Friday Fun

It is going to be hellaciously hot today. I've seen predictions of 106. Yesterday, it hit 100. All of my plants are shriveling in spite of the buckets of water I've been giving them. When I raked leaves yesterday (a curse on all Southern magnolia trees), I thought my skin would melt into a puddle on the ground.

So for everyone stuck in their air conditioned houses and everyone stuck at work, I thought we'd have some Friday fun with "Monsters Are Real."



Yes, I have a psycho sense of humor. But admit it, it was funny.

Have a great weekend.

24th Anniversary

On Monday, my husband and I celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary. So we went on an overnight trip to the Biltmore estate. It was fantastic. The house, billed as the largest house in America, was stunning. The history was romantic. And the staff was well versed in Southern hospitality.

Sadly, they didn't allow you to take photos inside the house. (500 year old tapestries don't hold up well to flash photography. Plus, they can sell you a book of photos book later.) I do have some pictures from the outside and the gardens. But Cal and I discovered that without the kids, it's not as fun taking photos. We just had to keep taking pictures of each other. It was better when we could say, "Luke/Ariel/Jake/Matt stand over there and let me take your picture."

Here are the photos.

The Biltmore estate main entrance. 

I think that the lion is protecting me. Cal says that he's getting ready for lunch.

This is the main entrance. At the top corners are gargoyles.

Lily ponds.

On the loggia, overlooking the forest behind the house. Interestingly, the area was completely denuded when George Vanderbuilt built the house. He and Frederick Law Olmstedt planned and planted the forest that's there now. It was the beginning of forestry in the US.

I love architectural details. I won't bore you with all the gargoyle, downspout, and carving photos. But I thought I'd share just one.

Kickin' Back

I'm taking a vacation day today. (It's our 24th wedding anniversary.) I'll be back on Wednesday, and I'll have some photos of where we went to celebrate--the Biltmore Estate.

I Am Offended. Except Not.

At our house, the folding of laundry is a job of the minions. And I’ll say first off that the chore is not spread out evenly among the minions. It’s more like, “You there. Fold the laundry and put it away.”

This summer two of the minions are working (they are doing summer research). That leaves only two minions folding scads of laundry. And since they aren’t paid, they have a communist approach—do the work with little care as to the results.

This led to the following scene at breakfast.

Husband: “You know, the laundry has become a total crap shoot. I get all kinds of clothes that aren’t mine.”

Working Minion (female): “I’m always getting other people’s laundry. Especially mom’s.”

Folding Minion (male): “One pair of pink undies looks like another. I can’t tell the difference.”

WM (conceding the point): “Yeah, but it’s not the underwear. You gave me mom’s dorky shorts.”

FM: “Hmm. True.”

Me, looking up from what I was reading: “Hey, I don’t have dorky shorts.”

WM: “You totally have dorky shorts. Remember those shorts you bought the other day to wear with your swimsuit.”

Me, knowing I bought them because they were cheap even though they were ugly and didn’t fit well: “Okay, those are dorky.”

WM: “You do have one pair of cute jeans.”

Me, feeling better: “Thanks…wait a minute…I have five pairs of jeans. Are you saying the others are lame?”

WM, with a teasing smile: “The jeans with the double buttons are so cute. I love when the boys put them in my laundry pile.”

I guess the lesson to be learned here is that one day in five I’m cool. And the rest, I’m dorky. Hmmm. I’m good with that.

Versatile Blogger Award

Thanks to Alice who gave me the Versatile Blogger Award. I think I may have gotten this before. But it's a fun award, so I'm going to do it again. Here are seven random facts about myself. Of course, I’ve been blogging for a long time—this is post number 626 for me—so there aren’t many random (interesting) facts that you don’t already know. But here’s what I could come up with.

1. I wash my feet before I go to bed. My feet must be clean before they can touch the sheets.

2. I can’t stand the sound of cracking knuckles. Three of my four children do this. I think they do it to torture me.

3. I started out as a bio major in college with thoughts of going to med school. Bad idea. I reverse numbers. So I switched to English and saved myself a malpractice lawsuit—“Take 52 ml of this drug. Oh no, wait! I meant 25 ml.”

4. I am face-blind. (I have several posts on this.) The other day I saw one of my son’s close friends, whom I’ve known for six years. He often comes over to our house once a week. But on this afternoon, his hair was wet and I didn’t recognize him until he spoke. And even then, I stared at him on and off all afternoon, thinking “Is that Duncan?” And he’d speak again and I’d think, “Right. That is Duncan.” But I still wasn’t sure. In the car on the way home, I said to my son, “That was Duncan, right?” My son rolled his eyes. “Mom, you’re insane.” But it’s okay. I’m a writer, and we only have a nodding acquaintance with reality.

5. I am an avid runner, even though I hate running. Why do I run? I think I’m addicted to endorphins.

6. I know I’m addicted to dark chocolate.

7. I love to quote literature at my children. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son…and shun the frumtious Bandersnatch.” Maybe this is why they are majoring in the maths and sciences.

Now I need to pass this award along. Here are my nominees (hopefully, you haven't had the award before).

1. Anne

2. E. Louise

3. KO

4. A Nudge in the Right Direction

5. Patti

6. Katie

7. Jessica

Top Ten Things I Learned While Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets

  1.      When you get a burning sensation on your skin, wash it really quickly. If you ignore the pain, you will get a chemical burn. And they can blister. (BTW, pain is a gift from God for the foolish who strip cabinets in shorts and a tank top.)

2. If you live in an old house, you can assume that nothing in your house is standard. It means that hardware is very expensive. I found drawer pulls that would fit our drawers and cabinets. But they cost $400 a piece. Apparently, they were “vintage.” (Vintage is code for it-costs-way-more-money-than-it’s-worth.) We drilled new holes and used wood putty.

3.      “Eyeballing” where you should drill the holes for the new handles doesn’t work. If you don’t want angled handles, use a ruler.

4.      White wood-stain dyes fingernails. I’ve been very hip for weeks now. Not intentionally hip however.

5.      The “helpers” at Home Depot know absolutely nothing about the products that they sell.

6.      Don’t assume that the cabinets are dry. High humidity keeps things wet for a long time.

7.      Remind your kids not to dump laundry on the cabinet doors that are “drying” on top of the washing machine and dryer.

8.      Climbing inside a cupboard while staining the inside leads to volatile chemical brain-fry.

9.      When you talk about stripping, you need to be very specific. People misunderstand. Enough said.

10.  Don’t polyurethane when your dog is shedding. Seriously. Especially if you have a black Lab and your cabinets are white. 

Word Choice: Friday Fun

Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

In light of that quote, here are some of my favorite Woodhouse quotes for your Friday fun.

“…he once contracted a matrimonial engagement with Lady Florence.”

Bertie, looking at a painting: “It has a nice patina.”

Aunt Dahlia: “You don’t even know what a patina is.”

Bertie: “It’s generally safe to say such a thing when confronted by a piece of art.”

Aunt Dahlia to her husband, Uncle Tom: “You know you always shoot the wrong people.”

Lady Glossip: “Mr. Wooster, how would you support a wife?”

Bertie Wooster: “Well, I suppose it depends on whose wife it was, a little gentle pressure beneath the elbow while crossing a busy street usually fits the bill.”

Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody had met him in 1812 and said, "So, you're back from Moscow, eh?”

(This one is for all my writing friends.) “A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.”

Bertie, talking about Roderick Spode: “You can't be a successful Dictator and design women's underclothing.”

“She looked like something that might have occurred to Ibsen in one of his less frivolous moments.”

This isn’t an example of word choice, but I’m including it since Shakespeare season is upon the Keller household. Next week I start sewing. (This year the kids are in Much Ado About Nothing. Jake plays Benedick, and Matt is Claudio.)

Woodhouse speaking about himself: “I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them. Here is how Shakespeare handles it in "The Winter's Tale," Act 3, Scene 3:

ANTIGONUS: Farewell! A lullaby too rough. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase: I am gone for ever.

And then comes literature's most famous stage direction, "Exit pursued by a bear." All well and good, but here's the way I would handle it:

BERTIE: Touch of indigestion, Jeeves?

JEEVES: No, Sir.

BERTIE: Then why is your tummy rumbling?

JEEVES: Pardon me, Sir, the noise to which you allude does not emanate from my interior but from that of that animal that has just joined us.

BERTIE: Animal? What animal?

JEEVES: A bear, Sir. If you will turn your head, you will observe that a bear is standing in your immediate rear inspecting you in a somewhat menacing manner.

BERTIE (as narrator): I pivoted the loaf. The honest fellow was perfectly correct. It was a bear. And not a small bear, either. One of the large economy size. Its eye was bleak and it gnashed a tooth or two, and I could see at a g. that it was going to be difficult for me to find a formula. "Advise me, Jeeves," I yipped. "What do I do for the best?"

JEEVES: I fancy it might be judicious if you were to make an exit, Sir.

BERTIE (narrator): No sooner s. than d. I streaked for the horizon, closely followed across country by the dumb chum. And that, boys and girls, is how your grandfather clipped six seconds off Roger Bannister's mile.

Who can say which method is superior?"