Playing Tiddly Winks

The topic for this month is something about car maintenance, but since the only maintenance I do on my car is to fill it with gas when the gauge is on E, I'm going to talk about something that is much more important-- and it's something that is germane to all couples, even though it is not often spoken about.

Well, let me take that back-- there's quite a bit of talk about it when the kids are little. Magazine articles shout about how to keep romance alive and offer helpful hints such as, "trade weekend babysitting with a friend," or "make a date for some afternoon when the kids are in school, meet your partner at home, and enjoy a rousing game of tiddly winks."

Truth to tell, when the kids were growing up, my husband and I didn't have too much trouble finding opportunities for tiddly winks. Our bedroom was set off from theirs; they didn't understand what any noises we may have been making meant anyway; and they were out of the house often enough to allow for frequent tiddly wink rendezvous.

Once the girls left home, tiddly winks got even better-- and spread all through the house. Tiddly winks even went mobile-- we might start in the living room, move to the bedroom and then into the shower for some tiddly winks under water.

Then we had our 23-year-old daughter move back home, and suddenly there were no more tiddly winks. She has an active social life, so we didn't think it would be that much of a problem when she came home. We'll just reserve the tiddly winks for when she goes out with her friends, we thought. The problem is, she never goes out with her friends. She never goes anywhere. She is always home and is likely to walk in at any moment to find us playing tiddly winks.

This inhibits us just a little.

Okay, it inhibits us quite a lot.

My husband's friends at work evidently know the feeling. One of his co-workers told him there would be no more "Afternoon Delight" when our daughter moved back home. Another co-worker told him that when her daughter moved back home, she insisted on the girl spending the night at a friend's house every couple of weeks. I don't think that this is an issue that any articles about boomerang kids ever addresses.

Last night I came home from work and noticed my husband's car was in the driveway. More significantly, my daughter's wasn't. "Where is she?" I asked when I came in.

"She went to her sister's."

"How long is she going to be gone?"

"I don't know."

It was the best game of tiddly winks we've had in a long time!

Why Spring Clean Anyway?

I don't clean.

Period.

I gave it up when I went to grad school a few years ago. Between being a soccer mom and wife and working a 40+ hour a week job, something had to give and that something was housecleaning.

We had a cleaning lady for a while. She was nice, but she talked a lot and didn't do a good job when she was in a hurry. After the first few months she was always in a hurry. Sometimes she brought her teen-aged son and daughter to help clean. They didn't do that great a job. When I lost my job, we let her go.

But no, I didn't start cleaning again when I lost my job because I immediately immersed myself in starting Swimming Kangaroo and still didn't have time to clean.

We use the daily shower spray in the bathrooms, automatic bowl cleaner in the toilets and vacuum occasionally. My daughter, who likes to dust, every once in a while will run through the house with the feather duster, or one of us will get tired of looking at the dust and will go after it with furniture polish. I seldom cook so the kitchen isn't really an issue. If we are going to have company over, my husband and I spent an hour or so attacking the big picture. Anybody who notices the dust bunnies under the bed is poking their nose where they shouldn't anyway.

If I had time would I clean? Probably not much more than I do now because I can always find something I like to do better than clean. If I had money would I hire another cleaning lady? Possibly. Supposedly I pay my daughter to clean for me, but since she seldom actually does it, I seldom actually pay her.

I used to spring clean every time we moved, and when we were newly married, we moved a lot. However, we've been in our house for 17 years now and haven't seen the backs of some of our closets since we moved in. Somehow we've survived without knowing what's hidden in their murky depths. When we do finally move- probably to our retirement home, we'll probably have one heck of a garage sale. Either that, or we'll just shift the boxes from the closets in our current home to the closets in our new home. After all, since we've managed without whatever is in them for 17 years, we probably don't really need it.

So there-- you wanna know the best way to handle spring cleaning? Just don't do it. Now that we've gotten that out of the way we can talk about cooking-- oh, right, I don't do that either. Laundry? Uh, no. Grocery shopping? Yard work?

What do I do when I'm not working on Swimming Kangaroo and my day job, you ask? Hey, just ask my shar-pei. I am a dog walker par excellence- and taking Wrinkles for a walk is more important than housework could ever be!

Order and Disorder in the Scheme of Life

As Lea speaks about cleaning, it brings up one of my concerns. Why do opposites attract? Why would a person who loves order find a partner who thrives on chaos? Mine won't put any tool away while working on a project because he's afraid he won't be able to find it again (he only has to look in my toolbox to find a duplicate); not even if the project lasts a month or more.

I like order. I like being able to find something when I need it. Although, besides a man who operates on chaos theory, there also seems to be a house gremlin here who grabs and hides what I need most and only lets it go when that item is no longer needed in order to snatch the next item I desperately need. However, as much as I love order, I do not like achieving organization. Something one of my best friends once told me a long time ago has stuck in my mind: to get organized you must first get thoroughly disorganized. The cure sounds worse than the disease.

Another good friend who was dying of cancer once asked, "Why as a young wives and mothers do we clean and sweep so much? There were so many better ways I could have spent that time. " Which gives me leave to go watch the daffodils bloom.


Rhobin

Baby Steps to Spring Cleaning

Wow, April and my spring cleaning has begun...NOT! I need time so since TIME is not on my side I'll have to devise ways of spring cleaning my house in other ways.

Now, let's see:

Leave the windows open to remove any lingering odors inside. Okay, can do that and it won't take any time. Will need to remember to close the windows otherwise Noah's ark will be needed with the rain we've been getting lately.

Buy plastic plates and utensils. Hey, that works!

Buy more garbage bags to place plastic plates and utensils inside.

Have visitors wear a Swiffer rag under their feet and make them do a clean sweep around my living room once. Saves me sweeping and vacumming for at least...oh, whenever.

Laundry...love doing laundry...shove them in the machine then pop them in the dryer.

Ironing...hate it...spray the wrinkled shirts with some water then pop them in the dryer for a few minutes and hang them right away.

Cooking...Kelloggs, frozen dinners, bread and water, soup and crackers...oh wait, that's the prisoner's list...shoot! Okay, I have to cook. What kind of a mom would I be if I actually fed my kids ONLY Kelloggs...hmmm...

Okay, I'm out of ideas here. You guys have any quick tricks to spring cleaning?

Pops-a Love/Hate Relationship

This is a totally off the wall relationship that I have. Many have said they're beginning to worry about me. :) Don't. Call it creativity, call it what you want...but my characters from Rock Kingdom have a mind of their own. If you don't believe me, then visit their Rock Kingdom's Citizen's blog.

It's such a thrilling moment in a writer when a character or characters they've created take a life of their own. Readers have been leaving these guys comments left and right, some good and some bad, but all in all it's such a joy from a writer's point of view to see them communicating with 'real' people.

So for those posting on their block, don't call me insane. You're leaving them posts. hehehe

Your Call

I’ve done something I’ve never done before. Let me first explain, I've studied media and marketing, and that I know just by talking about it, I am promoting this product, that marketers no longer seem to care about negativity, only that their product is mentioned. I'm doing it anyway.

After seeing a commercial twice on TV, I called the Frito-Lay company and complained about their commercial made by Goodby, Silverston and Partners. The commercial in question takes place in a laundromat with two women. In a snotty voice the older woman tells the younger, who just picked up a piece of the woman's clothing from the floor, ‘that other people are trying to do their laundry, too.’ The girl sees an imaginary Chester Cheetah who tells her, ‘Felicia, those are her whites in the dryer.’ Where upon Felicia sneaks over and puts a handful of Cheetos in the dryer. You can see this on You Tube.

Most of the comments about the commercial on You Tube seemed positive (probably from the 18 to 23 crowd who have never done six or more loads of family laundry in a laundramat – do you suppose this applies to those who dreamed this up at advertising company, too?), but I think most of the kudos were for the young actress, Felicia Day, who has at least five comedic episodes about a group of computer gamers she wrote and acted called ‘the Guild’ on You Tube. The commercial has the same insouciance as the You Tube episodes. Since I haven't seen this commercial lately on national TV, I'm assuming they placed it on You Tube to reach their target market.

The woman from Frito-Lay (I had to go to their website to find a number – and guess what? The website is aimed at children) was very polite and said Frito-Lay was always interested in their customers' views, both good and bad. I explained I love Fritos, I love Cheetos, too (just have to contain my love for these fat laden products), but told her what I thought about the commercial. She offered me some coupons and I accepted and hung up. A few days later I received an envelope in the mail with three coupons for any Frito-Lay product up to $3.49 and a letter. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was appalled. The letter stated the commercial was ‘intended to be a tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted way for us to talk about Cheetos’ … and … ‘In the adult-focused advertising, Chester Cheetah has gone from a larger than life character to an inner, mischievous voice for adults.’

Speech fails me. My mind reels and spirals downward on so many levels over this whole episode. If interested, go view the commercial and form your own opinion. If you like the light-hearted mischievousness, well hell, I’ve just passed into the old fogy part of my existence and my steps have slowed too much to keep pace with today’s society. If you are impressed or unimpressed, call Frito-Lay at 1-800-352-4477. They answer the phone Monday – Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., Central Standard Time. At least the coupons pay for your time. I wonder if Frito-Lay is going to pay for all the re-dos of white laundry? Because you know some young 'adult' is going to think its just too funny to pass up an opportunity.

O, BTW put a ® next to all those brand names.

Rhobin

A Perfectly Suited Couple

I owe my marriage to a toothache. Yes, if it weren't for my wisdom teeth, I would never have met Bill, to whom I have been happily married for almost 28 years.

It was my first semester at college and his last, and I was miserable. I wasn't homesick- although I did miss my dog- nor was I having problems with my classes. I was making friends, liked my roommate and my apartment. My homework was manageable; my professors were okay and life was generally pretty good. Except...

My wisdom teeth were coming in. All 4 of them. Two were impacted. Two were infected, and I was in pain. My throat hurt; my ears hurt. I could barely talk, could barely do much of anything. I had an appointment scheduled with my dentist but that was a week away, so I was miserable.

After class one Monday, I stopped by the Sweet Stop to get some ice cream to sooth my throat. With my chocolate shake in hand, I looked for a place to sit. Hmm, I didn't have many options. In 1978 there were a lot of Iranian students at my university, and that liked to hang out at the Sweet Stop. I had often sat and spoken with them before and found them to generally be fun to talk with. They liked talking with Americans because they were always eager to improve their English. One guy even carried around a little notepad and when he came across words that he didn't understand, he wrote them down and then showed them to the next American he came across to find out what the word meant.

But anyway, on this day my throat was sore, and I didn't want to talk to anybody. I knew that if I sat with one of the Iranians, I would have to talk to him, but I didn't have many options. All the tables were full- but wait! There was an American guy sitting at a table reading a book! If I sat down with him, maybe he would just keep on reading his book and I could sip my shake in peace. So I asked him if I could sit at his table, slid into my seat, started to open my own book, and I'll be darned if he didn't put down his book and start talking!

Unbeknownst to me, he had been sitting there wishing a beautiful girl would come and sit down across from him. Instead he got me. Oh well.

I eventually agreed to go out with him to get him to shut up. Two weeks later, after my wisdom teeth had been removed and I was feeling more romantic, he proposed to propose. ("If things keep up like this I'll be asking you to marry me.") Eighteen months later we were married.

So I owe my husband to my wisdom teeth. That and the fact that he didn't call me a "Trekkie" when he saw my Star Trek shirt when I sat down at that table. But that's a whole 'nother story for a whole 'nother day!