Preaching on pronunciation: That's the spirit!

It just goes to show that you can get into trouble for practically ANYTHING nowadays. No...let me amend that: I can get into trouble for practically ANYTHING nowadays. Case in point:  There I was, yesterday in church. Yes...church. Taking detailed sermon-notes to stay on task. Discussing the weather with fellow parishioners. Singing. And in this case, singing the Doxology. Poorly, but still, with feeling and sincerity. "Praise Father, Son, & Holy Ghost. Ahhhhhh-men." I was startled when my daughter Sydney sent me a scathing scowl.

I would learn the reason for the scowl as soon as we reached the van. "Did you hear Mom putting on airs during the service," Sydney asked her father in disgust. I was shocked. Me? Airs? I'm the one who begged for Duluth Trading Post no-yank tanks for Christmas and am currently petitioning the company to make knee-length tank tops. I take the dogs out every day for their morning constitution clad in a robe with my hair wrapped in a turban, cheerfully waving at passing neighbors. Airs? Me?

"What was with your Ahhhh-men?" she said accusingly to me, "You know that we're long-A Amen people."

We are? Frankly...I was stunned.

"Whenever you're trying to impress people, you switch to Ahhhh-men," she alleged. I was shocked. When I am consciously trying to impress people, I wear shoes that have backs to them and use the word "extrapolate" in context. If I'm REALLY trying to wow someone, I might put on some nail-polish and then let a year go by as the paint slowly chips off. Airs?!?! Me?!?!

Brad had remained strangely silent during this exchange but re-joined the conversation as we drove past a barn in mid-repair. Sydney remarked upon the Amish practices of barn-raising and I pounced.

"Wait. Say that again," I told her.

"What," she asked, confused.

""Who raises barns?" I asked.

"The Amish," she answered.

Triumphant, I turned to my husband. "Did you hear that?"

"Airs/smares," I snapped, "look at you getting all fancy with how you pronounce Amish."

"What do you mean," Sydney replied, confused, "I say it like everyone else says it."

Does she?" I asked Brad, who was still keeping quiet. His mid-west accent makes him a target during conversations such as these. He did shake his head though.

"You say the beginning of Amish like you're going to say the word almond," I contested, "It's suppose to sound like when the doctor asks you to say Ahhh...."

"Like in Amen," Brad finally said, grinning. Sydney slumped back in her seat and I sat up much straighter, proudly vindicated. Just the emotions that one is SUPPOSE to feel when one leaves church.

My Wyoming County Island Bicycle

 "I want a bike," I announced a few weeks ago.

"You wanted a yoga mat too, and look how successful THAT was," my husband muttered from across the room.

"What?" I asked.

"What kind of bicycle would you want," he responded.

"I want an island bicycle like the ones we rented on Nantucket," I said with enthusiastic delight.

He sighed (Have I mentioned that he does that a lot?). "First of all, you do realize that we are not on an island. You live in a very hilly countryside."

I ignored him, continuing, "I want handlebars angled so that I can sit in an upright position and I want pedal brakes, no gears, as well as a basket with either a bell or a horn."

Brad stared at me. "Wow! That was REALLY specific! Gears would help you navigate the hills though."

"I've mapped out a route where I don't encounter any hills," I told him, "I'll be fine."

"Great," he said uncertainly, "then buy a bike."

The first model that I spotted cost $80. "It doesn't have a basket OR a bell," I whimpered. Brad assured me that he would attach these necessary accessories later. Yet still, I wavered. "Eighty dollars is a LOT more than my yoga mat," I explained, "What if I end up not using it?"

"If?" Brad muttered.

"What," I asked.

"What if you treat it like a rental bike...say you pretend to charge yourself $10 per ride. Then you've paid for your bike in eight rides," Brad said.

Genius.

Until.

Until I was surfing the inter-web and found the most perfect island bike of all time! It had a basket! It had a parrot-shaped horn! It sported a bottle-opener on the frame!

"It's double the cost," I moaned.

"No," Brad assured me, "it's only double the rides."

"Look," I squealed, "free shipping!"

So my bike arrived by mail in a big box that blocked admittance to my own house. My daughter Savannah was due to arrive the next day. Perfect timing.

"How is that perfect timing," Savannah asked warily.

"Because you're an engineer," I explained.

"Mom, I'm an electrical engineer," she clarified in a way that only confused me more.

"Engineer," I repeated.

"Mom. I am NOT going to assemble your bicycle for you."

The next day, I excitedly held my basket as Savannah and Brad assembled my bicycle. I carefully set my parrot horn to the side to preserve its virginity.

"No one blows this until it's attached," I declared as I handed Brad the wrong tool for the zillionth time, "And by no one, I mean that the first person to blow the maiden parrot will be me."

"Is it time for the basket," I asked again, helpfully offering it to Savannah as she wrestled the braking line into place.

"I thought you wanted pedal brakes," she gasped.

"Concessions had to be made," I admitted, "Do you want the basket now?"

Brad paused as he adjusted the gear unit. "Consider the basket like the star on the Christmas tree," he suggested.

Suddenly, I heard the climatic sound of a cheap rubber parrot horn. I spun to catch Savannah "accidentally" blowing my horn. "It just happened," she said, blowing it unapologetically again as she mounted it on the handlebars. Just like the cow can't be unmilked, my horn can't be un-honked. Clearly, my bike was ruined.

But as that old proverb says, When you fall off your island bicycle in the hilly countryside, you need to get right back on again...even if you're wearing pajama bottoms and your horn has been recently de-flowered. I can't remember the phrasing exactly. Did Ben Franklin say that? That guy just GETS me.

Probiotic Paranoia

I have a bit of an obsessive personality. I actually think that this trait makes me MUCH easier to live with as it VERY easy to please me. All I need to be happy is string cheese, Sparkling Ice coconut pineapple water, and Dannon Greek Oikos lemon meringue-flavored yogurt. Throw in some chocolate Russer Stover marshmallow bunnies at Easter and you have one satisfied girl. SUPER low-maintenance.

"Wait," Brad asked, slightly exasperated (He is ALWAYS in a state of being slightly exasperated. It baffles me.). "Does your definition of  low-maintenance factor in my having to search EVERY grocery store in a 50-mile radius for your products when they are NOT stocked in our local market which results in a debilitating depression and warped paranoia on your part?" I stared at my husband, shocked and betrayed. "What do you mean...paranoia? Plus, I thought you LIKED systematically scouring hundreds of stores for me!" Brad sighed. "Remember when you concocted the idea that Hostess NEVER actually went out of business but instead went underground to re-tool all of their product assembly molds into smaller models to fool their customers?" I glared at him, folding my arms across my chest defensively. "You KNOW that is EXACTLY what happened," I shouted.

We had solved the problem of running out of my water by ordering it through my local Tops where I also made a life-long friend at the service counter desk (Hi Mandy!). I'm STILL seeking to become the new face of Sparkling Ice water but thus far, they continue to ignore me DESPITE the fact that I buy FIVE cases a month of their admittedly delicious product. I'm not particularly loyal to a string cheese manufacturer but Dannon Greek Oikos lemon meringue-flavored yogurt was my yogurt of choice. Brad calls it my "dessert yogurt." No respect.

Anyhoo, in his travels, Brad mistaken bought the wrong yogurt. "No I didn't," he said, holding up the container for my uninterested inspection. "Look, Dannon Greek Oikos lemon meringue-flavored yogurt," he read. I shook my head. "I don't care WHAT that says. THAT is NOT my yogurt. Where was the creamy custard-texture? The sweet tang of lemon with no bitter after-taste?" I pointed to my evidence, "There is liquid pooling at the surface," I said accusingly, "MY yogurt did not need to be mixed."

This altercation resulted in a happy little blind-folded taste-test conducted two days later after Brad methodically searched for the answer to our problem. First he showed me that there currently existed three subtly different packagings options for Dannon Greek Oikos lemon meringue-flavored yogurt. "Note the red circle that circumferences this lid," Brad pointed out, "It does not exist on these two." I nodded distractedly. Chrisley Knows Best was on and Nanny Faye was going on a date.

My husband continued his dissertation. Please, please, please...let's get on with this, I begged to myself. He HAD gone to a lot of trouble but Nanny Faye was going to also get into a lot of trouble if she drank too much. One by one, I took a spoonful of my yogurt...looking for the answer that had so eluded us. But, again and again, I was confronted by a layer of liquid and a bitter aftertaste. I was devastated. Mindful of Brad's assertion that I have paranoia tendencies, I refrained from accusing the Dannon Company for having it out for me. Perhaps MY chemical make-up had changed...my traitorous taste-buds betraying me.

And then...

After consoling myself with several episodes of Chrisley Knows Best, I did a little research of my own: Who's paranoid now, Brad?

Who's the fool now?

We may have a new invention. The roll-on cream cheese
 makes spreading on a bagel MUCH more convenient.

I spend MONTHS in preparation of April Fool's Day. Which should offer you a bit of insight regarding my character as Savannah just received her Christmas present in March. Sigh.

Not to brag...but I've pretty well rocked past years' pranks. The nail-polish laminated bar of soap. The Kool-Aid pitcher filled with Jell-o. What on earth would I do to surpass such silliness? And then I stumbled upon cream cheese deodorant. Perfect.

Sydney and I waited for Brad to go to bed on April Fool's Eve (How could he possibly sleep...knowing that there is a diabolical plot being hatched that targets him, I wondered.) and, like slightly-warped Shoemaker's Elves, we set to work-carving and sculpting.

Thanks to "The Big Bang Theory," my family has taken to calling me "Mee-Maw" to annoy me. Even worse, if I do something stupid (which followers of this blog will immediately realize is on a moment-to-moment basis), they dub the incident "A Classic Mee-Maw." Carefully sliding the prank deodorant into the medicine cabinet, I whispered to my daughter in the darkness, "From this day forward, THIS shall be known as a Classic Mee-Maw!"

AFTER it had been spread on me. Prior to this,
 it was a sculpted MASTERPIECE.

I could barely sleep from the excitement and, as dawn arrived, I was a bundle of nerves. While Brad
was in the shower, I retrieved a pair of men's undergarments from his drawer and set them on the vanity to throw him off as I rarely do anything that's of a thoughtful nature for him. I had seen, and then discarded, an idea to sew up the fly as a prank. I don't sew and staples seemed cruel. As he stepped from the shower, I hovered nearby with a baby wipe in my hand, looking as though I were about to wipe out the sink. He opened the medicine cabinet and reached in. Time froze. Brad pulled out the deodorant, grinned and asked, "Is it butter or cream cheese?" before yanking off the lid and smearing ME with it. Turns out while I was spending MONTHS in April Fool's Day preparation, Brad was busy conducting his own counter-intelligence research designed to thwart me. Further salt to the wound was when my own daughter betrayed me by telling Brad about my "Remember the Alamo" fighting cry. I will forever be tormented by the words Classic Mee-Maw. I didn't even have a back-up plan. I had considered replacing Brad's dinner-time tater-tots with cauliflower-tots but that seemed more like a crime against humanity. Pretty sure that would be grounds for a divorce.

The evening ended on an up-note however, when Brad tip-toed into the room holding up Sydney's deodorant. "Is there any more cream cheese?" he whispered. We awoke this morning to her betrayed bellow. "MEE-MAW!"