Introducing Guest Blogger: Me

Sun, 7 Mar 2010 22:26:19 -0500

OK, so my sister Pam was supposed to guest-write my blog on Saturday. But we went to Miami Beach and had too many mojitos to organize thoughts or anything else, so we postponed it until Sunday. She sat down to write it after I promised to set her up with a bonus glass of wine late on Sunday night. She wrote a few paragraphs, deleted them, wrote a few more, deleted them and said, “I can’t do this.” The rest of us were watching the Oscars and talking, and hardly noticed she was even at the computer.

She of course could so do this. If it was a matter of not enough wine, I could have accommodated her. We’ve been making daily runs to Winn Dixie during this sisters’ get-together to buy reinforcements. (They’ve been showing their appreciation by putting all the Kendall Jackson on sale all week.)

Truth be told, I’m happy to sit here at 12:30 a.m. Monday and write this short blog post. My sisters are multi-talented women to be reckoned with. Even my mother-in-law said, “I’m sick of hearing about how creative your sisters are.” I’ve written about my sisters before. Among the fun we’re having this week: We’ve been to a quilt shop and bought supplies to make a couple different things; we’re making the envelope liners for my niece’s wedding invitations; they took pictures of designer clothes, bedding and linens in upscale shops so they can go home to their basement sewing rooms and make them for a fraction of the cost; and they bought Italian writing paper to make stuff out of. It’s like shopping with Coco Chanel. I tag along like the sister that was switched at birth. Somewhere in a trailer, there’s a family saying, “What’s with little Miss Thang here, color contrast-coordinating the curtains with the placemats?”

So if I’m the only one willing to pour another glass of wine and write a blog at - what is it now . . . - 12:45 a.m., it makes me feel pretty good about myself. And a sisters’ get-together is all about self-esteem. If you end it with less than you started with, you’re not doing it right.

Pam said she wanted to write about our brother, who gets left out of a lot of these things, because he’s a boy. But we love him a lot and we probably should get the word out on that via the Internet. Then she said maybe she’d write about how women are so much better at bonding than men. (Most of our husbands have tried this sort of thing before with less success.) Then she was going to write about our childhoods and growing up in a working class neighborhood.

“Oh, keep it light,” someone said. We’re not dramatic or sentimental, and somebody who’s having trouble writing a blog isn’t going to get a lot of sympathy out of this crowd.

She kept it so light, her page was blank when she grabbed her wine glass and sat down to watch Jeff Bridges accept his Oscar.

Diane will accept sympathy cards when her sisters leave at diane.fitzparick@mac.com.

Goodwill? Greatwill, I’d Say

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 22:54:22 -0500

I went on another Goodwill shopping trip. I didn’t buy anything this time, but I did take pictures of some awesome finds, which, if I had had an extra 39 cents in my pocket, I might just have taken home.

They were having a big sale at Goodwill when we were there. Which means that things were so cheap, we were one step away from sanctioned looting. My mother-in-law bought a shirt and a Chinese pasta scooper and her bill came to $1.79. Shopping at Goodwill is surreal, it’s so cheap.

Don’t tell my husband that I went there or that I am writing this. He hates the fact that I shop at Goodwill and lives in fear that I will run into one of his coworkers, an attorney - not just our attorney, but any attorney - or a teller from our bank, who will think I’m one of those bipolar TV characters who act like they’re homeless but who are really quite well off.

I just had to share with you some of the things I saw on the shelves at Goodwill. My blogger’s self esteem is not high enough for me to whip out my real camera and snap, “I’m a blogger! Shove off!” when someone asks me why I’m taking pictures of a Jesus action figure. So I tried to surreptitiously take photos with my cell phone camera, while a little group of guys watched me and muttered “muy loco.” I don’t care. Now that I’m home, I can say with confidence, “I’m a blogger! Shove off!”

This little beauty claims to be a Personal Learning Machine but it looks a lot like a Roomba. “It’s a new toy every time” it claims in a little bit of a braggy tone, if you ask me. For almost $2, it should suck up dog hair balls while it teaches you your times tables.

A giant glass beaker filled with glass beads. If there is anything less useful and more impractical on this earth, I’ll swallow seven of the glass beads, including that big blue one.

Well, hello little guy! What are you doing so close to the edge there? Back up, little buddy! Move on back toward those dog tag wine charms and the cherub music box, sport!

There were tons of albums like this one at Goodwill. Gospel groups, “Kyu Sakamoto sings Sukiyaki and other Japanese hits,” old musicals I’ve never heard of, and one folk album that was autographed. The albums all smell like my mom’s basement and many of them have obviously been played dozens of times.

Extreme Yoga Naked Barbie finds herself on the shelf with the pots and pans and the Containers Not for Sale. The urge to reorganize the shelves at Goodwill are almost incontrollable.

And here’s home base for Naked Barbies, a basket that they must share with Matchbox cars and Transformers. For Barbie, being sent to Goodwill must be like going off to Europe with your girlfriends but then getting kidnapped and turned into a sex slave chained naked to a pipe.

This is my favorite section of the Goodwill store, despite the mixed emotions I swim in every time I approach a book shelf. Will I find anything good? Will I find something that makes me doubt the core intelligence of humankind and question the wisdom of the publishing business? Will I someday find a book I’ve written on one of these book shelves? Will I buy it just so no one else sees it there?

Goodwill is the largest source of dyed-to-match bridesmaids’ shoes in the free world. Needless to say, there are no disposable footies to try on these shoes. You try them on at your own risk, and you buy the shoes and all the foot fungus that comes with it.

Action Figure Jesus with pose-able limbs was with the stuffed animals and nowhere near the naked Barbie bin, I’m happy to report.

Figurine of a boy holding an orange traffic cone with a bandage on his thumb. This might be even less useful than the giant beaker of glass beads. I’ll start swallowing now.

Comment here or contact Diane directly at diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com.

Dancing Without Stars

Tue, 2 Mar 2010 23:28:28 -0500

My husband and I went to another really fun event where people got up and danced and all I had to do was look over at him and he got a guilty look on his face and said, “But I had to go to Home Depot!” That’s his excuse for not taking salsa dance lessons with me eight years ago. He was so busy shopping for home improvement products every Saturday that he couldn’t take an hour out of a weekend for eight weeks in order to do sexy dances with his wife.

Signing up for dance lessons was my idea. Mine and the editor of the paper I was working for at the time, who wanted me to write a Reporter’s Notebook column on taking a dance lesson. The Reporter’s Notebook was a fun piece that the reporters would take turns writing about experiences they had around town. My editor gave me a choice: Dance lessons, sky diving or gourmet cake decorating.

Before that, my experiences with dancing were:

1. All but ruining my cousin Sandy’s wedding reception by crazy dancing with my cousin Jimmy to the point where my pink chiffon flower girl gown got all torn up and dirty, we both got “overheated” and got yelled at. I was 6.
2. Dancing barefoot near broken beer bottles in a bar in Kent, where Buckeye Biscuit was playing and I was all caught up in country rock love. I was 20. Give me a break.
3. Polka dancing successfully throughout my ethnic childhood and early adulthood until I tried to teach my husband the polka at a family wedding and we fell and embarrassed ourselves silly.

My sisters and I invented a dance, called The Proud Mary, because it’s the dance that all brides do at all weddings when the band plays those ridiculous wedding reception songs. The Proud Mary is like the international symbol of brides. A bride of any size and shape can be doing The Twist, The Cha-Cha, moves from Footloose or The Jerk and it doesn’t matter - all you see is The Proud Mary. They can’t help it. Their gowns are covering their legs like a confection-covered fashion doll in a Barbie cake. With no visible leg action, a bride dancing is dancing The Proud Mary, just by virtue of her arm action. My sisters and I request Proud Mary at all the weddings we go to and then we invite the bride up to dance with us. It’s family fun for all. (I had one DJ tell me once, “It’s weird. We normally have people come up and request that we not play Proud Mary.”)

When I signed up my husband and I for dance classes for my Reporter’s Notebook, I secretly hoped to actually learn how to dance the salsa and swing. The teachers were Sy and Mimi, who had just left big city life in Manhattan and “retired” to the Jersey suburbs to share their love of the dance. Sy had been a New York City policeman, a landlord/property owner, and a karate instructor, before landing his fourth career as Mimi’s dance partner. I always got the impression that he was on the lam or in the witness protection program.

When my husband started to refuse to go to dance class, I went by myself a couple of times, but had to pair up with either Sy or Mimi and I hated to break those two lovebirds up. And I didn’t want to be the subject of their after-class conversation.

As a result of that failure, we spent last Saturday night watching other people dance, my husband started talking about Home Depot, and the next day we ended up with a new patio table umbrella and new outdoor lights. If it weren’t for the dance classes we never took, we’d never get anything done around the house.

For an up-close and personal look at The Proud Mary, send wedding invitations to Diane at diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com.

Kids, I Love You, But Are You Still Here?

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 07:37:06 -0500

I’m definitely thinking about writing another book, especially since I only have one more year until my contract runs out on this job as Stay-at-Home Mom. (I’m pretty sure you’re forced into retirement after the last child moves out of the house.)

I came to this decision after the wild, unprecedented success of my first book - the one in which 100 percent of the six people who read it didn’t have anything negative to say (Three of them had nothing to say, but who’s keeping track? Certainly not the other three people. I haven’t heard from them in years. I think they’re avoiding me, hoping I won’t bother them with my next book.)

And since we’re all supposed to listen to the dolt who said, “Write what you know,” I’ve decided to write about Empty Nesters. Of course that’s just a front for the secret and real topic of the book: Being the Dreaded Parent of Older Kids.

When my kids were little, whenever a new family would move into the neighborhood, we would watch with anxiety through the windows as the moving van was unloaded, watching for Big Wheels, play kitchens, furniture with duct tape on it, boxes marked STUFFED AMINALS - Handel wif care - all signs that there were little kids coming.

When a neighborhood house gets inhabited with little kids, it’s a win-win for everybody, and not just the families in the neighborhood that are looking for playmates for their own little kids. Retired, empty nesters are no fun. They’re old and boring and they don’t have any good toys or snack food to borrow if you run out. They’re rarely home and when they are, they emit virtually no noise or activity of any kind. They could be dead in there for months and no one in the hood would know. Bo-o-o-o-ring.

So imagine my surprise when I turned into one of those blah-kins. My kids gradually and steadily grew up and moved out of the house. Wait a second, let me check something . . . oh, yeah, I still do have one child at home, but that hardly counts. She’s in high school and she won’t play Barbies with me anymore.

Being the parent of older kids is still somewhat new territory for me. I haven’t yet mastered Discouraging Promiscuity, Piercings and Harry Buffalo Parties 101. But I excel at Minding My Own Damn Business. I don’t know what to buy the newlyweds as mother of the groom, but I have a couple of appropriate outfits to wear to my grandchild’s christening.

Some of my other skills are going to have to be sent to the archives. I still know origami and knot tying from being a Cub Scout den leader. I can tie a shoelace while holding a baby, and I can child-proof a house in 7 minutes flat. I have good recipes for Jell-O squares and rice crispy treats shaped like teddy bears. None of that will do me any good when I retire from being retired.

Which is why I think I should write a book about how to be a parent of older kids empty nester. Because while I might not know what I’m doing in that arena yet, I plan to find out pretty quickly and I’d love to share my findings with you - while making fun of everyone who’s not doing it right, of course.

Diane Laney Fitzpatrick has lots of time on her hands as she procrastinates starting her new project. Send her friendship angels and other forwards from your coworkers to diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com.

For the Love of Supplies

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:28:21 -0500

My mother-in-law and I were running errands the other day and she was going into Sally’s, the beauty supply store where average everyday people off the street can buy the stuff that hairdressers use in their salons.

“Do you need anything from Sally’s?” she asked.

“No.”

“Do you want to come in with me?”

“Abso-freaking-lutely yes, I do!” I said.

I said I didn’t need anything from Sally’s. No one said anything about not wanting to go in there and touch stuff.

Why? Because I am a supply fanatic. I love supplies and if I had a husband who didn’t once a year check our joint bank account, I would spend every penny of his hard-earned paycheck on enough supplies to run a good-sized office/salon/studio/workshop/school/out of our home.

Beauty supplies, office supplies, kitchen supplies, tool bench supplies and I don’t have a tool bench, and sewing supplies and I don’t sew.

I taught CCD for 10 years only because I wanted an excuse to buy gold stars, bulletin board die-cuts, and a lesson plan book. I may be the only person in heaven who can say she made it there not on good deeds but because of an obsession with teacher supplies.

You can imagine my relationship with the employees at Staples.

I think I inherited this from my mom, who was a fanatic over brightly colored plastic supplies. It was during the ‘70s when little trendy speciality stores were cropping up all over Belmont Avenue in Liberty Township, Ohio, and my mom became their favorite customer. She started off with a set of bright red plastic measuring cups. Then tropical colored giant paper clips. Soon she had to buy the bright yellow plastic stacked bins-on-wheels to put in the kitchen to store all of her brightly colored plastic supplies.

I used to fantasize about having a business/cubicle/workshop/storeroom where I could put all of her BCPSs or, in a perfect world, open up Brightly Colored Plastic Supply World and sell the actual things that I love.

In my first out-of-town job I knew a woman who was not much older than me, but who had a wealthy family in town. Her father set her up in her own graphic design business. Her apartment was a duplex full of antiques and oil paintings and hardwood floors, but her studio looked like something out of the Ikea catalog. All glossy unfinished wood, chrome and red stuff. I thought she had it all and was very jealous of her and her shiny supplies. Until she got caught having an affair with her best friend’s husband and her own fiance turned out to be a dick. (I saw him get drunk at a local bar once and get up on top of the table, try to stand up and fall.) That’s when, at 22, I learned that just because someone has a cool house with lots of dreamy supplies doesn’t mean that I should want to be her.

In my last house, I had two desks - one in the study and one in the kitchen - and a spacious craft supply area in the basement. I had so many supplies that I started a new obsession: containers to keep supplies in. I regularly went to Michael’s with my 40% OFF coupons to buy baskets, bins, boxes and bags in coordinating colors with labels to organize my supplies. That’s when I realized that my love for supplies is really just so I can put them in containers, sort them and organize them. It’s my favorite part of owning them. I’m like an 18-month old with a pile of blocks and a couple of Tupperware containers. Then I moved to Florida, lost my big house and basement and I threw a back-arching, arm-flinging tantrum.

So that’s why I didn’t buy the set of cuticle nippers or the croc clips or the salon client data profile organizer refills from Sally’s. Nowhere to store them. Except for a few brightly colored plastic containers I inherited from my mom.

Comment here or send a private critique to diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com.