Bunny Butts

            This is not a post about how to get kicked out of WinCo Supermarket, so keep reading.  First, I think we can all agree that traditions are a good thing in life, bind families together, and even keep society from coming apart at the seams, right?  These are the things that confirm our values, give us hope for the future, and tell us who we are.

And I, my friend, am bunny butts.  Every Easter I not only make Italian Easter Egg Bread (Google it—it’s so cool—the colored eggs cook while they bake, tucked into a braided wreath of dough), but I also make not one, but TWO bunny cakes.  Okay, the reason I make two is that this is what you get when you slice a frosted cake in half.

Here’s the deal: You make two circular cakes using any recipe you like.  Carrot cake seems especially rabbity.  But instead of stacking them and frosting them like a standard round cake, you cut each cake crosswise, in half, to make two semi-circles.  You frost the bottom sides together, place them cut-side-down on two plates, and voila! Bunny bodies.  I usually scatter green-tinted coconut around them for the grass, give them pink card stock ears, jellybean eyes and noses, and then (wait for it) a pink Hostess Snowball for the tail. 

 

Here is a picture of a similar bunny cake I found online, on Natscorner.com.  Except it doesn’t show the tail, and this is where the bunny—and the plot—thickens.  Maybe you’ve noticed the recent news that Hostess, an American institution and the maker of Twinkies and Cupcakes, is shutting down.  As in NO MORE SNOWBALLS.  Which means NO MORE BUNNY CAKES.  Which means NO MORE HILTON FAMILY EASTER TRADITIONS.  Which mean JONI GOES BALLISTIC IN WINCO.

Okay, not entirely ballistic.  But I did shout, “You mean the government can step in to save Chrysler but not Hostess?  What kind of country is this?” when I learned they had no Hostess Snowballs.  I went on a teensy bit more about this essential part of our Easter dinner and maybe some things about Communism, I can’t really remember,  then I marched over to the muffin section of their bakery to try to improvise, thinking maybe I could slice off a muffin top, cover it with frosting and coconut, and make do.  But what a sorry selection of fluffy tails those were!  Knobby little mounds of nuts and bran?  Are you kidding?

And I was standing there with my lower lip sticking out enough to be a bunny tail itself, trying to wrap my brain around the loss of Pluto as a planet, phones you could work without an instruction book, and now Hostess!—when the kind clerk I had just accost—uh, enlightened—came up to me with a veritable treasure trove of bunny tails!  Did I hear a heavenly choir, singing?  (Well, probably rolling their eyes at my completely ignoring the real meaning of Easter, but back to my story).  Here was a box of knock-off snowballs!   They’re called BOMBOLINS and they’re even pink—look!

 

Across the top it says, “El Mexicano,” so Thank You, Mexico for saving the day.  And if the photo on the box is any indication, this box must hold about 16 tails—why, I could make bunny cakes for the whole neighborhood, right?  I’m not going to, but I could.

My heart lightened, I eagerly bought the Bombolins and brought them home.  But then I opened the box.  Uh oh.  These cookies are nowhere near the size of the photo.  They’re the size of Susan B. Anthony dollars!  WHICH YOU CAN’T FIND ANYMORE, EITHER. I know people with bigger thumb prints than this.

 

To make bunnies the right size for these tails, I’ll have to use cupcakes and cut them in half.  Hey—stay with me here—this means I could have a whole litter of baby bunnies!  Be still my heart-- I think I’ve launched a new tradition.

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Death by Marshmallow?

           For four days now Bob has been complaining of weird aurora borealis symptoms in his left eye.  As we wives do, I kept insisting he see an eye doctor until he finally got on the phone and made an appointment.  He told the gal he thought it could be a cataract, so she made him an appointment for late April.  But then she (wisely) asked him what he was seeing.  And when she realized it was not blurry vision, the symptom of a cataract, she said they had a few appointments set aside for emergencies and could get him in at 3:30 this afternoon.

            Well, of course I burst into tears.  My husband has a brain tumor mixed with eye cancer and is going blind, probably has to get right into surgery and may die.  Why else give him an emergency appointment?

            Bob hugs me and, in the comforting way only he can exhibit, says, “You know this is probably because of the time you hit me in the eye with that marshmallow.”

            Yes!  That’s right!  Three years ago we were playing a board game with the kids, and when he infuriatingly won yet again, something I cannot seem to train out of him, I grabbed one of our fancy snacks in the middle of the table (an open bag of large marshmallows) and flung it in his direction.  Incredibly, it hit him right in the eye with a satisfying thwok sound.  I couldn’t repeat this again if I tried a hundred times.  Even the kids were amazed at my marksmanship.  It was as if angels themselves had carried my missile directly to its target.

            Except that now I am responsible for his eye malfunction and must turn myself in for a delayed homicide (do they have that?).  Well, of course, I am wracked with guilt and must go along to the eye appointment because he will undoubtedly be rushed by ambulance to the hospital and I’ll need to drive the car.  Three hours and several tests later we learn that the gel in his eye is simply shrinking, but that his retina is fine.  The symptoms should go away in a few days. Bob asks the doctor if he can find bits of marshmallow in there, but he cannot.  I glare at both of them.

            Bob and I are relieved at the good news, and decide to celebrate by going out to dinner.  And thus we see that it’s a win-win for Joni and all I have to do is remember not to order anything with marshmallows on it.

 

Different Strokes for Different Folks

You know how you get emails from time to time, telling you the signs of a stroke?  Well, what does it mean if you’ve had those symptoms for 20 years? 

About 10 years ago my friend’s mom had a mild stroke and, though apparently fully recovered, complained that she couldn’t always think of the word she wanted.  Helloo?  I’ve been doing that for years!  Isn’t that why the Thesaurus was invented? And why we all say thingamajig? ALSO… two days ago a dear friend of ours went to the hospital for those TIA mini-strokes, and guess why?  Because she couldn’t think of her friend’s last name! 

“Are you kidding me?” I said to Bob.  “I get Kristin Jeppson’s name wrong half the time.  I mean Kristin Sterri’s.”  Now we both busted up laughing. 

Exactly how confused do you have to be to call an ambulance? I was talking to my nail lady—yes, I have a nail lady—and she was sharing with me how utterly mortified she was when she recently tried to get into the wrong car in a parking lot.  I just stared at her.  I do that two or three times a week.  I drive a little burgundy Altima and every time I park it there are two or three similar-looking cars right by it when I come back out.  Like similar species of birds, all clustered together on a wire.  And I’m supposed to tell them apart?

I have two friends who have excuses for this sort of thing.  One had an aneurism and one had a severe head injury in a car accident.  But I am keeping right up with them and have NO EXCUSE. 

When we lived in Iowa we bought a gigantic 100-year-old house with 100-year-old plumbing.  This meant that if someone wanted to shower, they first told everyone not to run water or flush a toilet because it would plunge them into an icy torrent.  Bob would make just such an announcement and I would vow to remember it for the length of a shower.  But in truth I would only remember for two or three minutes and then begin rinsing vegetables or watering plants.  Finally I was determined not to let him down yet again, so I decided to stay out of the kitchen entirely.  No faucets for me, no sir!  I went downstairs to the laundry room and started a load of laundry.  Now that should occupy me for a good, long, while.  And I couldn’t understand why I soon heard screaming.

Tell me if this would cause you great alarm:  We have a rollover telephone line, which means that if you’re using one line and a call comes through, it rolls over to the other line.  So one day I decide to call my backdoor neighbor, Kathy Ray.  Not only is her address similar to mine, but so is her phone number.  So I dial.  And my other line starts to ring.  Shoot!  So I have to hang up, hope she didn’t even hear one ring, and answer the incoming call.  Only nobody is there!  Whatever.  A wrong number, probably.  So now I try again and dial Kathy.  But darned if the other line doesn’t start ringing again!  And when I hang up and answer that one, once more no one is there.  Who keeps calling me and hanging up?  How irritating!  And only now do I realize I have been dialing my own phone number.  That’s right.  Calling myself. 

Maybe I should keep the hospital on speed-dial.

         We have a winner!  The contest I ran, to name a character in my next book after someone who reviewed one of my 3 new novels (on Kindle and in paperback at Createspace.com) has ended. I drew the name of Valerie Steimle, who posted this 5-star review on Goodreads:

This book was such a great read!!!! The story has such drive you want to finish it in a day!!!

With the background in biology and anthropology, Joni Hilton has down a great job in writing such a believable story.

Clean and appropriate for teens to read.

          Thanks, Valerie! I don't know who you are, but I very much appreciate your wonderful review!  For those who haven't seen this one yet, it's about Nina, a girl who goes with her famous uncle on an anthropology expedition to an uncharted island in the Indian Ocean. It's filled with dangerous creatures, cannibals, and natives who wear glistening white crowns that unwrap into deadly whips. Storms, fire, murder, and greed for gold all shake the expedition, and only five of the seven members will return.  The customs and language here are unlike any other.  It’s a history-making opportunity for the the scientists, and for the girl who hopes to follow in her uncle's footsteps.  

But when she's rescued from a wild animal attack by a golden-haired native with brilliant green eyes, the entire plan changes.  Could he really be the infant son of an English scientist who died here 20 years ago?  What does it mean when she alone is allowed into the cemetery, then into the women’s hut?  And why did she wake up covered with orchids?  Will Nina forget about this jungle man and his dangerous island, and go back to her studies, or give it all up for love?

 

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Sharing reviews today!  First up, thanks to Jennie Hansen for reviewing my new comedy novel, SISTERS IN THE MIX, available at Amazon and Createspace.com.  You can read that review here: http://www.ldsmag.com/article/1/12298

And thanks to the gifted director, Gina Bikales, for the recent production of "IN BED WITH CHUCK AND LOIS" in Rancho Mirage, and for writing this in her Director's Notes:
"I have such a good time directing Joni Hilton's work and the reasons are simple.  Joni is a writer who knows how to write the truth.  There is not a situation she tackles that doesn't ring true.  Every single one of us can relate to something in her plays, whether it is the relationship of spouses to each other, how we see our children, or if our bodies measure up to the Hollywood standard of perfection.  She nails it every time.  Joni is also one of those rare writers who can elicit gales of laughter without ever resorting to the dropping of "F-Bombs" or other assorted questionable language.  Her humor works without cheap tricks or shocks.  Ms. Hilton writes real sentences with well thought out vocabulary.  It's a rarity these days..."

And thanks to Bruce Fessier of THE DESERT SUN who wrote of the same play, "... her humor was effective because it resonated with truths that bonded the audience... the split second timing directed by Gina Bikales gave the dialogue extra bite, but it was Hilton's observations of how men and women think that had my wife and I laughing so hard we were almost embarrassed by what it revealed about us.  Bikales says it will that $6,000 to $7,000 to get this one-set play mounted at a legit theater.  That's a wise investment.  This play can have a life in stock theater."

An Eye for an Eye

            This is not a blog about personal, intimate information.  Honest.  So, Men, stay with me here, because you are going to be represented in high style if you keep reading.

I recently had a “female” procedure.  Women, you will have no qualms about this story because we can meet a stranger in the elevator who asks us for a tampon and suddenly we’re all about helping and hormones and hugs.  A man will not tell his own brother so much as his underwear size, but we share nursing tips, hot flash remedies, and mini-pads with women we met two seconds ago.

            Cutting to the chase, my OB thought I should have gone through menopause by now, and suggested an outpatient surgery that could help it along.  Did you know there was such a thing?  It’s called an ablation and, had anyone suggested it to me 15 years ago, I would have been all over it.  So thanks for that one, medical team. 

Simply put, they use lasers and other instruments to destroy the uterine lining.  This is a great thing if you’re through having kids yet still have heavy periods.  In half the cases, you get catapulted gleefully into menopause.  At the very worst, you have lighter periods, so it’s a win-win.  Bob lost no time asking when I was going to be “obliterated.”  

            Naturally, since you go under anesthetic for it, there are pre-op tests and pre-op appointments. In the last one, the doctor said to me, “Now I just have to tell you this.  There’s a small chance I could puncture the wall of your uterus, and if that happens, you’ll need further surgery.  However, it’s not very likely, it hardly ever happens, and I really wouldn’t worry about it.”  But of course.  The standard warning to prevent law suits.

            So I go home and casually mention this to Bob.  Bob looks at me and says, “Next time you see him, tell him that if he punctures my wife’s uterus there’s a small chance I could come over and beat the crap out of him.  But tell him it’s not very likely, it hardly ever happens, and I really wouldn’t worry about it.” 

            And that is why men don’t share intimate information in elevators.

A Year's Supply of Testosterone

            All you clever, prepared people who have every possible emergency supply in case of disaster, I have passed you by.  I have a year’s supply of testosterone.  See?  You forgot that one, didn’t you?  You need to follow me around.

            Here is how I came by this marvelous motherlode.  I was innocently shopping at Walgreen’s (you notice I only go to the best places), and had just finished checking out.  The clerk says to me, “You know, you can get a ten-dollar coupon if you buy one of these.” She points to a stack of white boxes on a display at the counter.  These boxes are about six inches square.  “All you pay is the sales tax, and then you get a ten-dollar coupon.”

            Okay, I hate story problems.  In fact, I hate all math problems.  I cannot understand how this is going to work, but she convinces me to purchase one of the boxes for a few cents, and then promises to give me a coupon worth ten dollars, which I can use against my cart full of purchases.  First she has to void my purchases and start over.  “While you’re at it, you may as well get a couple more,” she says.  “But each one has to be a separate transaction.”

            Well now even I can see that I will soon have thirty dollars deducted from my bill.  This is bargain-ese, my favorite language.  I glance over at the white boxes and then I realize what they are.  In GIGANTIC (unnecessarily gigantic) lettering on one side it says, “TESTOSTERONE” and on the side it says “WEEKEND WARRIOR.”  I cringe.  Does it really have to be testosterone?  I glance around.  I am one of those women who convinces her husband to buy her tampons, so I am waaay out of my comfort zone with these boxes.

 

            But thirty dollars is thirty dollars, so I quickly stack three of them on the counter, and wait for the magic to happen.

            Except that it’s dark magic.  The clerk's computer jams and she has to call her manager, who apparently has to finish an entire season of Downton Abbey before he can come to the front, but who finally gets there.  By now two more people are in line behind me.  While the manager and the clerk pull receipts from the machine and try to untangle the three refunds, I notice two more people have gotten in line now, and they’re starting to crane their necks around to see why there’s a hold up.

            The boxes, meanwhile, have grown to the size of shoeboxes, and from fifty feet away you can read “TESTOSTERONE.”  I consider turning them, but “WEEKEND WARRIOR” will show if I do that.  I can feel heat creeping up my neck and blooming crimson on my face. 

            I force a chuckle.  “Boy, my husband is really going to laugh when he sees these,” I say.  No one believes me.  I am a middle aged woman in obvious desperation, loading up on the one item that can save my marriage.  In public.  At Walgreen’s.  With a growing line behind me.

            There are now twelve cash register receipts on the counter, and the clerk--- no longer my bargain buddy, but my mortal enemy—is trying to match up which receipts go with which purchases, and which enormous white box, each one now the size of a television set, can rest atop each of the three piles.  The lettering of “Testosterone” is now blinking in red neon.  I can feel sweat dripping down my back.

            People are shifting from one foot to the other now, sighing and wishing they hadn’t gotten in line behind a crazed woman in the throes of unrequited passion.  I think about turning and saying to the lady behind me, “This is such a good deal,” but then I realize I have no idea how to explain the mathematics, and she’ll just think I’m making it up.  Actually I’m beginning to wonder if the clerk is just making it up, as well.

            Finally they get all my purchases into bags, including the oven-sized testosterone boxes, and I dash from the store like a robber.  I am already dreading Bob’s reaction when I show him the novel way I saved us thirty bucks, but hey.  At least we’re ready for Armageddon.

Think You Know Cold?

     

            We are in the midst of a record-breaking winter, and two thoughts come to mind.  One, don’t even talk to me about global warming.  And two, welcome to my childhood.

            I grew up in Cache Valley, Utah in the days when little girls had to wear dresses to school, after which we would all go home and sit in bathtubs of water to thaw out and melt the frostbite on our knees.  Utah’s record low recorded temperature is -69 degrees.  I kid you not.  The average winter temperature in Antarctica is -30.  My dad would spend hours shoveling a tunnel of fresh snow from our front door to the car, through which I would walk, with white walls of snow piled far above my head.  We used to laugh when people would say Eskimos had seven words for snow (a vocabulary hoax you can Google anytime), when we had a dozen or more.  There was slush, powder, dust, wet snow, packed powder, drifts, sugar snow, crust, corn snow, pellets, grains, and crud.  Folks routinely dealt with frozen pipes, frozen car locks, and frozen milk bottles.  Why penguins were not an indigenous species there escapes me.

            Then we moved to Salt Lake City, still cold but not record-setting, and finally to sunny Southern California where I couldn’t believe the high school didn’t have a ski club.  But it took me approximately 2 minutes to adapt to this new, subtropical climate, and I vowed never again to live in a frozen tundra.

            And then, a few years into our marriage, Bob and I moved with our four kids to Iowa.  Bob was hired as the lead evening TV news anchor.  Our dog, the only family member with the proper reaction to this, promptly had a stroke.  We bought our house on the one autumn day they have each year, when the leaves are ablaze and the turquoise sky is filled with bouncy white clouds.  And then winter comes slamming in with ice storms and frigid blasts that knock the -40 temperatures down to -70 with the wind chill.  And it lasts for 9 months.  Winterfest is cancelled.  Outdoor hockey games are cancelled.  Radio reporters tell you how long you can be outside before flesh freezes, and nightly newscasts are filled with photos of dead livestock heaped up in piles.  Bob was on the news, of course, so the kids would watch during dinner and howl with laughter when the weatherman would say, “Well, we’re colder than Alaska and colder than Siberia again.”  Evidently a jet stream would pass over North Dakota and Minnesota, then swoop down over Iowa to dump a fresh load of snow and ice before rising again and heading out over Illinois.  Iowa was the coldest spot on the map.

I would glance over at the dog’s water bowl, frozen solid. It was inside the house, but next to the doggie door through which icy wind would blow.  I wore gloves and a knit scarf to cook. Like my neighbors, I began using my patio for extra freezer space. I gave hot chocolate to my daughter when she went out to build a snowman and came in ten minutes later with waxy-looking frostbite on her cheeks.  I saw icicles in my children’s hair after they cleared the driveway with the snow blower.  I watched as the snow plow came by and piled all our freshly-shoveled snow into a mountain blocking our driveway, big enough to go sledding on.  I listened to locals brag that these ridiculous conditions built character and wondered why Jesus never advised people to seek out harsh climates in order to develop virtues. 

After three years in this deep-freeze we finally headed back to California, settling in Sacramento.  No more snow for the Hiltons, no sir.  And then my daughter decided to serve a mission for our church.  Up she went to Utah to the Mission Training Center to learn a new language.  In two weeks, guess where she’s going?  Norway.  

 

Am I Seeing Things? Yes. Wrong Things.

It’s no secret (well, maybe from the police) that I went over to the local high school, in the dark, and corrected a sign using a black Sharpie.  Had I been caught, we don’t know that I would have been arrested for vandalism.  I contend that I would have been given a medal. Cops drive around with medals in their glove boxes, right?  If not, they should, because they never know when they might run across a do-gooder such as myself.

The sign had said, “Slow Students Ahead.”  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how insulting this is to one’s children.  So I added a semicolon after “slow.” And now the universe is one of improved order, don’t you think?

I don’t need to bore you with the other tales of my community service.  Instead I wrote a book about a crazy lady (NOT me) who has a cooking show (NOT me) and who corrects grammar and spelling on public signs (sometimes me).  It’s called Sisters in the Mix and it’s available for peanuts on Kindle.  The paperback version, at CreateSpace, is also super cheap (the price, not the writing).  Check out the reviews.

Anyway, my efforts do not seem to be educating the unwashed masses, because on a recent trip to Ross, I found not one, but two misspelled signs for sale in the home goods area. (Scroll down and you'll see them.)  Now you’re thinking, “Hey, it was Ross—what did you expect?”  But I like Ross.  I expect their merchandise to be… okay, I don’t expect much from Ross, to be honest.  But misspelled home accent signs?

Lest you think I am making this up, I shall post photos of the offending signs.  What gets me, besides the fact that someone designed them with glaring errors in them, is that at least 10 people had to see these mistakes and nobody caught them.  First you have the doobie who thought up the phrase and wrote it down misspelled.   Then you have a boss who nodded and said, “Yeah, okay, we can make those.”  Then you have the person who painted the sign.  Then someone who framed it.  Then the buyer at Ross who purchased it.  Then you have the sales staff who unpacked the box, tagged it with a price, and put it on the shelf (this could be three separate people), and then a store manager who  theoretically walks by the merchandise from  time to time.  So a small village of people who are ruining America one letter at a time.

Let’s look at the first sign, obviously designed to hang over a bathtub.  BREATH SOAK ESCAPE, it says.  Not breathe, but breath.  And don’t tell me they’re made in China by non-English  speakers.  China or no China, they still have to pass through American hands to get on the shelf.

Now check out the second one:  ALL MEN ARE IDOTS AND I MARRIED THEIR KING. Really?  Idots?  First of all, even if it had been spelled right, this is a stupid, sexist statement that would infuriate women if it were said about us.  But to “go to press” with the missing "i" is inexcusable.  Or should I say nexcusable?  Granted, anyone can have a typo in their work—I find them in mine all the time.  But a sign is short and easy to proofread.  Plus, as I said, it goes through many sets of eyes.  Something tells me that the person who wrote this, married to the Idot King, has actually found her perfect match.

I called my husband, Bob, over to see these signs and asked, “Do you think I should take them up front to the cashiers and show them the mistakes?”

He shook his head.  “No; all you’ll find up there are other idots.”  I fear he is right.

Not Just Any WalMart Story

First of all, I wanted to save money.  Why else would anyone subject themselves to the ambiance of WalMart, right?  Well, that and the fact that they have no dress code so it is truly a Come-As-You-Are party.  So I jump into the car with the suddenness—and the outfit—of a person who ran out of paint in the middle of a job.  My makeup has slid down onto my neck because God chose not to restrict Satan’s ability to crank up the heat for menopausal women, and one good hot flash can send it sliding down onto your feet.

But I don’t worry about this.  I just load up my cart with groceries and get in line.  And here is where I remember that I am actually a good person, and that a key to enjoying life is to take an interest in others, even help them if you can.  I see a heavy-set woman in front of me and decide to give her a sincere compliment and brighten her day a bit.  I actually like the color of her knit top, and choose to tell her so.  It’s the exact color of the crayons we used as kids, which said carnation.

“That’s a pretty pink,” I tell her.

She whirls around.  “Oh, you know,” she says, in the tone of a long-time friend, “I just love this top.  And it’s lined!” Here she lifts up the outer layer to show me the lining underneath, then says, “So no one can even tell I’m not wearing a bra!”

Well, no, not until now. 

She continues.  “My bra rubs my skin and I get such awful chafing.” She describes the redness, the flaky skin.

I try to look sympathetic instead of horrified but am not sure I am succeeding here.

“So I just throw this top on, and then I don’t have to worry about it!” she says.

I am sputtering, trying to think whether to say, “How wonderful,” or “Oh, lucky you,” or “My, my,” and find myself just nodding and smiling like someone who doesn’t speak English but wants you to think they do.  And I am in fact wishing I did not speak English.  I am also wishing I could be in another store, or at least another line, but two people are already crowding in behind me and if I change lanes now my ice cream will melt before I can get to the car.

I am stuck with the Pink Top Lady and her medical history.  From what I can tell, she has never had another living soul strike up a conversation with her, so she is going to make the most of it.  After she talks about her latest bout with bronchitis, she advises me to purchase all the items she is now loading onto the conveyor belt, and tells me the reason for each one. 

I am hoping she will not tell me why she is loading various pharmaceutical creams onto the belt.  I am praying she will not wait for me and want to walk out to the parking lot with me, see my license plate, trace it to my address, and become my new best friend/stalker. Luckily she has to pay before she can finish the show-and-tell festival, and then she leaves.

“You attract weirdos,” a friend of mine tells me later.  She is not the first person to identify this phenomenon. “Look,” she says, “stop trying to do missionary work at WalMart—it’s just duck and cover, and get out as fast as you can.”