The Reality that is Duck Dynasty

Vince’s son was over the other night and he took control of the channel changer lest I get a hold of it and force them to watch Beaches or Ghost of some other seriously weepy chick flick. 

So what did he choose?  Duck Dynasty. Duck. Dynasty.  Have you seen this show?  It is a veritable train wreck! And, despite the fact that I had my iPad to keep me company, I couldn’t help but listen to the show.  Sometimes I even had to look up and watch when something really bizarre transpired. And that apparently happens a lot in this program.

Oh man, I thought, as a society, how much lower can we possibly sink?

Whenever I think we’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel in reality television, shows like Duck Dynasty come along and prove me wrong. 

In this particular episode, the men in the Robertson family decide to blow up the old guy’s deer blind because it’s all rickety and falling apart and whole lot of snakes have taken up residence.  Eww, snakes. If I watch too much of that sort of thing I’ll end up having nightmares, so I concentrated really, really hard on my iPad until they moved beyond the snakes and started rigging up the explosives.

Then one of the men – and don’t ask me to identify him because all I can tell you is that he was wearing camouflage and had long, scraggly hair and an even longer scraggly beard.  If you haven’t watched the show, you should know that they ALL have long scraggly hair and even longer scraggly beards, so it makes it tough to tell one from another. At least initially, I assume.

But, anyway, one of them decides it would be an excellent idea to build a platform and hoist an old camper trailer thing up there to serve as their new deer blind.

Sheesh. Give a redneck a few bucks…

But that’s exactly what they did.

I kept expecting someone to get hurt or the platform to come crashing down, camper and all, but that never happened. Instead, they all just complained about how lazy some of them were being and one of ‘em talked about an old blue plastic Tupperware cup he has been carrying around since the Vietnam War.  Huh. Such an education one can get from watching these sorts of programs, eh?!

At the end of the show they brought the camera inside the newly created deer blind – and it was not what I expected. They had refurbished the inside of the camper and had either rigged it up with electricity or had some sort of generator to provide enough juice to run all sorts of electric appliances like coffee makers and microwaves.  Not only that, but they were all shiny new appliances.

These guys may look like indigent scraggly rednecks, but they’ve got enough serious bank to make their next hunting season pretty cushy.

Meanwhile, their wives were back at the house holding a garage sale. They were getting rid of all sorts of junk.  The only problem was, it was the men’s junk. I didn’t see that ending well, especially when they sold the patriarch’s ratty, old recliner.  It was rather amusing when the men drove toward home and saw various items heading in the other direction, including said recliner loaded in the back of a pickup truck. 

There was another scruffy-looking guy walking along the road carrying his garage sale find: a stuffed squirrel mounted on a piece of wood. When the Duck Dynasty guy saw him, he stopped and bought his own stuffed squirrel back from the guy.  At twice the price the man paid for it!

Somewhere in there is a lesson in economics, but I was so taken aback with the fact that he would want to display a stuffed squirrel, I ignored the lesson. 

All I can say is I was very relieved when the menfolk in the household walked out of the room and I was able to grab the remote.  I immediately cleansed the inside of my brain with an episode of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.  No, not really. It was one of those Real Housewives shows.

No, honestly, people.  I flipped channels for a few minutes. And then I turned it off. 

Ah. That’s better.

The Dreaded Acronyms Have Invaded My Brain

I was talking to a friend the other day and I was telling her about something someone said to me that made me laugh out loud. But instead of saying “laugh out loud” I said “LOL.” 

And then I caught myself. I actually said “LOL” instead of the complete words.  What just happened, I wondered.

Apparently, texting acronyms have officially invaded my brain. I never thought this would happen to me.  Why?  Because I was the last of the purists who spelled out things like “laugh out loud” and “talk to you later” when texting or sending messages.  It's a very good thing my cell provider doesn't charge me by the character, because my texts are freakishly long and detailed. 

I was proud to say that I have never used the acronym “BFF” as in, “My BFF and I went out last night and did tequila shots.”

Not that my BFF and I would be out doing things like tequila shots. After all, we’re no longer in our 20s.  Nor are our livers. Ah, but those were the days, weren’t they?  We were young and carefree and…

…but I digress.

I was talking about the overuse of acronyms and about how I am ashamed to say that I have succumbed. 

It’s not like the Internet or cell phone users came up with the concept of acronyms. They’ve been around forever. Well, maybe. I can’t say for sure since I wasn’t around during the days of caveman communication. Perhaps they carved, “BBS” for Be Back Soon on their cave walls to let their cavewomen know they were heading out to hunt mastodon.

But for sure we were familiar with acronyms well before the World Wide Web and smart phones entered the picture. I mean, everyone knows what “CIA” stands for. And “FBI.” And “CYA.”  And even “FUBAR.” 

I think the last two were coined by the military. Perhaps they started using them when they didn’t want to swear in polite society? 

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s inevitable that we start saying LOL instead of laugh out loud.  I mean, we rarely say “Federal Bureau of Investigation,” do we? No, we say, “FBI.”  It’s easier. It’s quicker.  And our tongues don’t trip over the words. (Go ahead, say it out loud fast. The words simply don’t flow.)

But still. It makes me uneasy.  Are we going to turn into a bunch of acronym-slinging Americans? Our grammar and spelling have already become atrocious.  But whenever someone is called out on their spelling errors, they use the excuse that they are sacrificing accuracy for expediency. Well, not really. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t spell any of the words in that sentence correctly.

Nevertheless, you get the gist.

Those thumbs have to text quickly or the recipient will have already moved on to the next text and the next texter.  Spelling, grammar and coherent thought aren’t routinely taken into consideration.

Have you ever taken a look at some of your texts? Just scroll back through your communications with someone. They read like parts of thoughts and fragments of sentences and make very little sense when reading weeks or months later. And “LOL” is usually peppered throughout the communication.

Ah well. It could be worse. We could have absolutely no sense of humor about anything and instead of using “LOL,” we could insert frowny faces. That would not be good.

So I guess I should just relax a little. Communication in one form or another will always be with us.

I may just have to adjust my expectations, albeit reluctantly. Very reluctantly, my friends.

SMH.

Just Call Me Farmer Jane. On Second Thought...Don't.

So we’ve rounded the corner on May and are sliding into June already.  And the flowers we bought weeks ago are still in their flimsy pots on the front porch. 

If we wait long enough, the season will be over and we will have avoided the whole dirty process of digging holes in the dirt and tossing in said flower.  We can just throw away the flimsy pots with their dead flowers and be done with it.

Have I mentioned I do not possess a green thumb?  Oh, yes.  I did right here.  Rather emphatically, I might add.

So how did flats of annuals come to appear on our front porch? 

Well, as you might guess, it wasn’t my idea.

One day in May Vince and his father visited the Dawes Arboretum in Newark. All the floral displays and greenery there must have inspired them so they went to a greenhouse and bought flats of annuals.  And Vince brought these home to me.

I looked at them with a perplexed look on my face and said, “And...what do you expect me to do with these??!” 

He chose to ignore my sarcasm. Instead, he stated matter-of-factly  that I should plant them. Into the ground.  I didn’t tell him what my matter-of-fact response would have been had I chosen to state it aloud.

Nevertheless, I gamely accompanied Vince and his son to the store a few days later to buy bags of mulch; a purchase that has never before graced my credit card statement and never even entered my mind as something I would need to buy.  Ever.

So while Vince and his son were busy reviewing their mulch options, I wandered over to the baskets of flowers. 

Now, I’ve never said I don’t like flowers.  On the contrary, I love flowers.  I just don’t want to be the one growing them. Or watering them. Or pinching off the dead stuff. I am, however, fairly handy at filling a vase from the kitchen sink and arranging cut flowers in that vase, but that’s about the extent of my expertise.

Yet they had beautiful hanging baskets of…flowers.  See?  I don’t even know the names of them. Pansies? Petunias? Some name that doesn’t start with a P?  Who knows?  I was pretty confident in the colors, however, so in keeping with my theme I bought a basket of pink flowers and a basket of purple flowers. 

I figured I could keep them in their hanging baskets on our front porch. I’d even make the effort of watering them every day and pinching off the dead buds.  And they’d add some color to the front of our house and people couldn’t say I wasn’t making the effort.

Yeah, like that worked for me.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I have managed thus far to keep those pink and purple flowers alive in their hanging baskets. And I do water them every day and pinch off the dead blooms.

But that’s not all I had to do on that fated mulch-buying day. 

I had to help carry the bags of mulch and other gardening stuff from the car to the yard. And I even had to don the pretty pink gardening gloves Vince so considerately bought for me so I could help dig in the dirt.

Our plan of attack was to start on the flower bed that is most visible from the street. Last year it was filled with some sort of green viney stuff and an overgrown crabapple tree that littered our yard and walkway with crabapples.

Clearly, the previous owner did not possess a green thumb either.  When we moved in last year, our yard more closely resembled a jungle than it did any of the manicured yards that flank our house.  We had weeds so big a novice such as myself wasn’t sure if they were bushes or trees or actual weeds.

The fact that our yard looks halfway decent now is a testament to Vince’s efforts.  He has worked long and hard out there to get the greenery tamed and looking somewhat respectable.

He had the crabapple tree and all that viney stuff removed and in its place he and his son planted some sort of flowering tree. Don’t ask me the name of it because I do not know. When it does flower – hopefully by next year – it will have pretty pink flowers on it.  That’s the extent of my knowledge of it.

So we got to work on this flower bed, which seemed the perfect bed in which to plant all those flats of annuals.  We started pulling weeds and turning the dirt to prepare it for the flowers, except that it was filled with roots.  Lots of roots. Roots that seemed rather permanently, well, rooted in that dirt. 

After a couple hours of hard, sweaty labor in which we filled two trash cans with yard waste, I gave up. And I wasn’t the only one.  We moved on to another area and spread mulch, which greatly enhanced the appearance of that bed, by the way.  So I might even become a fan of the mulch.

But after the spreading of the mulch, we were thoroughly exhausted and hot and sweaty and all done in.  Besides, it was getting dark outside, so we gave up for the day.

That was a couple weeks ago. And nothing has been done to those flower beds since.

It’s going to take more than any muscle power I possess to clear that bed of roots, so I can’t see the flowers getting planted in there anytime soon.

So the other night I went out and bought some colorful ceramic pots. I’ve decided I will plant the flowers in these pots and distribute them around the yard. We’ll get those flowers out of their flimsy pots anyway. And our irrigation system can take over the watering for me.

Yeah, I’m going to get on that right away.  Maybe even tonight.

Or…not.  My thumb has not turned the slightest shade of green during this whole process. And…um…I think my pretty pink gardening gloves are all dirty.  Probably I should wash them first. Or maybe I even lost them sometime since I haven't seen them lately. I couldn’t possibly start digging in the dirt without gardening gloves, could I?

Oh crud. I’m sure none of those excuses are going to work for me. Guess I’d better start diggin’…

To be continued, I'm sure…

Hand Flapping in the Ladies Restroom

I recently attended a “Girls’ Night Out” event with a good friend. It was at a local movie theater where they had free appetizers, free drinks and featured a free movie, Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Sure, it was a flick I’ve seen before, but I knew I would enjoy watching it again. Plus…did I mention it was free?

The event was sponsored by a local  bank and, as mentioned, it was a “Girls’ Night Out” gathering, so, naturally, there were only women in attendance.  (All together now: “Du-uh!”)

You know what they say about groups of women – that we all go to the restroom together?  Yeah, well, I was grateful this did not occur because, believe me, it would’ve been utter chaos.

One of the dispensers ran out of paper towels, so hordes of women had to hold up our dripping hands as if we’d just scrubbed for surgery and cross the room to the second dispenser to find paper towels.  It was either that, or dry our hands on our clothes – and genteel ladies such as ourselves simply don’t do this. Very often, anyway.

 

By the second time I used the restroom, there were big puddles of water on the floor where hands had dripped whilst on the walk across the room to the second paper towel dispenser.  Thank goodness no one slipped.

In retrospect, it would’ve been a good idea if even one of us mentioned to movie theatre personnel the paper towel shortage situation. But evidently none of us did.  Perhaps our minds were on the free drinks. Or the free jalapeno poppers. 

But a rather curious phenomenon happened during my first potty break.  See, the toilets were of the automatic flushing variety, so I assumed everything else in the restroom was modernized. 

Not so much.

I walked to the sink and held my hand under the soap dispenser thinking it was automatic.  But then I pretty quickly noticed the button I needed to push to dispense the soap. Oops. I furtively looked around to see if anyone had noticed my gaffe and, when I saw the coast was clear, I quickly pushed the button and started lathering up.

But then, when I held my soapy hands under the faucet waiting for the water to automatically start flowing, nothing happened.

As we all have experienced from time to time, automatic sinks are sometimes uncooperative. You can flap your hands underneath them forever and they simply won’t work. So you move on to the next sink.  And – voila! – water flows over your hands that by now have dried soap sticking to them. But of course the water doesn’t run long enough to scrub the dried soap off your hands and you have to redo the flapping thing at least once more.

These sinks, however, were not of the automatic variety.  And there I was looking like a fool flapping my hands under not one, but two faucets.  Sheesh.

Fortunately, I still had the room to myself. So I didn’t appear foolish to anyone but myself. And, well…now, you.

At any rate, I finally decided that the only automated equipment in the restroom was the toilet. So I stepped over to the paper towel dispenser determined not to make the same mistake. So I searched for the handle, to no avail.  Ack!  Okay, so automatic toilets AND automatic paper towel dispensers. Got it. 

Yet, waving my hands in front of this one produced no paper towels since the thing was empty.  Heaving a huge sigh, I seriously considered wiping my hands on my slacks and getting the heck outta there.  But I didn’t.

Instead, with dripping hands I walked over to the dispenser across the room, flapped my hand in front of the box and, magically, a paper towel appeared.

Who knew the simple act of washing one’s hands required a degree in engineering?

As more women entered the restroom, they all duplicated my moves. We looked like a bunch of crazy people, flapping our hands under appliances trying to get them to work and, finally, manually turning on and off faucets and soap dispensers.

I tried being helpful by telling people that the first towel dispenser was empty, but did they believe me?  Nooo. They all had to prove to themselves that the dispenser was, indeed, empty.  And then they walked over to the full towel dispenser and searched for the handle. 

It was kind of comical.

But I’ve decided that there should be rules when restrooms are designed. If you’re going to have an automatic flushing toilet, then everything should be automatic. Or, if you’re going to have a manual soap dispenser and faucet, the paper towel dispenser should also be manual.

Modern life has its advantages. Like theoretically there would be fewer opportunities for germs to hop on and hitch a ride if we aren’t touching toilet handles and soap dispensers and water faucets and paper towel dispensers all the time.  But I sometimes long for the simpler life when I could walk into a bathroom and know exactly how everything operated.

No excessive hand flapping required.

It’s All the Fault of Netflix (That’s My Story, Anyway…)

Vince and I have started watching the series, Friday Night Lights on Netflix and, unfortunately, have been staying up later and later as we chew through Season 1. 

“Just one more episode,” we say. And then we end up going to bed so late, there is no way we’re getting the recommended eight hours’ sleep.  Heck, we’re not even getting six!

So it’s silly – especially considering that the series has been over for a couple of years.  I mean, it’s not like we have to catch up on previous seasons in order to be ready for the new season to start. 

Ah well. I suppose it’s better than watching regular TV.  Why?  Because for one thing, there are no commercials on Netflix. And for another, whenever we watch an episode of a current series we’re following and that episode ends, we look at each other like, That’s it?  There’s no more?  Whatta ripoff!

Clearly, we are not fans of the cliffhanger.

But we started this trend a few years ago when we rented DVDs of an entire season and watched all the episodes in a row. No, silly, not all in the same night – we did spread them out over a week or so.  But we didn’t have to rely on our (sometimes) faulty memory as to who was doing what to whom and why.  And then we’d rent the next season.

Now we have that marvelous invention, the DVR. And we have Netflix. And if we’re not careful, we’re going to turn into those dreaded things called couch potatoes. This is especially troubling because we really don’t follow very many episodic television series. We don’t watch American Idol. We don’t care which star dances better and wins a disco ball trophy at the end. And we’re woefully ignorant about what the big scandal is on Scandal.

Fortunately, last night we had a diversion. Family came over and we had a nice, chaotic evening together of food, frivolity and fun. Throw in a little hair styling and getting the chance to meet the newest member of the family and, well, you have a recipe for a great evening.

And tonight? Well, tonight, I’m on the fence. I could either join some friends for a music trivia night at one of the local watering holes in town.

Or I could go home and take a nap. 

Right now Plan B is winning because I haven’t had enough caffeine to open my eyes beyond mere slits. And I’m grumpy.  Grumpy is not a good thing.  Just ask Vince.

But I suspect I will wake up as the day goes along and I will start thinking that hanging out with friends is far preferable to a nap.

We’ll see.

As long as I do NOT pick up the television remote. There is, after all, more to life than finding out if the Dillon Panthers win the District Championship.

If you don’t know the answer to that question, is your life any less fulfilling?  No, of course not. 

I can only hope that Netflix loses its appeal soon enough because, y’know, we have exciting lives to lead. And trivia to pursue. And flowers to plant. (Sigh. More on that one later.)

So here’s to a Netflix-less evening. Say it with me now: “Jane, put down the remote!”

I Spy Something Bizarre

Every so often I see something that makes me either laugh or shake my head in consternation. Sometimes I do both at the same time.  And sometimes I even have to wonder if I really saw what I think I saw. 

Like, for instance, the other day I was driving home from work. I was still on a side street heading toward the freeway.  Once the light turned green, I made a left and noticed a motorcycle slowing down for the red light. The rider looked – to me – like your typical biker. Big black boots, heavy denim pants. His shirt was sleeveless since I saw a lot of ink covering his big biceps. And he even had a handlebar mustache.  So in that brief flash I thought, He’s not a guy I’d want to mess with!

Not that I would “mess” with anyone – let alone a biker dude, so I’m not really sure why I had that particular thought.

And then in the next instant, I burst out laughing.  Because he had a big teddy bear strapped to the back of his cycle. It was sitting up and facing front and everything. At first I thought it was a live animal – possibly a brown dog.  But then I realized, no, it was in fact a stuffed toy.  And an extremely dirty one at that. I figured it must have logged in an awful lot of road miles to get that filthy.

Why this tough guy had a stuffed animal on the back of his bike is something I’ll never know.  Had someone he loved and lost cherished that teddy bear? Was he just lonely and figured he’d look a little less crazy talking to a stuffed animal than he’d look if he were seen talking to himself?  Was it a sign that only other bikers recognize – or some sort of initiation rite to get into a biker club?

I don’t know – but it was a little bizarre.

And then a few weeks ago when we were in Chicago I saw a sight I’m still puzzling over. We were sitting in the shuttle van at the airport waiting to be taken to our hotel. The van driver had let us board and then he disappeared. While we were cooling our heels, I started people watching, which is what I do when I’m bored and I can’t reach my iPad. The first person to catch my eye was a professionally dressed woman wheeling her suitcase into the airport. Well, that wasn’t the bizarre part. We were, after all at the airport. But nestled inside her purse, which she was cradling with her free hand, was a big leafy green plant.

Now that is a little bizarre, I thought. Since she was walking into the airport rather than toward the parking garage, I deduced that she planned to board a plane carrying that plant. (Hey, I’m good at this deduction stuff, aren’t I? I mean, who else could’ve figured that out??) But the plant did not look exotic in any way. It simply looked like your regular garden-variety (ha) plant that you can pick up just about anywhere. 

Was she hoping to purify the air on the plane? Was it her lucky plant that always accompanies her as she flies the friendly skies? I will never know.

But then I wondered (a) if the plant would make it through security, and (b) was she putting it in the overhead compartment – or shoving it under the seat in front of her? Either way, I couldn’t imagine that there wouldn’t be significant soil spillage.

Airport security is not very consistent these days. For example, I had dutifully packed my liquids in my plastic Ziploc baggie and intended to put the bag in the bin to go through x-ray. But while we were standing in line waiting to reach the conveyor belt, I couldn’t find said baggie of liquids.  So I gave up looking with the understanding that I might be pulled aside to be searched more thoroughly because I wasn’t following the “rules.”  But…nothin’. I sailed right through security. Later I found that baggie of liquids inside my carry-on bag. Tsk. Tsk.

On the other hand, Vince’s bags were pulled off the assembly line and more thoroughly searched because he tried to get a half-filled bottle of drinking water through security. See? Not consistent.

Thus, I couldn’t imagine what sort of search would be required for a green plant. Would they have to dig through all that dirt to make sure there wasn’t anything hiding in there other than a little Miracle Gro? 

Ah well. Bizarre sights simply add some diversity to our everyday lives. We get to stretch our imaginations a little bit as we speculate about the bizarre sights we spy. And, if nothing else, it makes the evening commute or the wait in a shuttle van a little less mundane.

So as my own little act of public service, I think I’m going to strap a big fake alligator to the roof of my car tomorrow. Just to entertain my fellow commuters.

Why, yes, I AM a little bizarre.

Oh, and to those bored commuters on Route 71 tomorrow?  You’re welcome.

Pssst! Did you Know That Sunday is Mother’s Day?

Unless you’ve spent the last few weeks  climbing a really big mountain in some remote part of the world with no WiFi access whatsoever, you’re well aware that Sunday is Mother’s Day.

So let’s assume you’ve been on solid ground with plenty of media access. That means you’ve been bombarded lately with ads telling you that to be a good child, you have to shower Mom with all manner of gifts – flowers, chocolates, jewels. I even heard an ad today that a laser hair removal gift certificate would make a great gift for mom.

Huh? 

Yeahhhh, I’d love to see the perplexed expression on that mom’s face as she opened the card and said: “This is for…what?  Are you trying to tell me I have excessive facial hair, sonny?”

In my opinion, that would be an epic FAIL, but I suppose there are all sorts of people out there.  And perhaps there is some mother somewhere just itching to have her underarm hair permanently removed.  I don’t know…

Nevertheless, I would be willing to bet that mothers everywhere simply want their children to express their love and show a little gratitude on Mother’s Day. Maybe throw in a little breakfast in bed. This would be a great gift – as long as the kid makes sure to clean up the mess in the kitchen afterwards so mom doesn’t have to.

Motherhood is not an easy job. Yeah, and that’s the understatement of the year.

Just ask my mom.  Well, no…on second thought…don’t.  I don’t think I’d want her to share with you any stories about my bratty teenage years.  Not that I was a colossal brat – but, like most teenagers, I had my less-than-stellar moments.

Yet Mom never brings up any of my bad behaviors. Frankly, at this point, I don’t think she can remember my teenage years. And I’m okay with that.

Moms somehow have the uncanny ability to love their children unconditionally.  She may not always love the behavior, but she always loves the child.  No matter how old they are or how bad the behavior.

That ability is the very reason your mom deserves to be celebrated.

As for me, well, mostly I’m grateful that my mom is here with us and we can celebrate together. I don’t take a single moment of time with her for granted.

So Vince and I will drive to Alliance on Sunday. We’ll bring some food, a sweet treat for dessert and probably some flowers. We have a little gift for her. And, while she’ll be grateful for all of those things, I know that mostly she’ll appreciate that we took the time out of our weekend to come see her.

If I’ve learned anything through the years it is this: cherish your mom while she’s here. As I’ve heard from so many people whose mothers are no longer alive, they would give anything to have one more conversation with her; one more chance to hug her and tell her how much she is loved.

To those people who can no longer celebrate Mother's Day with their moms, my heart goes out to you. I hope you feel comforted with the knowledge that your mom knows how much you love and miss her.

And to those who still have their moms, please don’t squander those opportunities.  If you can celebrate in person with your mom, do it. If she’s too far away for a visit, call her. 

Just…well…just don’t buy her a gift certificate for laser hair removal. I still think it’s an epic FAIL.

We love you, Mom. Happy Mother's Day!