Weekend Update by Jane-You-Ignorant-… (If you know the last word, you used to watch Jane Curtin on SNL and you are old enough to read today’s blog.)

Well, the weekend was a resounding success and a great time was had by all at both the wedding in Cleveland on Saturday and the 80th birthday/Father’s Day cookout in Newark on Sunday.

Vince and I managed to get everything done prior to our departure on Saturday. At least I think we did. If we missed something, well, we really didn’t notice – so it probably wasn’t critical. And nobody ended up going “commando” – so I was happy that my list-making worked. For the most part.

Well, okay, so I did forget to pack my super-duper hair smoothing serum that should last me at least a year and cost more than the gross national product of a small, underdeveloped nation and, thus, not something I was interested in replacing for an overnight visit. I figured my hair was just going to have to frizz out if that’s what it wanted to do.

And while I packed both my deodorant and Vince’s, I didn’t check to see if there were sufficient quantities in each to get us through two day’s worth of application. If I had, I would’ve noticed I was on the very last dregs of my Fresh Scent Secret (“Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman”). Thus, I had to use Vince’s Right Guard on Sunday and probably smelled studly all day, but at least it was better than being, um, “aromatic.” Fortunately, I didn’t notice anyone giving me a wide berth at the cookout on Sunday. And it was a hot and sweaty day so, believe me, that Right Guard was certainly put to the test.

When we got to the hotel on Saturday, I checked in and was told that, as a Rewards Club member I was entitled to a free breakfast in the morning. The thing is I have absolutely no recollection of signing up as a Rewards Club member. But who am I to question a free breakfast? So I took the card and beat a hasty retreat toward the elevators lest the girl at the reservation desk realize that I wasn’t really entitled to a free breakfast (with an overpriced retail value of $11.99) and had the chance to snatch it back out of my hands.

For a woman, getting ready for a wedding is a lengthier process than, say, getting ready to go to dinner at Applebee’s. It takes me a minimum of an hour. We won’t even discuss how long it takes an actual bride to get ready for her wedding, but the process begins right around the same time the engagement ring is placed on her finger.

Nevertheless, I was merely a guest at this wedding, so an hour was all I needed. Only I didn’t get an hour. I had about 40 minutes. For you uninitiated to the world of women’s “special event” preparation, those 20 critical minutes are the difference between showing up fully coiffed, dressed with all zippers zipped, buttons buttoned and hooks hooked and ready to party – and arriving with nervous perspiration on the upper lip and forehead, lipstick applied crookedly, hair only half curled and smeared eyeliner on at least one eye.

And this was an outdoor wedding under the hot, relentless sun. I was doomed from the beginning!

Fortunately, I managed to get over my snotty When-I-Say-I-Need-An-Hour-To-Get-Ready-I-Don’t-Mean-40-Minutes attitude, and was able to enjoy the wedding. I enjoyed it even more that we had an hour and a half gap between the wedding and the reception.

We spent a few of those precious moments chatting with good friends I’ve known since college along with their “80-And-Change” mother, Mrs. B. Once upon a time this group would have used that hour and a half to head to a bar somewhere to indulge in a little before-dinner libation, but our friends had their kids with them and needed to bring them to the babysitter’s before the reception. Well, the kids, plus the baby deer they had in the back of their SUV. Yes, I’m serious. A baby deer. I’m still shaking my head. Only these friends… (Bambi had apparently been abandoned and wasn’t old enough to fend for itself, so our animal-loving friends were taking care of it until they could find an alternate care solution.)

So Vince and I went off on our own in a quest to find a place where I could indulge in a soothing glass of red wine. And while it wasn’t a fine dining experience complete with white linen tablecloths and a full wine list (or any wine list, for that matter!), at least the one type of red wine they served had an alcohol content higher than, say, Diet Coke. So I was happy. Plus, I was able to remedy the crooked lipstick and smeared eyeliner situations. Really couldn’t do much with the frizzy, half-curled hair thing, but then that was my own fault since I forgot my semi-precious hair smoothing serum.

Nevertheless, by the time we showed up at the reception I was back in a good mood and ready to party. And party we did! We were seated with my old college buddies and we all had a wonderful time. The photos may show a group of middle-aged people laughing and dancing like, well, middle-aged people, but we didn’t really care. We figured as long as none of us fell down and broke a hip, it was all good. Plus, the mother-of-the-bride was dancing right along with us, so we had no worries.

We discussed the possibility of heading out to a local bar after the reception to keep the good times going, but none of us managed to work up enough energy. Thus, like a bunch of Cinderellas (or middle-aged weenies), our evening ended before midnight.

This was probably a good thing because Vince and I had to be up-and-at-‘em bright and early the next morning. For one thing, we wanted to get our free buffet breakfast before they found out we weren’t really entitled to it. So at the crack of dawn (or 9AM – same thing), we made our way to the dining room in the hotel and enjoyed our overpriced lukewarm sausage and eggs and relatively fresh fruit and blueberry muffins. No, I kid. For the price we paid, it was some good eatin’!

We met up with our friends to say good-bye (which, with this group, requires a minimum of one hour), and then we headed for points north and our Sunday event.

I have one word for Sunday: HOT. I spent the first 45 minutes in the kitchen arranging food in serving bowls and making sure plates, napkins and utensils were at the ready for the hungry hordes once the steak and ribs were ready. Most of the time, however, I was digging through boxes and bags looking for a particular item the Grill Masters needed only to discover (a) they’d already found said item out by the grill and had neglected to inform me, or (b) they’d changed their minds and didn’t need whatever it was I was searching for anymore. Grrr.

By the time I came outside to the patio where everyone was gathered, I was hot, sweaty and completely wilted. And hot, sweaty and completely wilted I remained for the duration of the day (thank heavens for Right Guard, even if it did make me smell studly!). But we had a festive afternoon with helium-filled balloons, gaily wrapped packages and a memory book that we’d prepared for the birthday boy. So we enjoyed watching him look through it. And we enjoyed the food, the company and the conversation.

We ended the day full, happy, and sweaty – but we couldn’t have asked for a better day. Well, perhaps if I’d been able to use Fresh Scent Secret instead of Vince’s Right Guard, I wouldn’t have sweated like a man all day. But really, otherwise, it was great. And I didn’t have smeary eyeliner or crooked lipstick. Life is good. And, as Vince says, “It’s the little things…”

Lists…Lists…And More Lists!

We have a busy weekend planned and I’m hoping that my mystical, magical powers of organization will keep us on track. If that fails, I made a list. Okay, a bunch of lists. And if the list-making fails, well, hey, I guess something is gonna get missed.

I just hope it isn’t something crucial like the main course for the 80th birthday/Father’s Day celebration on Sunday. Or my dress shoes for the out-of-town wedding we’re attending tomorrow evening. Asking people to nosh on pretzels and carrot sticks when they’re expecting baby back ribs is just plain cruel. And wearing beach flip flops with a dress, while perhaps more comfortable, isn’t exactly a polished look for a wedding.

I can usually handle events two days in a row without a whole lot of mystical, magical powers required. But when our Saturday event is out of town and requires an overnight stay and then the Sunday event is also out of town (but, unfortunately, not in the same town and about three hours away), then extra effort is required to make sure we have everything organized.

So I’ve been making lists. There is a Jane List and a Vince list. There was a Thursday night to-do list, a Friday night to-do list and a Packing List. There have been several shopping lists created, fulfilled and discarded. There is a “Don’t Forget!” note affixed to the back door to transfer something from Vince’s car to my car lest we forget to make the transfer. And I have been so obsessed with not forgetting anything that last night I kept popping up out of bed to add a “Reminder” note to my phone complete with “alarms” set to go off at regular intervals to remind me to add those items to whichever list was most appropriate.

You think I’m slightly obsessed with lists?!

On the other hand, I think it’s better to be a little “list obsessive” than to arrive at a destination without something important like, say, underwear. I suppose some people are okay with going “commando” but I’d rather have the choice.

To me, it’s frustrating to be out of town and realize that my toothbrush is still in the toothbrush holder back home. Or that I’ll have to go to bed without my Clinique moisturizer and lip balm because I didn't make a list and I've forgotten to pack them. Talk about being a bad houseguest! Who would want to see a grungy-toothed, flaky-faced, cracked-lipped Jane in the morning? Not too many people, I can assure you! Heck, even I wouldn’t want to see that!

I suppose we should have looked at the calendar a little more carefully, but we didn’t want to miss either event. And we also didn’t want Vince’s dad to lift a finger on Sunday since it is his 80th birthday and Father’s Day we’re celebrating. So we offered to bring the whole shebang to Newark. Not that we’re super-heroes here – we are part of a cooperative effort with several other family members to make this a successful and fun event.

On the other hand, we’re responsible for some of the basics. I mean, you’ve gotta have a plate to eat off of, and a cup to drink out of, don’t you? And who wants to eat coleslaw with their fingers? And what if there weren’t napkins to clean off our coleslaw-covered fingers? Who knows…all that messiness could lead to a big food fight or something. And I, for one, will not be interested in cleaning barbecue sauce off the patio furniture after such a hectic weekend. So I figure we’d better make extra sure that we don’t forget anything.

Fortunately, Vince’s brother agreed to help us out and load up his vehicle with all our “stuff” so we can go out of town Saturday and then head straight to Newark on Sunday without having to detour in Columbus to re-pack our car with supplies and vittles for Sunday’s gathering. Good thing, too, because I don’t think the dill dip and baby back ribs would survive overnight in the trunk of the car in Cleveland. Can you say botulism?!

So tonight when I get home, I will immediately start in on my packing list. Probably I should pack the toothbrush, moisturizer and lip balm first, just to be safe. But wait a minute…I think I’d better double-check my list and make sure “underwear” is written down somewhere. This isn’t, after all, a commando sort of weekend.

Oh, and by the way - Happy Father’s Day to all you dads and granddads and dad-like men out there! May you be treated like kings. And may you be exempt from cleaning barbecue sauce off of the patio furniture after the inevitable food fight. (What? Food fights aren't a part of everyone's celebrations? Really?! Oh...)

Father's Day

June 17, 2010
This has been a very hectic day – and this evening is going to be very hectic as well – so I decided to recycle a blog I wrote two years ago. It was right before Father’s Day. And, here we are, two years later – right before Father’s Day. I’m happy to say my dad’s health is good and my parents are at their cottage in Cape Cod enjoying the summer.

From June, 2008:
My parents are pretty amazing people. They're in their 80s and don't seem to know what "slowing down" means. They've trotted all over the globe, and in fact have made return treks to so many locales, we tease them and suggest that they've run out of places in the world to visit, so they must be starting over! Their one nod to Father Time is that they've begun taking cruises rather than organized tours of foreign countries since they only have to pack and unpack once.

At least once a week they deliver Meals on Wheels – sometimes to people younger than they. One time, a woman in her housecoat and slippers was sitting in her easy chair awaiting her prepared meal. When my mother came to the door to deliver it, the woman said, "Will you please bring it here, dear? I can't get up very easily. After all, I just celebrated my birthday and turned 77." To which my mom simply smiled and said, "Well, happy birthday – you look wonderful!" She then deposited the meal on the tray in front of the woman and continued on her rounds.

I won't say how old she was, but at the time Mom was several years older than this woman.

My family has been blessed to have our parents in our lives all these years and I try not to take their presence for granted. I do my best to call and visit them whenever I can because I know that one day in the not-so-distant future, I might wish I could pick up the phone to talk to them – and they won't be there. And I don't want to have any regrets just because I "meant" to call more often – or "would have" visited except that I had too much going on in my life at the time.

So, with that philosophy in mind, and despite the ever-rising gas prices, I gamely filled the tank to the tune of $52.65 the other week, hopped in my car, and drove the three hours to my parents' house. And, okay, I admit that for once I actually stuck to the speed limit in the meager attempt to conserve as much fuel as possible.

Shortly before my visit, Mom and Dad had returned from their third cruise of the year. They had a wonderful time, but both of them came back with colds. They were congested and coughing, but neither of them seemed to be particularly ill. We had a nice evening, sitting on the porch drinking wine, talking about our upcoming family vacation plans and listening to the birds perched in the 40-year-old trees in the backyard.

Early the next morning my mom shook me awake to tell me that my dad was having trouble breathing and she was taking him to the Emergency Room.

In a bit of a panic, I jumped up, threw on some clothes, and ran downstairs to head out the door. Dad, fully dressed, was standing in the kitchen putting all his daily heart medications into the little pill box he carries in his pocket. His hands were shaking, he was wheezing, and his face was absolutely grey. I was shaken by his appearance but I tried not to show my fear and asked him if I could help. He said, "Thanks, Jane, but I've got it." That's just my dad – always there, always calm and always able to handle things.

Within a few moments, we had him settled in the car and I drove the three of us to the hospital six minutes away. Dad's labored breathing sounded very loud in the silent car and I fought to stick to the speed limit. Nevertheless, I think I made it to the hospital in just under four minutes.

Dad was pretty quickly settled into a bed in the ER with an oxygen mask on his face while tests were performed to determine his condition. Diagnosed with pneumonia, he was admitted to the hospital. Because he has lived with heart disease and had suffered two heart attacks (the first one in his early 40s), has had bypass surgery, and a few years ago had a pacemaker implanted in his chest, the concern was that he could develop congestive heart failure.

While there were a couple rough days, Dad finally responded to the IV antibiotics, breathing treatments and other medication, and was discharged six days later. And then the rest of us were finally able to breathe a little easier, as well.

With Father's Day coming up on Sunday, I'd like to take a moment to pay tribute to my Dad.

He's an incredible man and has been an amazing influence on my life. He's one of the quietest people you'd ever meet, but he's kind and caring, and is – quite simply – an honorable man. His primary focus has always been taking care of his family. And he has always been there if we need him, whether it's for advice or to fix a leaky faucet. And when he does speak, we know it's because he has something important to say. One of my greatest joys is being able to make my dad laugh!

He has dealt with health issues for many years, but he quietly endures the pain and discomfort without complaint, and then gets up to begin another day. He is truly an inspiration.

And, even though Mother's Day has come and gone this year, I have to add that Mom is pretty inspirational herself. She has a lot of strength packed into her 5'2" body because she is the one, after all, who has been there getting Dad through every one of his health crises through the years. If not for her, I suspect that Dad might not be here with us today. He may have grumbled a little when he was denied that bowl of ice cream or second cookie…but he knows she's looking out for him and wants him to be healthy enough to go on that next cruise.

My parents are modest and unassuming people and this little 'tribute' would embarrass them, so I suspect I will never show it to them. They lead by example and don't talk about their accomplishments.

I hope they know how much I love and admire them. And I do. I'm very grateful to be their daughter.

To all the Fathers out there, you have more of an impact on your children's lives than you can ever know. Your children love you – even if they don't say it all the time – and they need you. Thank you for all that you do.

Happy Father's Day!

My E-mail Address From Now Until Eternity Is…

I hate changing e-mail addresses. I hate it so much that I’ve only done it twice in 11 years. The first time was about 7 years ago when I finally got rid of AOL. I was paying for a flippin’ e-mail address, for cryin’ out loud, but I still hesitated to change it because of the hassle. And it was a hassle, believe you me.

When I got rid of AOL and opened a free Gmail account, I vowed never ever again to change my e-mail address. I didn’t take into consideration that I might actually find the love of my life, get married and change my name. (I’ve heard it said that some people even saw pigs in the air…) But it seems that when one vow is taken some previous – and, admittedly, lesser – vows have to be broken.

So I had to change my e-mail address again a couple months ago. And it is still a hassle.

Changing e-mail addresses is like moving. You think you’re prepared and send plenty of notice to those who frequently send you mail, but you spend months afterwards chasing down folks to try to get them to make the change. And you’re never really sure if you’ve missed something important that simply hasn’t reached you.

Unlike when I got rid of AOL, however, I was able to keep my old Gmail address, so it’s comforting to know that I still receive anything sent there. There are one or two “funny” friends, however, who refuse to update their address book. Mainly, I think, to bug me. And, okay, so it’s really just one person. He knows who he is.

So I still have to go into my old e-mail address to forward jokes or personal e-mails to my new address and to clear out the junk. This week has been busy and I’ve neglected the care-and-upkeep of my old e-mail address. I looked at it today and had 52 regular e-mails and 937 junk e-mails. Sheesh!

Instead of simply pressing “delete” today, I decided to re- contact those senders and, depending on who they were, either request that they change my address or ask to be removed from their mailing list. Yes, I’d already performed this arduous task months ago, but evidently Blockbuster.com and Tarot.com really want to send me information about movies I no longer rent and daily horoscopes I no longer read. Even though I told them I wanted to break up, they still send me e-mails. To them I say, “For cryin’ out loud, leave me alone already!”

I wish all websites had a uniform policy on changing or deleting your name from their list. But that would be too easy. Some places have a 1-click removal system. Simple. Some sites allow you to change the address from your old e-mail to your new one on one screen. Also simple.

Other places, however, make you jump through so many hoops and click on so many links that your clicking finger starts cramping. By the time you’re done swearing out an affidavit that YES, you REALLY want to be deleted from their mailing list, you’re frazzled and vow never again to visit their site even if you’d been sort of on the fence about it before. This is one vow that it’ll be no problem keeping!

And I haven’t even addressed the issue of SPAM! Personally, I think it’s a little ridiculous to receive 937 junk e-mails. I rarely open any of these, although once in a great while an actual e-mail from someone I know gets caught in the filter and I have to rescue it. Hard to do because my eyes glaze over as they flit past all the e-mails about prescription drugs I can get online (without a prescription) or the inheritance someone from some foreign country that I’m not related to and have never met has left me.

My new e-mail address rarely receives SPAM – probably because I’ve been a little more judicious when signing up for e-mail newsletters and I don’t just give out my e-mail address willy-nilly anymore.

Ah well. Hopefully this latest attempt to get my old e-mail address off all these lists will work. And all I can say is that Google better never go out of business or I might have to give up e-mailing altogether! Yeah, right. Like I could do without my daily celebrity gossip update!

Oh, and to my dear friend Joe? PLEASE change my e-mail address! It’s not funny anymore...

Clumsy Jane - Part Two

So yesterday I wrote about Clumsy Jane and how she seemed determined to wreak havoc in my life as she stumbled around breakin’ stuff. Fortunately, she seems to be satisfied with breaking one glass bowl and one wineglass and causing a few messy spills.

Now, however, she seems to be wreaking havoc on my clothes.

It started yesterday when I was sitting in the park minding my own business and eating my salad. Since Clumsy Jane had spilled half of it on the kitchen floor the night before, I didn’t have a whole lot of salad left in the bowl, so every bite counted.

What happened? Naturally, the first forkful landed on my shirt in a nice poppyseed dressing and lettuce-shaped configuration. Sigh. Not only that, but the first sip of water? On my shirt. Now COME ON. I figured I might as well just dump the entire contents of the salad bowl down the front of me and pour the bottle of water over my head…it would make quicker work of the destruction of my work clothes.

I didn’t – but mostly because I didn’t want to be known as the “Crazy Lady in Schiller Park.”

I briefly considered tucking a paper town into the collar of my shirt like a bib, but instead I did the thing where I held the bowl nearly to my lips so any errant piece of lettuce or garbanzo bean that escaped my fork would land back in the bowl and not on me. Had anyone been watching this display of salad-eating prowess they may still have thought of me as the “Crazy Lady in Schiller Park.”

Can’t win, can I?

Sadly, I think Clumsy Jane is infectious and I’ve shared with my husband because Clumsy Vince made a brief appearance yesterday as well. Either that, or Vince is such a loving husband that he’s willing to share everything with me? Nah. I think he was just dealing with his own Clumsy Vince moment.

First, he nearly cut off the tip of his finger as he was using a knife to separate two frozen hamburger patties. Fortunately, he wasn’t using the super deluxe lethal Ginsu knives that will shred metal merely by thinking about coming in contact with it. Had he been using one of those knives, well, I don’t even want to contemplate how our evening would have gone, but I’m quite sure we would have been spending most of it in the Emergency Room. Since he was using one of the old, crappy dull-as-butter knives, he merely created a small divot in his finger. Not that it didn’t hurt, I’m sure, but at least no body parts required reattachment. Small mercies, eh?

Next, he spilled some of his dinner down his shirt. Guess he must have wanted to match me since I hadn’t yet changed out of my lettuce- and poppyseed dressing-coated shirt. Hey, I figured I may as well wait until after dinner to change clothes. No sense in getting two outfits food-covered. Plus, I wanted to make sure when I put the shirt in the laundry that I remembered to spritz a little Shout on it, or else I’d have a permanent reminder of my salad eating experience in Schiller Park.

Anyway, it apparently is a well-known fact that the men in the Cordova clan spill food down their shirts. It’s just what they do. So perhaps Clumsy Vince was just a temporary apparition and we were just in status quo mode?

And hopefully I’m not going to take after the Cordova men in the family and food-spillage will become a daily event. My clothing budget is not that vast and I don’t like walkin’ around with permanent food stains on my outfits.

The good news is that so far today neither of us have injured ourselves, our belongings or our clothing…so I’m going to assume that we’ve seen the last of our Clumsy alter egos.

But it probably wouldn’t hurt to follow my friend Carrie’s advice to “keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times.” You never know when one of those lethal Ginsu knives will decide to spring out of the storage block and have a go at us…and I’m really not interested in spending time at the hospital having body parts re-attached!

Have a happy – and SAFE! – Tuesday!

Clumsy Jane Mode

You know how things seem to happen in three’s? Well, not for me, evidently. I seem to be working in multiples of three’s. I knocked over three things in a little over 24 hours and figured I should be done…but last night disproved that theory as I knocked over a fourth thing. Gosh, I’m getting tired of being clumsy. Not to mention that I’m tired of breaking things. Plus, I’m really tired of cleaning up stuff!

It all started on Friday morning when I went downstairs for breakfast before work. Last week was one of those weeks when I did not exactly bound out of bed to prepare myself for the day in enough time to have a leisurely breakfast. Instead, I stayed in bed until the last possible second and then rushed through my morning routine, sometimes even skipping – gasp! – the eye shadow application step. I made it downstairs with only a minute or two to spare for breakfast. Hey, what can I say? Some weeks are like that. Oh, all right, I’ll admit it – most weeks are like that! If I could sleep in every morning and show up at work sometime around 10:30, I’d be one happy camper!

Anyway, Vince had made us yogurt fruit smoothies for breakfast, which was smart on his part because I usually grab mine as I’m walking out the door and drink it on the way to work. The lid wasn’t yet on my insulated cup, which turned out to be disastrous. Before I even managed to take a sip, I knocked the glass over. Thick purplish-pink yogurt smoothie spread out all over the tablecloth, chargers, cloth napkins and everything else on the table.

Messes like that so early in the morning are not a good thing. I uttered a string of pretty inventive curse words and then pulled some paper towels off the roll to start the clean-up process. I was mentally kicking myself the whole time because it was an absolutely mess and I couldn’t believe I had done it. I mean, shouldn’t it be a pretty simple process to pick up a glass without knocking it over?

Vince, trying to be the voice of reason, calmly murmured some soothing words and helped clean up. Actually, he did most of the cleaning up because I was pretty ineffectual by that point.

Once he’d gathered up the dirty tablecloth and napkins, he cleaned off my messy insulated glass and shared some of his yogurt smoothie with me. Then he securely fastened the lid (!), and sent me on my way.

Surprisingly, I managed to keep it together at work. I neither shorted out my keyboard by knocking over my water glass nor upended a filing cabinet. And I was kind of proud of myself that I didn’t even kick over the trash can that was filled with those stupid packing peanuts. Woohoo – things were looking up.

Not so fast there, Skippy.

When I got home, we celebrated the end of the work week with a glass of wine. Yep, you guessed it. I knocked over my glass and it shattered. Mess #2 clean-up was all on me as Vince stayed safely in the kitchen. Well, he did hand me the dust pan and brush.

The thing is, he’d cleaned the tablecloth and napkins and re-set the dining room table and, in my distracted state, I hadn’t even noticed. Good husband…bad wife!

Anyway, while I picked up the pieces of glass, I mentally kicked myself some more. Owww. Mental bruises hurt. Who knew? But at least I managed to get all of the glass shards picked up without cutting myself. I’ll take mental bruises over actual wounds that require trips to the ER any day!

By this point, I was realizing that I should have poured my wine into a plastic sippy cup.

As it was, it finally got through my thick head that I was in Clumsy Jane Mode. Clumsy Jane appears in my life every so often just to keep me humble. Most of the time I think I’m fairly non-clumsy. But the last time she appeared, I think there were a half dozen wine glass fatalities.

So this time I vowed to be extra careful, especially now that we have some nice new wineglasses that replaced our hodgepodge assortment.

This careful attitude lasted approximately 7 minutes…until Clumsy Jane went to bed. I pulled one of the pillows off the bed – and knocked over a glass decorative lamp sitting on my bedside table. No, believe it or not, I did not break the decorative lamp (which made me extra happy as I really like that lamp). No, instead, the decorative lamp fell onto a decorative glass bowl on my end table…and broke it in two!

Sigh. But oh well, I could’ve broken both glass pieces and I didn’t. Plus, the decorative glass bowl broke in a couple of relatively clean pieces, so it wasn’t as much work to clean up as the wineglass was. And I wasn’t really crazy about that decorative glass bowl anyway.

By now I figured Clumsy Jane Mode had to be over. After all, that was three things – right?!

Guess not. Last night I was putting together our salads for lunch today…and knocked over my salad bowl. Pieces of lettuce, carrots, celery, garbanzo beans and olives went flying into the air and then landed on the kitchen floor in sort of a pretty heap. But a pretty messy heap, too. Sheesh!

Vince just wryly looked at me, shook his head, and handed me – yet again – the dustpan and brush. He didn’t even have to go out to the pantry to get it – I think he’s keeping it close at hand for me.

Really big sigh. But at least this time glass was not involved.

So now it’s a new week and I managed to get myself out the door without knocking over anything. Knock on wood that it stays that way, okay? We’re going to think positive and trust that Clumsy Jane has left the building.

But just the same, I think I’ll stay away from the glass-filled cabinet. And this evening? I’m fully prepared to drink my wine from a plastic sippy cup!

Procrastination

You know how as your life progresses, you realize there are things you kind of stink at – and then there are other things at which you’ve become quite proficient? Well, I realize I’m very, very good at something. Well, besides spelling.

And that thing is...procrastination.

Yes, it’s true. I’ve finally become an expert at something. In fact, I believe that I am the Queen of Procrastination. While I am sure there are many people out there vying for my title, I have honed my craft until it’s nearly perfect.

About the only thing I didn’t procrastinate on was my birth. Yep, that was about the only time in my life I showed up somewhere a little early. Probably I caused so much consternation being early that I vowed, at the tender age of 10 seconds, never to show up early anywhere ever again.

Apparently I took it to heart, too. I rarely show up at parties precisely at the start time printed on the invitation. In the back of my mind I think that parties nowadays are like parties from when I was in college, which meant that you could pretty much show up three days later and it would still be in full swing. If you actually showed up at the time the party was scheduled to start, you’d find no one but the hosts sitting around still thinking about making their beer-and-chips run.

And parties aren’t the only thing at which I procrastinate. Back in the day, I was very good at procrastinating on homework and book reports and such. It’d be the night before a 20-hour project was due and I’d decide to get started around 2AM. Somehow or other, I managed to pull off a good grade, so unfortunately I never learned the lesson about tackling a project early.

Sometimes this actually works in my favor in work situations. If I procrastinate on writing a letter or responding to something I really don’t want to respond to, I sometimes find that the situation resolves itself without any effort on my part. I take this as proof that procrastination is not always a bad thing.

I have aspirations of being well prepared ahead of time. I mean, I buy birthday cards weeks before the recipient’s birthday. That’s a good thing – right? Problem is, when it comes time to mail the card, I can’t remember where I put it. So then I’m left scrambling to find another appropriate card and it ends up being late. Probably I should just go out and buy all “Happy Belated Birthday” cards. It might save me a few bucks in the long run.

Getting ready to go somewhere is the worst, though. What happens is that I figure out the time I SHOULD leave and plan backwards from there. But inevitably something crucial comes up – like a rerun of Friends that I’ve already seen 53 times – and I miss my start time entirely. Then I recalculate the timing, but now have to rush around getting ready all the while grumbling that my hair is going to look – once again – like crap.

That’s usually the worse case scenario, though. Most of the time I manage to get ready more or less on time – and then I literally fly down the stairs and out the door with seconds to spare on my self-imposed schedule. The only problem with this method is that I never before had to allow for the “husband factor.”

Husbands, you see, are dressed and ready to go approximately 3.5 seconds after they shut off the water in the shower. They can leave the house with their hair dripping wet and it’s okay. That is so not right! Women, by comparison, are still standing in the shower 3.5 seconds after they’ve shut the water off. They’re trying not to drip on the rug on the bathroom floor because a damp rug is not pleasant to walk on. They are carrying on an internal debate about which moisturizer to use depending upon the atmospheric conditions while simultaneously re-thinking the outfit they selected three weeks prior when they received the invitation in the first place.

The problem with husbands being ready to go 3.5 seconds after their shower is that they then figure they have plenty of time to start a project while they wait for their wives to get ready. Said project may involve power tools, which is not a good thing. Or it might simply involve sandwich meat and condiments, which is confusing as the event they’re heading to most likely involves food.

When I do the flying down the stairs thing and snag my purse on my way out the door, I take Vince completely by surprise. He is usually sitting at his computer thinking about starting another game of online backgammon since he’s waiting for me anyway. He knows that we’re getting close to the time we absolutely must leave, but mere seconds before he heard the hair dryer so he figures he has the time. Not so much. I mean, when I’m ready, I’m ready – and it’s time to leave. NOW.

So when he sees me fly by, he starts the process of shutting down his computer. Then he gets up, walks over to the basket where his keys, cell phone and money clip are stored and he fills his pockets with these items. I am, meanwhile, standing at the door, or worse - at the car - tapping my foot and getting increasingly frustrated. But he calmly puts on his shoes and only then is he ready to walk out the door. Problem is that now we’re late and I’m cranky.

I’m thinking I should probably incorporate a “Two Minute Warning” into the schedule so he knows where I am in the process and he can prepare accordingly. That would be the fair and right thing to do.

Alas, I can’t usually tell that I’ll be ready two minutes hence. Sometimes the gods of Women’s Wear Daily work in my favor and I’m able to get ready with nary a clothing snafu nor a hairstyling glitch. But there are other times that “stuff” happens. Like the shoes I’ve selected don’t exactly match the top I’m wearing and I’m trying to find last-minute alternatives. Or I sneeze just as I’m applying waterproof mascara, which means I have to take a powerwasher to remove all the black smudges under my eyes and start the whole makeup application process over.

We have a couple weddings coming up soon and that puts me in a tizzy. Because, you know, you actually have to arrive at the church a half hour BEFORE the time stated on the invitation. It’s enough to give a girl like me an ulcer. Maybe Vince and I should do a practice run this weekend with the Two Minute Warning to see how we do. Or…maybe not. We still have a couple weeks.

Eh. Think I’ll decide later…