Reason #588 Why I Love Publix

I didn’t notice a thing as I drove to the store, but I was playing my music pretty loud. When I got to Publix, I was excited to see that my favorite parking spot was available, so I circled the lot to pull into it. I noticed that people were looking at me and pointing, but I figured they were just admiring my unique collection of bumper stickers.

While I was rummaging for my list and my sweater (produce and dairy make me shiver) someone tapped my window. A strange lady said, “Did you know you have a green garden hose stuck under your van?”

I got out and surveyed the scene. The middle of the hose was all shoved up under the car, and the two ends trailed out to the other side of the parking lot. People were laughing and pointing. I was horrifed because I had forgotten my camera. I rushed inside to see if Publix sold a disposable digital camera, but they didn’t. So I shrugged, got out my list, and did my week’s worth of shopping, from garlic and apples to three gallons of milk, chardonnay on sale, and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

As I checked out, I wondered idly whether it would be safe to drive my car home and let Bill figure out how to get the hose off. I asked a bagboy to help me with my cart.

“It’s not really that I can’t handle the groceries,” I said,”it’s that I have this problem with my car. There’s a long hose stuck underneath it and I might need a little help gettting it out.”

He followed me to the parking lot, and there was my van, in my favorite spot, hoseless.

There was no sign of the hose anywhere. I checked the cart holder, the inside of my car, and underneath the car, but the hose had vanished completely, and the bagboy was looking at me doubtfully. For a moment I thought I’d hallucinated the whole thing, but then a neighbor walked by and said, “Hey, was that you with the garden hose hanging out of your car? That was something else.”

With that, I was redeemed in the eyes of the bagboy, and relieved of the chore of detaching the hose myself. I drove home, unloaded the groceries, and didn’t think a thing of it until I casually mentioned it to Bill that night, just to make conversation.

You gotta love a store that provides free automotive maintenance while you shop.

June 18, 2006

Take Them Down Or Leave Them Up?

My youngest sister is coming to stay with me at the end of the week, so I’ve been trying to erase vestiges of little boyness from the guest room and the surrounding environs so she’ll be comfortable. I’ve tossed Legos and broken crayons and forbidden anyone to pee in the toilet she’ll be using.

Aunt Lulu is expecting her first child soon. Therefore, she doesn’t generally share her space with three grimy, loud boys and the mess that inevitably accompanies them. She is the one who caught a glimpse of my dining room and politely advised me that my laundry situation is somewhat out of control. It was when I visited her spotless apartment in New York that I realized just how different our standards of what constitutes acceptable filth are. It seems that I accept it (out of necessity) and she doesn’t.

Cleaning out my laundry room has been on my list for a long time, and her upcoming visit provided an excellent excuse for tackling that chore. The room contains eight and a half years of accumulated junk and grime, including more candles and vases than even Martha Stewart could use. I ruthlessly tossed most of them.

(click to see vases on floor, chairs covered in candles)

Once I got everything cleared out of the laundry room, I discovered a viscous yellow goo on the floor that proved to be difficult to remove. I’m not sure if it was melted Minwax or solidified dishwashing liquid, but it held ancient kibble captive and left the floor extremely slippery.

(click to see goo!)

During my project, I discovered where Porter gets his love of collecting esoteric items. Now that the cabinets are organized I can showcase one of Bill’s favorite collections: Every Sort Of Light Bulb You Can Imagine.

Today I inspected my house carefully to see what else I could do to spiff it up for Aunt Lulu’s visit. Everything looked just like it had for months, and then I realized I’ve never completely undecorated from Christmas.

This is not to say that my Christmas tree is still up– it’s not. But we clear a corner of the living room where we put the tree, and it’s still bare.

I have some pictures that generally hang on the wall there, and I haven’t rehung them yet. They are waiting patiently on the floor.

I did take the Mexican nativity scene off the coffee table, but it never made it back to the attic. It’s packed in a box and hidden behind a chair in the living room. Joseph was beheaded in all the excitement and I meant to Gorilla Glue his sombrero back on, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

(click to see Joseph’s head)

During the holidays I put gold sparkley candles on my sconces. The rest of the year I replace them with more subtle ivory candles, but again, I’ve been a busy lady. Some people might think they look garish in June, but I agree with Auntie Mame– we need glitz in our lives all year long.

(Click and sing “We need a little Christmas, right this very minute!”)

After Christmas dinner, I washed the napkins. Then I read an article that said that you could take them from the washer and put them in the freezer until you are ready to iron them for your next dinner. Well, I’m not ready yet.

Below is a simple holiday decoration that looks incredible in the bathroom. You fill a fishbowl with kosher salt, add a single taper and light it. Guests who have to take a leak get a zippy and unique experience. (I also had dainty hand towels on the table, too, but they are now laundered and frozen, as illustrated above.)

Now that it’s summer and the salt has hardened into a solid mass, the setup looks like a pale phallus mocking the festivities of yesteryear.

Remember when I let Porter create the decor for the mantel all by himself? It ended up looking like this:

He did another one for the other side of the fireplace and it was cheap and fabulous. I took the branches and ornaments down, but the vases never made it back to the attic. Here’s one hiding behind the rocking chair, next to a ball and a vase filled with lentils and an AA battery:

(It’s disguised in burlap and a gold bow which my Artistic Friend thoughtfully added)

I am feeling proud that I have redecorated the mantel with some purple globular things I got at Pier 1. If Aunt Lulu’s lucky, I might stick some water and flowers in them before her arrival.

Now that Christmas is only six months away, it seems like a lot of work to haul all these holiday accessories up into the attic, which is about 106 degrees. I think it’s more efficient to leave them where they are, view it as a lesson learned about the downside of procrastination, and try to be quicker on the undecorating part of Christmas next year. Aunt Lulu will get to crash here without Legos, but the trio of gold angels will be staying on her bedside table.

There is one other task I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to finish before she gets here, though.

I’m just going to leave that door closed.

June 17, 2006

My Manhattan Afternoon

The other day I had the most Sex and the City afternoon, here in my hometown. It all started when I dropped by Saks. Usually I just go there to visit one of my old babysitters who works the jewelry counter, but the store had just marked down its spring clothes and I ran into a green halter top that begged me to take it home.

I went home and put on the halter. As with most tops, it was made for a woman with a bigger rack, but I put on my NuBra and strategically placed a safety pin and almost filled it up. I washed and dried my hair, put on makeup, and even tested three different lip colors before I realized I was about to be late for an appointment.

But it wasn’t just any appointment. It was an appointment with my therapist. I haven’t told you about him before because I didn’t have a therapist before. I’ve been seeing a Christian counselor to work on dealing with my grief about my mother’s death, but lately some other issues have cropped up that require some more intense work.**

So there I was, completely dressed and made up and on my way to my therapist’s office. It was so big city.

The decor of the therapist’s office didn’t match my New York daydream. In my imagination it was supposed to be beige and minimalist, but instead the walls were burgundy (very similar to the color of Drew’s favorite shirt) and there was lots of dark wood and heavy carpet.

No matter. It was a productive hour, during which I explained why I was there, using descriptive phrases like “lip plumper– it’s all the rage” and “Roy Orbison sunglasses” and “standing naked in the street with a sparkler up his ass.” The guy was very therapeutic, like a therapist should be, and I made an appointment to return.

Did I mention that I had to get a sitter to avoid taking the duo to the shrink with me? Ow. That was an expensive way to feel like an Upper East Sider. I made the best of it, though. After my session, I had an hour before I had to be home to relieve the babysitter, so I called Bill and arranged to meet him at a bar for a drink. That’s why I had taken such care in getting dressed in the first place. I hope you didn’t think I was trying to impress the therapist.

Bill and I met at a restaurant halfway between the office and home, and had a couple of drinks with no children in sight. The lady next to me was drinking a chartreuse concoction in a martini glass, and it was so lovely and summery looking that I thought briefly about ordering one. My liver accepts only white wine and gin, however, so I enjoyed a Sapphire and tonic and pretended it was every bit as delightful to look at.

As we drank and conversed, I was overcome with the confluence of so many factors that never occur simultaneously for me: the wearing of makeup! The stylish top! My sexy husband! The magnificent, child-free bar! The hip people around us (if you ignored the lady in the terrycloth shorts and Keds)!

I was so overwhelmed that I grabbed Bill’s face with both of my hands and kissed him in such a sexy manner that the people next to us muttered disapprovingly, “Get a room.”

We pretended we were leaving to get a room instead of hustling home and to pay the babysitter, putting an end to my make-believe big city afternoon.

So we ended up chez Glamore, snuggling on the sofa with our dirty boys, facing a dishwasher full of clean dishes that weren’t going to jump into the cabinets themselves, checking the computer for pictures of Finn at camp, and addressing the rest of the little bits and pieces that make up my decidedly un-big city life.

That was wasn’t so bad, either.

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**Don’t freak– my husband and children are fine.