Yes! No! Er ... yes?

I found some watches in the Signals catalog to give to Olga and me for Christmas. But gosh, the online comments about similar, cheaper watches were discouraging. It's impossible to reset the time. The battery only runs for a month. But the Customer Service Rep at Signals and I decided that the catalog's watches were more expensive and therefore higher quality. Also, I could always send them back. Also, they were made in Italy, the home of half my ancestors and much good design.

Well, Christmas came and went without the watches. I finally called. Signals had sent them, but they were probably languishing in a USPS warehouse. I was just about to ask for a credit, but Signals said it would send out another two promptly. It did. They arrived in clever little jars. Those Italians!

But you know what? I couldn't reset the time. The instructions – in more languages than I knew existed – said to "press" buttons on the back, but I pressed like crazy, with no result. I also poked but that began to seem dangerous, plus it remained useless.

I wrote to the manufacturer. A perky CSR wrote back, simply repeating the instructions from the card in the jar. She ended with, "Have a Thriving Thursday!" I'm not kidding. I wrote back and asked her to actually read my original email. She wrote back and told me to pull the watch out of the silicon (not silicone) strap, and send it to them. I wrote back and said no. She wrote back and said they're here to help, and to have a Whimsical Weekend. (Still not kidding.)

In the end, I'll return the jars of watches and Signals will refund everything, including the return shipping, so all is well. Still,
it's not like me to want something and then not want it and then want it again.

Or is it?

I signed up for St. Petersburg's amazing curb-side recycling pickup because ... well, because it was 2010, after all. They take all manner of office paper and junkmail and tag board, and any plastic at all if it's got a recycle number on it. When I lived in Gulfport, lo, these nine months ago, they didn't even pick up glass or any plastic except #1 and #2. So I should be happy, right?

Yes. But.

I had to have the bin out there by seven o'clock on Monday morning. I could do that right up until it got so cold. And if I put it out the night before, all my junkmail would fly away in the blustery winds we've been having. And, really, if I skip a week – because I really don't have that much stuff – I feel guilty because I'm pretty sure I'm the only recycler in a seven-block radius.

I got a notice from Waste Services of Florida, Inc., saying I owed $7.59. I had paid for a whole year, so what the heck? I called. It turned out that the year I paid for was 2011, but that I hadn't paid for October, November, or December of 2010. Well, that's just weird. The clerk said it appeared that no one had been told about that. So I did what any red-blooded American would do: I cancelled the service.

This painting was done by Angus Macaulay (http://www.angusmacaulaydesigns.com)
with my colors in mind. How wonderful! Cups by Meow Mix.

I've left my tub out there in the cold sand for two weeks now, and no one has picked it up. My orange plastic cups from Meow Mix are multiplying, though. And really, it was pretty convenient to just toss it all into that bin. The handful of workers would race out of the truck and separate it themselves. That's easy. (For me.)

I checked my bank account and saw that the money hadn't been refunded yet, so I called and – yes: I reinstated my service. I asked specifically if they'd throw rocks at my windows if I skipped a week and was assured they would not. Yay.

Have you ever swept a floor with a broom when there are kittens in the house? If you have, you know exactly how pointless that is. The kits think it's a new game. They love the scritching noise. They love the motion. They love jumping into the pile of cat hair and – let it be said now – Barbara hair and litter trackings and kibble crumbs that you've swept together. They roll in it like it's catnip, like they're six-year-olds in a Northern autumn pile
of leaves.

I told a friend about the wisps of cat hair that float up to the ceiling like elfin clouds in a miniature heaven when I'm sweeping. She said I should vacuum my wooden floors. Oh. But I gave my vacuum cleaner to Mike when I moved here. And the cats hate that noise. And I'd knock all manner of things down with the cord. So how about a carpet sweeper? Yes! That's the solution!
It's non-electric, just like my beloved clothes line, and will do
the trick.

I almost bought one from the Vermont Country Store catalog because I'm an idiot. Let me stop right here and say that I am all about shopping locally. I mean it. I don't even quite approve of cantaloupe right now. It's January. Even Florida doesn't have cantaloupe. It's just not right. I think you should buy your stuff from local artists (ahem) or at least local merchants. It's getting to be a habit to stop by the Gulfport Hardware Store before I check out to Home Depot.

Except that, well, gosh, online shopping is so much fun, isn't it? You're sitting there in your at-home clothes (or not). It could be six a.m. or midnight. Who cares? It's so very available, you know? And it's not like I'm using any gasoline, right?

So I found the model of carpet sweeper I wanted. Then I
checked other online sources and found that Lowe's has one for twenty bucks cheaper and no shipping if I pick it up. Please. This was clearly divine intervention from Saint Martha, patron saint
of maids.

It was ready for pickup on the twelfth, but when I showed up on the thirteenth, it wasn't there. New paperwork said it would be there on the nineteenth, but it showed up the next day. And guess what?

Yeah, it really doesn't clean that well. There are settings for

• long pile
• short pile
• carpet tile
• floor

And here's where this blog takes a sharp corner. Of course I was thinking about returning the inefficient carpet sweeper, but I'm a nut for details, and so I checked the sweeper before telling you about the settings. I wanted to get the words exact. I never would have remembered "carpet tile" on my own. I never heard of such a thing. It turns out the sweeper was set to short pile instead of floor. When I corrected that, it swept nicely. Yay! A return, a change of mind, a dithering averted!

Now, according to Levine and Jawer, this nation's premier astrologers, "Irrepressible Mars prances into [my] 5th House of Fun and Games to lighten [my] heart and brighten [my] spirit," on this very day. Therefore, I'll scrape around for an appropriate picture (or three) for this blog, and then go forth with a light heart and bright spirit. Whew! I'm really ready for some of that!

Here's a picture of Henry just because he's so cute.
With his sleeves rolled up he looks like a professor inside and
a git-r-done kind of man outside.

1/1/11

In high school, I used to write down New Year's Resolutions. I'm pretty sure each list included LOSE WEIGHT!!! because I was, after all, a girl in the United States. Now I'd write the same thing, but it would be upper and lower case without exclamation points or boldface, and without the hope I had in 1966. I guess in that sense, I haven't lost my girlish figure after all: It's still completely unacceptable.

For years, I just ignored the whole Resolution thing. After all, I'd never (ever) followed through with a single one of them. Why keep kidding myself? But then I fell in with a small clutch of people who were heavily into intentions. "Hey! Are you going to the museum tomorrow?" "That is my intention." You couldn't get a yes or a no out of these people. I was so focused on their complete lack of a straight answer that I never did understand what their intent(!) was. Were they demonstrating their lack of control in Life? Were they avoiding disappointing others, like Dad, who'd only answer "Maybe" to the clamor to go four whole miles to Silver Lake to swim? Were they eschewing responsibility? I never asked that. I just listened to their intentions and simmered in my own slight indignation.

And that led me to, for the last fifteen years or so, making New Year's Vague Intentions. Why torture myself? Why not face reality? Why not just admit that I'm not going to lose the weight (or exercise or learn to play piano or stop having clutter), but that I am going to have the vague intention to do all that? This way, I'd be a Winner all year long! No one's disappointed. There's no pressure. Just relax. Ahhh.

But a couple weeks ago, I burst into flames and engaged in really bad behavior. I decided that I'd had enough self-indulgence on all levels (except maybe for that weekly massage) and that it was time to Straighten Up. Even my horoscope was on my Higher Self's side. Levine & Jawer say, for the end of the year for Libra:

But insistent Mars's square to parental Saturn in your 1st House of Self on December 29 says enough is enough. No matter how old you are, it's time to grow up. Stop dancing, turn off the music, and get serious about the commitments you're making.

So this year, I'm re-instituting my New Year's Resolutions. No more dithering for me! No siree, Bob! And none of this general 6. Be kind to people stuff, either. I want specifics here. There will be the short form (1. Lose weight) followed by a concise plan of action, because if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. I'm not letting me off the hook, no matter what.

Nor am I listing my Resolutions for you. The proof will be in the pudding, which is an adage that has always baffled me, yet I continue to be unwilling to look it up. Even now, with the Internet at my literal finger tips, I will not research it. If an instructive phrase is so obscure as to be unintelligible, then it's time to ease it out of the language.

On the other hand, it's occasionally fun to just invent what it might mean. Maybe it's from the times of ancient printers, when ink was still something of a mystery. Maybe someone accidentally dropped the proof – for an early blog, for instance – into the Christmas pudding (so it would have been a Yule blog), and while it colored the food a bit, the words remained intact on the goat skin, proving that the ink was superior, and so it's a phrase to be used when we really want to say, well ... something like, I don't know – Time will tell? Just you wait and see? We won't know till we know?

And look at today's numerical date. You don't have to be a fan of the binary to appreciate that.

Bloopers

I know we're not supposed to air our dirty laundry, but the truth is, this is my clean laundry. I hung up this colorful display in the evening just before it finally rained after sixty-seven days of fasting. Therefore, this Tibetan prayer flag of panties stayed up for another two days before it dried.

In another clothing-related blooper, I went to Tampa International Airport on Thursday to pick up Kathy. The timing was right for me to stop in at the inaugural exhibit at the new gallery space in the walkway between the terminal and the Marriott Hotel. It's Owen Pach and his "Fiery Passion, The Beauty of Elements." It was impressive. Make a point to check it out next time you're in the airport. http://www.OwenPachGlass.com

As I approached the exhibit, Victoria Wenner, Owen's sweetheart, called out, "Barbara Nicolazzo! I have a tee shirt with your name on it!" Ah! I had painted an iguana which was auctioned off, along with many others, to raise money for Lizard Live, a charity Victoria supports. Apparently the organization had listed the names of the donating artists on the back of the shirts. How kind!

Later, when I ran into Owen, he too said there was a shirt for me. "And it's got my name on it!" I exclaimed. He frowned and tipped his head and wasn't sure. It was hours later, I swear, before I realized that Victoria was simply using an idiom in English, my mother language, as in, "This dunce cap has your name on it, Barbara!"

Plus, I locked my keys in the car. That's not really so awful. I mean, the engine wasn't running and it wasn't raining. But it was the second time in as many weeks. It had taken forty-five minutes to jimmy the first time, but the locksmith – the same one, of course – is no fool. It only took fifteen minutes this time.

The thing is, I had made a copy of my key after the first incident. I just hadn't gotten around to taking it off my keyring and putting it somewhere where it would be useful in the extremely likely event that I'd do it again.

And then there was dinner last night, the first Sunday in November. It was a lazy day, the first day in a long time with no demands on me except a long nap with the kittens, and then a great dinner at seven o'clock cooked by Kathy and Richard – spinach pies and leek risotto, respectively – followed by pumpkin pie by Ruth! Yay! I was doing dishes when I glanced at the clock and saw I was going to be late if I didn't hustle. I threw the Meow Mix containers on the floor, letting the cats pine for opposable thumbs while I raced to get dressed. I flew over to the house and got there two minutes before seven.

Except that it was actually two minutes before six because, of course, we FALL BACK the first Sunday in November. Indeed, I had FALLEN BACK with my alarm clock, my car clock, and the microwave clock. I still can't figure out my stove's clock, but I try not to look at that appliance anyhow. My computer and cellphone are resourceful: they do it themselves. That only leaves the kitchen clock and that, of course, was where I looked. There's a Murphy's Law in here somewhere.

Face Value

"Not on my face, Henry! Not on my face!"

That's what I was yelling this morning at two-thirty. I'm glad that I live in a house now and not in a duplex whose wall I shared (for sixteen years) with various people. I suppose what my erstwhile neighbors would have thought of my outburst would have depended on their own experience in life, coupled with what they could glean of my life, living, as we did, bedroom-by-jowl, but without being friends.

I knew, for instance, that Sharon arose at six each day and went through a ritual with her two very large dogs. First they chased a ball. Then they leapt into the air. Then they wrestled over a toy. Sharon would clap her hands again, and it would be breakfast time. Face to face, though, she and I barely spoke. She silently disapproved of my rolling-in-the-dirt Benji and the sprawling, wandering Sunny. She'd stand at the corner of the building, her giant canines at her side, waiting for us to tumble and bumble past before they began their orderly, educational walk.

Wes, my first and favorite neighbor, was never home.

Nadia herself was quiet, but had a short-term boyfriend who crowed like a rooster each morning. He was very good at it, and I was out of work by then, so I didn't mind the disruption at all. In fact, I liked it. It's an exuberant start to the day.

In the house next door was a couple about my age with a grown daughter who had some kind of mental illness. She'd be fine for months and months, but then there'd be a sort of breakdown and she'd get out the lawnmower. She'd mow and mow and mow, furiously churning the dust – this is Florida, remember – first muttering to herself, and then yelling to herself, and then finally sobbing. I was always so impressed that they'd discovered mowing as a way for her to release her steam.

One time I went out to my car and found the father and daughter tinkering with the mower. She was still hiccuping with sobs, her mascara mixing with dirt, but her dad and I chatted about the weather as if an hysterical nutball of a daughter were the norm – which it was, after all.

Of course, I provided some entertainment, if not consternation, for my neighbors, too, but it seems to me that people who live in groups – that is, us – simply must pretend that they don't hear and see what they hear and see. That's part of being a good neighbor, like not using the chain saw too early, or taking packages inside when it's raining.

So I don't know if anyone heard me last night when I yelled at Henry. He's one of four six-month-old kittens. I remember vigorously wiping something off my face a couple of times, and then I woke up to find him stepping on my face. That's when I yelled. Three of the cats flew off the bed, but Henry stayed. He probably thinks he's showing me acceptance and tolerance, whereas I'm wondering if someone had dropped him on his head when he was little – and if not, why not?

Super Size: Me!

At about seven this morning, I bagged up the garbage and brought it out to the Dumpster. I returned forty seconds later to find the trash container full of kittens. At first, Ruthie was just sitting in the bottom, but then Henry joined her, which tipped the thing over, and battle ensued. Jack joined the fray but Luca, ever the lady, simply watched.

Happily, they were distracted by breakfast, so I was able to right the container and put in a fresh liner. I have four boxes of Glad ForceFlex Medium Garbage Bags in my cupboard. Tall and Small are on every store's shelves, but Medium are hard to come by. Whenever I find them, I buy them. Let's dismiss Small as too small to do the job as a main garbage container in a kitchen, even for a single woman who doesn't cook. That leaves Tall, which is too big to fit under the sink. That leaves Medium, which is my size, but, as I said, difficult to find.

That means that people have their kitchen garbage out in the open? Or their countertops are taller than mine, and a Tall can fit under the sink? I really don't know. I just know that it's getting more and more difficult to stay Medium.

Look at this beautiful cup and saucer Kimberly gave me for a housewarming gift! I love it! I collect blue-and-white teacups, although I am not a serious collector. That is, I don't know jack about the cups. I just like them. Still, I noticed that this cup is especially large. I checked out the writing on the bottom. It was designed by Ralph Lauren (or a minion thereof). Ah, so it's modern. I think my next most modern piece is at least twenty-five years old, a blue-grey by Mikasa. Ralph's is eight ounces, while the standard teacup is only six. I have a couple that are five ounces, but beyond that, they move into the realm of the demi-tasse. Apparently in the teacup world, bigger isn't necessarily better, but it is newer.

The other day, Olga and I went down to North Port to Warm Mineral Springs (dot com). That's the catchy name of a warm mineral springs that maintains a steady eighty-seven degrees, and which Ponce de Leon mistook for the Fountain of Youth, because of its fifty-one chemicals and stinky nature, I guess. In any case, "warm" is misleading – at least in my world – but in the world of springs, it is warm. There are cold, warm, and hot springs, and their standards are different from mine. I, for instance, would have named the place Chilly Mineral Springs.

On the ride there, I put my twenty-ounce bottle of water into the cup-holder built into my 1990 Toyoto Corolla. It just barely fit. In fact, before the trip was over, I just put the bottle between the seats, and let it bobble around on the parking brake's handle. Twenty years ago, no one was driving with twenty-ounce cups.

I, too, am getting bigger. I hit a milestone the other day. I had the perfect over-medium eggs at the Kopper Kitchen. When I stood and looked down at the check, I saw instead a lovely glob of golden yoke on my shirt. As my party pictures showed, but which I had been able to ignore, I've become one of those middle-aged women whose, um, chest has broadened and sunken down onto her stomach, which has also grown, until her whole torso is just this, this wobbling barrel of doughy flesh. And that chest has become a sort of table for all manner of things, starting with, on that fateful day, egg yolk. Instead of the 36 C of my youth, I'm a 44 Long.

Curses!

When I was a kid, I never even said damn it. That's not a surprise. There was almost no cussing in my house. It certainly wasn't on television (not that we had free access to that), and of course there was no YouTube or other cyber source to provide us with models.

Note that I switched from I to we. That happens when I think about my childhood. I imagine that when I was a kid, I felt more connected to others, more a part of a group – my four siblings and two parents – so that my experience always felt like a shared experience, even when it wasn't. I've also noticed that I easily say we "used to" do things. We used to play Capture the Flag at Chasteks in the dusk. We used to play Hide and Seek with the whole neighborhood. We used to go swimming at Silver Lake.

Well, I know we did those things, but I'm not convinced, now, that we did them often. I remember the games as having been played only when we were pretty small, and that they were played with big kids who, in reality, probably didn't let us play with them much at all.

Still, my sister and I used to have to share a pair of skates. I think we were brilliant (or was it Mom?) because instead of one girl skating with two skates half the time, we each had one skate all the time. We'd push and coast, push and coast, like a kid on a scooter, but not.

But back to swearing. Yes. That's what this blog is about. What did you think it was?

About once a year, my dad, who was a hothead, would roar, "Jesus Christ Almighty!" He sounded like the very God Whose name he was taking in vain. That evoked silence all round. Once he said, "Poop!" and we little kids giggled ourselves silly. Mom said damn several times a year, which is not bad for a working mother with five kids, I'd say.

Well, and the kudos don't really go to her. It was the times, I fear, and perhaps place. I never even read The F-Word until I was in my twenties, reading Vonnegut. I certainly hadn't heard it from anyone's mouth.

But the more I type, the more I think my family might have been freakish. Perhaps we were cleaner than others (or more repressed?), but the era certainly had something to do with it.

I've got a Friend on Facebook (hence the properly nouned "friend") whom I know to be a sweet, gentle young woman. She belongs to a group on Facebook named Pull Up Your F**king Pants You Look Like An Idiot. I was appalled when I saw that. I imagined her saying those words, which she would never do.

But of course, she merely joined the group; she didn't name it. A child named it, else there'd be some punctuation between Pants and You.

This morning, I read another Facebook entry that disturbed me. It's from a fourteen-year-old I know personally (unlike some Facebook Friends, I'm amazed to report), who's a well-behaved kid. He's handsome and bright and plays the French horn, for god's sake. (The actual instrument has been changed to protect his identity but not his innocence.) Here's what he wrote around midnight: "2 more goddam mother f**king days".

Well, even though it's incomplete, I'd like to have had a period at the end of the sentence. The number should have been spelled out: Two. If I thought "goddam" was truncated for the purpose of a slight bit of reverence or at least misdirection, that would be cool, but I think it was done out of ignorance. The really upsetting part, of course, is – how can he not know that "mother f**king" is one word?

In the end, I think we should legalize swear words. It seems that the UK has done it. Even chubby gray-haired ladies (ahem) holding cloth bags full of cabbages, standing under black umbrellas, say fooken. Ah, maybe that's what we should do. Let's curse with accents! I have long been a fan of shite.

I have a Colombian friend who liberally sprinkles his conversation with, er, fooken and motherfooken. I assume that on some level, he knows those are bad swear words, but I should think it's easy to swear in another language. It's like you're not quite guilty, since it's really not your language. I have a Polish friend who would never say pizza because it sounded too much like, um, female genitalia in Polish. Well now.

If there were no swearing – since it would all be acceptable – that would be one less thing to watch out for. We wouldn't have to think about who's hearing us (like our uncle's stupid friend who's always nosing around on Facebook!). No one would ever have to hear that ridiculous argument that people who swear a lot are simply showing off their lack of vocabulary. No. They're displaying the miracle of muscle memory, if you ask me, the amazing strength of habit.

I say let's swear with accents or in languages other than English, and get on with our lives. Che cazzo, y'know?

Waaaaah!

Okay. I'm painting a car, but I'm also waiting for yet another air-conditioning man to show up and give yet another estimate, and I'd rather paint straight through than be interrupted, and I just tried to update my address with Office Depot which resulted in many curse words, so – I know! I'll write a blog!

There must be a god! Look! I just made a dash! This is seriously exciting, and I've been yanked out of my discontent like a, a ... oh, let's let a Southern Writer finish the simile. In any case, those who know me from working with me know what a complete thrill this is. NUM LOC on. Hold down ALT. Zero one five zero. Whoo hoo!

I remember changing my name on everything from my Social Security Card to my library card when I got married ... and then again when I got unmarried. It was difficult, but I was young (twenty-three) and technology hadn't even given us a vertical line in typesetting yet, so it wasn't so bad. These days, though, trying to change my address at not quite sixty, while blasting myself for procrastinating on painting that car, and suffering heartily and loudly at a lack of air conditioning, it's a lot harder.

This last episode – the Office Depot one – was made extra annoying because there was a slight delay on their phone, so while the beleaguered Customer Service Rep was waiting for me to tell her how I was today, and while I was debating whether to channel my mother and simply say, "Fine, thank you," or channel my own damned self and say, "What difference does it make?" she thought I hadn't heard, and so repeated the offensive question.

Seriously. Can't we just cut to the chase? Can't we just conduct business? I'd like to hear, "How can I help you?" I can't even bear it when s/he says, "How may I assist you?" so imagine my burst-into-flamesedness when s/he says, "How may I make your day even better and more productive with our fine Office Depot products?" By cutting your tongue out, sweetie.

And have you noticed that Have a nice day in the stores is being replaced with Have a nice rest of the day? Ah. I guess they didn't catch me early enough to have a whole nice day, so I'll just have to settle for the rest of the day. I've even heard Have a nice rest of the week. What? Why? Jesus.

Ms. Home Depot also used my name for each and every question and comment. Okay. I know when I'm in love, there's nothing sweeter than his name, and I over-use it at every chance. But please. I'm just trying to change my address. Hearing my name twelve times in a two-minute conversation is just too much, no matter how much she and, by extension, Office Depot love me.

"Okay, Barbara, I just need you to verify your original address, okay, Barbara?"

Well, it's not okay. See, I actually can't verify my address. She has to verify my address. I can confirm it if she'll first announce it. I want her to say, "I'll need to verify your address. What is it?" I think this has to do with transitive and intransitive verbs, but I don't know for sure. Perhaps it only has to do with personality disorders.

In any case, when she ended our oddly successful call with the waitress-like question, "Is that all for you today, Barbara, or is there something else I can assist you with, Barbara?" I paused – to let that delay in the phone take place – and said, "Yes. No." We both hung up.

And that's another thing. With cell phones and even cordless phones, you can't slam a phone anymore. How frustrating! Hanging up on someone is no louder or rage-filled than someone gently touching the OFF button after murmuring sweet nothings to his/her girl/boyfriend. This is no way to live! I can't even slam a door anymore. Dave installed a storm door which eases shut and neatly ticks into the closed position.

Before you make Facebookesque comments about how you haven't even turned on your air-conditioning yet (and you know who you are), let me refer you to the accompanying photograph. See the ceiling fan whirling its little heart out? See the open window and the swing outside? See the other open window on the west? No. You don't. But it is open, creating a nice cross-breeze. And it's a windy day with an overcast sky, so the heat really isn't bugging me. It's kind of like you really don't have to use the bathroom until you're on the highway.

Let's go back to that remark about Southern Writers. I know Liz, Gale, and Rhett have just perked up their eyes. What I don't get is why there is a genre called Southern. Joyce Carol Oates often writes about Western and Central New York, but I don't think there's a genre called Western New York Writing, or even Rural Writing or Midwest Writing or Northern Writing. So why the Southern?

I can't quite believe it has to do with slavery, only because I've read Southern Novels that aren't about slavery. Can it possibly have to do with racism? Is that it – even though there's surely racism in all fifty states and our territories? James Baldwin is with me on this.

I sort of thought it might have to do with colorful similes, which is why I called for help in that area. I generally think catfish and hound dogs have to be involved. That dash yanked me out of my discontent like a catfish snatching a June bug out the air! But maybe I'm thinking of Mountain Folk?

In Pat Conroy's latest book, a really bad book which I couldn't even finish, he had sentences like, "Being a good Southern boy, I wore a tie to church." Boys in Chicago don't wear ties to church?

Don't make me Google this!