Only 76 Hours of HGTV and I’m All Out of Duct Tape

By Sheilah Zimpel

I’m back to only working about 3 nights a week, thank God, so I can see my son. But suddenly it’s as if I have all the time in the world while he’s at school, and as I wrote in last month’s blog, that means project time. I didn’t want school to start because it meant by default that I’d have to do things. But then I had 3 days off in a row and immediately hit Lowe’s, a gal’s best friend. I spend more money there than on shoes any day of the week.

It all started with laying hardwood in the living room, and that led to pulling the old tile off the fireplace and laying new slate tiles, which started with laying slate on the hearth, and that led to finding an old cedar log for the mantle, and that was all done last month. So the new slate tile squares are up, and they look awesomely rustic and modern at once. According to HGTV, my style is mod rustic. Uh huh. That’s right. I’m a country girl wannabe in a mod world. I think it means I like tree stumps painted silver, which is true. Got the scoop on how to make my own. Next week.

So I picked up some paint for the front room, which is supposed to be a dining room but doesn’t realize it. It’s had an identity crisis since we moved here 6 years ago. It was the only room I hadn’t painted because I loved the shade of plum, but it needed to go, so I painted the entire walls a silvery-grey, even the white wainscoting. Looks fabulous, bigger, brighter, and mod. I’ll throw a few tree branches in there for my rustic side, maybe a bug or two.

Then I found a modern glass desk off Craigslist for the man, who’d decided to make that room his office, which meant, of course, that I needed to chrome duct-tape an old antique radio stand. Seriously—this is the effect of overwatching HGTV for the 2 days of painting. It’s the only thing I watch if the TV is on during the day, other than “Phineas and Ferb” with Dylan (and sometimes without—that show is funny). Yes, I duct-taped a table. Did you know Target sells turquoise, leopard, and chrome duct tape now?

But I must say I was sick of HGTV after so many hours of listening, and I never thought I’d say that. But I was ready to duct tape those damn perky designers’ mouths shut.

“As a Clown at a Nursing Home, I Gave Old People Pleasure”

By Sheilah Zimpel

Okay, so the title is plucked straight from a resume I was editing. I cut the line—not a hard choice. Please, please, please, people, no prospective employer ever, ever needs to know that about you. First, how does clowning around fit into a new job, where you might have to go makeup-less, without funny shoes and red nose, sans little car and big horn? Hopefully the job you’re looking for has none of those, unless, of course, you are looking for employment as a CLOWN. If so, then keep the sentence. Secondly, though, the giving old people pleasure part lacks finesse and smacks of something else. Rephrase.

Here’s another strange claim to put on a resume found in an engineer’s itty bitty type at the end of 6 pages under “other skills”: Apparently, the guy can “magic eye.” Seriously? Does he mean what I think he means? Is there another kind of magic eye? I so would grant this guy an interview and have a Magic Eye poster behind my desk to see what he’d do. Would he automagically spout out: Aha! I see it! It’s a dolphin! If so, out he’d go. Also, dude, cut about 3-4 pages of that resume. It’s not a brain dump, not an autobiography, and I don’t give a hoot if you were an Eagle Scout 40 YEARS AGO. You are plain exhausting me with your 500 words on a page. I can tell you’d talk a lot, not to mention stare things down.

So for kicks I write resumes, sometimes for pay but usually for free. Last week, the owner at my favorite coffeehouse said he got a face-to-face interview with his dream company, and the employer said his resume was stoked. Loved it. He thanked me—I’d done both his and his wife’s resumes. Sometimes they throw a free coffee my way. It does the heart good to hear of success from some words you placed on a page, WITHOUT LYING and without mention of CLOWNING.

Don't send in the clowns, rather send me your too-dumb-to-get-a-job phrases from resumes past. We’ll rewrite them together. I think you need about 50 people pulling for you to get a job nowadays, so let’s help each other out.

On the Tenth Day

The day that my Grandmother died my Mama received two phone calls, one from her family telling her that her Mama was gone, and the other from her son, telling her that her second grandson had been born. I don’t remember if my brother said it, or if it was my Mama, but one of them evoked the old saying, “When God closes one door, He opens another.” That is how I choose to think of September 11, 2001.

Everyone has their own story of September 11. Most can recall where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. That morning I dropped my daughter off at her Wee School and headed for the hospital, listening to CD’s while I happily anticipated the birth of our niece Courtney. When I walked down the long hallway towards the waiting area, I saw my husband walking towards me with a solemn look on his face, and I froze. I couldn’t speak and terrible thoughts sped through my mind. That was when he told me that the South Tower of the World Trade Center had fallen. I followed him, dumbfounded to the waiting room where Grandma and Papa were. We sat, numb, but still filled with hope for the birth of a child.

Over 2,985 souls perished in the attacks of September 11, 2001, and over 10,000 families in the United States welcomed into the world a new life. Courtney was born on a day and in a year that will always be synonymous with terror and (in my mind) evil. Yet on that same day, so many will celebrate life. On this Tenth Anniversary we will bow our heads and remember the victims, the heroes, the lost and the fallen, and that is how it should be. Still, we should always remember that with death comes life, out of sorrow comes joy, and sometimes, out of great despair comes hope. I bow my head, I remember, and I hope for Courtney and all the other precious miracles of life born that day.

Marriage, Laundry and the Evening News

It used to be that I refused to watch the evening news before I went to bed at night. I just didn’t want to go to sleep with some of the images from the news running a loop in my head, but now it’s getting so I might as well not turn the TV on at all. The news is the very least of the awful things that are out there. I mean, who wants to go to sleep with visions of Snooky burping on your mind? With every click of the remote it seems we’re subjected to someone’s dirty laundry and I’m getting sick in the spin cycle. My column, “It’s a Nice Day for a White Wedding,” about Kim Kardashian’s wedding was just the icing on the cake, and boy was that cake expensive!

JLo and Marc have split! Oh the horror! Snooky has a line of slippers selling like hotcakes, the Beverly Hills Real Housewife star has pictures of herself grieving the suicide of her husband while she’s wearing a black bikini; and to that I just throw my hands up in the air and let my left eye commence to twitching. There was a time when “Don’t air your dirty laundry” was almost a commandment, and while the truth will set you free, I think we’ve gone from one extreme to the other. It’s about headlines, marketing and ratings now, and little else. Wanna revive a stalling career? Easy, just get a reality show or be on one. Do these celebrities really believe that there is no such thing as bad publicity? (Where some are concerned, I use the term celebrity loosely.)

I remember when advocacy groups were up in arms over Teletubbies. Tinky Winky must be gay! Oh heavens. Where are these groups when it comes to “Bridezillas” and “The Real Housewives of New Jersey”? Have you watched the way these people talk to their prospective husbands, their mothers, their family and friends? Give me Tinky Winky any day. We may not know his sexual identity, but I love his purse. In the meantime you can call me old fashioned. I believe marriage should be based on love and respect and that it takes work.  I believe that good taste never goes out of style, but being a spectacle will always haunt you and that Don Henley was right on the money when he wrote “Dirty Laundry.”

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions....Welcome to the Circus

So I'm one of those Mom's. The selfish ones who don't quite make every event that their child is in or volunteer at every opportunity. Tonight is our older son's first ever performance in marching band. He's doing quite well with it. In fact most of the complaints and whines have been mine ("How much money?, "What times are practices?", "Quick, who knows how many traffic lights are between us and the high school?", and "I hate a car pool lane.") Usually those statements are a touch more umm, verbose. What can I say? I love a good whine.

But my life, like so many of us, is a constant juggling act between the kids, and my parents needs. Of course throw in there the house, hubby, work, the never ending yard work, and there you have it, a 16 ring circus complete with juggling and the high wire. 

My Daddy is in the hospital and I am worried. No two ways about it. So I'm sitting here with the "do I stay or do I go" syndrome. If I stay, then I get to see my child perform in the marching band for the first time ever - which I so badly want to do. And I'm already planning on going next weekend which means I'll miss his first time in uniform. If I go, then I can't go next weekend, and will I be able to do everything I need to get done at their house this weekend? Probably not. Plus we have plans for the weekend - which makes me seem selfish.

In between all that someone always seems to "charitably" notice my absences or when I decline to help at an event. It's so very helpful when someone tells me that their life is complicated, too. Especially when I don't remember trying to make it a competition. I even once heard that if going stresses me out so much than I just shouldn't go. Uh huh - to me that really smacks of selfish. I not so charitably have decided they are the chattering monkeys in the circus. They are focused on their own lives (rightly so), but never give credence to your own complications.

As I sit here writing this, I suddenly get inspiration from the Disco channel, yeah, I said DISCO. Sister Sledge is singing "We Are Family" and the lines, "Have faith in you and the things you do" goes past me and then sinks back into my heart. Every day we all make decisions and juggle and hope for the best and all I can do is have faith while I ignore the chattering monkeys and try to juggle in the circus. Please tell me I'm not the only one with the chattering monkeys, guilt and juggling act!