Month: April 2011

Getting Some Extracise

Linda Vernon Health and Beauty , , , , ,

I was doing great, weight-wise, until I discovered the individual slices of cake that they sell in the bakery at the grocery store. I got hooked on the white cake with the white frosting. It’s delicious owing to the fact that it has 100 grams of sugar and 1000 calories in each and every piece. I keep hoping the food police will make a law against it, and it just won’t be there tempting me when I go grocery shopping, but so far no such luck.

I try to avoid stores where they sell it, but that’s only part of the problem. I now have my daughter and her husband, Matt, hooked on white cake. The other night we were playing Scrabble when the subject arose.

Matt:  “Who could go for some white cake?”

Nikki:  “I could go for some white cake!”

Me:  “I could go for some white cake!”

37:   “I could go for some chocolate cake.”

(37 is my husband who is thin and who, even if he wasn’t thin, doesn’t even like white cake, but who can eat all the chocolate cake he wants and it doesn’t matter one little bit because he’s thin and always will be which I don’t have any problem with except for the fact that he makes me sick.)

So Matt goes for some white cake and actually squealed his tires as he was pulling out to get it.

I went to an afternoon tea the other day. What did I bring? White cake.

My daughter is getting married in September, and what am I already looking forward to eating?  White cake.

At this point there doesn’t seem to be any easy solution to my White Cake Conundrum. So I’m doing what I always do when I am eating too much . . . give up the white cake completely.  Oh yeah right . . . who am I kidding?   No, I’ll simply do a little extra exercise or extracise, if you will, to burn off those extra 5000 calories and 500 hundred grams of sugar I’m now consuming on a weekly basis.

Now let’s see . . . Since I’m a 59-year-old grandmother whose metabolism is officially equal to that of an air fern, I’m gong to have to figure this thing out mathematically.

I am now calculating how many miles I will have to walk each week to keep white cake in my life without gaining any weight.

So let’s see here:  1000 calories multiplied by 100 grams of sugar equals 100,000 divided by 1951 (the year I was born) equals 512.55 which would be rounded up to 513 miles divided by 52 weeks a year which means I’d only have to walk 9.8 miles a week divided by 7 equals 1.4 miles each day.

Which is basically what I’m already walking each day anyway (give or take a mile).

Well that was easy.

You’ll have to excuse me now, the white cake store just called and there’s some white cake with my name on it and it’s calling my name.

Until next time . . . I love you

Are You Ready for Kids?

Linda Vernon Growing Kids from Scratch , , , , ,

There are a lot of things to be considered before having children. Are you mature enough? Will you be able to swing it financially? But most importantly, do you have what it takes to create a miniature model of Mission San Juan Batista from scratch?

Be forewarned that by the time your cherished tyke is ten, you will have been required to produce — through the magic of glue guns and Popsicle sticks– an exact replica of every major historical event known to man, real or imagined.

For me, it all started when my child was in kindergarten and brought home a paper doll with instructions to dress him or her in native dress that would represent our family’s ethnic origin.

This is easy for those who have specific ethnic origins. It’s a little more difficult for those of us whose lineage is all over the map.

Let’s see . . . Mom is a little Danish, a little Irish and a little French, while Dad is a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.

I decided to cover all my bases. I would send the paper doll back to school wearing knickers, a Nehru jacket, a clown collar, a plaid beret, and a powdered wig.

I then proceeded to create the outfit using ordinary household junk — keeping in mind all the while that the final product should look as if it were crafted by my child’s own “wittle” hands. This part was easy. everything I have made in my entire life looks like it was crafted by the “wittle” hands of children.

Of course, it gets worse. First grade requires Mother to fashion a pilgrim’s log cabin replete with pilgrims, pilgrim’s pets, plus four cleared acres of land.

In fairness, I must admit that the teachers always stress that the child should be doing a good portion of the work. That’s why when Mom sits down with Junior to make a log cabin by gluing 5,009 pretzels on a milk carton, she makes Junior contribute by handing her the pretzels one at a time — until he can no longer stand it and runs away, 30 seconds later — leaving Mom all alone (if one can truly be alone with 5,009 pretzels).

The log cabin project is only the beginning in a series of progressively more complicated projects until the final culmination of skill is tested in the fourth grade when Missy is required to make a scale model of a California Mission.

This is not to be taken lightly. One false move here and your youngster could suffer the stigma of bad gluing for weeks, even years. One of my children still has nightmares about the fourth-grade mission project.

In a series of bad decisions and poor planning, this particular kid when to school with a slapped together mission made out of Play Doh and ordinary leaves and twigs. It didn’t look bad the night it was finished, but no allowance was made for the fact that Play Doh tends to collapse under the weight of ordinary leaves and twigs.

By the time School Open House night came, there lay my kid’s rendition of San Juan Bautista looking exactly like San Juan Bautista — right after The Big One.

By the time my youngest child hit fourth-grade, I had learned my lesson. This time we made a trip to the local craft store where we purchased a 100-percent authentic California Mission Kit. All we had to do was glue it together and paint it.

We got home and followed the instructions that were so simple that any child with an IQ of 165 and three hands could do it. After gluing and un-gluing some more, my child proudly returned to school with a mission so wonderful, it could have been entered as a float in the Macy’s Day Parade.

A final word of advice to those of you even considering having children — start saving everything now — no matter how useless. You never know when you’ll need material to craft that scale model of Atlantis or replicate the Big Bang.

Only in this way will you be prepared should the little clone come to you of a Sunday night at 10 p.m. and announce that his Panama Canal Project is due the next day. You’ll simply go to your collection of materials, reach into your holster, draw your glue gun and VIOLA! A gateway to the Pacific!

Until Next time . . . I love you

Monkey Meat and the Meaning of Life

Linda Vernon Existence and Stuff , , , ,

Starting Afresh. As I said yesterday, apparently I’m not going to die by grapefruit, (phew!) so I guess I’d better get busy and get something done with my life, accomplishment-wise. Of course, it’s not like I haven’t accomplished anything up to this point.

I have, for instance, amassed an impressive spice collection — well impressive to certain groups of people, that is. I like to think I have a better spice collection than those living deep in the Amazon rain forest or more extensive spice choices than totally isolated monk types.

I bet if you opened up the Dali Lama’s refrigerator, I doubt you would find fixin’s for, say, Billy Bob Bubbas Fire Breathing Hound Dog Chili.

And I’ll wager there isn’t a single Amazon Forest Indigenous Person who spices up his monkey meat with McCormick’s California Style Lemon Pepper (Coarse ground blend with garlic and onion) like I do.

Still having a collection of spices really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in terms of immortality. Or even in terms of lunch. No, if I want to accomplish something more meaningful before I shuffle off this wobbly Ball O’ Dirt, I’m probably going to have to figure out once and for all what my life’s purpose is.

But here’s an idea. Maybe the whole concept of a “life purpose” is merely an urban legend, a fad, a craze, a complete bunch of hooey if you will. Maybe our life purpose is simply to be alive. And us and everything in the universe with us is living it’s life purpose just by existing.

Well, that was easy.

OK, So now maybe it’s just a matter of deciding what kind of attitude I am going to have about existing. It seems to me that if I would remember to APPRECIATE EVERYTHING that is developing right in front of my eyes in this very moment, and each moment thereafter until I eat my very last grapefruit, well then, what would I need with a “life purpose”? I’d be already living it, moment by wonderful (and sometimes not so wonderful — see grapefruit choking below) moment.

Oh sure, having McCormick’s California Style Coarse Grind Blend Lemon Pepper with Garlic and Onion to add to my monkey meat is all well and good; but being able to REALLY APPRECIATE IT. . . well that’s the rub isn’t it?

Until next time . . . I love you

Death Be Not Grapefruit, Apparently

Linda Vernon Existence and Stuff , , , , ,

It was just a typical morning just like any other. I had my coffee and was looking forward to eating a delicious looking grapefruit. I wasn’t on my guard or anything because I am one of those people who have never considered grapefruit particularly dangerous.

I took just a little bit of the grapefruit and juice in my spoon and was in the process of swallowing it when somehow it got stuck in my throat/air passage way or whatever it is in that area that sometimes gets mixed up about what it’s supposed to do.

Throat: “OK, here comes something . . . now tell me again about which way I push it? Right or left?”

Esophagus: “Why are you asking me? You know I’m dyslexic.”

But this wasn’t any ordinary choke. This was a complete blockage of my air passageway. I could not get a single bit — not even a smidgen of air in. Here are the things that were running through my head:

This is a really stupid way to die, what should I do? Maybe I could run to the neighbors and have them perform the Heimlich on me, no way . . . too embarrassing, I’d rather die. Maybe I could run over to Nikki’s and she could call 911. Gosh, I’d hate to upset her and then I’d probably die en route. And there was that babysitter I heard of that died from choking on soup. What a stupid way to die this is. Everybody’s going to be so upset.

Luckily, I had a lot of air in my lungs to begin with because I was able to really cough with all my might a couple of times. Still though, I couldn’t get any air in. At this point I was panicky. I was running for the door to run outside where someone could maybe help me when I realized I could breathe through my nose. YAY!! Take that Death!

I sat down on the couch. My hands were shaking, my neck muscles hurt from coughing. I thought about how I was still alive and how I could have just as easily been dead. I thought about how one’s safety is merely an illusion. And that anything could happen at any moment and we could be gone in an instant. I thought about how every moment of life is a gift not to be taken for granted ever.

About 15 minutes later I ate the rest of the grapefruit.

Until next time . . .I love you (I really do!)

April 15th Deadline of the Worst Kind

Linda Vernon Writing life , , , , , ,

It’s nearly April 15th, so go ahead and round-up all those remaining brain cells that have yet to be killed off and put them away in a safe place because you’re going to need only the dead ones for this next task.

That’s because April 15th is the deadline for the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest, a competition sponsored by San Jose State, where contestants vie for the dishonor of writing the worst sentence to an imaginary novel.

Now since it was still a couple of days before the first day of the rest of my life, I decided to enter it and guess what? Turns out I’m a horrible writer! So horrible, in fact, that they picked my sentence as the very crummiest of all!

My triumphant mess went as follows:

Delores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever skipping along smooth water, rippling reality sporadically, but oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank and due to and overdose of fluoride as a child which caused her to suffer from chronic apathy, doomed herself to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless and an appendix and as lonely as a 500-lb. barbel in a steroid free fitness center.

Now because I aspired to be a tad bit better than bad, I sat down to my keyboard and made the following attempts to write at least one sentence that could possibly be considered “pretty good.”

Amanda’s obsession for making homemade bread for the entire neighborhood was beginning to take over her life, and as she sat at the kitchen table with her flour-covered face in her flour-covered hands, the warm sun shone steadily through the kitchen window and Amanda began to slowly rise up out of her chair — suddenly realizing that she needed to be kneaded.

and

Charlie dreamed that he was dreaming he was awake and had fallen asleep.

OK, truthfully, at this point, I was starting to get a bit nervous about being able to come up with a pretty good sentence. It seemed the harder I tried to write pretty good, the more elusive “pretty good” became. Frankly, serious doubts were beginning to pierce the ears of my soul. But still I forged onward:

Rayton, a fine Guppitoid from Repox VII couldn’t put his slimy little fingerling on why Jessica, an ichthyolgist’s dream, wouldn’t have him for her husband when he had made it abundantly clear that the only domestic duties she would have to perform would be to boost his ego and to bear him several million live young a year, which he was even willing to help her eat.

and

As soon as Mary got to her walk-up, she was held up, tied up, and told to shut up, but luckily the culprits were picked up, locked up and Mary was helped up and then she threw up.

Ah! Finally I was warmed up. But one thing was certain. If I was ever going to write that pretty good sentence, I needed to relax.

I began taking deep breaths, one after another until the last thing I remember was falling off my chair and hitting the floor like –what else — a 500-lb. barbel in a steroid-free fitness center.

Which brings me to the moral of this story:

She who enters the Bulwer Lytton can take a lick in’ and keep on tickin.

Hey now! That’s a pretty good sentence if I do say so myself. But my quest for a pretty good sentence does not end here. I’m going to keep at it until I come up with the Perfect Pretty Good Sentence. It may take awhile but, after all, I do have until the last day of the rest of my life, or April 15th — which ever comes first.

Until Next Time . . . I love you

Picture-less-ly Yours

Linda Vernon Writing life , , ,

Hello’s to all who have come. Thank you for coming. I apologize in advance for the fact that this will be a picture-less blog. A picture-less blog is a sad blog. So I will try to paint pictures for you using my vast command of the English language if you can call three verbs and a non-dangling participle a “vast command.”

This blog is picture-less because I am writing it on my beloved Ipad. I love my Ipad but I don’t know how to get pictures into a blog using it. It’s not that I’m lazy and don’t want to read instructions . . . wait a minute . . . yes it is.

OK, here’s where I would insert a picture of a lady with her eyeballs rolled up and her tongue sticking out to one side wearing a little cap tipped askew on the opposite side as her tongue is sticking out and with her index finger on her chin. The caption would read:

“Uh oh did somebody say instructions?”

You can just imagine how funny that would be. And if you can’t I suggest you take you’re imagination to the nearest Imagination Store and get it tuned up!

Ok, here’s where I would really make the last paragraph a zinger by inserting a picture of a lady with her eyeballs rolled up and her tongue sticking out to one side while wearing a little cap tipped askew on the opposite side as her tongue is sticking out and walking into a store of some kind. The caption would read:

“Uh oh . . . did somebody say imagination tune-ups?”

Well, you can just imagine how hilarious this would have been had I been able to figure out how to work my Ipad. It would have been off the charts funny. (see chart below)

Ok, this is where I would have inserted a picture of a chart where a line went squiggly for awhile and then went straight up past the chart itself and into the margin above it.

I can’t stop laughing just thinking about it!

Until next time . . . I love you

How to Be An Effective Parent Using Only the Word “Bingo”

Linda Vernon Growing Kids from Scratch , , ,

How To Be An Effective Parent Using Only The Word “Bingo”

Kid:

“I want a new skateboard!”

Parent:

“Bingo!”

Kid:

“So can I have $80?”

Parent:

“Bingo!”

Kid:

“Do you want me to clean my room first or something?”

Parent:

“Bingo!”

Kid:

“OK, I cleaned my room. Can I have the money now?”

Parent:

“Bingo!”

Kid:

“OK,you want me to get your purse?”

Parent:

“Bingo!”

Kid:

“So where’s the money? Don’t you have $80?”

Parent:

“Bingo!”

Kid:

“Well, you should have said so in the first place because I wouldn’t have cleaned my room if I would have known you didn’t have any money.”

Parent:

“Bingo!”

Ten Bad Answers for “Do These Pants Make Me Look Fat?

Linda Vernon Health and Beauty, Lists , , ,

“Honey, do these pants make me look fat?” I asked my poor, minding-his-own business, unsuspecting husband.

“Say . . . gulp . . . what?”

“Well, do they or don’t they? Just answer the question.  Do these pants make me look fat?”

“Just answer yes or no . . . and nevermind about the beard.”

Now if there is one thing my husband has learned after 37 years of marriage, it’s that a question such as this can zap the bliss right out of the martial in nothing flat.  This is because when a wife asks her husband, “Do these pants make me look fat?” what she is really saying is “I feel fat! Convince me I’m wrong, dead wrong.”

Frankly, I think the divorce rate would decrease dramatically if husbands would take a few minutes to figure out a proper answer to this simple question.  The following are the lousy answers my husband has managed to come up with over the years, coupled with what I think he was REALLY thinking when he gave them:

Answer # 1:

“What? Do you look fat?  Are you asking me?”  (I’ve got to stall for time so I can think, think!)

 Answer #2:

“Fat? Honey! You don’t look fat in those pants. (You don’t look as fat in those pants as you do in all your other pants.)

Answer #3:

“I don’t want to answer that because no matter what I say, it will be the wrong thing.  (I don’t want you to know I think you’re fat.)

Answer #4:

“What?  Honey! There’s no way you look fat!” (I wonder if that Seahawks game will be televised.)

Answer #5:

“Honey, of course you don’t look fat in those pants; you look good in those pants.”(Considering . . .)

Answer #6:

“You’re perfect, I love you just the way you are.” (It doesn’t matter to me that you’re fat, really!)

Answer #7:

“If you’re worried about looking fat, why don’t you go on a diet – although I don’t think you need to.” (You’re fat, but so what?)

Answer #8:

“You’ve never been fat in your life!” (I wonder what I did with that red pen.)

Answer #9:

“You sure look a lot better than you did last year.” (You’re not as fat as you were last year, whoa!)

Answer #10:

“No Comment.” (Don’t make me hurt your feelings.)

Of course, come to think of it, I don’t think there is any way a husband can answer this question and still come out okay.  Maybe his best course of action upon hearing his wife utter any sentence containing the word “fat” would be to freeze, then slowly, very slowly back out of the room and just keep running.

Until next time. . . I love you