Quick-- Duck!

          I do not want to be The Duck Lady.  Not that I have anything against ducks.  I also do not want to be The Cat Lady, though I do love cats.

          Here’s what happened.  We were living in a wetlands area of Rocklin (there are many meandering swamps here, masquerading as slow rivers), and I saw an ad on Craigslist for a free box of ducklings.  Apparently some ducks had nested near a man’s pool in Sacramento, and the next thing he knew, half a dozen eggs had hatched and were now making a royal mess of his back yard.  He wanted to bring them, in a box, to anyone, anywhere.

          Well, Joni to the rescue, right?  Rule Number One: Don’t be so cheap that you read about free stuff on Craigslist.  Rule Number Two: Don’t volunteer for anything to do with poultry. Rule Number Three: If you break Rules Number One and Two, be ready to change your phone number.

          And of course I broke them all.  I could just picture poor Mr. and Mrs. Duck, crying their eyes out as that man took their babies, put them in a box, and then drove off. I’m sure he would have packed up the parents as well, but they no doubt flew away from him.

          And orphan ducks—orphan anything—I cannot abide.  So I gladly took the box, and decided to raise the babies for a few more weeks in my guest bathtub, until they were old enough to paddle away and eat bugs and such in the wetlands.  I was ready with starter feed, slugs, and finely chopped greens.

          I also decided a foray into the sunny back yard would make for a fun outing.  Here is where the needle scratches the record and my happy cartoon music turns into a duck wreck.  As if guided by inner magnets or swamp-seeking missiles, every one of the ducklings made a beeline for the gate, slipped under it, and went scooting into the reeds and bushes by the wetlands.  I dashed after them, but they had disappeared, probably into the mouth of a coyote.  Okay, maybe they tried to swim away, and maybe they survived, and maybe I’m kidding myself.

          It was a total disaster.  But it didn’t stop there.  Somehow I became the clearing house for all the people in northern California with unwanted ducks, and people were even starting their phone calls with, “I hear you’re the Duck Lady.” 

          It finally eased up, and now we live in another area of Rocklin not on the banks of the wetlands, thank you. But every time I see a duck paddling along in the nearby waterways, I wonder.  And I hope.

Hey, instead of trolling Craigslist for freebies, why not curl up with a good book here?  Or check out my YouTube Momvideos, which do not include the care and feeding of ducklings.

         

Maybe try Icelandic?

You all know that our fourth child, Nicole, went on an LDS church mission to the magical land of Norway.  So, naturally anytime she bumps into someone from there, they begin chatting in melodious vowels and upswings that I cannot hope to understand.  But I love to watch and, to my credit, I have learned their fabulous, bouncy birthday song.

          So a few weeks ago St. Bob and I decided to have a family reunion--  Just a small gathering of our four far-flung children, a daughter-in-law, and a girlfriend.  We’ve given up hope on getting everybody in one spot for the holidays—someone is always missing.  So we chose a random long weekend when everyone could get away, and met in Salt Lake City.  And it was absolutely fabulous. On Saturday we rode the Alpine Slides and Coasters in Park City:

          Then we went out for sushi. And in walked an old, crusty panhandler in a cowboy hat, vest, and boots. He asked if any of us could spare some money for a Norwegian veteran. Nicole, seated right at the end of the table where he now stood, perked right up and began to speak to him in Norwegian.

          To say that panic filled his eyes might be an exaggeration, but he quickly back-pedaled, waving her away and saying, “Not so much,” before accepting some money and scooting on his way.  We could only imagine his thoughts: Dang! What are the odds I’d run into someone who actually speaks Norwegian?!  He probably chose the least likely language he expected to encounter.    

          The next day we attended the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s Music and the Spoken Word broadcast (for whom I’ve been a writer for 20 years), and toured Temple Square.  

          And whom should we see, parking a motorhome on the curb just as we were leaving?  Our “Norwegian” friend, again!  This guy can’t seem to get a break.  Though panhandling is popular at this huge tourist attraction, the Temple grounds also draw people from literally everywhere in the world.

          Maybe he should look up the least spoken languages, as I did today, and he could claim to be one of the eight people in the world who speak chimicuro (from Peru), or Dumi (from Nepal—again eight speakers worldwide), or Ongota (from Ethiopia).  Of course, with tours in 47 languages, he’s still taking his chances.

Grab some great books to give your family members at your next gathering—I have 23 of them to choose from right here!

Meet You Where?

          Let me just start with a disclaimer today:  St. Bob cannot be trusted to recommend food of any kind.  This is because he has a strange condition known as Taste-Bud-Freakazoidness-If-He-Hasn’t-Eaten.

          If St. Bob has dashed off to work without eating breakfast, and even skipped lunch, by dinnertime he has lost all perspective and thinks a cracker is as good as a cinnamon roll. It's like his tongue is hallucinating.

          This makes for an easy life if he comes home hungry and I’ve made a mediocre dinner—he will think it’s a grand feast.

          On the other hand, he will also drag me to hideous dives where “you can’t believe how good the food is,” and then it is not.

          Case in point.  He recently swore up and down that a gas station, near his work, had two women making “the best BLT sandwiches you’ve ever tasted.  Bar none.  I promise.”  The lettuce was fresh and crispy, the bacon thick, the tomatoes juicy, the bread lightly toasted--  an incredible find at a gas station, of all places.

          And I, ever the gullible wife, forgot about Bob’s untrustworthiness on such matters, and agreed to meet him there for a date.  A bell dinged as I walked into the convenience mart filled with the standard pork rinds and key chains, Cheetos and motor oil.

          Two very surprised women looked up from a window in the back as Bob told them their sandwiches were so incredible that he had to bring his wife in.  They literally exchanged glances.

          But they made the sandwiches, we paid, and then we sat at the lone rickety little table near the front window, by the ice machine.  I bit into my sandwich and chewed.  Bob bit into his sandwich and chewed.

          “Okay, you are not allowed to make food recommendations,” I said, as soon as I had swallowed.  I took a big swig of my bottled water.

          Bob was looking perplexed.  “Honestly, these tasted so good the other day,” he insisted.

          “You do realize that there’s a diagnosis for people who’ve lost their grip on reality,” I said.  “It’s called psychosis and doctors prescribe medicine for it.”

And I am sitting in a gas station, on a date with a psychotic, eating a crummy BLT sandwich, which makes me eligible for some kind of medication as well, I believe.  Or at least a Magnum ice cream bar  before we leave.

You, however, can be smart enough to stay home, eat well, and curl up with a good book.  Here are some wonderful literary offerings.

          

Puzzle Me This

I have a puzzle problem. There.  I’ve admitted it. Just like an alcoholic and booze, I need to stay away from puzzles.

And I recently fell off the wagon.  Years ago I missed an entire Thanksgiving because I was absorbed in a zillion-piece jigsaw puzzle in a three-day binge.  I have forbidden my family and friends ever to give me another jigsaw puzzle.

But none of us knew about cryptograms.  I was recently on a flight home to Sacramento, and a woman came down the aisle carrying a little magazine that said, “Cryptograms.”  Wouldn’t you know she’d sit right beside me?

I watched her open the pages.  Hmm… some kind of word decoding game.  I waited as long as I could stand it—approximately seven seconds—and then asked her what it was.

And she couldn’t have been nicer.  Not only did she explain it to me, she even let me look over her shoulder and suggest letters.  Fast forward twenty minutes and now you see me working feverishly on my fold-down lap table, with her book and her pen, while she sits beside me reading a novel. I had completely usurped her puzzle book and was compulsively solving the phrases as if this were an SAT exam and my entire future depended on it.

Had my kids been there, they would have been nudging one another and whispering.  “Look at mom.  She’s doing it again,” just like they used to call to their father when I would take over their homework.

Shameful.  That’s the only word for what I did and I am as guilty as a dog with whipped cream on its face, an empty pie tin beside him.  If there were a Puzzles Anonymous group, I would sign right up. 

But I have a feeling I’d sit in back and download apps recommended to me by other attendees.

No guilt needed for clicking here to buy my books or subscribe to my YouTube Mom videos.  In fact, it will do you a world of good.  You’re welcome.

Grab That Bag!

          I believe in balance.  I rarely achieve it, but I still believe in it.  For example, I recently had a birthday, and my dear friend, Cynthia Horst, gave me this incredible, handmade gift:

And look at all the interior pockets:

          Let me just say that Cynthia, as near as I can tell, does NOT believe in balance, because she is waaay at the end of the quilting/sewing bell curve, where few other humans dare to tread.  She is nowhere near the middle, where most of us who sew find ourselves.

          We average sewers (sewers? What a horrible homonym, right?) do not attempt tricky projects, nor do we design our own.  We make pillows and curtains and stay in the realm of forgiving gathers and prints that do not have to be matched.  The seam ripper is our favorite tool because we so often goof and have to rip out our stitches. 

Cynthia Horst, on the other hand, has a jaw-dropping blog called dreamquiltcreate that will make you pity her grandkids’ other grandmas.  She makes intricate, smocked and embroidered blessing gowns with royalty-worthy bonnets and scallop-edged slips. She uses silk from France and ribbons from some heavenly source I cannot hope to find.  Then, apparently because she has no need for sleep, she also makes dolls and doll clothes, doll houses, doll bassinettes, princess costumes—all from beautiful fabric.   This, in addition to drop-dead gorgeous quilts.

And then, as you will quickly see from reading her posts, she is also a genuinely warm and loving person.  You could search the world over, and never find someone so sweet and generous.  She was raised in Montreal, and even speaks French.  Somehow, this just puts icing on the cake for me. She and her husband, Ricky, are expecting their 12th grandchild soon.  Can’t you just imagine the little unborn spirits in the premortal world, fighting and clawing to get into that family?

So I am particularly honored to have a Cynthia Horst creation, especially one so customized for me, as a writer, with a typewriter on one side!  I might add that she tucked chocolate and other goodies inside.  I would post a picture of those, but surely you didn’t think they lasted long enough to be photographed.

So now I have to decide, of all the possible choices, how to use this phenomenal bag.  Makeup? Too messy.  Office supplies?  Too pointy.  Jewelry?  Don’t travel enough.  Coupons? Please.  Teaching tools for Relief Society?  Possibly.  There are a zillion ways this fantastic organizer will be put to use.  Number One, of course, will be to show it to one and all, so I can brag about my talented friend.

Thank you, my friend, for setting the bar so high and being so wildly talented.  Balance, it seems, can definitely be overrated.

If you’d like to read about a character who's unbalanced in another whole direction, check out the main character in my humorous book, Sisters in the Mix, about an OCD woman with a cooking show.

A Diller A Dollar

            Many of you hold a cherished spot in my heart, because you are readers of my books and attenders of my plays.  May you live long, happy lives and may the Bluebird of Happiness nest in your trees, but never poop on your head.  Or your car.

           

 Meanwhile, I shall gratefully cash royalty checks. I hope. 

            Unless there’s a problem.  Such as the snag that recently surfaced when I tried to cash a check for 75 cents.  Yes, this is such a tiny amount that there is no “cents” sign on the keyboard, so I have to spell it out. 

            It is also such a tiny amount that PayPal will not deposit it into my bank.  Nope, it will sit on its teeny little haunches, all three quarters stacked up like a little order of pancakes for a fairy, and it will wait.

            If ever this publisher sells more of my products, it might—MIGHT! (I can pray)—tip the scale over an entire humongous dollar, and then PayPal will release the ransom to my bank. And so it sits, my money, like a dog in quarantine awaiting release to its master. 

            How quietly can you whisper, ka-ching?

             Imagine the joy, the elation, you could feel (and the power!) if you were the person to launch my little coins into the air and push the total over the 100 penny mark!  Your chance at heroism awaits at jonihilton.com, where you can subscribe to my YouTube Mom videos, and buy my books and at least one of my plays.  Thank you from the bottom of my grateful heart.

It's All Relative

           My church has a cool new online gizmo that can tell you everyone famous you’re related to.  You just plug in your name, and find out you’re related to Jesse James (in my case) or Bill Gates (not in my case.  Dang.)

People are even having parties where they find out if they’re related to their friends, neighbors, and church members-- often with surprising results. Granted, many of the names you find will say 6^th cousin twice removed, but sometimes you get a direct hit.  It’s called Relative Finder, and anybody who has joined Family Search can use it. 

          Imagine my surprise to learn I am related to more than a dozen U.S. Presidents!  In no particular order, I can claim Adams, Arthur, Harrison, Fillmore, both Roosevelts, Truman, Ford, LBJ, Kennedy, Nixon, Coolidge, Garfield, and Buchanan.  And even more presidents’ wives.

          The English royalty in my line includes Mary Stuart (my 12^th great great aunt), George III, James II, and Queen Victoria.

Some other famous folks I unearthed on my tree are John D. Rockefeller, Buster Keaton, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Charles Lindburgh, Susan B. Anthony, Walt Disney, and Orville (but apparently not Wilbur?) Wright.  Plus several signers of the Declaration of Independence and of the U.S. Constitution.

As a Latter-day Saint, I was particularly excited to learn I’m connected to dozens of Mormon leaders and historical figures, including the Prophet Joseph Smith, as well as many early pioneers and members of the Mormon Battalion.

There were no Salem Witch Trial folks, which was mildly disappointing.  But remember, I do have Jesse James, just to liven things up.  And now you have a brand new party game to try out.

Entertain your guests with another super idea: Show them some of my YouTube Mom videos!