A magical apology?

My mom was talking to my six-year-old nephew, Ben, today about how he is going to be Merlin the Magician for Halloween. As is the case with most conversations between my mom and Ben, this one proved to be a bit of magic itself:

Ben: [seriously] You know, Dearsie - if you snap your fingers really hard, you CAN make things disappear.
Mom: Just by snapping real hard?
Ben: Yes - that's what magicians do.
Mom: Well - if you snap YOUR fingers real hard, can YOU make stuff disappear?
Ben: No - but real magicians can.
Mom: Oh. Well, magicians also cut people in half. You know - where you put the girl in the box and then you saw her in half and you pull the two sides of the box apart and her head goes with one side and her feet go with the other?
Ben: Yeah. I could do that. [Gets very serious] But . . . I'd be afraid I'd mess up.
Mom: What do you mean?
Ben: [very seriously] Well, I'd be afraid that I'd be sawing and sawing and then, all of a sudden, there would just be blood EVERYWHERE.
Mom: Oh. Yeah - that would not be good . . .
Ben: I know. People would get REALLY upset.
Mom: Yeah - I think you're right. They really would. And what would you say to the poor girl's mommy?
Ben: Or her daddy?! Or her brother?!
Mom: Yeah - what would you say to all of them?
Ben: [thinking very hard and then very seriously says] Well . . . I guess I'd just say [shrugs his shoulders and puts on his best "ooops - my bad" face] "Sorryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!"

And I'm sure they'd understand, Ben. I'm sure they would.

Your To-Do List

Well, I'm in trial this week so I won't be posting again until Tuesday night. You know - so I can actually do my job and all. Employers are so demanding like that.

So check back in on Wednesday for the next post, m'kaaaaaaaay?

But in the meantime, here are three things for you to do:

1) Check out the new Mixed Metaphor in the right margin!
2) Become a follower of my blog if you haven't already done that!
3) Become a fan of The Catherine Chronicles on facebook!

Notice how I put exclamation points after each one. That's so that you'll see how exciting it is for you to do that stuff. You know you want to . . .

Go on! What are you waiting for?

Do it.

Now.

I'm waaaaaaaaaiting.

Seriously - why are you still here?

Okay, this is just getting awkward . . .

Somebody needs to be fired.

A friend of mine saw a business card the other day that she thought I might appreciate so she scanned it in and emailed it to me today. I opened up the attachment to her email, read the business card, aaaaaaaaand immediately fell into convulsions . . .
It hurts. It actually hurts. I thought I was going to open up a funny picture and have a good laugh but, before I know it, BAM! I'm getting slapped in the face with spelling mistakes and poked in the eye with an errant apostrophe. I think my right eye is ACTUALLY bleeding.

Seriously . . . NObody thought to spell-check this? Not one single person? Nobody at the printing company caught this?? DON'T THEY KNOW WHAT THIS STUFF DOES TO ME???

Well, I don't care who they are or what kind of athority they are, I will NOT be making an appointmnt with them . . .

A hairdon't.

My sister Erin and I were standing in the security line at the San Diego airport on Sunday afternoon, ready to get on our flight back to Houston. There was a couple in front of us who looked very distinguished together, like they might be professors on sabbatical. The wife had salt and pepper hair that was styled in a VERY short haircut . . . and I'm talking SHORT. Like, she probably uses clippers. But she pulled it off somehow and looked great. Being the people watchers that we are, Erin and I discussed this at length and talked in great detail about how we could never pull that hairdo off. We were just about to award her MAJOR props . . . aaaaaaaaaaaand then she turned around:

Why, God?

Why?

Profiled.

I went to San Diego this weekend with my sister Erin, my nephew Ben (6), and my niece Avery (5). As I was packing for my trip, I spent a good amount of time trying to decide what to wear on the plane. This is a big decision for a single girl because you never know when you might find yourself in the middle of a romantic comedy plot, seated next to a single doctor who worked his way through medical school as a mechanic and who helps you pass the time on the flight with his incredibly witty banter. Has this ever happened to me? No, of course not. I usually get seated next to a kid, a woman, a married couple or, one time, a man who watched a video of the Dalai Lama for the entire flight and cringed if my arm brushed his. But we must keep the dream alive, friends. Must . . . keep . . . dream . . . alive.

Now on this particular flight, I knew that I'd be sitting next the cutest 5 and 6 year old on the planet but, still, I had to look cute just in case. So I chose to wear a pair of trouser jeans (cute yet comfy), a purple long-sleeved shirt with this cute little ruffle on the front, a cute pair of black wedges and my SUPER cute new travel purse that I just bought from Charming Charlie. Wanna see it? Okay!
[Pause to allow you sufficient time to ooooooooh and aaaaaaaaaah . . .]

It was all just so . . . CUTE!!

We went to the airport, checked our bags, and headed to the security line. As we were waiting in for our turn, I discussed my new purse with my sister and we talked in great detail about how cute it was and how everyone in San Diego would be so jealous of it. I was feeling pretty good about myself and spent a minute or two daydreaming about how the California paparazzi would mistake me for someone famous because of my cute new purse.

And that's when the security people mistook me for a terrorist.

I guess that terrorists are wearing precious ruffly shirts with super cute purses these days? Beeeeeeeeeecause I apparently fit the profile. I get it - I looked SUPER threatening.

I was informed that I had been selected to undergo a special security screening - she almost made it sound like a prize or like a very selective process that I should be proud I got through. She made me stand to the side while I watched my sister and the kiddos go through their REGULAR security screening. People were looking at me and, just to make me feel THAT much more special, the lady who had stopped me kept getting on her walkie talkie saying things like "I need a female security check up here. Female security check." I started smiling nervously at passersby and found myself loudly humming some gospel-sounding version of "America the Beautiful" with my eyes closed and my hand on my heart.


Finally, a new security agent came to escort me to the front of the line so that I could have my bags scanned. While those were scanning, she had me stand over to the side, under the close supervision of another security agent who was approximately 8 feet tall and very intimidating. Then she came to get me and took me to her little search station. That's when she explained the procedure to me in that monotone that Federal employees do so well:

Lady: Okay. I'm going to perform a full body search.
Me: [gulp]
Lady: I am going to touch everything from your hair to your feet.
Me: [EVERYTHING???]
Lady: When I get to sensitive areas like your breasts, buttocks and groin, I will use the back of my hand.
Me: Are you at least going to buy me dinner first?
Lady: Would you like a private screening?
Me: [Oh dear God - this lady means business.]

So then she performed the full body search on me in front of God and everyone. Luckily, she didn't have to search any body cavities but she might as well have. About midway through this traumatic experience, I looked up to see my sister and the kids coming through security. I was so glad to see them - some familiar faces to help me through my time of need. But did they give me sympathetic looks? No. Did they smile encouragingly? No. Did they yell "Let our Catchy go!!" No, of course not. Not my family. They stood there laughing while my sister took pictures of the whole thing on her phone:

So after she finished taking advantage of me, she declared that I was, in fact, not a terrorist and let me go. I asked her if she was at least going to offer me a cigarette but she didn't get it. So I just left before they decided to search my various cavities after all.

After all that, you know what the most frustrating part of the whole experience was for me? It wasn't the inconvenience of it. It wasn't the near strip-search in front of everyone. It wasn't even the fact that it almost made us late for our flight. No - the most frustrating part was that, after all that time searching my new purse, she NEVER said it was cute.

I mean, was she BLIND??

How to Determine When to Clean Your House

When I was a kid, my mom went back to school and took some classes at the local community college. While she was a student there, she wrote an article and submitted it to the school newspaper - The Richland Chronicle. When she turned it in, they told her not to get her hopes up because it might be several weeks before they would publish it. But it turns out that they loved it so much that they published it the very next week!

My mom has been going through some old papers and ran across a copy of the newspaper in which her article was published. So I thought I'd share it with y'all so that y'all could get a glimpse into the mind of the woman who raised me! It's no wonder I love writing!

So without further ado . . . enjoy this article from the November 7, 1983 edition of The Richland Chronicle!!

"Creative people are seldom good housekeepers." This is not as official as the Ten Commandments, but it should be. If you have ever felt guilty because your home isn't perfect; if you have ever thought you could never "dig out" or catch up, just relax and listen. I am going to tell you how to determine when things need to be done so that you can clean your bedrooms, living room, kitchen and bathroom once a month whether they need it or not. It will enable you to change from being a nervous slob without aim to a relaxed slob with a definite goal.

The biggest mistake you can make is judging your home's cleanliness by the standards of other people. Start by setting your own standards and sticking to them. Cleanliness is a continuum. At one end of the spectrum is the cold, unnatural sterility of a museum. At the other end is being "shut down" by the health department. Somewhere in between should be your starting point.

Now we are ready to discuss the bedroom. First, you should purchase a rural flood gauge. They are used by the highway department to determine flood levels and are usually about 5 ft. high. After you install one in each bedroom, take some red paint and mark a warning zone so that when the debris reaches the "red zone" you will know you need to clean. If you have very young children, or at least very short children, you need to lower your red warning line accordingly! After all, you can explain to a teacher that your child is wearing slippers because you can't find her school shoes, but you can't take her school shoes up there and explain to the teacher that you can't find the occupant!

Some people cannot stand anything lying around on the floor. Other people would wallow in 3 ft. of clothes before taking action. Remember, you are to determine for yourself where you fit in between these extremes. Hint: Measure your shortest child's height and subtract 5 to 6 inches for breathing space. If somehow your warning mark gets covered up, there are other important signals that can act as a "back up system." If, after you tell your kids it is time for bed, you go in later to kiss them good night and they are asleep on top of a dresser they mistook for a bed - clean immediately. If their sweet little voices chime, "I love you, Mommy" and you kiss a pile of clothes good night - take action.

Now let's proceed to the living room. The biggest problem with any living room is table trash. Find a decorative way to mark your table lamps. (Maybe contrasting rickrack.) determine ahead of time that when the debris on the table rises to that level you will clean it. If you don't think you can remember to check the rickrack level, just watch the general lighting in the room. If it seems unusually dark, even though both lamps have 300 watt bulbs, check the rickrack! A two-foot-high pile of last week's magazines, newspapers, mail, Coke cans, coffee cups and stale hamburger buns will obstruct even the strongest light beams.

By now, all clothes that you have evacuated from the bedrooms should be on the living room floor waiting to be sorted. (If you didn't have any trouble finding the floor, you probably don't need to read this.) If, while sorting the clothes according to color, you throw a striped shirt onto a pile and it gets up and staggers, give it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and open the front door.

If you are not able to remember anything I've told you about how to determine when your living room needs cleaning, just remember the simple statement: If you have to fall off the floor to sit on the couch - you definitely need to clean!

Now to the kitchen. First, take a spatula and scrape all left-over food from the counter tops. If you haven't used it already this month, it is probably too late now. (Scientists say that leaving food out attracts and feeds roaches. A more reasonable theory would be that if you leave the same food out long enough, the roaches will die of food poisoning.) After you have finished your counter tops, you need to determine what foods need to be cleaned out of the refrigerator. Here are the rules: If it is furry - throw it away. It if is green - throw it away. (Better to accidentally throw away an innocent head of lettuce than to try and explain to doctors at the Emergency Room how your kids got hold of a bowl of left-over Thanksgiving dressing in the middle of July.) If it moves - throw it out immediately. Don't hold it up for scrutiny, or smell it or feel it. It is especially dangerous to taste it. After all, you are probably the one who cooked it in the first place, and if your cooking is as bad as your housekeeping, you could kill yourself!

The bathroom is the simplest. If your children are more frightened of suffocating in the clothes and debris on the bathroom floor than they are of deep water in the tub, it is time to clean. If the various organisms lurking in the bathroom have grown large enough to demand a toll upon admittance, don't clean - move out!!

IM = Instant Mayhem?

I was sitting at home tonight, wondering what I should blog about - I just had absolutely no ideas. I decided that the best thing to do was to be proactive about it, soooooooooo I spent a few minutes staring at the wall and seeing how long I could stay in a daze. Surprisingly, that yielded no new blog ideas. I was just about to give up.

And then it happened.

Almost as if by divine intervention, my cell phone rang and I saw it was my mom. I said a quick prayer for blog material and then answered the phone:

Me: Hey, Mom! What's up?
Mom: [a bit breathless] Oh good! You answered! I was so afraid that you wouldn't answer!
Me: Why? What's going on?
Mom: Well, I need your help because something happened and I don't know what to do!
Me: Okay - what happened?
Mom: Well, I was sitting here at my computer and I heard a noise and then a little box popped up and it was a message from Pam.
Me: [awkward silence] Okaaaaaaaaay . . .
Mom: [getting a panicked tone in her voice and speaking very quickly] And I wrote her back but I can't figure out how to make it go to her. It's just sitting there and I don't want her to think I didn't write her back.
Me: [Don't laugh, Catherine. Don't laugh.] You just hit the "Return" button.
Mom: Like the one that says "Enter Return?"
Me: Yes. On your keyboard.
Mom: Well, I just did that and it didn't work!
Me: [Wow - is she about to hyperventilate?]
Mom: It's not working!
Me: You're on facebook, right?
Mom: Yes.
Me: Well, that should have worked. That's all you hav-
Mom: IT WORKED!! Oh my goodness - it worked! Oh good! I was so WOOOOOOOOOORRIED!!
Me: Well, that seems a little-
Mom: Oh I'm SO glad you answered your phone! I was worried that you'd still be at church and that you wouldn't answer and then I had no idea what I was going to DOOOOOOOOO. [catching her breath.]
Me: Well, now you'll know how to do it the next time it happens.
Mom: Yeah, I guess so. What a relief!
Me: Yeeeeeeeaaaaah [not really sure what else to say here, Mom . . .]
Mom: My goodness - my neck is hurting me now. That was so stressful! It's like having someone stare at you and you can't answer them!
Me: Yeah - something like that . . .
Mom: I feel like I need to take a valium.
Me: Think YOU do . . .
Mom: You know, in fairness . . . if someone sends you a message like that, they should tell you how to respond to them.
Me: Oh my gosh. [laughing] Mom, I think everyone just assumes that we all know how to IM. It's really not that hard.
Mom: No seriously - they should. They should say "Hi! How are you? If you want to respond to me, just type in that little box below and then hit return."
Me: Wow.
[slight pause]
Mom: So are you blogging tonight?
Me: Ummmmmm . . . now I am.