felt a note of judgment on the other end of the line. Still …

I arrived at the tiny spa and was immediately enveloped by the pricey scents of sandalwood and patchouli—two fragrances I recognized from the myriad that lined my bathroom cupboards and filled my closet drawers, but were hands off except for the occasional sniff. I vowed to open one of those jars and jugs when I got home—just like I vowed to open a Garanimals clothing line for pets when I was nine and feeling entrepreneurial. It just ain’t gonna happen (although I have been making progress with the wool-lined wellington boots for the sheep).

So, for those of you who aren’t keenly familiar with the art of reflexology (aside from my nine word definition above), simply put by my trusty rusty reliable source Wikipedia, it is thus:

Reflexology, or zone therapy, is an alternative medicine involving the physical act of applying pressure to the feet, hands, or ears with specific thumb, finger, and hand techniques without the use of oil or lotion. It is based on what reflexologists claim to be a system of zones and reflex areas that they say reflect an image of the body on the feet and hands, with the premise that such work effects a physical change to the body.

In other words, there’s a spot on each of your feet (and hands) that connects to all the other important parts, glands and organs of your body. Press a particular spot on your big toe and your nose can start leaking. Knead your instep and chances are you’re going to make your stomach rumble. Squeeze smack dab in the middle of your foot and you’ll likely have to rush off to the bathroom to relieve yourself. Funky stuff, indeed.

Okay, it might not be exactly as I’ve indicated, but having looked at the foot chart on the wall, I’m going to go with ‘pretty close.’

The main problem I have with the idea of reflexology is that someone has to touch another person’s feet. And seriously, I can’t imagine enough money in the world to charge for that task. I remember my children’s feet when they were babies and how incredibly adorable they were. I tickled them, I blew raspberries on them and I put them all over my face to play peekaboo with. But then one day … BAMB! They turned into adult feet and I could not make a wide enough berth.

But before you judge me, it’s not just other people’s feet I am squeamish over; understand that I’m even repelled by my own.

Okay, that was a totally unnecessary rant, and I got a little off track, but my point was simply that someone else cared enough about my well being to bypass making comments on the amount of sock fuzz between my toes. Also, unlike my father and his weekly report when I was younger, she did not find it necessary to point out the fact that I will never be hired as a foot model.

All in all, I was convinced of the enormous benefit of taking care of one’s health and happiness via one’s feet. Therefore, I am on a new campaign to look after them a little more than I have. I’ve gotten new nail clippers, a loofah sponge, a self-rolling foot massager, foot salt scrubs and aloe drenched socks.

Now they will promptly go into a drawer where I will gaze at them longingly …

~Shelley

**News Announcement for all you Peakers out there:**

Rob’s crazy cartoons are finally going to be available for your walls in the form of a 2015 calendar! But instead of us choosing our favorite doodles, we decided to leave it up to YOU. On the last blog post of each month, you’ll get to vote on the sketches in competition. We’ll reveal the winners one by one, and come November, If you’ve Gotta have a GOTT, you can place your order. Super simple. Simply super.

11Jan2014

Waist management: detest detox

Posted in Health, Holidays, Humor, Resolutions by Shelley Sackier

I am having one of those days.

And I’m guessing I’m not the only one.

I think a massive chunk of people around the world—people who have shoved at least four or five holidays into the space of about 5 weeks time—are feeling much the same as I do:

Stuffed.

We’re all plumped up on high fat, high carb, highly salted foods that were liberally washed down with bucket after bucket of spirits, wine and wassail.

We’re all glossy-eyed over late night movies, all night Twister games and unsuccessful attempts at sleeping in inactive airport gates staring at going nowhere aircraft.

We’re all hyped up on candy canes and gingerbread, rum balls and Yule logs, cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels (yes, maybe I got carried away, but you get my point). I cannot eat one more forkful of panettone or stollen. No more fruitcake nor wedges of pie. I’ve hidden all the chocolate and I’ve thro—wait … what? No, of course I’ve not hidden all the chocolate. I know exactly where it all is.

But the rest of the stuff … totally trashed. Except for the eggnog. And that last bit of trifle. UGH! Can you see what I mean? Once you start—and by start I mean make a six week long practiced and perfected habit of stuffing yourself to the brim full of “just this once” holiday fare–it is ridiculous to imagine your body is every going to look at a piece of kale again and say, “Umm, yeah, I could go for that.”

Maybe if it’s coated in peppermint bark first.

And if you’re not one of us—the bloated, thickened, pot-bellied pudgesters—then I kindly ask you to stop reading any further because I have the feeling that you’re simply going to leave a comment down below that’s basically the equivalent of a giant raspberry.

And I am much too full even for a raspberry at this point.

Unless it’s coated in peppermint bark.

And even though the word DETOX is not one that rolls off my tongue in a familiar, family friendly kind of way, it has multiplied like a rabble of rabbits in my inbox, pinging its “new arrival” announcements at an exponential rate. It’s oddly reminiscent of just how quickly the THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE FOR FREE SHIPPING and WE’RE REALLY SERIOUS THIS TIME AND WE TRULY MEAN IT NOW: THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE emails piled up. They attempted to share the same space with the plethora of “You’d be crazy not to make this recipe” newsletters.

The nerve-wracking moments all leading up to each holiday left me (and yes, many of you) desperate for some sort of respite from the frenzy. A marvelous solution I’ve stumbled upon is simply to provide an extra layer of fat to protect those vulnerable internal organs.

Stress needs to be cushioned.

Except now that the festivities are officially over, I can’t walk around in my floor-length, three-ply plush robe of rapture with the excuse that holidays are meant to be cozy and comforting. And I translate that to mean I’m not required to change out of my PJs. Well, I suppose I can keep wearing the robe as long as I’m willing to ignore the sky high eyebrow raising that occurs whenever I’m filling up my gas tank or standing in line at the bank. I’ve found that reaching into my fur-lined pocket and handing the bank teller a rum ball sends the crisp and unmistakable message that I’m not ready to give up the holiday and join the rest of the world who are already ear-marking seed catalogs and looking for their Easter baskets. Not yet.

I realize now is the time when I have to make friends with grains, greens and the graceful act of surreptitiously crying in front of the bakery window. I must walk that extra mile, ignore that Ben & Jerry’s and cover every mirror in the house. I will make pasta out of zucchini, suck on lemons liberally sprinkled with cayenne pepper, and whizz up every fruit and vegetable into a frothy liquid fiber. I will nibble like a rabbit, forage like a ferret and snuffle like a pig. Wait … scratch that last one.

It’ll probably end up being something more like ‘cry like a baby.’

But not without effort first. (The healthy detoxing, not the crying bit, although I’m sure they all go hand in hand. Plus crying is a form of expunging inner demons, right? So yes, I shall endeavor to cry with monumental exertion.)

I shall put my back into it, give it the old college try, use some elbow grease. Egads, we’re right back to foodstuffs again, aren’t we?

It’s no use. Who are we trying to fool? Winter pudge is here to stay. I might as well start getting ready for the holidays early this year.

Pass me the peppermint bark.

~Shelley

Detox Diets: Do they work? (webmd.com)
Worst-selling Fat-Free Foods (theonion.com)

4Jan2014

The Grand Poobah of Parties

Posted in Calendar, Catholic Church, England, Feasts, Festivals, History, Holidays, Humor by Shelley Sackier

I read a lot of historical fiction.

On purpose.

I like historical fiction and I write historical fiction, but the way to become a decent writer of the genre, and for others to become fervent followers of your writing in that genre, is to immerse yourself in the times as much as possible.

Alas, time travel isn’t feasible, although having toured the physics department in the United Kingdom’s Birmingham University last year (read about the unfathomable physics), I’m pretty sure it will be soon. So, until those clever clods figure it out, I’m left with reading. And reading leads to imagery. And imagery leads to sensation. And sensation leads to … well it doesn’t matter, but if we were Amish, this whole thing could lead to dancing and you know that’s one come hither look closer to hell than anyone’s comfortable having in their living room.

Call me a mutineer if you must (and likely only if you’re Amish), but I find that apart from joining a traveling band of reenactors, the only way to thoroughly taste the joie de vive of the past is to immerse yourself within the time period’s literature.

Or to make a pot of joie de vive, which I’m pretty sure includes a lot of entrails and a few copper francs.

One holiday not entirely gone and buried from memory, but not widely celebrated anymore, and one I think would be enormously fun to resurrect from the graveyard, is Twelfth Night.

Taking place the night of January 5^th, it heralds the beginning of the Epiphany and the end of the gluttonous Twelve Days of Christmas. Back in Tudor times, I’m guessing a dozen days wasn’t nearly enough, as Twelfth Night signified it was time to pack up and head home following all the debauchery that began waaay back on All Hallows Eve.

Yeah, these people knew how to party.

And “part-aay” was the name of the game. And the game was lead by the Lord of Misrule. Misrule as in total anarchy. But before we get to the more well-known versions, let’s take a quick tour of how things were done in a few other lands.

Yes, there’s a religious component to Twelfth Night, as some folks used to celebrate it in remembrance of the Three Kings’ arrival to the birthplace of Christ. It might have simply been a round of “Hallelujah” chorus because the three fellahs were wandering about in the desert for an unduly long period of time and refused to ask for directions. Wise men, eh?

In Austria, there was a boatload of smoking that took place during the twelve days of Christmas, all poetically named … Smoke Nights. Apparently, Austria had a rather large problem with unwelcomed evil spirits hanging about the country, but soon discovered that the simple combination of great clouds of choking incense and a good solid drenching of holy water took care of the pesky so n’ sos for another three hundred fifty-some days.

Clever.

In the Netherlands, Twelfth Night officials allow folks to drive away all their unwelcome demonic shades by blowing out their eardrums with a festive little activity they call midwinterhoornblazen. Of course, there is the common misconception among foreigners who catch a glimpse of the Netherlandian wraiths that the reason they are sporting ear muffs is that they are chilly. In fact, they are simply bracing for the upcoming festival.

Clever.

In medieval times, the Norse (and now the English) would dedicate the evening to Apple Wassailing. Traditionally sent out into the apple orchards, a group of men would locate the oldest tree, encircle it, tie bread and toast to its branches and pour the last of their evening’s alcoholic winter punch over its roots. I’m going to guess they may have relieved themselves over the roots of the tree to boot, but likely it was just an earlier version of the evening’s punch. This, surprise surprise, was done in order to scare away any ghosts and goblins and encourage a bountiful surplus next season.

Questionable.

The thing we glean from looking at these past celebrations is that Europe was plagued with malignant spirits.

Later on, Twelfth Night improved a little in that folks went from driving out the dead to nearly joining them as they drank themselves perilously close to the edge of their lives. There are a plethora of opinions as to the correct form of celebrations, but I’ll give you the general gist.

A cake was cooked.

A reversal of fortune followed.

Lewd behavior ensued.

The Church found out.

Everyone grabbed their coats and went home swearing next year no one was going to invite The Church.

Still today, there are communities that make a grand go at keeping the traditions alive, but in my opinion, there’s clearly a lot of work to be done to convince the rest of the world that the holidays are not quite over.

So back to the books I go, immersing myself in the times of yore. But one thing remains certain: I read about the past to plan a better future.

I hope yours will be brilliant. Happy New Year!

~Shelley