The world according to Bob Maue

My dad would be 94 years old today. In honor of his birthday, I’m remembering some of my favorite Bob Maue quotes:

1. If you keep watching Batman, you’re going to turn into a moron.

2. Why don’t you play it slowly until you learn it, and then you can play it fast?

3. Take the spoon out of that glass, or you’re going to put your eye out.

4. (In “sympathy” for my falling down the stairs): If you didn’t wear such dumb shoes, that wouldn’t happen.

5. (Also in “sympathy” for my falling down the stairs): If you wouldn’t come down the stairs in your stocking feet, that wouldn’t happen.

6. The sun is over the yard-arm. (Meaning it’s past 5:00, and therefore, cocktail time.)

7. If that guy had a propeller on his head, he could fly. (Said about a certain former pastor of our church, who will remain nameless out of respect.)

8. In response to my mom’s question, “If Ann-Margret came to the front door and asked you to run away with her, would you go?”: I’d have to think about it.

9. Jesus Christ, why can’t you let the clutch out slowly? (After about 5 stalls in a row, as I was learning to drive a stick shift in the Knoebel’s parking lot.)

10. While you’re up, get me a beer, would you?

I miss you, Daddy.

Things I’ve learned the hard way

1. No coffee after 6 p.m. if you want to sleep that night.

2. One more glass of red wine is usually a bad idea.

3. Nothing good happens after midnight. Only bad stuff. Go home.

4. Changing to the faster supermarket lane will automatically make it the slower one.

5. Listening to my gut generally gives me the right answer.  It’s when you talk yourself out of it (which I frequently do) that you get yourself into trouble.

6. I’m too old to buy clothes at Old Navy.

7. Life is too short to worry about whether your house is clean enough. (BTW – mine never is.)

8. Don’t pick at it. Just leave it alone.

9. Cleaning up the kitchen as you go along is way better than saving it all until the end of the evening.

10. When children are “too quiet” it’s usually not a good thing.

11.  Actions are way more important than words. (Although words can be a nice bonus on top of actions.)

12. Perfect people are really irritating.

13. Errands usually take longer than you think they’re going to. (Particularly if you forget #4).

14.The world always looks better after a good night’s sleep. (See #3).

15. If you’re thinking about going for a run, just go for a run and think about it later.

What would YOU add to this list?

Holiday Preparations…

6:30 a.m. conversation with David:

David:  Look, Mom! Here’s a pretty ornnament.

Me: Be very careful with that one, David. It looks breakable.

David: I’ll be very careful.

CRASH

David (in a sing-song voice): Well, you were right!  It was breakable!

Overheard on the el this morning:

“So I said to Brad, ‘Why don’t we get them movie tickets?’ And he said, ‘You know, I don’t know if they go to the movies all that much as a family.’  And I said, ‘You know what…at this point I don’t even care.’ ”

Merry Christmas to you too….

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I don’t have much time to write this, as I’m kinda rushing from one thing to the next this weekend.  So forgive the typos (you should see my handwriting if you think my typing is bad.)

I’ve been a very good girl all year. Well, maybe 8 on a 10-point scale. Some days a 5.  But I always usually had the best of intentions. Oh never mind. Judge for yourself. Let’s move on.

Here are the things I’d like for Christmas this year:

1. One more week between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If this is too much to ask (I know it’s December 13 already, so it might be hard to swing), an extra weekend would be okay. Or even an hour. Anything you can do will be fine.

2. An extra dose of patience as David asks me for the tenth time in an hour if it’s time to put the lights on the tree yet. (Seriously, what about “we have to wait for the branches to settle” is so hard for a 6-year-old to understand?)

3.  An automatic gift-wrapping machine. This is my least favorite part.  Christmas cards used to be my least favorite part, but I stopped sending them. So now wrapping is my least favorite part.

4. Good weather on December 26 for our road-trip to PA. I really hate to drive in bad weather. Or any hint of bad weather. Or rain. Or fog.

5. Coffee. Or a glass of wine. Coffee and a glass of wine.

I think I should end the list there. I don’t want to appear greedy.

No need to wrap any of this. I know you and the elves are busy.  And I can only imagine what Mrs. Claus is going through, with all she has to do to get the house ready for Christmas. (I’m guessing you’re not much help with the tree and such, since you’re on the road so much in December. I’d be willing to bet that that’s kind of a sore subject around the Claus house. )

Thanks in advance, Santa!

Love,

Deb

Things I’ve Been Thinking About

1. Why do airports still have screens displaying arriving flights in the gate area when the only people who can go through security are people who are leaving? Please tell me what I’m missing here.

2. Can’t they figure out a better way to package eggs? By my estimation, approximately half of all egg cartons in the supermarket have at least one broken egg. This seems very wasteful.

3. If someone developed a fragrance called “New Baby Smell”, they would sell a lot of it.

4. Mini-vans should have sensors on the sides which beep when you’re too close to the side of the garage. Another option would be to make sure that the color of the van is the same as the paint color of the garage.

5. Don’t keep pet monkeys in your house. Seriously. Or this will happen.

6. Why does the water in the public-restroom sink only turn on after I STOP waving my hand in front of the sensor?

7. I read a statistic that 2% of people respond to SPAM. I’m dying to know who these people are and what they’re thinking.

8. Clorox Bleach-Free Hand-Sanitizer? Really? Sorry, Clorox, you can say “bleach-free” on the package, but Clorox = bleach, and I’m not putting bleach on my hands.

And those are the things I’ve been thinking about.

More excuses why I haven’t been blogging

1. Margaret untethered the hot air balloon in the garage and it took me 12 hours to find her.

2. Had to get ready to host bunco.

3. Spending hours and hours making home-made Halloween costumes. No one will believe that one.

4. Catching up on episodes of Glee. (Good show)

5. Catching up on episodes of Modern Family.  (Great show)

6. Catching up on episodes of Dexter, Season 2. (Great show)

7. Trying to practice my art skills so I can stay ahead of David. Futile. He’s already surpassed me. (Not saying much. I can’t even draw a cat that’s recognizable as a cat.)

8. Can’t keep up with news stories about rich, powerful men getting themselves into trouble because they aren’t thinking with their brains. (Not judging, just saying.)

9. Writer’s block. Oh, the pressure.

10. Trying to find the rake. (If you look at my front lawn, you’ll see that I still haven’t found it.)

11. Birthday parties, parent-teacher conferences, weekend get-aways, soccer, work, doctor’s appointments/H1N1 vaccines, Halloween parties, meetings, 10k’s, piano recitals, book club.

But it’s all good…

Dear David, I’m sorry

Dear David,

Please accept my sincere apologies for the fact that I did not collect your tooth and leave money last night.  I can only imagine your heart-rending sobs this morning when you looked under you pillow and discovered that your tooth was still there.  There’s so little in life you can really count on, and you’d think that getting money for teeth would be one of them, I know.

What can I say? I had every intention of making my usual rounds last night.  I had my wings polished and my fairy dust replenished in the morning, same as usual.  I was ready to go.  But then the Easter Bunny and I got into this really long conversation about whether Obama should have won the Nobel Peace Prize, and that segued into the state of higher education in America, and the next thing you know, it was 3:00 in the morning, and I had totally missed my flying window.

I realize that my only job in life is delivering money to the children who have lost teeth. I mean, how hard is it to do one thing well, right? And I assure you that this has never happened before and will never happen again. I will write notes to remind myself to stay away from the Easter Bunny an hour before flying time, so I don’t get sucked into conversations and get distracted. (Santa Claus too.)

I’ll make it up to you, David. I’ll bring you a little extra tonight for “interest.” (As I will have to for all the other children of the world. Man, do the math…can you say “cost over-runs?” Maybe I can get a small budget transfer from Santa. Or the Easter Bunny, but he’s so worried about the rising cost of chocolate that it’s unlikely.)

I look forward to inspecting that tooth. I’m sure it’s a fine specimen that will bring me a lot of money on the open market.

Gotta run. Can you imagine how many of these notes I have to write? Luckily, it’s a lot of cut and paste.

Again, please accept my apology and my assurance that this will never happen again, to you or any other child.

Love,

The Tooth Fairy

P.S. Whatever you do, do not blame this in any way on your mother.  She has a lot on her plate.

Things I learned this Labor Day weekend

1. A blue Sharpie in the hands of a 3-year-old is a very bad thing.

2. Blue Sharpie does not come out of tan Berber carpeting, although Mr. Clean Magic Eraser makes it less noticeable.

3. Blue Sharpie does not come off Mac keyboards.

4. When using a wet Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to try to clean a Mac keyboard, you should first unplug the Mac keyboard from the Mac.

5. If you don’t unplug the Mac keyboard from the Mac before using the wet Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, it fries the Mac keyboard and makes it unusable.

6. A fried Mac keyboard makes a sound like you’re continuously pressing down a key. (It can probably make other sounds as well, or no sound at all for that matter, but I don’t know for sure.)

7. There’s  a lot of stuff available for resale on Craig’s list, including used Mac keyboards.

And that’s what I learned this Labor Day weekend.

Wanna get away?

I’ve been thinking about experiences that make me want to disappear through a trap door in the floor:

1. Seeing work colleagues at the pool.  When I’m in a bathing suit.  With my stomach showing. (I don’t remember this bothering me when I was 26, but at 46, it’s mortifying.) Although it is fun to see who has tattoos and piercings.

2. Forgetting someone’s name. Or worse, calling them by the wrong name. Or starting to call them by the wrong name, getting one syllable out, and then stopping and looking at the floor.  I hate it when that happens. Why can I not remember the names of people I see on a daily basis?

3. When we’re at the supermarket and one of my children innocently points to someone and yells the (obvious) observation that “That person is really fat.”‘

4. Being on the elevator with someone you sort of know and running out of chit-chatty things to talk about so that you’re both looking at the floor, the ceiling or the door.  (I find that looking at my Blackberry is a really good thing to do in this situation.)  With some people, once we’ve covered the weather (always a good topic of conversation in Chicago), there really is nothing to talk about.

5. Realizing that I have a really big stain on my shirt. Or a rip in the seat of my pants. And realizing that it may have been there all day.

6. Realizing that I’m wearing one navy trouser sock and one black trouser sock.  

7. Realizing at 5:00 that I have something stuck in my teeth. When the last time I ate anything was at lunch. And I’ve had three meetings since lunch.

8. Realizing in a meeting that someone else has something stuck in their teeth. Or that their fly is open. Or that their shirt is gaping and one of the girls is hanging out.   (The last one happened to me in a meeting at some point in my career, but I’m not saying who or when.) 

9. Tripping for absolutely no reason and going flying.

10. Being late for a meeting, trying to enter and sit down quietly, and then realizing that I’m in the WRONG meeting.

What are your mortifying moments?

My 10 Favorite Pieces of Advice

I try really, really hard not to give advice.  So if you don’t want advice, stop reading now.

Well, okay, since you asked:

1. Just because you can get it zipped doesn’t mean you should wear it.

2. Put a little lipstick on. It will make you feel better. (This one’s courtesy of my friend Eva’s mom. And is really just advice for women.)

3. A good tailor is your best friend.

4. Before leaving the house, try to get a look at the rear view in the mirror, as well as the front view. (If you have young children, check your shoulders and upper back too. You never know what is on kids’ hands.)

5. If you’re tired, go to bed. If you’re hungry, eat. (But don’t eat if you’re not hungry.)

6. Don’t send text messages while you’re driving.

7. After dinner, check to make sure you don’t have broccoli in your teeth.

8. No matter how much you need the money, don’t go on a reality TV show.  No good will come of it in the end. (See: Patti Blagojevich, Jon and Kate, and Susan Boyle.)

9. Go to see every Pixar movie (we just saw “Up”.)

10. Don’t give people unsolicited advice. They hate it.

And a bonus: Don’t marry Drew Peterson.

And how many of these do I follow on a regular basis? I always try to wear lipstick.