Swine Flu

I’m home from work today. I started feeling sick yesterday and left the office early. You know it must be bad when I left before a coworker’s birthday cake was served! Did you know that Dairy Queen will make an ice cream Butterfinger Blizzard cake? (Being sick totally bites.)

I think I must have swine flu, because I’ve been eating everything in sight lately. That’s a symptom, right? So much for losing five pounds before vacation (which is completely necessary because vacation is all about eating – especially in Maine where lobster and whoopie pies are sold on every street corner or quickie mart).

Why isn’t there an “eat like a bird” flu? Wait, isn’t that avian flu? How do I get that?

Dairy Queen
Swine Flu
Avian Flu
Oh look, Lobster is on the Atkins Diet
Whoopie Pies (not on anyone's diet plan)

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Season Premiere

We’re going on vacation in a little more than a week. We’ll be in Maine for ten days. The neighbors will pick up our newspaper and the mail. The dogs will go to “camp” with the breeder. (That’s what we like to call it.) The thermostat will get turned up a couple of degrees to save money.

Charles’ biggest concern while we’re away? That TiVo will run out of recording space! There’s too much new fall programming and we’ll be gone for so long. We’ve got two TiVos that are networked together. Between the two, I think they can hold sixty hours of recording. (Definitely not enough for Charles … there are a lot of new shows on TV.)

So he’s on a marathon this weekend to watch all of the movies previously recorded and never viewed. This way he can clear off TiVo and relax while on vacation. (Who knew how much work it takes to get away from all the stress! )

TiVo
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (from excessive use of the remote control)

Fragrance Samples

A friend’s hair color turned gray at a very early age – in her mid-20’s. So she started coloring her hair early on. It was a constant challenge, being young and on a budget. (No expensive salon visits for professional colorings!)

One Christmas, she sent out a holiday newsletter, you know, like the ones where families list their kids’ accomplishments throughout the year (Timmy stopped wetting the bed and Mandy got an STD). In this case, my friend separated each month, where she listed one or two trivial things that happened. At the end of each month, she filled us in on the color and performance of the dye job, such as “Miss Clairol #39 – Sunset Brown. Too brassy and faded fast. Switched to #38 by mid-month.” It was the best holiday card I ever received! (No offense to the pug Kwanza card, it just wasn't as memorable.)

After our bathrooms were completed, Charles and I began putting things back into cabinets. It was then that I noticed his collection of fragrance samples. (You saw my previous posting on Hoarders, right?) Stacks and stacks of vials of the stuff!

So, instead of the regular cologne, I’m making him use the fragrance samples each day. For the past three weeks, it’s been Aramis Surface. (He had two of those and those little vials hold a lot, unless you shower yourself in it and who wants that?) Not much of a scent. My favorite so far was the Kenneth Cole fragrance – very clean smelling. Watch for this year’s Christmas card. It’ll be a stinker.

BaseNotes (Everything about the fragrance industry, including reviews)
Fragrance.net (Online discount retailer)
Christmas card newsletter templates (From Microsoft)
Miss Clairol (Just in case.)

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Hoarders

Years ago, when Charles and I first moved in together, we went through the process of consolidating furniture and getting rid of stuff that didn’t fit. (In other words, all of his furniture. Don’t get me started on his teal ceiling fan. Yeah, he had one.)

Charles had a two bedroom condo before and in one bedroom, he had a set of bunk beds. This was his childhood bed. I’m not sure what guests ever visited his condo, but I would have loved to see their expression when facing these bunk beds. They were right out of the early 70’s – very rough hewn wood with a dark stain.

Charles decided to take the beds to a consignment store. Neither of us was very familiar with consignment stores and had no idea what to ask for the beds. He mentioned this to his mother over the phone that weekend. His mom’s reply? “Hold on, I’ll get the receipt so you know how much they cost.”

I did mention this was his bed as a child, right? She had the receipt from 30+ years ago and knew exactly where to get it.

There’s a new show on A&E called Hoarders. I’ve set up a season pass on TiVo and am making Charles watch it. I’m calling it television therapy to prevent this sort of thing from being passed down to him. (Seriously, we don't have that much closet space!)

Hoarders (Watch it, but I warn you - it's very frustrating when they choose to live like that and not one Cheeto in sight! People, if you're going for sloth, you need Cheetos.)
How Not To Decorate (on BBC America - I bet the hosts have seen these bunk beds lately.)

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YouTube Partner Program

When our bathrooms were being renovated a couple of months ago, my dad and the guy working with him spent many days replacing the plumbing under the house. Our house has a crawl space under it where all of the pipes are. Since they had ripped out the floors of the bathrooms, it was a easier to work with the pipes. The contractors decided to replace all of the piping - even out to the main water line. (Yea - more money!) Several days in a row, the water would be turned off while they worked and they would patch enough of it by the end of the day so that we could turn the water back on at night.

One afternoon, I arrived home to find Charles out by the street. He was getting ready to turn the water back on at the main valve. I walked into the house and went back to the master bath. My dad was standing on the ground (remember, no floor in the bath). He was crouched down with a flash light in one hand and a cell phone in the other. The plan was for my dad to tell Charles to turn the water on and he would check for leaks under the house.

Just as I'm walking into the bedroom, I hear him speaking into the cell phone telling Charles to turn on the water. Seconds later, one of the pipe connections in front of my dad bursts with water shooting directly into his face. They had forgotten to glue that one connection! (If it had happened on a sitcom, you would be rolling your eyes.) My dad got totally drenched and I got a good laugh! No other leaks under the house, by the way.

I recently heard about a father who posted a video on YouTube of his son after a visit to the dentist. The kid was still feeling the effects of anesthesia. His dad was part of the YouTube partner program. When the video went viral, the kid's dad made more than $25K from his share of the advertising revenue.

Which begs the question - why didn't I have a video camera that afternoon???? That must have been at least a $50K profit sharing video. D'oh!

YouTube Partner Program
David Devore After The Dentist
YouTube Video On How To Glue Plumbing Pipes
Flip Video

iTunes Genius

I love iTunes. It’s great to be able to buy one song from an album instead of 9 other songs you’ll never listen to just so you could get the one you liked.

The one thing about iTunes that I can’t figure out is their Genius component – which is supposed to look at the songs you’ve purchased and listen to regularly and then recommend songs that are similar which you might like.

I bought an Annie Lennox song the other day. It’s called “Shining Light”. I’ve been a big fan of hers for a very long time and have several of her songs in my iTunes library.

iTunes sent me an email a day after the purchase of Annie Lennox and included some of their Genius recommendations.

I’m not sure about “Shine” from the band Booty Luv!?! Did iTunes recommend it because they both have titles about shine? (For the record, the dance song is not bad, but I can't help but snicker each time I think about the band's name. And I see no connection to Annie Lennox.)

Netflix has the same type of recommendation service – where they try to guess your tastes based on ratings you give movies that you’ve watched. It’s not much better. At least they are doing something about it though.

How to improve your iTunes Genius recommendations
Netflix offers another $1 million prize for better movie recommendations
Enter an algorithm to improve Netflix's recommendations

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Who's Afraid of Crawl Spaces?

Years ago, we placed speakers all throughout the house. We ran wires under the floor to the various spots for music. (And when I say we, I mean me.) I crawled under the house to fish the wire through. Charles wouldn’t go near the crawl space.

The last time we added some speakers, I crawled all the way from the back of the house where the access door is to the front of the house, where the living room is and the stereo. There’s only one access door to the crawl space, so it’s a long trip.

I’d always been worried about seeing snakes or spiders when I’m crawling through this tight space. There’s really no getting around down there quickly.

On that particular day, I just happened to look over my shoulder toward the access door at the back of the house when I saw two eyes shining back at me from some kind of animal! I almost jumped through the living room floor! (If there been enough room to get some lift, I would have made it through.) Luckily, it was just a cat who was more scared of me than I was of it and the cat ran away.

We haven’t put in any more speakers since that day. But now that we’re getting the receiver fixed, I saw these mini speakers from Sony. And they’re wireless. No more crawling under the house for me.

Sony HT-IS100 (The size of strawberries. Nice! I totally need them.)
Rock Speakers (For outdoors, although these aren't wireless)
The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook (You don't know - that cat could have had rabies or something. Of course, the dogs were lounging in the living room at the time.)
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Lightning Strike

Lightning strikes are a common thing here in Florida. We have surge protectors for most of our electronics to prevent serious damage. We have battery backups for the most important pieces, like the computer (so you don’t lose any work if the power goes out) and Tivo (seriously, I couldn’t possibly miss one minute of Project Runway!).

We had a major storm the other night. A day later, I decided to do some work around the house (Yeah, I know. What got into me?) and I turned on the stereo to listen to some music.

Wait a minute. I didn’t know Annie Lennox was in the movie "Lord of the Rings"! I could hear Annie singing and the hobbits yelling at each other. (Mr. Frodo wasn’t singing, but I totally bet he could rap.)

After a few moments, I realized that our stereo receiver had been hit by lightning again and an electronic component had burned out inside (even with a surge protector). This happened once before, where the receiver played all inputs at the same time – the TV signal, the iPod, the CD player, XM.

While I like to multi-task, I can’t pay attention to all of that at the same time. Just ask Charles – he'll tell you I barely listen as it is. (Did he just say something?)

So I'll be looking for a new upgraded surge protector with a battery back up. And sending the receiver off to get fixed.

Surge Protectors with Battery Backups
Project Runway (now on Lifetime)
Models of the Runway (Thanks Pat – I’m now hooked on another TV program!)
Annie Lennox (more on Annie later this week)

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Beef - It's What Might Be For Dinner

OK, so I completely threw Charles under the bus while his parents were here. Now, Charles has not eaten any beef or pork since the beginning of the year (and I can totally respect his beliefs). Since we are trying to cook more often instead of eating out, that means no beef or pork for me either. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I casually mentioned the topic in front of his parents. Now his dad is retired military and been retired for many years. In other words, he has zero tolerance for your hippie-loving, tree-hugging, no meat eating ways, no matter how good those reasons might be.

A little family pressure might bring back bacon and corned beef and steaks. (Oh, I’m getting hungry.) Or it could simply steel Charles' resolve even more. Keep your fingers crossed.

In the mean time, I'm thinking about framing all of those beefscapes print ads and hanging them throughout the house. You know the ads, where the steak looks like a mountain and the greens look like a forest? I love those, sort of subliminal landscapes. Think it will work?

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Print Ads (Not only are the ads very creative, but each one has a recipe connected with the photo.)
Aaron Copland’s Rodeo IV. Hoedown (The great music from those beef commercials - available on iTunes. Makes you want to put on some cowboy boots or something.)
Ben and Jack’s Steakhouse (Thank goodness for friend’s birthdays)
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Secret Flask

The in-laws came to visit over Labor Day. They arrived on Friday and stayed through Monday morning. They have been married for more than forty years and have been retired for at least 25 years or more. Charles’ dad retired in his 40s from the Air Force.

The in-laws kind of liked the new renovations to our bathrooms, but thought we should have installed higher toilets for older people and bars in the shower so that it would be easier to get in and out. They brought their own suction cupped bars which they tried to install on the beveled tile. (They didn’t much like the tile after the suction cups wouldn’t stick.)

By the way, I started reading a lot more this weekend. I found a whole series of books (notice the picture) on etsy that really brightened my spirits (so to speak). I have found that I can read them over and over again and never grow tired of the story. Boy, the weekend just flew by! It’s all kind of a blur to me now.

Books on etsy are at PommeFrites
My favorite bookmark
Portable Suction Cup Grab Bars (Sorry, but there's no way I'm buying these for at least another 30 years. If you need them when visiting my house, better bring your own.)
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Glee Returns

Glee returns on Wednesday at 9:00 on FOX.

I've been singing "Don't Stop Believing" all summer since watching the pilot episode this past spring. It's been on my iPod and I listen to it at work. Unfortunately, every time the music begins to crescendo, someone stops by my desk to ask me a question. So, I start it over again - you know - to feel the moment in its entirety. Yeah, I can totally recite the first verse by heart. Don't have a clue what's in the second verse though. Some day maybe.

If you go to iTunes, you can download some new songs from the cast. I hear they are even working on an album. Get in line behind me. I'm a total Gleek.

Glee
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Interior Spaces blog

Friends of ours recently moved their office space into a new studio in their backyard. They had their old garage rebuilt into a new office. Now these designers can look out the window at their beautiful garden. (Once all the construction is finished!)

They’ve also started a blog that allows you to see their various projects in process. It’s kind of like one of those HGTV shows, but in a more realistic time frame. (C’mon, how can you completely renovate a whole house in one week?)

Visit their new blog to get a peek into other people's homes and pick up some new design ideas.

Interior Spaces Inc.

Desperate Classic Housewives

This past Friday, we invited the neighbors on our block over for happy hour. There’s one couple on the corner who have been retired for some time. The “mayor”, as we call him, celebrated his 80th birthday a few years ago. In his early 20’s, the mayor played drums professionally, even for Gypsie Rose Lee (Wow!).

It’s fascinating to me hearing about the past of someone older – learning what they were like before they were the person that I know today. I enjoy trying to imagine what they were like at my age. (Although, I never, ever, ever needed to see the photo of a previous boss when she was a professional bodybuilder - and it was printed on a birthday cake no less!!!!)

StoryCorps is a series on NPR that strives “to honor and celebrate one another's lives through listening.” I also love our local paper’s weekly photo column titled “My First Car” typically old pictures of people posing in front of their autos.

Maybe it started all started from watching The Golden Girls. (Picture it, Sicily…) Either way, I’m a sucker for a good classic story.

StoryCorps
My First Car
The Golden Girls
TV Land's parody of Sex and the City - with Bea Arthur (you've got to see this)
TV Land's parody of Desperate Housewives - with Charo