Sucked into the Spin Cycle

Perhaps it is a symptom of the overwhelming malaise that has befallen our country that a reemergence of everything old-fashioned, oops, I mean retro, seems comforting somehow. I applaud the comeback of macaroni & cheese, plaid flannel shirts, Kitchen-Aid mixers and lemonade stands. However, there are some things that should go back to the decade from whence they came and enjoy their permanent retirement within the pages of some J.C. Penney’s catalog showcased alongside a perfectly coiffed, apron-wearing, happy homemaker.

A year ago – my husband and I went washer and dryer shopping. I found the front-loading versions particularly appealing. They are so cute! They are so retro! They are water and energy efficient!! They come with energy rebates!!! They SUCK. (Okay – seriously, I pondered alternate adjectives, but with no success). Why do I loathe our newest large appliances so? I will list them:

11) Oh My Aching Back: Maybe Yoda, a Lilliputian or the E-Trade baby could maneuver the loading and unloading of these machines without contorting their body into unnatural angles while performing serious leg squats. And if I hit my elbow one more time on the side of the dryer, trying to reach that lone sock stuck waaaaay in the back – someone’s going to pay.

2) Rotini-Style Sheets and Towels: Front-loading dryers should just come with a complementary iron and ironing board. Sheets invariably exit the dryer looking like the weapons of choice in a Superman vs.Hulk butt-snapping contest. Oh – and if you don’t have arms as long as Shaq O’Neal, you may want to buy your shirts extra-small.

3) The smell. The stench. The stank. God forbid you leave your best Lycra workout pants in the washing machine over night. Until the end of time – they will have that slightly musty smell that gets incrementally worse whenever they get damp. The moment my heart rate climbs north of 150 bpm, I start emitting dirty-wet-cat-stuck-in-moldy-basement stank.

4) What's a Little Dirt Amongst Friends?: I would bet my 5 o’clock glass of wine that no one could manage the washer to dryer transfer without dropping several items on the floor. Seeing as how my laundry room connects the garage to the rest of the house, the cleanliness of that floor is one slight notch above a barroom floor covered in sawdust and peanut shells. Seems to defeat the purpose.

These are my main complaints. I’m not even going to mention the fact that you cannot just dry your daughter’s favorite jeans, or that spaghetti straps are frequent casualties, or even that it’s near impossible to find the required detergent that has Mountain Spring fragrance. Sigh. Buyer Beware: Don’t be sucked into the spin cycle. Sometimes retro is just plain old.

The Top Ten Things I Hate About Being in My 40's

I have to preface this entry by stating for the record that I know LOADS of women in their 40’s who are in their physical and intellectual prime...a practically lethal combination of smart and sexy. However, this is MY blog, I’m having one of THOSE days, and I have a few things I need to get off my rapidly descending chest:

1. Ma’am. Duh.

2. When men take a gander at my cleavage they are only thinking one thing. Sunscreen.

3. I’ve missed the window of opportunity to score a Sugar Daddy.

4. It’s less a matter of sucking my gut in…but less out.

5. These days, when my husband says “You look hot!” he hands me a glass of icy cold water.

6. I try to sleep on my back to avoid PPC (permanent pillow creases), but I hate sleeping on my back, so the end result is sleeping on my side but worrying the entire time that I am inflicting PPC on myself.

7. Forget celebrities, teachers, pilots and doctors looking young to me…NFL coaches look young to me.

8. I work out twice as much to burn half the calories.

9. That really fun 4:30 am bladder wake-up call.

10. The only show on T.V. that doesn’t make me feel old is 60 Minutes.

"Thou Shalt Call Thy Canine Jelly"

When I decided to allow a furry companion into our life, I didn’t bargain on two things. One, the all-consuming, extremely pathetic puppy love I would experience (I just adore that goofy, four-legged shower mat), and two, the automatic membership card you receive to the dog owner’s club. People I’ve seen four days a week for 8 years at my park down the hill, who had never so much as flung a bead of sweat in my direction, now stop me to admire my dog. Give treats to my dog. Swap training stories about our dogs. Invariably, during one of these sharing moments, I get asked, how did you come up with the name Jelly? Regaling the sequence of events that culminated in naming our pup after a pantry staple, generally takes longer than the requisite 10-second answer…so here it is:

My husband and I went on a romantic vacation to Rome last year. Our first night out we consumed vast quantities of wine, celebrating the lack of sulfites that would supposedly safeguard us against hangovers (it doesn’t). We might have also been drowning our worries about our lost luggage… which is why at around 3:00am European time, I am stumbling around our hotel room, naked and pissed off that my head feels like a bass drum that is being pounded on by a steroidal weight lifter. After impaling myself on the bidet (not what you think – the bathroom was the size of a cereal box) and muttering a few choice interjections – I wake up my husband to tell him about the very weird dream I had that involved a dog named Jelly who spoke in an English accent and was a nanny for our children. Since we were staying the distance of a leash from St. Peters in Vatican City, we laughingly decided that if we were ever stupid enough to get a dog, we better heed “the vision.” So, how did we come up with the name Jelly? We didn’t. It was divinely ordained.

Caffeinated Confusion

Someone once said to me, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” I can’t remember if that advice came from my public speaking teacher or an ex-boyfriend, but regardless, I am here to inform you that this age-old adage is alive and well at your friendly neighborhood Starbucks. I will illustrate: Let’s say you are in need of some liquid encouragement before you can possibly face the frenzy of belligerent holiday shoppers at the mall…so you pop into one of the 16 Starbucks locations within 5 miles of your house. Let’s say you have a yen for a Cinnamon Dolce Latte. You: “I’ll have a tall Cinnamon Dolce Latte, please.” Barista: “That will be $3.50.” However, let’s say you order your yumminess this way: You: “I’ll have a tall Café Latte, please, with a shot of cinnamon dolce syrup.” Barista: “That will be $3.05.” When this particular scenario happened to moi, I sweetly questioned my barista about the $0.45 price difference and was informed that this is a “specialty drink” and looked at me as if I was Scrooge incarnate. By my calculation, we are paying an additional 45 cents per order to either pay for that amazing holiday marketing campaign Starbucks unleashes that convinces us we are not merely consuming caffeine, but yuletide magic; a veritable Andy Williams Christmas carol in a cute red cup. That, or whip cream is waaaay more expensive than I thought. (Although – I am CONVINCED that if you were to order a tall Cinnamon Dolce Latte, no whip, please….you would still be paying the premium price.) Moral of the Story: Not only is how you say something vitally important, it can also be economically advantageous. Who knows, you could save up enough money to buy Aunt Betty that crock-pot she wants for Christmas. At Wal-Mart. On sale.