Author Archives: Kathleen Fox

“Beam It Out of Here, Scotty”

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

You'd never guess it from looking at my office or the guest room (it's really time to invite some overnight guests so I have some incentive to get the leftover Christmas wrap and other clutter out of there), but we've been getting rid of stuff. It's time for some end-of-year sorting and clearing out. Okay, make that end-of-years, plural, starting with, oh, about 1992.

We've found the occasional almost-forgotten treasure and a certain amount of just plain junk. Most of the stuff, though, falls into that troublesome category of things that are obsolete or unused, but that are still too good to throw out. We have no need for them whatsoever, but theoretically at least, we might—someday. Or someone might. We just don't know when, how, or why we might ever use them.

Of course, that theoretical potential is exactly why they've been sitting around all this time gathering dust.

Why doesn't somebody hurry up and invent a recycling/transmogrifying machine? It would operate somewhat like the transporters from Star Trek. The machine would disassemble something down to its very atoms, but instead of putting it back together the way it was, it would reassemble those atoms into something new.

You'd put your old stuff—an IBM Selectric typewriter from 1979, say—into the machine, program the right settings, and press "start." After some whirring and beeping and a few flashing lights, out the other end would come a new laptop, a couple of e-readers, and a set of stainless steel tableware for eight. Oh, and that nine-sixteenths wrench that's missing from the socket set.

Just think of the possibilities. Outgrown jeans and old tee-shirts could be transformed into this year's fashion, or maybe a new pair of Carhartts coveralls. An old bicycle could become a new skateboard. Unwanted Christmas gifts could be transformed into just the thing you'd have bought for yourself. The lighted plastic "pig driveway markers" I got in a white elephant exchange could become a new pair of dress shoes that didn't pinch my toes. Fruitcake or gingersnaps could be transformed into dark chocolate.

Now, that would be regifting.

Of course, there are still a few technical details to iron out before such a machine could ever be perfected. And if it were ever to be made workable on a practical scale, it would completely disrupt the world's economic systems. We certainly wouldn't want to do that, given how perfectly everything seems to be working right now.

So it may be a while before the "Atomic Recyler" is on the market. In the meantime, does anyone out there want a perfectly good Selectric typewriter?

Categories: Just For Fun | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments

Dreaming of a Redneck Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

The man next to me was snoring. Thank goodness it wasn't that awful kind of snore that builds to a crescendo, then pauses for a few moments to prolong the suspense until, about the time the weary listener has resolved that tomorrow—no, make that today, it's 2:37 a.m.—is definitely the day to call the sleep apnea clinic, the hapless sleeper gives a strangled snort, gasps for breath, and starts in on the next measure.

This was a regular, rhythmic snore that wasn't really very loud. It probably wouldn't have kept me awake had I been in my own bed.

Of course, in my own bed I could also have easily poked him in the ribs with a loving elbow and asked him sweetly to roll over. That wasn't an option here. For one thing, I wasn't quite sure who the guy was.

Besides, we weren't in the same room. My lower bunk with its hard mattress was on one side of a thin wall and his was on the other. So much for sleeping like a baby at the annual family Christmas gathering. (Actually, I was sleeping like a baby—the one next door was awake several times during the night, too.)

Sleeping arrangements aside, here is the important question for this year's party: Did this qualify as a redneck Christmas?

Possibly. Here are the contributing factors:

1. We were at a hunting lodge in the South (well, South Dakota). It was decorated in Modern Taxidermy with mounted deer heads (the one with only one antler looked embarrassed), elk heads, turkeys, bobcats, and pheasants. One of the gifts in the joke gift exchange was a set of mounted antlers—from a deer personally shot by the giver, Great-Grandma (who was merely Grandma back when she shot it).

2. Grandma wouldn't have been up for any deer hunting this year though. A fall on the slippery back step a couple days earlier had left her stiff, sore, and with stitches in her arm. She joked that she hadn't exactly been run over by a reindeer; she just felt like it.

3. The entertainment included the usual board games and even a little bit of televised football, but the featured activity on Saturday afternoon was target shooting, with coaching from Great-Grandpa. Shooters included most of the granddaughters as well as the grandsons and sons-in-law. The great-grandkids are still too small to manage a shotgun, but they helped by picking up empties and unbroken targets. Next year, maybe.

4. The feature story of the weekend was the encounter some of us had with a dead skunk when we went for a walk. Someone suggested taking our picture with it, like the picture taken with the dead porcupine a few years ago (don't ask—that's a different story). As we approached, however, the "dead" skunk lifted its head and looked at us. An unhealthy-looking skunk out in broad daylight is not a good sign. We scrambled to a safe distance, my sister used her cell phone to call her husband the veterinarian, and he came and shot the critter. He also saw that it was caught by one leg in a trap. That immediately changed our perception of the skunk. Shooting it, instead of a necessity to get rid of a potential threat, became a necessity to put the poor thing out of its misery. (We skipped the picture.)

Arguments against this qualifying as a Redneck Christmas:

1. None of the in-laws were related except by marriage.

2. Too many teeth.

3. Too many e-readers.

4. Too many college degrees.

But I'll let you decide. Redneck Christmas, or just another ordinary family get-together?

And while you're making up your mind, have a Merry Christmas!

Categories: Family, Wild Things | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

It’s a Wrap–Or Not

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

Crisp ribbons perfectly coordinated with elegant wrapping paper. Sharp, even corners. Edges of the paper perfectly trimmed and turned under. Tiny bits of invisible tape discreetly applied in precisely the right places. Some Christmas packages are so beautiful that you hesitate to even mar their perfection by opening them. The givers of these gifts are so skillful that they make gift wrapping into fine art.

I am not one of these people.

(Let's pause for just a minute to let all of you who know me get over your surprise.) Okay, that didn't take long.

I do, actually, have a piece of paper stashed in a closet somewhere certifying that I graduated from college with a major in art. It might seem logical, then, that I would be the artistic type when it comes to packages. Nope. I must have registered late the semester they offered Gift Wrapping 101.

My packages tend to come out lopsided. True, this may be partly because I never seem to have boxes the right size for the gifts. I tend to roll things up in several layers of paper or recycled plastic bags, creating odd-sized, lumpy parcels that I then try to camouflage with wrapping paper.

Even when I do use boxes, though, I never quite achieve that professional designer look. The wrong side of the paper always peeks out somewhere. The tape always shows. I never quite manage to cut the paper perfectly straight, even though my primary objective when I buy wrapping paper is to get a design with straight lines on it. And let's not even talk about ribbons. I think I used to have a bag of used bows somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it for several years.

I was intrigued, then, to read an article in this week's paper about decorator who teaches a class on creative gift wrapping. This woman makes her own boxes. She makes bows out of scrap ribbons. She creatively recycles materials from around the house. Among her suggestions for wrapping homemade canned goods was to use a hollowed-out piece of birch log. On her list of essential gift-wrapping supplies is something called "raffia ribbon."

I have no clue what raffia ribbon even is. I suspect from some of her suggested uses for it, however, that if I did encounter some I might commit a decorating faux pas by calling it "twine."

Obviously, this woman takes her gift-wrapping seriously. It's a good thing I didn't know about her class in time to sign up. I'd probably have flunked.

Or maybe not. She did have kind words for recycling by using the same gift bags year after year. And she said a popular style for wrapping this year is "shabby chic."

I don't know about "chic." "Shabby," though? That part, I can certainly do.

Categories: Just For Fun | 5 Comments

In the Doghouse

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

The first do-it-yourself carpentry project I remember attempting, when I was too young to know any better, was a stick horse. To start out with, I had a wooden head. (That would have been the horse's head—and aren't you ashamed of that unkind thought you just had?) It was cut out of plywood, and I think it may have been something I painted in school.

Anyway, my self-assigned task was to attach the head to a broomstick to make a complete horse. I remember working away, one eighth of a turn of a screwdriver at a time, to screw the two pieces of wood together, until I simply couldn't turn the screws any further. I had no idea that a real carpenter would have drilled holes first.

Another time I started to build a doghouse. I had the idea that you needed to start with a frame and then put boards on the sides, but that was about the extent of my architectural skills. I got four scrap two-by-fours nailed together into a crooked rectangle for the base, and then got stuck when I couldn't figure out how to attach the uprights at the corners. I had maxed out my skills. Since I was scrounging scraps of wood, I ran out of material about the same time, and abandoning the whole project seemed like the only good idea left. You might say the doghouse never got off the ground.

Quite a few years later, as a beginning adult with a toolbox of my very own and a college degree (including a major in art which, unfortunately, didn't encompass anything useful like "Introduction to Doghouse Design"), I set out to build a house for our outdoor cat.

The style was Early Grocery Box. It consisted of one cardboard box inside another with insulating material stuffed in between. I cut a nice round (well, almost round) door into one side and put a couple of towels inside for flooring. I even gave the whole thing a coat of blue paint for waterproofing before I put it in the coziest corner of the front porch. It was kind of cute, in its own lopsided way.

As far as I know, the cat never spent a single night—heck, not a single minute—inside the house. Maybe he didn't like the color.

Or maybe he was too embarrassed to be seen going into the uneven little door. Being a smart cat, maybe he had noticed the difference in connotation the English language gives to "doghouse" and "cathouse." As in, "He was in the doghouse for a long time after his wife found out about his visit to the cathouse."

Wondering about the peculiarities of language may not be any more satisfying than trying to build doghouses or cathouses, but it certainly is easier. I'm a lot less likely to stab myself with a screwdriver, for one thing. And any half-finished constructions that don't work out? All I have to do is hit "delete" on my computer, and all the evidence of my false starts and miscalculations magically disappears.

If only I could do the same with the half-started creations on my sewing machine and my workbench. Somebody really needs to invent a universal "delete" button, something like a television remote. It would be the perfect tool for wannabe crafters like me who persist in imagining they can create vast projects with half-vast skills.

Categories: Remembering When, Words for Nerds | Tags: , | 1 Comment

Drop the Purse and Back Away Slowly . . .

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

A long time ago, I remember reading something in a murder mystery that made me want to slam the book shut and throw it against the nearest wall. No, it wasn't a factual error, such as having a character load a clip into a revolver or locating Mount Rushmore in North Dakota. Nor was it a case of the previously strong-minded and capable heroine walking blindly into deadly peril when any person with an ounce of common sense would simply have called the cops.

This was even worse.

The author described the contents of a female character's purse. It contained a comb, a lipstick, a compact, a few dollars, and a handkerchief (clean, of course, and neatly folded). That was it.

A male author might possibly have been forgiven this editorial faux pas—though it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect him to have done a little basic research. This author, however, was a woman. She knew better.

The pristine purse she described had no odd pennies in the bottom. No wadded-up tissues, used and otherwise. No random grocery lists. No wrappers from restaurant after-dinner mints. No cough drops so old they had melted to their paper wrappers. No car keys. No bobby pins, nail file, or lip balm. No pens, working or not. No lonely mates to long-lost earrings. No napkins with mysterious phone numbers or to-do reminders written on them. Not even, somewhere in the bottom, a wallet or a checkbook. (No cell phone, either, but that was okay because they hadn't been invented yet.)

As I recall, the character was looking through her purse in search of something that might help her escape from a dangerous situation. She didn't find anything useful.

Served her right, too. A real woman would have been equipped to pick a lock with a bobby pin or fend off the bad guy with a nail file. Or at least try to choke him with a couple of stuck-together cough drops.

Categories: Just For Fun | 1 Comment

Don’t You Turn My Brown Eyes Blue

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

"If you read it on the Internet, it ain't necessarily so." That's my motto when it comes to judging the veracity of stories that get passed along online. From outrageous political or economic "facts" to heartwarming stories about sick children, brave rescues, or baby ducklings being adopted by mama mountain lions, my attitude ranges from healthy skepticism to plain old-fashioned cynicism.

Unfortunately, the following story showed up in enough reputable news sites that it appears to be true. A certain Dr. Gregg Homer claims to have developed a laser procedure that will permanently turn brown eyes blue by removing the outermost layer of pigment. It may possibly come as no surprise that he is from that Silicon Valley of cosmetic surgery, southern California.

Dr. Homer, by the way, is a former entertainment lawyer and law professor who has a science degree from Stanford but is not an ophthalmologist. Maybe that's why I have trouble believing his assurances that this procedure wouldn't cause any inconvenient side effects. Like infections, say. Or increased risks of glaucoma or macular degeneration.

What was truly discouraging, though, as I skimmed through news reports on this story, was the number of brown-eyed people who appeared to be interested in this procedure. Dr. Homer's own estimate was 17%. It's easy to disregard that number as biased, of course. Still, comments on several of the stories included a surprising number who thought changing their brown eyes to blue was the greatest idea since Botox.

Until reading those comments, I didn't realize blue eyes were supposed to be sexier and more beautiful than brown eyes. Who knew? Here all these years I thought my lack of dates in high school was due to my shyness and lack of social skills.

Or maybe the Old Blue Eyes wannabes have the same mindset as Dr. Homer, who was quoted in a couple of reports about the eyes being "windows to the soul." In his view, light-colored eyes have the advantage of being less opaque and therefore are more "open" windows.

Maybe so. Having been lied to over the years as effectively by blue-eyed children as brown-eyed ones, I have my doubts.

As the sixth grandchild in my extended family, and the sixth girl, I was told as a child by my grandmother that "the only reason we brought you home when we found out you were a girl was your pretty brown eyes."

Setting aside the various layered messages in that statement, I'll just say this: if brown eyes were good enough for my blue-eyed grandmother, they're more than good enough for me. Opaque or not, I'm keeping mine in their original condition. If I want to invite you to look into my soul, I'll let you know.

Categories: Living Consciously | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Doc Will See You Now

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

Waiting with eager anticipation for the dental hygienist to summon me, I was browsing through a magazine. Not knowing it was going to provide me with a target—er, material—I didn't especially notice its name, but it had something to do with women's health. It was obviously targeted at a demographic other than hopelessly last-century me, with its bright colored frenetic layout and breezy editorial style.

According to a snappy little article about skin health, suspicious moles, spots, or rashes were all reasons to consult your "derm." After a couple of encounters with this truncated usage, I figured out this was just-between-us-girls shorthand for the doctor a more dignified age would have called a "dermatologist."

Another article, or possibly an ad—the distinction between content and commerce wasn't clear—made me painfully aware that the professional to be consulted for reproductive and pelvic issues is now a "gyno." "Gynecologist" is so old-fashioned, not to mention hard to spell and time-consuming to text.

Presumably, a woman might also need to consult other medical specialists from time to time. A gastro, perhaps, or a surg. Even, for more serious issues, possibly a cardio or an onco. Her children, of course, would be taken to a ped or perhaps a pedia. Her parents' failing hearing might lead them to consult an audio. Those annual eye exams would be done by an optho—so much easier to pronounce than the clumsy "ophthalmologist." An ortho would be the person to see if you broke an ankle, especially if the accident happened while you were fertilizing the lawn. On occasion, it might even be necessary to see a uro or even a procto.

I didn't have a chance to find out whether any of these other professionals were mentioned in the magazine. The hygienist interrupted me before I got that far. It was my turn to see the dent.

Just in time, too. I was almost stressed enough from all the amputated English to need a visit to the psych.

(Yes, I know. We take our animals to the vet, and we've done so for years. That's different. Don't ask me how or why; it just is.)

Categories: Words for Nerds | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

Sanitizing Art

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

Did you hear the one about the cleaning lady who washed away part of a million-dollar piece of art?

No, really. That's exactly what happened. According to an Associated Press item in our local paper last week, a cleaner in Berlin's Ostwall museum "scrubbed away a patina intended to look like a dried rain puddle." The painted puddle was part of a work by an artist named Martin Kippenberger called "When it Starts Dripping from the Ceiling."

In my experience, combining money and dripping substances in the same sentence usually takes the form of, "Here's what fixing this is going to cost you." Within that context, maybe it's not completely unreasonable that the value given for this piece of art was $1.1 million. Whether many people would have actually paid that much for it, even before the unfortunate puddle-scrubbing incident, is another question.

Not, let me hasten to add, that am unfeeling enough to make light of the pain involved when one's patina is scrubbed away. Quite the contrary. I've actually experienced such a loss myself, years ago. My then mother-in-law was visiting, and she spent half an afternoon and several steel wool pads scouring every last bit of the seasoning off my iron skillet. She was so proud of her accomplishment that I didn't have the heart to tell her that black coating on the skillet was supposed to be there.

But back to poor Mr. Kippenberger's vanished puddle. What is art intended to do? Generate an emotional response in the viewer. Obviously, that's what happened in this case. The cleaning woman saw the puddle and had an emotional response—probably something like: "What inconsiderate, sloppy so-and-so left this big mess for me to clean up?" She acted on that response, thereby becoming part of the process of creation. You might say she took the artwork to a new level.

Therefore, if it was worth $1.1 million to start with, it seems to me somebody ought to pay her at least a couple of hundred thousand for her contribution. Which, I might point out, must have taken a lot of hard scrubbing.

But that's a matter for the cleaning woman, the museum, the owner of the artwork, and all their lawyers. In the meantime, at least I know what to do if winter gets here before the roofers do and our hail-damaged roof starts leaking. I'll just give the mess a catchy name, call it art, and slap a price tag on it. I'd start modestly, I think—$300,000 ought to be enough.

And I'll make sure to tell the cleaning woman not to touch it.

Categories: Just For Fun | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

Virtual Reality

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

We were traveling last weekend, and it was a struggle to live under such backward and primitive conditions for four whole days.

Sleeping on the floor? No, that wasn't the problem. The queen-sized air mattress was actually quite comfortable. Well, except for the second night, which got a bit squishy. By morning we had figured out that an air mattress left up for a couple of days tends to lose a little air. After we learned to top off the tank at bedtime, we were fine.

Having only one bathroom for four adults? Hey, we could manage. Members of this family have survived quite a few holiday visits where over a dozen people shared one bathroom, and people were still friendly by the time they went home.

No dishwasher? No problem. I rarely use the one we have at home.

Having the mailbox a quarter of a mile away? Great. It was a good excuse for a walk in the crisp fall air.

It's no problem to live without many of the comforts of home for a few days. It may even be good for one's character.

But there are limits. Here's where inconvenience morphed into real hardship:

Cell phone coverage. What coverage? From half a bar to no bars to the dreaded battery-eating "Searching System" message.

Internet access. Oh, it was there—we weren't quite as primitive as all that. But dial-up only. That's spelled S-L-O-W. Checking email was a project, waiting for a website to load provided ample time to memorize every stray piece of paper on the bulletin board, and downloading a photo was a long-term commitment.

Now that was roughing it.

For four whole days, no one could reach me on my cell phone. I could barely check my email once a day. I couldn't read my local paper online. Browsing Facebook? Forget it. Twitter? No way. Oh, wait, I don't Tweet anyway. Never mind.

Getting back to my familiar electronically in-touch world, I felt the relief of an addict who has just scored a long-overdue fix.

I checked my phone for messages. There weren't any. I checked my email. There was nothing that needed immediate attention. I checked Facebook. I hadn't missed any new pictures of grandkids.

For four whole days, I had been virtually out of virtual touch.

And nobody even noticed.

Categories: Just For Fun | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

The Most Expensive Knives in the Kitchen

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Kathleen Fox

The woman on the phone was friendly, polite, and persuasive. Her company sold air purifiers and would like to come to our house and show us one. The demonstration, she promised, would take no more than half an hour. There would be no pressure to buy. Oh, and by the way, just for taking the time to evaluate their product, we would receive as a gift a set of steak knives. "The same ones they use at Outback Steakhouse."

Having a fireplace, a wood stove, and some allergies, we had been considering getting an air filter. Besides, we could use some better steak knives. We made an appointment.

The young man who showed up at our door two days later was enthusiastic, friendly, and very good-looking. Also, apparently, strong, based on the number of big boxes he hauled in from his car.

The first thing he unpacked was the air purifier, ultrasonic or ionic or ironic or whatever it was. He also pulled out a handy-dandy little air quality meter. Its blinking red numbers, he explained, revealed the alarmingly high levels of unhealthy particles in our air.

He set up the air purifier in the bathroom, shut the door, and left it to scrub the air. I hoped it might scrub the tub and the sink while it was at it.

While we were waiting for the air to become pure, he started unpacking the remaining boxes and assembling—a vacuum cleaner. The nice young woman on the phone had not mentioned a vacuum cleaner. We had expressed no interest in a vacuum cleaner. Oh, but this one, he said, was actually a multi-filtration, super-sensitive, supersonic, sanitizing cleaning system.

We politely told him that was very interesting. We also pointed out that (a), we have mostly hardwood floors and (b), we employ a wonderful woman, with a vacuum cleaner of her very own, who comes in every other week to clean house. So (c), we were not even remotely interested in buying a vacuum cleaner.

He was undeterred. His machine was so spectacular, so much more effective than any merely mortal vacuum cleaner, that we simply had to see how it worked. It would only take a few minutes.

My partner, as he admitted after it was too late, was curious. Not about the machine itself so much as the sales pitch. I wasn't curious. Not in the least. But I was trying to be polite. Besides, I hadn't seen any sign of the steak knives yet.

So we let the nice young man demonstrate. He cleaned spots on the underside of the rug. He cleaned spots on the couch. He used up a couple of dozen white paper filters to prove to us just how dirty our house really was. (I've always wondered who decided that telling people they live in filth and squalor would be an effective sales technique.)

After a long, long time, he took his air quality meter into the bathroom, where the air filter had been working away. The meter—surprise, surprise!—showed almost no nasty particles in the air. I was disappointed to see that the sink and tub had not been scrubbed along with the air.

By now the 30-minute appointment had stretched to more than two hours. My partner's curiosity had long since been satisfied. Dinnertime was approaching. I was getting hungry, and when I get hungry I get irritable.

So maybe it wasn't the ideal time for the salesman to quote us the price. It was high. We said sorry, no. He went outside to "let us talk it over." We still said no.

He got mad. Turned out he was upset because we wasted his time. Excuse me? I didn't remember hearing us beg him to drag out his vacuum cleaner.

At least, before he packed up his stuff and left in a huff (well, actually, he left in a Honda Civic), he plunked the steak knives down on the table.

We've used the knives several times. They're okay. But next time we need any kitchen utensils, I think I'll just go to Wal-Mart.

Categories: Just For Fun, Money Matters | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

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