Category: Uncategorized Page 9 of 10

Fly Away, My Son

On January 15, 2010

My son is taking a break from college and living at home. He just got a job today, but it will be some time before he gets a paycheck and enough saved to move out with friends.

Meantime, I need to know exactly when the statute of limitations runs out for being a mother. I know I’ll always be his mother, and I’ll always be there for him, and I will always love him, but I’m wondering how long I have to do his laundry.

I’d be more inclined to continue in the role of his personal slave if he were nice. But he’s trying to be independent, which means he wants to do his own thing. His own thing is leaving his shorts on the bathroom floor and his dirty dishes in the sink.

It’s just like old times, with me griping about it and him arguing but picking things up because, after all, I was the boss of him. He no longer feels that way. Two years of college and being on his own taught him to do what he wants when he wants.

As for me, while he was at college I got used to having a fairly clean house and reduced workload. My vocal chords were healing from nagging him. Now he pays lip service to my requests but doesn’t follow through, or he just blatantly says NO. He’s an adult after all, and why should he do what his mother says when it’s so stupid anyway? His shorts aren’t bothering anyone, for crying out loud.

It’s not just that he doesn’t do what I ask; he’s down right defiant. I’m helping write a book about global warming, so I’m acutely aware that the convenience of electricity comes to us with a cost in CO2 emissions. I ask him to turn off a light when he leaves a room and he argues. He says there is no global warming. I retaliate with all the scientific evidence, spewing facts as I follow him from room to room while he scrambles to get out of earshot. Finally he tells me to leave him alone and turns off one token light to make me go away. Later, when I return home from my daughter’s swim meet, he’s gone and has left practically every light in the house on. Granted, this is pretty normal for him, but I take it personally.

I have refused to do any more of his laundry. If he wants to be an adult, he can have the responsibilities of one. I was trying to get caught up with the wash today and found several of his items suspiciously buried in the sorting baskets, like maybe the laundress wouldn’t notice they were his. This morning he asked me to pour a bowl of cereal for him. Where does it end?

It probably sounds like I’ve raised a spoiled brat, but honestly he used to be such a nice young man. Compared to some of the horror stories I heard from friends, I thought I was pretty lucky. Now I think that he was just a late bloomer.

If any of you have any advice, I’d love to hear it. I figure I’ll just bide my time until he’s ready to spread his wings and fly the hell out of here. And I used to think Christmas breaks were long.

Black Cat Blues

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 14, 2010

In Uncategorized

Today on the way home from walking with my girlfriend, a black cat darted across the road in front of me. I nervously laughed it off. After all, I’m a woman of the technical age. What’s an old superstition got to do with anything? How can the color of a cat and the time it crosses the street cause me to have bad luck?

I don’t know how, but it happened. What a day. I got home and received a negative response to an email about a book layout. No big deal – everything can’t be a slam-dunk in life. Then another negative responses popped up about the same thing. Crap. The black cat.

I went to tutoring early at the request of a teacher, and I had one student after another wanting help. I don’t mind, but sometimes when no one needs me I get to go home a little early, and right now I’m really busy so I could have used the time. Instead, I had to stay until the end of the school day, almost 4 hours, which is a marathon of tutoring. I don’t know whether to chalk this up to the black cat, but it certainly is suspicious.

When I got home my dog was walking on three legs. She looked so pitiful. My mind immediately defaulted to cancer, hip displacement, broken bone, and all the above. I waited a couple hours to see if she improved, but ended up taking her to the emergency vet and paid $89 to find out her leg is sore. I have to give her doggy aspirin for three days. Black cat.

Plus over the course of the day I’ve bit my own lip eight times.

Now I’m writing this blog and I’m having a hard time thinking of anything humorous at all. When you’ve got the specter of a black cat hanging over you, how can you think of anything funny? What’s amazing is that my dog was in the car with me when the black cat crossed, and she’s had a rough day, too. First the sore leg, then the trip to the vet, which she hates. Then the doggish humiliation of a stranger poking a rectal thermometer in her bottom. She didn’t like that one single bit. If she could talk, she’d say: BLACK CAT!

Oh, and on the way home from the vet I meant to stop and get toilet paper because there are about three squares each on the last rolls in the house. But I didn’t remember, and now in the morning, after the coffee, I’m going to be SOL, as they say. If that’s not the curse of the black cat, I don’t know what is.

Even though it’s not very late, I’m going to bed and pray that a tree doesn’t fall on the bedroom in the night. I wonder how long a black cat curse lasts? Is it 24 hours, or until sunrise? Or seventeen years? I hope this cat will be lenient.

I Vote for Fewer Elections

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 13, 2010

In Uncategorized

Does it seem like to you that we’re always voting on something for our state government? If not, then you must live in one of the 49 states or territories that isn’t Oregon.

I don’t know why they call them special elections, either. They’re more like perpetual elections. It seems like I’m getting a ballot in the mail on a monthly basis year round. The one occurring right this second is a vote for Measure 66 and 67. You may have guessed that they have something to do with raising taxes.

I’m not familiar with either bill. Politics give me a headache. So does listening to people trying to convince me to vote for their cause on TV. Generally they say that we’ll all be in the poorhouse if we don’t vote how their way, and it doesn’t matter which side they’re on.

I had dinner with my brother, mother-in-law, husband and our kids a couple of nights ago. One of us, and I can assure you it wasn’t me, brought up this latest election and all hell broke loose. I exaggerate, but I like using that term. Let’s just say the discussion warmed up as people’s views were presented. I stayed out of it, not knowing the particulars, and besides with that bunch you can’t win so why waste your breath.

My daughter thought we should vote for the increase because she’s got 45 students in her French class and the teacher is so overwhelmed that no one is learning anything, which is pretty sad for an advanced high school language class. My brother, who never willingly parts with a dime, was against it, although he doesn’t even live in Oregon so won’t be voting. My son said the whole thing was stupid, which covered both sides, and my husband and his mom were against raising the taxes. I watched them bickering back and forth until finally my husband was trying doing something with his arm and accidently banged his fist so hard on the table that French fry baskets flew up in the air. Our waiter rushed right over, looking scared, and asked, “Can I help you with something, sir?”

It gave us all a heart attack, and by the time we recovered, everyone had forgotten what they were talking about. Thank goodness.

I get calls all day long from volunteers wanting me to vote against the bill. They ask if I’ve turned in my ballot (no), am I going to vote against the bill (I haven’t decided), oh, then was I aware that people will lose jobs if it passes? I cut in after awhile and tell them I’ll study the bill and make up my mind soon and thanks for calling. They say, “Well, um, okay, we just hope you’ll consider all the jobs that will be lost if this bill passes, and a…if you need any more information…” then they ramble some more as if both of us have nothing better to do.

My son and husband would hang up on them, if they ever answer the phone, which they don’t. I used to work in an office where people came in the evening to do cold calling and schedule appointments. They were nice people just trying to make a living, so I always think of them and try to be polite. As luck would have it, the batteries are dead in the set of portable phones I bought a couple of years ago. They are the only phones that have caller ID. I was thrifty and ordered replacement ones off the Internet. They were cheap, and it was could have been a scam since I haven’t heard boo in a few days. Where were they coming from, Egypt? Someone probably took my credit card number and is on the way to Hawaii.

With another week of this election to go, I don’t know how I’ll stand it. Maybe I’ll stay up late tonight and fill in my ballot. Naw, I’m exhausted from answering the phone all day. Maybe I’ll just record an answer on my machine: If you are calling to get me to vote for Measures 66 and 67, press 1. If you are calling to get me to vote against Measures 66 and 67, press 2. If you are calling to ask me if I need to refinance my home, press 3. If you are calling to give me a free week in Vegas if I’ll come to your 90-minute timeshare presentation, press 4. If you are calling….I could keep going to about number 69, then I can say, “If you’re a friend and calling to chit chat, please call me on my cell phone. You know the number. Hope you have a nice day!”

Hideous ID Picture

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 10, 2010

In Uncategorized

I enrolled in a class at the community college here, and I had to get a picture ID made. I hate these things because no matter how much attention I spend on my hair and makeup, the pictures always make me look like a haint.

I first heard that word, haint, from the good natured, funny neighbor of my Grandmother Wheeler in Pulaski, Tennessee, Miz Chapman. Miz Chapman, who my grandmother called, Miz Chat, lived across the street with her daughter, Geneva, and Geneva’s spinster schoolteacher daughter, Barbara Jean. Summer evenings, the widow ladies came out on their porches to sit in their wooden swings so they could sway back and forth enough to cool down after fixing dinner. They’d call hello to each other across the narrow street.

Once, when Miz Chat wasn’t on her porch, we went across the street and knocked on her front door. She answered on the second knock, pushing back strands of faded grey hair and clutching her apron. “Why, come on in, look who’s here, just come on in but oh my, my, don’t I look like a haint to be having company?”

“Miz Chat,” I said, “What’s a haint?” That was the funniest thing she’d ever heard in all her born days. A child that didn’t know what a haint was. “It’s a ghost,” she explained, tossing her head back to laugh. “Or a hag.”

It was a word I took an immediate liking to. I told it to my playmates, and we’d get a silly dialogue going, “You’re a haint.” “I haint no haint, you’re the haint.” “Haint neither.” Making fun of the way country Southerners talked was an infinite source of entertainment when I was growing up. Still is.

Miz Chat was pretty attractive for an old, old woman, I thought. It was her personality. She laughed at everything you said as if you oozed delight. She had a gigantic cat named snowball that coughed up hairballs as big as a lime. The cat lay on the floor swishing its fluffy white tail and you knew it would scratch you to shreds if you tried to pet it, the way that tail danced around. Cats can tell you a lot with their tails, and this one was clearly saying, “Back off and don’t mess with me if you know what’s good for you.”

Whenever I take a bad ID picture, which is 100% of the time, I say to myself, “You look just like a haint.” Right now the community college ID and an old ski pass ID are sitting in front of me out of sheer coincidence. I look like two different human beings, and both are hags. Friends will always ask to see your ID, and you beg off until they insist, then when they look they get quiet, and you say, “I told you I look hideous.” They’ll answer with something like, “Oh, you’re just too hard on yourself.” That’s the sure sign they agree you look hideous, because why wouldn’t they say something like, “No you don’t, you look great.”

No amount of practicing in front of a mirror has helped me improve these pictures. I’ll tilt my head down and grow extra chins. If I remember to lift my head, you can see up my nose. My hair hangs limp, and there are dark shadows under my cheeks and eyes.

Anyone who takes good ID pictures, be very very thankful. Because the vast majority of us haint got a prayer of looking good.

In conclusion, I’d just like to say thanks to Miz Chat, for giving me such a good word. It comes in handy every time I take out my wallet.

Resting Doesn’t Mean Shopping

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 4, 2010

In Uncategorized

Today I was looking forward to a rest day after all my adventures at the Rose Bowl and long drive. Instead I went to IKEA with my husband because he has been home alone for four days and was stir crazy and wanted any excuse to get out of the house. My plan to lounge on the sofa all day got redirected to wandering through a six square mile store, which had things he wanted in every nook and cranny.

I really like IKEA. The problem is, I’ve got a whole house full of furniture, nicknacks, kitchen utensils, storage equipment, bookshelves, dishes, rugs, fabrics, couches, beds, dining room tables, etc. Immediately my husband saw things he wanted. “Isn’t this a cool vase?” he said, “let’s get it.” “Where are you going to put it?” I answered. “I don’t know, but it would look good in our house.” “Okay, but first figure out where to put it and what has to go to Goodwill if we buy it.”

We went by the rug section and he really liked one of the rugs, but cut me off before I could repeat my objections again by saying, “We’ve got plenty of rugs, don’t we? – rugs on top of rugs.” I smiled – he was catching on quick.

When someone is first starting out, it’s so fun to buy new things that you really need. But when you’ve got everything you need, it’s like going in a candy store when you’ve just eaten a whole cake by yourself. Even though you would love the taste of everything in there, you’re stuffed.

I was exhausted after walking through the store. My husband picked up everything and examined it, mulled over what he’d do with it, then put it back down and picked up something else. My feet started throbbing. Finally we decided on two lamps that I knew would not look good in the house but it was the only way I could get out of there.

Then he decided we should go to Target and look for a long ottoman we could put on the end of the bed so the dog could get up without assistance. The bed is really, really tall, and even though the dog is only nine pounds and stands about ten inches high, she can leap up on the bed if it’s made. However, if you’re in it and the covers are rumpled, she doesn’t think she can clear that extra few inches so she’ll whine for you to lift her up. Which is okay if it’s only one time. But while my daughter and I were at the Rose Bowl, she’d jump off the bed every time a car went by thinking it was us coming home, and then go back to the bedroom whine until my husband lifted her back up. This went on all night long for four days.

So we went to Target and luckily found the perfect ottoman. We had to mosey around and look at some other things too. Which makes me wonder, how come men are in such a big hurry to get out of a store if it’s something you’re looking for, but they’ll fondle every item in sight if they’re the ones looking? We had to take some folding chairs down off the display and sit in all of them, contemplate the value of getting one over the other, and then decided not to get any, which made me dread that he’d propose us going somewhere else.

I’m usually a shopper but, like I said, today I wanted to rest from my trip.

You get home from a trip and you have to unpack, do laundry, wash the dog, straighten the house, answer a new pile of emails and phone calls, vacuum the car, open the mail, and all you really want to do is rest up before going back to the real world.

Ah well, I did my wifely duty of being dragged around shopping today. And sure enough, those lamps look awful, but I think I’m going to just keep them anyway. I sure don’t want to box them back up and return them because that will mean having to go look for them somewhere else, and quite frankly, I’d just not up to it.

Rose Bowl Road Trip

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 2, 2010

In Uncategorized

This is going to be another short post until I can flesh it out, but not tonight. I just got home from a 16 hour road trip from Pasadena to Portland, and I’m beat.

All I can say is that I’d rather walk on hot coals than do another long road trip. I’d rather eat slugs and drink radiator fluid. But it was fantastic fun, and I’d do the whole thing all over again if I could have it exactly like it happened (except I’d have the Ducks win).

It’s good to be home….

Happy New Year

By Suzanne Olsen

On January 1, 2010

In Uncategorized

Today the Oregon Ducks played against the Ohio Buckeyes and did not come out the victor. I’m proud of their game and it was a very fun experience, but it would have been more fun if they would have won, of course.

I’m going to post more when I get back to Portland about spending New Years Even at Magic Mountain, but I’m a little bummed right now, and that’s not funny.

Happy New Year everyone!

New Years Resolutions

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 31, 2009

In Uncategorized

Ahhh, today is the day for New Year’s resolutions. You start thinking of all the bad habits you’ve had over the last year (and probably most of your life), and then you resolve not to do them anymore except for all day today and especially tonight.

So here is my list of resolutions.

I resolve not to take anymore 16 hour non-stop road trips because I waited too late to make up my mind and there wasn’t any way I was going to pay $1,800 to fly to LA to see the Rose Bowl (except for the road trip back home, which I am dreading and will continue to dread the whole time I‘m here).

I resolve not to eat like a cow every time food is within reach but instead try to be sensible (to be judged sensibly by me as determined by the taste of the food in front of me at the time).

I resolve not to wait three months to give myself a pedicure even though my feet haven’t been exposed in Oregon since August because it’s as cold as a well digger’s ass in the Klondike there and my feet wouldn’t think of coming out of socks or shoes or fuzzy bedroom slippers. With this resolution I will avoid having to take a jack-hammer to my cuticles while I’m on a last minute trip to sunny California and without time to get one done by a professional who has way more experience than I do on how to use a jack-hammer.

I resolve to try not to be so critical of everyone to everyone else. I was called on this recently when I went to a birthday breakfast with a couple of friends and complained about the taste of certain people in my family in clothing presents. My friends joked, “As soon as she sees someone else, she’ll complain about our presents to them.” They laughed but I don’t think they were kidding. So I’m resolving to be a little more discreet about my opinions and definitely not say anything else to these two that could be used against me.

I resolve to try clothes on first before I complain about people’s taste in presents because the clothing items of the last paragraph actually ended up being very flattering and cute, and I don’t plan to return them – and I’m not just saying this because someone in particular might read find my blog and read it.

I resolve to try and be more patient with people who take forever doing everything from getting in the car to getting out of the bathroom.

I resolve for the 30^th year in a row to try to be on time because I know how rude this is even though being on time, especially at meetings, means you have to wait for everyone else’s chitchat to die down before you can get down to the business at hand.

And I resolve to watch the OREGON DUCKS win the Rose Bowl because a win will elate me on the 16 hour trip back home and a loss…well, I’m not even going to think about it.

Happy New Years everyone, and please be sensible tonight in your partying or staying home alone with a bottle of Jack Daniels, or even if you’ve been asleep for four hours when the ball drops in Times Square.

I hope you all resolve to read my blog every single day in 2010.

Crazy California Drivers

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 31, 2009

In Uncategorized

This post is going to be very short because my hands are still shaking from driving in California. Here’s the rule of thumb for speed limits here. Whatever the posted speed limit is, add 100 mph.

In Oregon, we pretty much look at the signs, look around for the cop who‘s probably hiding close by, and then venture a few miles over the limit to show our independence knowing we‘re safe. In California, everyone goes so fast that the cops would have to be Santa and be a thousand places at one time. No cop could catch all the speeders.

For one thing, there are about 14 lanes of traffic everywhere, and all the lanes are full of people breaking the sound barrier and changing lanes constantly to do it. Add to this the fact that some of the roads could use a little repair, and no policeman would risk his or her life running down one lousy speeder who will probably out-maneuver and outrun him or her anyway.

I hunkered down in the left lane because the other lanes were full of potholes and grooves in the pavement. I couldn’t get my car to go too much faster than the 70 mph limit, but I was terrified of all those other lanes. The California people didn’t like me plugging up the official “passing” lane and came up and nudged me from behind, flashing their lights for emphasis, as if to say, “Get your hick-ass Oregon beater off the road or drive it like a man.”

I made it alive to my nephew’s house after 957 miles, and I am going to go to bed and hope I don’t dream of maniacs swerving in and out in front of me and running me into ditches.

The only good thing about the whole trip was passing other Oregonians on their way to the Rose Bowl to see the University of Oregon Ducks play somebody for the championship of the world. That’s why I’m here with my daughter – but there better be public transportation because I will NOT get back in my car again and drive here. Anybody want to tow my car back to Oregon for me?

Holiday Cards and Christmas Spending

By Suzanne Olsen

On December 16, 2009

In Uncategorized

I ran a bunch of errands today and had my Christmas cards printed – got a great deal at Macadam Documart and they did a really nice job – just a plug because I almost feel guilty because they treated me so well.

But I’m not here to be nice or friendly, I’m here to make fun of the world, or at least report the funny things I see, and one of them was the checkout line at Fred Meyer today. I bought some stamps, but the cashier was short one book so I had to wait at the end of the checkout counter until someone went to Siberia to fetch it.

While I whiled away the hours, I noticed people checking out. They glance at the cash register to see if the checker is catching all the sales items, looking at their checkbook on the little stand and back up at the subtotal, as if the checkbook is talking to them and saying, “We can’t afford that, don’t you know there’s not enough money in here?” Older women pay in cash and wait until the cashier gives their total before they fish their change purse out of their deep, dark handbags. Men play pocket pool and rattle change as if to say, “I got your money right here, baby, and there’s plenty of it.”

Except for one really tall guy who had a lot of anxiety about the whole ringing up process. He literally had his hand over his face and was looking through the fingers like you do at a scary movie. He kept peeking out, watching as item after item made its way down the conveyor belt and across the scanner. I can only imagine what he was thinking. “If I don’t look, maybe it won’t go over $100. Holy crap, it’s at $106! I can’t look! I have to look. WHAT? $114? How can that be???”

I can sympathize. I’ve asked cashiers to double check prices because I’m astounded at how only a few items, barely enough to cover the bottom of a grocery cart, can add up to seventy-nine bucks. Did someone throw a diamond ring in there when I wasn’t looking?

I read something interesting the other day about spending during the holidays that made me fighting mad. Yes, I was spitting and clawing. If there had been curtains anywhere in my house, I would have scratched them down. You know that lady in the Sunday Supplement (in The Oregonian it’s called “Parade”) who has an IQ so high it makes Einstein look like a Teletubby? Here name is Marilyn Vos Savant (no relation to director Gus Van Sant), and someone wrote in last Sunday asking what percent does holiday spending in December represent of the total US economy. Mz. Vos Savant says that it’s only ¾ of 1 percent. A mere blip on the economy barely visible with a high-powered electron microscope. If that’s the case, why do they hound us to buy buy buy earlier and earlier and earlier?

I won’t ramble on about this topic because I’ve done it before at length, and you’re lucky I remembered I did it before because I’d be launching off into a tirade like a rocket to Saturn. This is a pet peeve, and I have lots of peeves but this is one of very few I call pet.

So I finally got my stamps – which, at 44 cents a pop are about 70% of my gross December income once I buy enough to send out all the cards I had printed up. I got such a good deal I guess I over-ordered. I’ve never met you, but you will probably get a Christmas card from me this year. In case you don’t, I’ll tell you the clever poem I wrote. If you read yesterday’s blog, you’ll know that I took a picture of my mini-gingerbread houses for the front of the card. On the inside here’s what I wrote:

We downsized our gingerbread houses

Because of the economy

But we hope you’re enjoying this season

With high spirits and good company!

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year!

Well, at least it rhymes (this line isn’t in the card, but maybe it should have been).