Flat Out Amazing

          Most of you know that I spent a good hunk of my childhood in Utah. And one of the things Utah is known for is its famous Bonneville Salt Flats, where race cars of all descriptions have set land-speed records as they have zoomed across brilliant white fields of sparkling salt.

          And, of course, it lures the rest of us in, too. In one of the many trips we’ve made to Utah from California, we decided to take our family sedan on a spin or two across the famous terrain we’d seen on television.

          But wait. It’s not exactly what you think. First of all, while it is indeed 90% table salt, it’s not as if this is the soft stuff you keep in the kitchen, sprinkled across a glassy surface. 

          It’s crusty. It’s hard. It’s in globs. And your tires fling this stuff up into the undercarriage of your car where it will defy science for months.

          How does it do this? By never coming off. Even if you spray wash it, thinking salt will surely dissolve in water, it does not. It clings to your fenders and axle and everything else under there, until you chisel it off. Salt can accelerate the rusting process of the metal it clings to, so there’s also that.

          Oh, and should you decide to step out onto the flats, the salt will cling to your shoes like glue. Lumpy, crystalized glue.

          Another little-known factoid about these sneaky flats is that the surface can conceal huge mud quagmires that can engulf a truck. That’s right, a truck. The same thing happens in the Sahara Desert.

          Did I mention you should bring sunglasses? I know a thing or two about bright glare, having grown up skiing on Utah’s powdery ski slopes, and white salt is equally blinding.

          So there you have it. A tourism guide that can protect you from head to toe, and all your cars in between.

Here’s some cool info about the salt we actually eat—check out my Youtube Mom video here.

Fit to be Tied

          You’ll like this because it makes perfect sense. The necktie originated during a war. And, if you’re like many men today, you would kill not to have to wear a throat-pinching, strangling necktie.

          But they weren’t fighting over having to wear ties; the French and the Croatians in the Thirty Years War simply wore a piece of cloth at their necks, as part of their uniform. Soon it became a symbol of wealth and status in England, then evolved into the mere decoration it is today.

          And you thought most men weren’t big accessory/decoration guys—ha!

          Ridiculous as they are, neckties are an extremely big deal at my house.  At St. Bob’s last birthday we played Bobardy! with our kids, and the final “question” was, “Bob owns 118 of these.” The answer, of course, was neckties.

          He has all kinds, all colors, and even stories to go with some of them. One was a tie he got by agreeing to a game show deal if the producer would throw in the very tie he was wearing. Here he is with Monty Hall and Dick Clark, when Bob hosted Let's Make a Deal.

          Not only that, but Bob is quite the fastidious dresser and is meticulous about how he ties his knot. It has to be exactly right. He will not even consider owning a tie that cannot be fashioned into the ideal knot. He also makes sure the bottom point of the tie falls exactly at the middle of his belt—not too long, not too short. Here is his with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans years ago, his tie perfectly tied:

          Come to think of it, Bob should make a Youtube Mom video about how to tie a tie correctly. Except he would be the Youtube Dad. But, expert as he is, I think he’d be thrilled if neckties were permanently banished. After all, they’re only worn because it’s a long-held tradition. Who knows—maybe your great grandkids will someday study The Necktie Rebellion and marvel that the fashion lasted as long as it did.

          You can actually watch one of my Youtube Mom videos about another fashion--which way your belt should go, right here! 

Driving Miss Crazy

          I once received a delicious compliment. I had zipped into a parallel parking spot downtown where some young men were standing nearby. “Wow,” one of them said, “you drive like a parking valet.”

          (Much better than our daughter Nicole’s analysis once, which was to say that I drive like Cruella De Vil.)

          However, now that I frequent the hospital for cancer treatments, I’m all about getting a close parking spot. And, naturally I was pleased to see this sign:

          But guess what? I have yet to receive one compliment! I think the parking people should be trained to say, “My, don’t you look lovely today?” or “Nobody wears a beanie as well as you do!” or “What a rosy glow you have!” Nope. They just take your keys and peel out of there.

          That’s not the only problem with valet parking. If you’re at a particularly busy place you have to stand and wait for your car, usually longer than if you had just found a parking spot yourself and walked.

          And, for women in skirts, there’s the awkward problem of getting in and out of the car modestly, with someone watching you. Luckily, you know the Youtube Mom—you’re reading her blog. And she has a video about how to conquer this very predicament, right here.

          So now you can fearlessly use valet parking. Just don’t expect any lavish compliments.

Painting the Town Red?

          Don’t even get me started on graffiti. Okay, too late. I’m on a roll. There are about 12 billion reasons why I hate graffiti. Think I’m exaggerating? It costs 12 billion dollars annually just in the United States to remove graffiti.

          The main reason I despise graffiti is because it’s vandalizing other people’s property.  Buildings, walls, fences—these belong to actual people. Like snatching someone’s purse, this is taking what doesn’t belong to you. I want to ask these “artists” – and believe me, there are no quotation marks big enough to cast doubt upon that title—how they’d feel if I came over and drew a bunch of Hello Kitty designs on their bedroom walls. Or their cars. Or their front doors.  I’m guessing they’d suddenly see this another way.

          It then causes the owners of these walls to invest in paint and workers to cover up what are often offensive racial slurs, words pedestrians shouldn’t have to explain to their children, and evidence that the neighborhood property values are in decline.

          Not only that, but you usually can’t read it!  Most graffiti is written in loopy or angular codes of some kind. Why invest in paint and time if nobody knows what your final result was supposed to say? 

          Here’s a bunch of graffiti in Norway that is exactly as easy to read as that in the U.S. And it’s in Norwegian! At least the hearts are kind of cute. And the yellow flower.

But it’s still not their property to cover with their own ideas of art and design.

          Yes, I know gangs like to tag their areas. Then apply yourself, study hard, get gainful employment, and BUY the property. Then you can doodle on it to your heart’s content. But the whole world doesn’t have to support your gang territory any more than we have to honor territory marked by local canines.

          I do like what some cities have started, which are graffiti parks and walls designated especially for budding artists. And these are actually a bit intriguing. They showcase amazing graphics, cartoons, air brushing—like a free museum. This is a great way to support local talent, and confine it to a legal space.

          Just don’t do it without permission.

You do, however, have permission to buy my books right here. And then, once they’re yours, you can sketch illustrations in the margins!

A Vacuum of Information

         A friend of mine just bought a new vacuum, read the entire instruction booklet, learned how to take it apart, how to clean the filters, how to check for blockages, etc. and then came to this final line:

WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED VACUUMING, TURN THE VACUUM OFF.

          Whaaat??  Did you know this? Hey, this blog is nothing if not a well of startling, yet essential, information.
          Lest you doubt me, here's a view of the actual instructions:

          This, my friends, is why people have stopped reading instruction booklets. Okay, not all people, just me. And, if I’m being honest, it’s not the only reason, either. I have two reasons besides the chance encounter with lines such as the one above.

          The first reason is that I get to the second sentence and then throw the booklet into the air (yes, it has occurred to me that cancer is supposed to teach me patience).

And the second reason is that I have St. Bob for this. I ask him to read the fine print—or even large print—and then boil it down for me. Have not asked if he appreciates my using him as a Readers' Digest editor. He’s like Google. Only Bobble. But this is also why I can't operate the TV remote. Make that remotes. He tells me how and then I forget.

Next time I’m going to give him a Sharpie so he can make a redacted version of the instructions, leaving only the essential info and crossing out “Do not let toddlers operate this blender” sorts of lines.

Best of all, believing I am not the only person who hates instruction books, I can rent him out and make a fortune! Also have not checked to see if he is okay with this. I’ll get back to you.

But I'm pretty sure he's okay with it if you purchase a couple of my books, right here.

A Doggone Dilemma

          Have you ever noticed that no dogs are actually named Fido, Rover, or Spot? I’ve been studying pet names, okay my whole life, I know, I know, which makes it sound like I need to get a life.

          But I’ve always had lots of pets, and always put a lot of thought into naming them. Sometimes too much thought. And sometimes not enough. For example, many of our pets have been named after foods (Mango, Truffles, Donut, Bon-Bon, Muffin, Beignet, Marshmallow). I guess my affection for confections gets blurred with my affection for animals. There was also Quat, so named because the kids thought it would be funny to say Kumquat ("Come, Quat") to call him. Another food name. But we've also had pets named Bentley, Mischief, Twinkles, J. P., Boomer, Kabuki, Button, and now Mickey and Simon.

          Two of my neighbors have new puppies, one a white Husky named Ghost:

And the other a Klee Kai named Malakai:

This is heavenly news for me, as I love some dogs more than some people. BUT… have you noticed there are particular names that absolutely never get assigned to animals?  It’s as if we know these creatures are too cute to saddle them with a certain serious monikers.

Here are some names you will never hear shouted, in hopes of calling one’s cat or dog. First of all, my own birth name: Joan.  Can you imagine someone at a dog park calling out, “Joan, Joan!” and expecting a bouncy terrier to come running?

But mine is not the only name that seems odd for a dog or cat. Notice that while there are lots of Sams and Sammys for pets, there aren’t many Samuels. Not even a goldfish would be called Samuel.

Eleanor is another name you never hear at the vet’s office. Oh, maybe for a nurse or for the vet herself. But not for a cat, dog, or hamster. I also cannot imagine a pet named Katherine, Karen, Margaret, Janet, Gregory, Ernest, Bradley, Phillip, Kenneth, or Christian. 

Nope, I checked the most popular pet names, and people stick with ones like Bear, Shadow, Daisy, Coco, Lucky, Smoky, Lady, or Duke.  It’s odd how we simply know which names fit and which ones don’t. But, like I say, Fido and Spot have yet to make the list.

Character names in novels are another story—check out some of mine here!

Talk About Going on Your Permanent Record

          Folks, I just got three tattoos. Yessir, I have now joined the ranks of other radiation patients who have a connect-the-dots deal on their bodies, so death rays can be lined up correctly.  Okay, they’re probably called something else, but the idea is that their machinery can shoot a laser beam in exactly the right place to kill cancer. So… killer rays?  Same idea.

          The tattoos look like a little pen dot. One on my chest, and one on each side. So you’re probably wondering why I’m such a whiner about this. But here’s what I did not know: Tattoos hurt like crazy!

I thought a little needle would go in for just a split second. It would be almost painless, just a tiny pinch. WRONG. Granted I have extremely sensitive skin and possibly a second set of nerves (this is the case with my daughter, so I’m just assuming??), but HOLY MOLEY, it was worse than a bee or a wasp sting, two things I have experienced multiple times. 

I asked the guy doing it how on earth people have giant dragons and tigers all over their bodies. Do they not have nerve endings?

I tell you, the next time I see someone with a bunch of tattoos I’m going to ask them if they had to take pain meds or just what, before and after the procedure.

Or, maybe I’m just a big baby. It’s probably that. Nevermind.

Hey, have you checked out my Youtube Mom channel lately? One of the most popular ones is about 10 uses for cream of tartar. Although I don’t think it can help with tattooing pain.