Sow There!

I don't understand why President's Day is a holiday. Half of us don't get it off as a holiday. I think they make up these holidays so that people who work for the government have a day off to shop. It certainly helps in my industry since they have a lot of advertising inserts for mall sales. But the people who work at Gottschalks and Mervyn's certainly don't get the day off.
What's up with that? If it's a holiday why do only certain people get the day off?
Nobody in government or at the city work on these holidays. Heck, they don't even give parking tickets on these days.
And which presidents are we celebrating?

When I was a kid there were two presidents days, I think Washington and Lincoln. Then they combined them or something.
Funny how the president's birthday always comes on a Monday. If we were truly honoring the past president wouldn't we actually celebrate on their birthday?

But that's right, we're Americans, so we just make up what we want to fit the shopping days.

At least with 4th of July you can't fudge. They’re already set up for this by calling it “Independence Day.”
I predict that during my lifetime Independence Day will be switched to Monday.

I don't want to discourage holidays. Somebody was really smart to make Thanksgiving on a Thursday. That most certainly guarantees that you also get Friday off. How else are you supposed to travel down to the Bay Area and back without missing another day of work?
I'm all for holidays. Why don't we get the unions and the government workers to rally for current presidents' birthdays? Hey, why not add a "future presidents day," which I'm sure would always fall on a Monday. I'm leading the call to add Oprah's birthday, certainly that must rank high in our nation's values.
Oh wait ....... she's not dead.

Folks, if we did this right, we could have holidays three times a week. Mondays are always popular, why not make it Monday through Wednesday. I'm game. If only I worked in an industry that actually celebrated these holidays.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We went to Feather Falls Casino again last night. They had a Led Zeppelin tribute band called Led Zepagain. They actually sounded pretty good, and sounded a lot like Led Zeppelin, only I realized that music is difficult to dance to.

It's more stoner, trip out and rock your head music.

But it was funny to watch all the gray-haired guys rocking their heads up and down like some collection of bobble dolls.

The band was dressed up like the actual bandmembers. I don't think they were wearing wigs, not with all the head banging that occurred, so they must keep their hair like that for their "career." The lead singer, the Robert Plant character, had a blonde doo that was all crazy curly. I could just see his tax
return, with $3,000 for bleach jobs and perms as a busines deduction.

He said they had been doing this act for 15 years and had the sanction of the band to do it. That's nice I guess. They were pretty good and respectful of Led Zepplin. Of course they ended with Stairway to Heaven and finally some people got up and rocked out.

I just couldn't help thinking about all that ridiculous hair. How did they cope with that in regular life? Do they just pull it back in a pony tail so it doesn't look like they're lost in Wayne's World? Maybe they don't really have normal lives. Heck, they live in L.A. so they could get away with dressing like Robert Plant and Jimmy Paige every day and just look like another L.A.-type person.

http://www.zepagain.com/

Posted by Heather Hacking at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can't think of many worse tasks than moving.
Besides the physical challenge of hoisting thousands of pounds of accumulated stuff, there is the emotional process of actually inventorying all of one's belongings. Moving can be like watching your life in fast forward. You're in a hurry so when you get deep into the back of the closet you have to make a lot of decisions you've been delaying for a long time.
• Do you keep that faded T-shirt that has sentimental value?
• What about that stuffed animal won at a county fair that lead to your first kiss?
• I love that dress but will I ever fit into it again? Maybe it's time to give up and send it to a charity?
• Does anyone actually make fondu anymore? Should I have a fondu party when I move into my new house?

• Do I have time to actually go through the sock drawer and figure out which socks have matches? Should I just toss out the whole drawer and go to Costco and buy a new jumbo pack of socks?
• Why don't I have more friends willing to help me move?
We helped some friends move this weekend. They're a family of four and I must say for a family of four they came within the mid-range of accumulation of stuff. There's a whole method to the madness that is moving.
There needs to be a leader — someone who is on the truck and somewhat of the "director."
He or she has a vision of how the placement of items will make it onto the truck, preferably a rental truck with a ramp and dolly. Big, burly men, or women, will deliver the largest items.
Bookshelves, armoires, appliances, taxidermied elk, a 14-foot sculpture project from someone's aunt in 1964, a 200-pound chest filled with "collectibles," an anchor for a shrimping boat.
Then come the miscellaneous items that can be shoved into the nooks and crannies: Bags of clothing, pillows, small boxes, backup linen, the contents of that sock drawer (for padding).
Someone invariably becomes the "puzzle meister," the person who wedges all those belongings into the truck so, theoretically, they don't get broken or bruised. That person stands at the back of the truck with a quizzical look on his face, wondering where the salad shooter should be worked into the ensemble.
In a well-prepared move, the person who packs will invest in a Sharpie pen and carefully pinpoint in which room the box should be deposited upon delivery.
That way when you hand the box off the edge of the truck to a nine-year-old kid you can tell him "that goes in the kitchen."
Last, there should be a law that your friends only get to move once a year. If they expect you to be sore for three days more than once a year, they just need to hire people to help them.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The daffodils are starting to bud and I’ve finally gotten some blooms on the flowering quince. Although I am hopeful for a boatload of rain this month to stave off a drought, it’s beginning to feel like spring.
This week I dug through the kitchen junk cupboard and found a packet of peat pellets from last year.
I’ve planted tomatoes in peat pellets as early as January in years past. But when we had that cold snap, I pretty much forgot about planting anything except for primrose. This week the sunshine made me hopeful for spring.
I have a west-facing bay window that is perfect for planting seeds. I take pie tins — those cheapie ones that come with pre-made pie crusts. Allow the peat pellets to absorb enough water to make them fairly mushy. Then, with chopsticks, you rough up the surface enough to place the tomato seeds.

UPSIDE DOWN TOMATO

(What's upside down with that? New way to plant tomatoes is supposedly a winner vs. planting them in the ground).

After planting, I cover the tin with plastic wrap. I like to label the container so I can see how long it takes for them to germinate, just out of curiosity, and write down which variety is in each tin.
After they sprout, they’re transferred to peat pots or to other small containers I have lying around.
In the windowsill, tomatoes have a tendency to get leggy, and might need to be rotated a quarter of a turn every few days. But with this plant, that’s no big deal because when you plant them, they benefit by being planted deeply down on their stem. Roots actually grow out of the stem, so a deep planting benefits them.
While doing some random Internet research, I came across a planting method that sounds intriguing.
It’s called upside-down planting.
You take a five-gallon bucket or some other safe container. It’s best that the container have a handle so you can hang it on a patio overhang or other tall structure. Drill a hole in the bottom, about 2-3 inches in diameter.
Take the tomato seeding and push it through the hole in the bottom, so the foliage peeks out of the bottom. Then cover the roots of the plant with soil.
You’ll need to do this carefully so the stems and roots aren’t damaged.
The lid of the bucket can be placed back on the top. Some people drill a hole in the top of the lid to allow for watering.
When the plant grows, it grows upside down, through the bottom of the bucket.
Some folks use a coffee filter or paper towel between the plant and the soil to help prevent the plant from coming loose until the roots have established their grip in the soil.
From what I’ve read, this cuts down on disease because the plant is well-ventilated and also avoids some bugs that crawl up through the soil.
Another bonus is that the plant is mobile, so if you’re not getting enough sun in one location, you can just untie the entire thing and move it to another spot.
Some people also ditch the lid of the bucket and plant other herbs at the top of the container.
I had planned to double the amount of tomatoes I planted this year, as Tommy and I really enjoyed noshing on salsa last summer. I also froze a couple of huge batches of the stuff and have been bringing it to dinner parties throughout the cold months.
For some photos and success and failures regarding this method of planting, check out: www.oklahomahistory.net/tomatos.html.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 06:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The Enterprise-Record has a "love lines" classified section that comes out for Valentine’s Day. It used to be free for the first six lines, but newsprint and soy ink has gotten so expensive that they now charge $6.75.
Plus, if you’re reading this after Friday, it’s too late to get it in the paper on time.
Therefore, out of the kindness of my heart, and the fact that Web space is almost free, I’m offering this space for people to list a Sow There! love line for their sweetie.
Neither names nor e-mails will be printed. We won’t even make fun of your sappy pet names for each other.
However, the comments will be edited for content that could get me in trouble with the editor.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don’t think you need to have a greeting card company to tell you when to do something wildly romantic for your partner. Alas, most women, and many men, have come to expect something fantabulous on Feb. 14.

The officials here at Sow There! World Headquarters have assembled a few things that might substitute for fattening candy and expensive flowers.

• If you need to stick with traditional, buy a rose bush that will remind you of the day for years and years.

• Prepare a bubble bath, buy a zillion white candles at the dollar store and light a bunch along the edge of the tub. If in season, gather rose petals from your neighbors and sprinkle them in the water. Extra kudos if you actually clean out the tub first.

• Write a poem, a love song or even a silly song.

• Put off chores (see “You Stink Day) in Friday’s Sow There! for details.

• List the reasons you adore your S.O. and mail it to his/her work.

• Buy a plant and plant it together.

• Take a romantic drive to somewhere you used to make out when you were first dating, or the first time you kissed,

• I think another good idea is to focus on other people you love. This day doesn't always have to be about "romantic love." Why not let your parents know how much you love them by having them over for dinner.
You certainly can't take them to dinner any place nice because all those smoochy couples have reservations.
Thank your parents for putting up with you all those times you were a major brat, snuck out of the house as a teenager or lied and said the car was vandalized instead of fessing up that you hit a tree.

Please share your own yummy Valentines Day gestures by leaving a comment. Other readers might benefit from them.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Valentine's Day can be tough for single people. Of course I've had my years when I resented my friends who were hooked up. I resented all the commercials for diamonds. I banged on the keyboard when I got those e-mails from FTD Florist guilting me because someone wasn't buying me a dozen red roses.
I wanted to send them hateful notes thanking them for rubbing it in. I wanted to organize groups of angry, single women to picket local stores.
It’s sad to know that the only card I would receive that year would be from my mother. But thanks Mom. You’re always a sweetie.
I have a friend who actually sent herself flowers at the office on Valentine's Day, then just smiled demurely when her coworkers gathered around all giggly to ask who they were from.
She probably ran to the bathroom later and panted out a few sobs.

When you're single and hating it it's like a slap in the face every time you see the holiday aisle at the grocery store carrying those tacky, huge red boxes of candy.
So maybe it's that past resentment that makes me not want to celebrate Valentine's Day in the traditional way. I don't want to drop $100 on dinner or have a vase of forced greenhouse flowers on my desk.
Last year Tommy bought me the daphne I wanted after we visited one of our favorite picnic spots. It's blooming right now, and for some reason that makes me really happy, a symbol that our love lasted to a second Valentine's Day.
This year I'm trying to wrack my brain about something nice, and non-monetary to touch on the heart-strings the way Hallmark pretends their cards do. Maybe write out a list of things we appreciate about each other.
We'll save the list of things that bug us for the "You Stink" holiday, which occurs the day after one of Kitty’s big parties when everyone is hung over.
For some unfathomable reason, Hallmark has not yet picked up on this holiday. They could get into a whole new line of "make-up" gifts. I'm really shocked someone in marketing hasn't thought of this yet.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Run, chicken, run

Last week we met up with our friends Stephanie and Jack. It was a school night so I couldn't stay out too late, but Tommy and I wanted to play some pinball. Of course I had the rubber chicken with us. It's always fun to bring a rubber chicken along on an outing. I stick him in my purse with his head popping out of the zipper compartment and it makes for funny conversation starters.
That night we said good-bye to our friends and headed towards the car. It wasn't until we were several blocks away that I noticed that the chicken was no longer in my purse. I assumed it had somehow broken the confines of my purse and was likely lying in the gutter somewhere.

(Here chicken poses with a statue in San Francisco during one of our more memorable adventures).

I had a little mini panic. It's not that there aren't other rubber chickens out there to adopt. But we've been having fun with this particular chicken. Each time we take him to a museum or a state park, we put the ticket stubs in his mouth.

Determined to rescue it, I said I needed to retrace my steps and find it. But Tommy said that Jack had taken it out of my purse for a joke.
I must admit, I was honestly upset. Maybe because the chicken has become what my stuffed turtle was to me when I was 6. You know, that feeling of "that's my chicken."
Plus, even though Jack is a prankster, he would never do something on purpose to make me upset. I'm sure he meant it all in good clean fun.
We didn't have plans to see our friends again until Super Bowl Sunday so a slew of e-mails were exchanged regarding the chicken — what he was supposedly up to, how much fun he was having without us, how indignant I was about the kidnap.

I could tell that Jack and Stephanie were having just about as much fun with their house guest as we do when we take chicken out and about. They set up an e-mail account called chicochicken, and pretended to send me e-mails from my much-missed rubber friend.
They staged an elaborate photo session, showing pictures of chicken partying and smoking, as well as looking through men's magazines.
The e-mails and photos called for more drastic measures. We called my friend Jim and had him call them pretending to be a police officer. We didn’t think about it at the time, but impersonating a police officer is actually a big-time crime. Jim was only able to leave a message on their machine.
That’s when we called up the big guns, Dad, who phoned and left a message saying he was calling from the CIA, the Chicken Intelligence Agency.
I'm sure this is all far less hilarious to gentle readers who have not come to understand the joy that a rubber chicken can bring. It's just fun to let yourself be really silly and to not take things so seriously.

All's well that ends well
Sunday arrived and we knew there would some interesting twist to returning the chicken to us. We showed up to watch the Superbowl and Jack was making a huge pot of chili. I set down the quiches I had brought and Jack asked me to help him out and turn on the pot at the back of the stove. I went over to do it, and then was the chicken in an empty pot, sort of clinging for dear life to a stalk of celery. Jack said later they had meant to create a hot tub for chicken and the celery was meant to be a water toy.
For actual text of the "slew o ‘e-mails" check it out online at www.norcalblogs.com/sowthere. The title of the entry is slightly obscure: “Actual chicken e-mails.�?

One day at a time
After such a dismally dry winter, the yard is finally starting to bring hope once again. I got my tulips in late this year, so they're behind schedule, but I can see that they'll be blooming here in several weeks.
There's also one spot in the yard that is becoming colorful. Each time I stop by one of those big-box stores I buy one plant that is in bloom. Recently it has been primrose. I've purposely put them all together in one area so that there is a focal point and at least one area that looks pretty.
When you buy gorgeous flowering plants in full bloom, they've been carefully pampered in greenhouses, usually somewhere along the coast. That means it’s sometimes disappointing when you get the plants into your own soil and they quickly peter out. Try to buy plants that have a lot of buds that haven't opened up yet. Also, look at the bottom of the pot to make sure there aren't too many roots sticking out of the drainage holes.

Cupid's calling
If you've missed all the hype in the stores, in the newspapers and on TV, let me remind you that Valentine's Day is Wednesday. It's probably too late to make a reservation at your sweetie's favorite restaurant, but there are a slew of wildly romantic gestures one can make for a memorable romantic day. I've assembled a list of ideas to get your noggin out of neutral and also have a few Valentine's Day rants on my blog.
Humanitarian offer: I'll offer up some blog space to anyone who wants to leave a "love line" to their sweetie on Wednesday. Send your comments on the Sow There! blog and after careful editing for lewdness, I'll file them for people to share.
Maybe I can prove to my editors that the Web blog is not just read by my mother and two friends who live outside the country.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

E-MAIL FROM HEATHER TO JACK AND STEPHANIE:

I can't imagine the torture my chicken has endured.
The poor thing, to go from the safety of my purse and then be taken away to a foreign place and subjected to visions of Jack's hairy back.
It's just wrong.
He wanted to be by our side tonight, safely tucked into the night stand where he belongs. Is there no mercy?
How could Tommy have let this happen.
I blame him.
No.
I blame myself for not being a more thorough safeguard.

I don't want to be one of those people who stops taking the chicken out at night. I don't want to deprive him of living a full life. But how can I trust people at this point?
These were people I trusted, friends (I thought).
I can hear his silent clucking in the distance and I must warn you, I know this trick with my elbow that I learned when I accidentally broke a girl's nose in summer camp when I was 12.
What if he got away? What if he was lost in the gutter, dropped inadvertently, washed down into the storm drain with all the errant cigarette butts that accumulate in the gutter?
What if he was washed in vomit from a group of people playing air hockey who were celebrating a friend's 21st birthday?
Woah, woah, woah.
Then there is the anger. Why has God, the Goddess or the Gods that may be inflicted this pain upon me and my plastic, molded one? I miss his sweet red spiky hair and the dangling of his legs as they were folded into my back-pack purse.

(Shaking head uncontrollably, rocking back and forth with pain).

We also want our stubs inside from the events we went to, our memories that are important to us. Those can never be replaced.

Heather and Tommy

IN A MESSAGE DATED 2/2/07 chicochicken WRITES:

<

It was fun drinking booze out of a straw and sitting in a glass ... not a proud moment but quite fun ...

Who knew my chicken legs would help me win the dance contest and voted No. 1 disco duck...

I hear my captors whispering all the time ... something about taking me out again tonight and putting me through the tortures of dancing and karaoke ... secretly, I cant wait...

I’m quite safe but ... the ceiling is spinning

quack quack quack... >>

cluck cluck cluck

(Chicken at a time when debauchery was just a word in his dictionary).

HEATHER REPLIED:
How you coerced my chicken to write that e-mail is astounding. He promised me he would never reveal his talents as a writer. Before I met him, he was writing fortune cookie fortunes in a dive restaurant in Chinatown. I rescued him from that useless life and to be honest, he has been writing my Sow There! column for the past two years.

He was so grateful he said he would never divulge his mysterious powers for prose.

If I don't get him back soon, I'll be fired and likely relegated to applying for the job writing fortune cookie fortunes in a dive restaurant in an urban city core. Then our friendship will truly be diluted.

Besides his obvious talent as a writer, (I do have to edit some as occasionally his claws miss-click), he has become a trusted friend and traveling companion.

My pain is immense, but in no way will I negotiate for any ransom.

You better watch your back because Danny Brasco (recently out of the witness protection agency after the death of several mobsters) and Alec Trebek are on your trail.

I'm still considering whether or not I will ever forgive you.

HH

Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I’ve concluded nothing much good can come from hot-tubbing at a party.
About 10 years ago I went to party with two of my good friends.
It was mostly a couples crowd and as I recall, I was the only single woman there.
The host and hostess were good friends with the couple who had invited me.
After the party winded down, the host and hostess invited the three of us to take a dip in the hot-tub.
It seemed innocent, warm, nice, with friends. We were all laughing, enjoying the water .... but for some reason the host’s toes kept brushing up against my legs under the water. Of course I felt uncomfortable and kept moving away.
I didn’t want to scooch all the way over and into the lap of my friends, because then it would seem like I was doing something weird.

I brushed away the host’s toes a couple more times, and then finally just felt really uncomfortable, abruptly got out of the water and ran out of there.
I called my friend the next day who had invited me to the party and shared the story about the footsies in the hot-tub. My friend thought I must have imagined it.
I told her I didn’t think so, it was pretty clear, and I had been clear-headed.
My friend said I should drop it. Nobody was harmed. The hosts were gracious and had really good food.
I dropped it, because maybe I was wrong. Nowadays you see commercials for “restless leg disease.�? Maybe that was it.
I don’t know what I should have done differently. If this was a pattern surely the host’s wife would find something out eventually. But I did wish that my friend had at least backed me up and said “Oh, that sounds creepy.�?
Circles of friends in Chico are interesting. You know someone who knows someone. Last week, 10 years later, I was talking to another friend who knew the host and hostess several years ago.
Somehow their names came up, and at one point I said, "Oh yeah, there's this one thing that happened way back when ..."
I didn't finish the sentence when my friend said: "So-and-so hit on you, right?"
I put my hand on my chest like you do when you say the pledge of allegiance.
"You just so validated me," I said.
"Oh yeah, that guy hits on everyone," my friend said.
My friend told a story about when she was at one of their dinner parties and how he was playing grabby in the hallway, likely while his wife was preparing hors doerves in the kitchen. My friend said she had heard similar things from a lot of the women in her circle.
Gross. I guess this guy has just been getting away with this for years.
You never know what goes on with a couple’s personal dynamics, so maybe they just had an understanding that he could poke around but just keep it as a game.
But it’s only a fun game if everybody agrees they want to play.
Ten years after this incident I don’t know what I would do if this happened again. I would like to think I would firmly and clearly state, in front of his wife, that I would appreciate it if he would stop rubbing up against my thigh.
But women don’t tend to stick up for themselves that way.
However, in reality, I think its just best to avoid hot tubs with people who you don’t consider practically your relatives.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This week I was rather desperate to find something to write about gardening. I had already stolen column fodder from myself by writing a news article about how people should be watering their lawns, even though we’re normally out of the habit of watering our lawns in mid-winter.
That was fun because the day the article appeared, a couple of people in the newsroom told me they had noticed sprinklers going on in their neighborhoods.

Jasmine rice makes for snuggling comforts. Mom likes to put satchels of lavender in the rice bags, so when they heat up, you get instant aroma therapy.

It’s good for reporters to know they are making a difference in the world.
I was chatting with Laurie, our style editor, and asked her what is new in her yard.
Nothing of the plant world, she reported, but she did have an inordinate number of red-breasted robins. Her eyes got big and she said, “It was like the movie ‘The Birds.’ �? She said literally about three dozen were hanging out. We both wondered what was up.
I called my bird-expert friend, L.B. Curlew, who said robins don’t migrate like wintering waterfowl. However, they are known to “migrate�? in search of food. With the cold winter this year and lack of rain, food sources for all sorts of critters are in short supply.
I looked up robins on the Internet (www.birdsforever.com/robin.html) and found some photos of the birds.
L.B. said the proper name is actually American robin. The photos show the bird with gray wings and a dusty orange-colored breast. Funny how we don’t call them orange-breasted robins.
L.B. said the creatures are fructivores and one of their favorite winter foods is pyracantha, that bush that gets all the red berries this time of year.
They’ll also gorge on bayberries, privet, juniper, etc.
He said they move in waves and when a bunch of them are moving to follow the food, you can see thousands at a time.
The Web site I checked out showed a nifty bird feeder with spears on it, to place a whole apple outdoors for robins to nibble.
Alas, birds that scarf on fleshy foods also deposit the end product in the yard, usually on the freshly-washed car. L.B. said the stuff looks like the birds eat chewing tobacco.
Another interesting factoid from the L.B. collection of facts: Birds get drunk. When they eat fermented berries, they can actually pass out drunk. He said he was at city hall recently and saw two cedar waxwing birds that looked dead. He touched them and they were warm. When he got done with his business at city hall, he came back outside and the birds were gone. Apparently they were just sleeping it off.

Move it on over
Last weekend we helped our friends move. They just bought a house. They’re a family of four and I was sort of dreading it. We’ve helped a lot of people move this year. Tommy’s one of those guys who keeps working to the bitter end. But he’s not a young guy anymore, so that means he ends up sore, with me heating up things in the microwave (see jasmine rice below) and then massaging his lower back. This time was no exception.
But it’s good karma to help people out.
I sent out a note to all of my friends telling them “you’ve probably met my friends at one of my barbecues and birthday parties. They’re moving and if you want to ‘pay it forward’ and help us out, good things will happen in your life.�?
My co-worker Roger responded and said he’d pitch in.
Roger is a Mormon and apparently part of the religion is that you pitch in and help people move. He has seven kids, so moving one family was probably akin to walking in his sleep.
Funny, because he and Tommy happened to be walking down the street that day, to chase after the dog or something, and Roger saw four guys from his church hanging out in their front yard.
Roger must have done the secret handshake or something because when asked, the four guys came on down and helped unload the last of the big stuff off the moving truck.

Jasmine rice
My mother is fabulously talented. She sews a lot of goofy things for me, like winter hats, cozy fleece socks and cute sundresses with dangerously short hems.
One of her inventions has kept me from shivering this winter and avoided buying an expensive electric blanket.
You take jasmine rice and sew it into a bean-bag type thing with fabric.
Pop it in the microwave for about five minutes, then pop it under the covers to warm up the bed. I generally tend to snuggle it at night on my tummy. It stays warm for about an hour.
It’s also good for soothing sore shoulders, or your lower back if you have just helped someone move.
They’re also good in the summer; just pop them in the freezer and then drape over sore muscles.
The key, though, is to not get the thing wet.
Thanks, mom.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm a big fan of the game show "Jeopardy." Of course I would never make it through the rigorous test to make it on the show. I'm no Mensa material and they usually don't have categories like "Latin names of plants."
Other categories I would enjoy would be "Things that are purple," "Songs you sang in Girl Scouts" and "Famous places in Italy."

Tommy is a bit peeved when I watch that show.
When we were first going out I made a point that I didn't like watching television. I literally put the backside of my hand to my brow and said in a Scarlet O'Hara accent: "It will be the beginning of the end if we sit around at night and watch TV."
I think he got the point and really wanted to win me over, so we almost never watched TV.
Gasp --- we sat around and talked and talked, played board games, took walks.
This romantic ritual went on for a year.
Then one night we got in a fight and I purposely turned on the TV to tune out the baloney we were arguing about. It was a big statement/mistake on my part.
I can remember in slow motion the night I walked over to the TV and turned it on, feeling defiant and powerful. BIG MISTAKE.
Of course, one of those "CSI" shows was on and he was instantly hooked.
He couldn't get enough of it.
Quickly I learned that there is a "CSI" show almost every night of the week. The shows always start out with some wild college girls dancing, mostly scantily clad, and then grotesque crime scenes with dead, scantily-clad women's dead bodies and important fact-finding fibers strewn all over their lingerie.
I've put up with this, for the most part, and either bake or make phone calls to girlfriends to show my dissatisfaction.
I don't think he notices my subtle protests until the commercials are on.
So, I feel totally justified in watching "Jeopardy."
There's no violence on "Jeopardy," unless the category is "War crimes from the 20th Century," or "Historic barbarism."
It's only a half hour so I consider it an innocent pleasure.
But I must admit I'm pretty rude about it.
Heck, if I have to bake or talk on the phone through "CSI," he can make it through a half hour of Alec Trebek.
I stand about six feet away from the 20-inch TV and blurt out the answers so I feel smart when I actually know the answer.
There shall be no interruptions during "Jeopardy."
When my mother calls during "Jeopardy" I tell her to phone back at 7:52.
Somehow she understands.
I know the answer about 1/1800th of the time, and then I feel pretty good about myself, because you have to be a child prodigy, a genius, an Internet geek or reincarnation of Einstein to do well on that show.
Wednesday they had a category "drafts." It was about beer. Tommy was at work so he didn't have to suffer through Heather standing in front of the TV and blurting out answers.
The $800 question Wednesday was "This pale ale from a brewery in Chico California is named after what mountain range."
We made the map.
!!!
I was so excited I didn't know who to call.
Our home town made "Jeopardy."
If I had Ken Grossman on speed dial I would have called him at 7:47 p.m.
Funny, nobody on the show knew the answer. I felt equally smug when the contestants were slow to know an Irish stout from Ireland --- duh --- Guinness.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)