Shoe Fly

          Aha.  You thought I misspelled that, didn’t you?  You thought I meant Shoo Fly.  But no; today I am talking about my latest foray into the frustrating realm of BUYING SHOES.

          And let me just say that I am not one of these women with eight thousand pairs of shoes.  I like them, but I’m not an addict.  I do breeze by the shoe department and slow down when I see a gorgeous pair of high heels.  I’ll pick one up to admire it, suddenly notice it has a red sole, and then sigh.  This means trouble.  This mean it’s a Christian Louboutin high heel and will have an insane price tag. And I think we can both agree that a thousand dollars—or even seven hundred, as many of his are—is an insane price for a pair of shoes, even if they are gorgeous.

          So I try to shop where nobody’s ever heard of this Louboutin guy, nor his outlandish prices.  And it works pretty well, except for last week when I needed a new pair of tan sandals with a heel.  My old ones are at least eight years old, and though I stopped caring that they are no longer the most current style, I do care when they begin to fall apart.

          Up and down the aisles I went, hunting for a shoe with a medium heel, two or three inches high.  Men, you have no idea what women (or their backs) go through to stay current with the dictates of designers.  I couldn’t find anything shorter than five inches.  So, to quote the entire state of Utah (where I spent my childhood), I thought, “What the heck—I’ll just try on a tall one, and see how it feels.”

          Mind you, it has been at least ten years since I’ve worn Barbie pumps or any shoe with a five-inch heel.  I sat down, slipped my foot into a camel-colored beauty, buckled the ankle strap, and stood up.

WHAMMO!   My calf seized in an immediate Charlie Horse.  I tried not to yelp, collapsed back onto my chair, and then struggled to unbuckle the shoe. It would not unbuckle.  The pain was escalating as my calf cramped tighter and tighter.  Finally I got the shoe off (threw it, I think), and then tried to stand, barefoot.  But my foot was stuck in a toe-point, as if encased in an invisible ballet pointe shoe.  

And it was killing me. It took both hands and the strength of Hercules to finally bend my ankle, then stand on my foot, trying to stretch my calf out again.  I walked.  It throbbed.  I walked.  It throbbed.

Nobody knows where the term, “Charlie Horse” came from, but other countries have better names for it. It’s called the paralyzer in Portugal, the horse’s kiss or muscle hangover in Germany, donkey bite, water buffalo, or old woman in Italy, thigh hen in Norway, wooden leg in Finland and Israel, and rat in Guam.  Clearly these are places where women are trying to be fashionable, but have worn flat shoes too long.

I could feel the stares of young ingenues all around me, and yes I can read minds but I refuse to print what they were thinking.  Suffice it to say I ignored them.  Their time will come.

I continued the hunt for a sandal with a lower heel and finally found one. Fortunately, it also had a lower price.  So victory was mine.

And you may also experience the victory of successful shopping, simply by clicking here for my latest books.  No Charlie Horse required.

Things I Have Said Into My Fridge

          We’ve all done it.  We’ve stood in front of the fridge with the door open, gazing over the offerings as if at a bakery. 

Except it doesn’t look like a bakery.  It looks, depending on the day, cluttered, empty, dull, even sketchy.  A plethora of adjectives, but nothing good to eat.

You’d think this wouldn’t happen when you love to cook.  But it happens even more, because we cook yummy things that get gobbled up. And that leaves us gaping at the chilly shelves, wishing something new would materialize.  Occasionally an item works its way to the back, gets forgotten, and becomes a science experiment.  To be sure, refrigerators are receptacles of mystery.

So I kept a record of the things I have recently spoken, as I stood there letting all the cold out.  See if you’ve ever said the following:

Oh, man, no more pie? 

What IS this?

That’s applesauce?  Are you kidding me?

Where’s the peach cobbler?

Oh, boy, how old is this Cool Whip?

That casserole looks like the Gobi Desert.

Okay, liquefied lettuce is disgusting.

The cheesecake is already gone?

What IS this?

I don’t care if this salsa is expired. I’m eating it.

How did bread crumbs get in here?

Ah… butter.  What can I put you on?

Where did the strawberries go?

Popcorn? Seriously?

How old is this lunchmeat?

I wonder if this cream is still good.

Why isn’t there some cookie dough in here?

How can this meat still be frozen solid?

I never should have bought that beet jam.

What IS this?

Time to haul everything out, wipe down the shelves, toss the who-knows-what-this-is items, and maybe whip up some more goodies.  Only this time, I’ll hide them in the back of the crisper, behind some wilting celery that will provide the perfect camouflage.

Hey, I have a bunch of fridge tips on my YouTube Mom channel!  Check one out here, then scroll through for hundreds of other short Life Skill videos.

Billions of Micro-Beads

          Is it utterly impossible for a Hilton to travel on an airline without something ridiculous happening?  Apparently, yes.  Although St. Bob and I are not dead, yet, so I guess we can still hope for an uneventful trip someday.

          This time it was Bob.  He was flying from California where we live, to visit his brother in Mississippi.  And, since it was a red-eye flight, he brought  along one of those travel pillows for your neck.

          Here is where you stop reading, if you are sharing this story with a child.  Because we all want children to be law-abiding citizens, right?  We like stories that show good guys getting dessert, let’s say, and bad guys getting their just desserts. We do not want kids thinking that the minute you obey a rule, your whole life goes down the toilet.

          And yet, here’s what happened.  Bob decided to curl up with his pillow and get a little shut-eye.  Except  there was an annoying tag-- the scratchy tag that tells you not to remove it.

          Well, all these mattress and pillow tags also say, if you read the fine print, that the consumer can remove it, so Bob does.  And whammo—the seam splits open and the tiny, styrofoam micro-beads inside explode into the airplane.

          They cover Bob.  They cover his seat.  They cover the floor, and they cover the passenger next to him.  The entire seating area now looks like a snow globe. 

          Not only that, but these Styrofoam balls stick to you because of static electricity, something exacerbated by dry air, and airplanes are notorious for the driest air you can find.  Bob apologizes to his mortified seatmate, and the two of them begin trying to scrape off the little balls, none of which want to budge.  Like burrs, they hunker down into the weave of these guys’ clothing, and even a sticky lint roller would probably not pull them off.

          A flight attendant brings a damp towel, but what you really need are eight or nine damp blankets.  It’s a total disaster, and other passengers nearby are scooting into empty seats a good distance away, because spreading into the aisle are clearly round, white cooties.

          Bob arrives looking like the abominable snowman, and no one will walk within ten feet of him.  His seatmate is still madly trying to brush off the stubborn little beads.  Bob calls me from the terminal and I laugh for twenty minutes and beg him to take pictures.  He will not.

          But I think the city of Jackson should have declared a Snow Day, and sent a TV reporter to interview Bob.  Then I could have posted a video as well.  Pity.

You can read about similar disasters in my novel, Sisters in the Mix, however.  One of them has a TV cooking show and OCD.  Guaranteed to liven up your summer.

Are You a Grammar Nerd?

Today I have a fun chart for you, sent to me by the incredibly nice folks at Grammarly.  Check it out and see if you're a Grammar Nerd! (Then visit jonihilton.com and buy my books!)

Quick-- Duck!

          A funny thing happens when you decide to enter a competition.  Even one you begin as a lark.  You become, well, competitive.

          St. Bob was asked to help with a Rain Gutter Regatta at work.  In case you’ve never heard of this, it’s something Cub Scouts do, similar to their Pinewood Derby, but using little wooden boats that they physically blow to the finish line in a rain gutter.  Except it’s now become a fun bonding activity in the workplace, and adults are catching the floating fever.  Personnel are divided into teams, and someone is chosen on each team to design a boat they hope will win.

          Little blocks of wood are handed out, along with a tiny plastic sail and a mast.  You also get a rudder and a keel, both roughly the size of a guitar pick. You are to sand and paint this silly thing, glue it all together, then bring it back for the big race.  So Bob brings it home and places it on the island in our kitchen.

          And there it sits, waiting for its design.  We talk about colors.  We talk about stripes.  And then we decide it needs sponsors, like race cars have.  We clip tiny logos of sponsors from Car and Driver magazine, and glue them on.  We varnish them so they won’t float away the minute they hit water.  But something is still lacking.

          And then it hit me: I have a whole bag of miniature rubber ducks that I give to kids at church who are restless and tired of the stash of toys Mom is offering.  No, they do not squeak.  Although that would be even funnier.

          So we glue a duck onto the hull and I think it looks absolutely darling.  But St. Bob wants this duck to look fierce, to have swagger.  He needs a pirate eye patch and we need a Jolly Roger flag.  We add both and decide these are the winning touches that will guide our ship to First Place.

          Bob takes it to work.  Whoa.  Not surprisingly, some of the participants have taken this thing very seriously, and have created boats that could grace the cover of Motorboat Magazine.

          Soon it’s Bob’s turn to put our Quacker into the water, at which point it promptly quacks up and turns on its side.  

          How can this be?  It looks balanced!  Some sympathetic racers offer to glue some tiny weights on, and now it stays upright, at least.  But it competes against one of the ringer boats, and loses mightily. 

       Bob pulls the duck off and races just the duck, but it loses, also.  He glues the duck back on and calls me with the bad news.

          “Were we very last place?” I ask.

          “I think we might be,” he says, though they do not measure this.

          “Then we just have to declare a moral victory,” I say.

          “An immoral victory?” he asks.

          Either one.  And, at least we have something even better to give to some kid at church, now.  I’d say it’s a win-win.

If you want to see the design I REALLY wanted to give his boat, check out my YouTube Mom video here, and see how I painted our grandfather clock.  Or click here to see photos.

Cows vs. Transformers

          Here’s what’s wrong with the world today:  We don’t have enough dancing cows.  Make that dancing and whistling cows, where little black eighth notes come floating out of their round lips.

          I blame the cartoon producers.  It used to be you could watch any number of cows with giant nostrils, dancing in ruffled aprons, to a great old jazz song, like “Holiday for Strings.”  Mice in tiny vests would scamper about to a Brahms Hungarian dance, while Bugs Bunny would conduct Von Suppe and pigs would play tubas.  Liszt’s rhapsodies, Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, Strauss, Rossini—they were all part of a happy childhood where equally dazzling animation brought every note to life. 

Most of these classics were made in the 1930s-1950s, but they continued to entertain into the 1970s, when—WHAM!  Cartoons suddenly became all about taking over the world.  The humor dropped out, the animation became stilted; it was as if all the writers and artists had died, and left cartoon-making to control freaks with Etch A Sketches.  Marketing departments saw how much money they could make selling action figures, lunchboxes, bedsheets, and backpacks, and kids were fed a steady stream of programming that led them to purchasing.

Not only that, but scientists discovered kids weren’t playing make believe with as much imagination, anymore.  Their toys stayed in the same character dictated by the cartoon shows, and storylines stayed in the same rut of vanquishing the enemy (cue the explosions).  Soon videogames popped up, even more violence-based than cartoons, and well, soon the only place you could find a cow was in the form of a Big Mac.

Gone are the incredible voices of Mel Blanc and Clarence Nash (the original Donald Duck).  I had the privilege of interviewing Mel Blanc when I was in college, and he actually took on the appearance of the Warner Bros. characters he voiced, from Bugs Bunny to Yosemite Sam.  It was incredible.  

Clarence Nash was the uncle of my good friend, Cynthia Rhine, and I had the pleasure of meeting “Uncle Clarence,” as well.  Dapper, beaming, a twinkle in his eye—always eager to entertain kids for the sheer joy of it.

Not only that, but the cartoon characters stopped singing.  Those same dancing cows used to croon like Bing Crosby, and squirrels sang in Barbershop quartets.

Gone also are the clowns and captains of yesterday’s cartoon shows, as well.  Remember them?  They would interview children, give them prizes, and introduce the next exciting Looney Tune.  This was actually St. Bob’s first job in television.  When he was only 15, he dressed up as an Emmett Kelly-style clown and everyone thought he was a grown man, introducing cartoons on KPLC TV in Lake Charles, Louisiana. 

There was something lilting and light about yesterday’s cartoons.  The whimsical animation, the dramatic classical music.  It was dreamy, that’s what it was.  And you never hear anyone say that, anymore.

Check out Pinholes Into Heaven, one of my books, here.  It’s a literary coming-of-age novel set in the same time period.

Lose 5 Pounds in 5 Minutes!

          You think you’ve tried every weight loss gimmick known to man?  Every sure-fire diet, every trick in the book?  Aha.  I have a new one.

          I was running errands with St. Bob after a business meeting, which meant I was wearing a black pencil skirt that’s been feeling a bit snug, lately.  We needed to stop at The Cell Phone Store, where I never fully understand all the conversations, but try to nod as if I do.

He parked and I hopped out of the car.  As I clickety-clacked through the parking lot in my high heels, I suddenly noticed my skirt didn’t seem all that snug anymore.  As I stepped up onto the curb, I could tell I had at least another inch of room around my waist, having shrunk at least an entire size just since getting out of the car!  And this was on National Donut Day (!) after consuming the legally required pastry (I am nothing if not law abiding).

A broad smile crept onto my face as I enjoyed my new skinny self, imagining how fun it would be to go home and fit into all my skinny clothes again.  This skirt felt great!  I felt great!  Exhilarated, even.

And then St. Bob sidled up next to me and said, “You know, your skirt is unzipped in back.” 

Yes, somehow the zipper had worked its way down and my skirt was now in danger of falling to the ground around my ankles.

          I stopped cold in my tracks, reached around, and zipped it up, corset-tight again.  But I shall always remember my miracle diet, and the glory that was mine for all of five minutes.

If you haven’t visited my website in awhile, take a look-see here.  There’s a wonderful music video right at the top of the home page, that you’re going to want to share with every woman you know!