Give Mia Break!

           Oh, no. It’s another Lucy episode. I wish they’d stop filming these; I don’t even get paid.

          This time I was at the nail salon. I’ve been going there for years, where Ethan does my nails in 30 minutes flat. We usually chat, usually about his darling 4-year-old, Mia.

          Only this time, I saw a cooking show on his cell phone and we started talking about food and recipes. Before you can say, “The oven timer’s done,” he was finished, at which point I paid and made a new appointment.

          I was standing up to leave when I remembered his daughter and said, “Give Mia a hug.”

          He came around the table, squeezed my shoulders, and I left, puzzled.

          ONLY THEN DID I REALIZE THAT HE THOUGHT I SAID, “GIVE ME A HUG!”

          This is a DISASTER! Too mortified to even go back in and explain, I got in the car and peeled out, totally embarrassed. Yes, I know I should have handled it right then, but I didn’t.

          I went home and wailed to St. Bob.

          Ethan probably thinks I’ve turned into one of these flirty old women who snuggle up to men and wink at them. EWWW!

          Now I have to summon the courage to bring it up again when I go there next, and explain the misunderstanding. WHY DID HE HAVE TO NAME HIS KID MIA? THIS IS A CATASTROPHE JUST WAITING TO HAPPEN!

          Mama Mia.

          And, speaking of Moms, you can join 10K subscribers, and watch hundreds of short life hacks on my Youtube Mom channel, right here!

Bubble Heads?

           The other day, my buddy Cori and I were speculating about what it will be like in heaven.  I was telling her about all my joints that need replacing. Both knees and both hips. So far. Hypermobility does this to you.

            And I said, “What I also need is a neck replacement, but I can’t quite picture how they’d do that.” Maybe that's why you never hear about it.

We agreed that the next life would be pain free, and imagined me without a neck (and hence without a body) just bopping around as a free-floating head. I mean, I use it so much more than I use the rest of my body.

          In fact, there could be a whole area for this, where we just park our bodies and enter a special Head Zone where our heads are encased in clear bubbles. We could transport them anywhere we want to go.

          But no soccer players allowed.

Hey, join 10K other subscribers who get my Youtube Mom life hacks right here.

A Perfect Toast

           St. Bob is a toast expert. Long before air fryers and other cookers, he had mastered placing buttered bread on a rack in the oven and broiling it, watching it every second until it was perfectly done. None of this toaster business.

          But now that he has a Ninja Air Fryer Toaster Oven, he is even more fastidious. First of all, it must be Dave’s Killer Bread.

          And then it must be pure butter, spread “from coast to coast.”  Yes, right up to the very edge. He requests this in restaurants as well, and gets mixed results.

But at home, he can be the King of Toast, and broil it exactly right, for 3 minutes and 30 seconds. This means the top has a glistening golden crust, yet the bottom remains soft and delicious (unlike using a toaster, which dries the bread out completely, on both sides).

Now, as often happens in life, he married a woman—me—who does not like toast. Here are my reasons why:

1.      It’s slightly burnt tasting (I mean, it’s been cooked once. Why the repetition?)

2.     It scratches the roof of my mouth.

3.     The crusts, which I’ve always torn off anyway, are now rock hard.

4.    It creates five times the crumbs of regular bread.

So, I watch with admiration as St. Bob gets his toast precisely perfect, and recently, he convinced me to try it.

          ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This does not resemble the toast of my childhood! It is simply phenomenal. Try his method and you will be in heaven. Be sitting down so you won’t faint onto the floor.

          This is the only thing he uses the Ninja for. So, if we amortize one slice of bread per day, the cost of this machine—hmm…

Join 10K other happy viewers and subscribe to my Youtube channel, where you’ll see hundreds of other easy life hacks!

It's Fun to be Crabby

           I have often said, that at my funeral nobody is going to say, “You know, she never complained.”

          But this isn’t about that kind of crabbing. It’s about my going off on a trip with some girlfriends 

and St. Bob immediately driving to San Francisco, to Hayes Street Grill.  And what was the urgency for this solo excursion?

          Soft Shell Crab, my friends. This man is crazy for it, and will drive hours and hours to get this delicacy. It’s hard to find (they’re from Maryland), so when he does, he pounces. The day he arrived, the restaurant was closed. So, he did what any sensible man would do—he came home, right?

Wrong. He booked a hotel room and reserved crabs for the following day (and they sold out while he was eating two of them).

          These crabs are lightly fried, and you eat the whole thing, shell and all. I plan never to do this. But Bob is a Foodie of extraordinary determination.

I had a great time with my pals, including the final day when we stopped at a casual restaurant with tables alongside a harbor. Suddenly I saw this sign:

Next time he decides to take off on a wild crab chase, I can save him some valuable time: Just ask moi.

10K subscribers enjoy my Youtube Mom videos—you can join their ranks and learn all kinds of easy life hacks right here!

True or False?

           I honestly think that when we die and get to the other side, we’ll find that half the things we believed were completely untrue. History-- and social culture-- are loaded with these.  As humans, we gobble up “information” without questioning it. So today I shall dispel a few myths:

You cannot see the Great Wall of China from space. Sorry. If you were going to sign up as an astronaut in order to do this, maybe consider being a travel agent.

And speaking of space, black holes are not holes. They are solid objects with strong gravitational pull.

Sugar doesn’t make kids hyperactive. That’s just how kids are.

Did you grow up hearing that painters who work on the Golden Gate Bridge start at one end, and when they reach the other end, they have to begin again at the other side? This is totally false.      

Ben Franklin never proposed the turkey to represent America (He actually suggested Moses).

Cleopatra was not, in fact, Egyptian, but Greek.

Your tongue does not have various sections for tasting sweet, sour, salty, and so on. All of it tastes all of it.

The left and right brain are not completely separate. You can train each half to do things the other half does.

Bats are not blind. Yes, they use echolocation, but they can also see.

          Isn’t it amazing how much “information” we swallow? If only we had a fact-checker in our brains, who could buzz when we’re hearing something untrue.  But then society would sound like a hive of bees.  (Oh—and only 5% of bees make honey.)

But here's a true fact: You'll love my Youtube Mom channel, filled with great life hacks. 10K subscribers agree!

Don't Be Fooled...

           I like connecting with others online. I assume you do, too, because you’re reading this. But what we all despise is falling victim to clickbait. What is that, anyway? Clickbait is an enticing, dramatic headline that hooks you, but leads to somebody stealing your data or making money off your curiosity.

          You click to see what a celebrity did, how someone cured their disease overnight, what can sabotage a great relationship, the five things that will sell your house instantly, the cheapest yet fabulous vacation, the secret your grocery store won’t tell you, how to lose 20 pounds in five days, what’s in and what’s out, and so on.

          We don’t want to be left out, unaware of the next big thing. The problem is that companies use this to keep you on their site, maybe get you to click for more information, and finally to purchase what they’re selling. If they can be like the Pied Piper and keep you long enough, they can sell ads you’ll see as you scroll along.

          There’s an ancient form of this, you know. It’s called Gossip. Today it sounds like, “Guess what I heard…”  And most people perk up and listen, waiting for a juicy tidbit to shock us.

          So here are four ways to avoid being scammed:

          Before you click, hover over the link to see its real source.

          Watch for unprofessional details—poor spelling, weird grammar, etc.

          Adjust your permission settings.

          Notice bottom line teasers, such as “then she opened the box and couldn’t believe what was inside,” or which make outrageous claims, such as “this vegetable could be killing you,” or ones which urge panic and hurry.

          Instead, check out my Youtube Mom videos. No manufactured drama, not selling you something, and you’ll even learn some helpful life hacks. Join my 10K subscribers and let your curiosity pay YOU!

Cell Mates?

          Pretend it’s 2007, and you are on the team designing the new smart phones which will take over the world, or at least teenagers. Here is your boss, explaining the assignment:

          “We want a hand-held device with a screen on the front, and buttons on the sides, exactly where you need to hold it.  These buttons need to be so sensitive that the simple act of handing your phone to another person will completely change what's on the screen."

          Check.

          “We want it to be nearly impossible to silence the device. Several clicks and maneuvers need to be used.”

          Check.

          “Also, to turn it on you’ll have to press the same button as turning it off (except off will include yet another button), and you’ll have to hold these buttons for a mysterious amount of time. In fact, put another button there, which can accidentally snap a quick photo of your screen. The more buttons on the sides, the better.”

          Check.

          “Not only that, but the phone itself must be very breakable, with a screen that can easily shatter. And no water-proofing—no, no no.”

          Check.

“To utilize the speaker phone, you can start with one button, but over the years make it two, and then three, because people like complication.”

Check.

“Oh—and make sure that accidental dials are so common that they get a cute nickname.”

Check.

“Congratulations! Now when you see someone shaking their cell phone in frustration, you can smile and think to yourself, “I did that.”

One good thing about phones is that you can watch my Youtube Mom videos there. Join 10K others, and be sure to subscribe!