A time where speaking up didn't work...

MANY years ago when I graduated from dental school, I did the expected thing and joined the local chapter of the American Dental Association. I soon found that as a public health dentist I had little in common with most of the other members. This was before managed care became common, and most dentists not only practiced individually or in small private groups, they considered anyone who worked for a salary as highly suspect. But I hung in there for a few years until I got a mailing that 'reassured' me that although yearly dues may seem high, my money was being well used to protect the "men in private practice."

Of course, I immediately fired off a letter sarcastically asking if they wanted to return my $300 as I was neither a man nor in private practice. A while later I received a call from the treasurer of the local chapter. He said he'd been designated to talk to me about my concerns and invited me out to dinner at the Lexington. I agreed to meet, and spent the next few days marshalling my arguments and making notes on index cards.

Because I bussed to work, I walked to his PRIVATE PRACTICE in downtown Saint Paul and he drove from there. He was a chatty, older man who didn't seem in any hurry to discuss ADA policies. As I ate with my note cards in my lap, he nattered on about such things as his wife's potato cakes. After dinner, he walked me (quite puzzled) to the parking lot where Joel was picking me up. As I got into the car, he said, "Take care of this little lady" to Joel and slipped me an envelope. In it was my $300.

But do I ever learn?

I am known for being willing to express my opinions, especially with those I shouldn’t (bosses, choir and band directors, religious leaders, etc.). A couple years ago, Joel and I played with a small ad-hoc orchestra that accompanied a large volunteer choir that performed to make money for food shelves. This seemed a noble goal, but the downside was 3-hour practices every Saturday morning with about half the time taken up with the choir director’s bloviating.

We were preparing a spring concert around the theme of “peace.” One selection featured a member reading various quotations about war and peace over quiet background music. The first time we tried this piece, a quote from John Lennon (“Give peace a chance”) came right before the dramatic conclusion of Jesus Christ saying, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Several people understandably laughed out loud at this juxtaposition. I decided that if the director didn’t change the order of the quotes himself, I would helpfully suggest that he do this so as not to ruin the solemnity of the occasion.

At our next rehearsal, I hesitantly broached the subject with Mr. L. To my surprise, he had no qualms about equating John Lennon and Jesus, and even said that he thought the ordering of the quotations had been divinely inspired! I could see that he and I were not kindred spirits, so I merely mumbled, “You’re the director” and quietly took my place (really!).

Imagine my surprise when after 15 minutes of rehearsal, Mr. L. suddenly put down his baton and with a sigh started pontificating about “a member of this group” who “doesn’t realize that we live in a multicultural society where people don’t all share the same religious views.” As he went on and on about this poor misguided, intolerant bigot who wanted to ban John Lennon from the program I could feel my face getting redder and redder. I turned around to mutely appeal for help from my beloved husband, only to find him oblivious--deep in his science fiction paperback which he had surreptitiously started reading at the first sign of bloviation.

As Mr L. expanded on his theme of love, peace, and understanding, the choir members started to chime in. To fully understand the humor here, you have to realize that all the choir members would have no problem getting their senior discount at Denny’s. Yet, they all felt obliged to stick up for John Lennon against the slurs of the anonymous small-minded Member of the Group. One woman said, “I think John Lennon and Jesus are together in heaven right now,” and another said, “Isn’t John Lennon a child of God too?”

I finally bolted to my feet, steam pouring out my ears, and surprised everyone by shouting, “I am the member of the group who brought this up! All I said was that we shouldn’t place those particular quotations next to each other! And I am not a right-wing nut and don't appreciate being misrepresented!"

Mr. L. never apologized. The quote only got repositioned because the reader took it upon himself to make the change. Joel and I finished out the spring concert season and then quit. And I have no hard feelings!!!! I hardly remember the incident!!!

Or as the sainted John Lennon would say, “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.”

C'est la vie!

I was SHOCKED today to read in the New York Times that the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss had just died at 100. I thought he was dead when I studied his works back in 1973!

It was a less-than-golden time at the University of Minnesota, although we students were content, having nothing to compare it to. Many of my classes included hundreds of students and two were ‘taught’ by pre-recorded lectures on a movie screen or TV. I jumped at a chance to finish my language requirement with a small class related to French culture—to be taught entirely in French.

Although I had studied the language in high school and the first semester of college, I soon discovered that I understood almost nothing of the lecture or discussions. As the required books were all by Claude Lévi-Strauss, I concluded that the class had something to do with him (whoever he was), but beyond that I had NO idea what was going on (not surprising, as CLS wrote some heavy stuff—I could barely understand his NYT obit today).

After a week of making up little stories in my head about what the teacher was saying, I changed my grade choice to S/N (satisfactory/non-satisfactory), sure that if I got less than an ‘A’ I would never get into dental school and my life would be ruined.

One day, the teacher announced (in English) that he wanted us to see some avant garde French films showing at the Bell Museum the next day. Moreover, our entire grade was to be based on an essay about one of these movies. Unfortunately, I was scheduled to work that evening and I knew my boss would not accept taking time off to go to some artsy-fartsy foreign films. So my mother kindly attended the event on my behalf and took very detailed and literal notes about very weird movies.

Punch line of the story—I wrote such a wonderful essay about a movie I hadn’t seen that I earned an ‘A’ in the class—and got an ‘S.”

Point of the story—I have always hated Claude Lévi-Strauss and would have been living a much more uneasy life all these years if I knew he was still around to torture me.

The party's over

Every spring our next-door neighbor Rich sets up his big white circus tent in his driveway and starts a six-month garage sale. He finally conceded to the Minnesota weather and closed for the season. I found this flotsam hanging on his garage rather poignant. Lei, anyone?

Exciting or boring?

Last night I had a dream about gardening(!) Yes, lame... But two parts stood out. First, I discovered that there were two beautiful volunteer pumpkins growing amid all the squash vines, all ready for Halloween! One was huge and a beautiful glowing red color with green stripes, more like a pumpkin-shaped gourd. (In reality, I grow neither squash nor pumpkins, but had recently been talking to my mother about her non-ripening butternut squash.)

The second part was even more exciting, if you can believe that. I was serving dinner to the Rolling Stones, handing my dried tomato slices around sans utensil while saying, "Excuse my fingers, Keith," "Excuse my fingers, Mick." The boys seemed to find them delicious.

Sorry, no photos from a dream.

Shrinky Dinks

I realised I had a reader when someone complained that I had not posted anything in a long time. So this one's for you, Kristine!

Being overwhelmed with tomatoes, I decided it might be nice to dry some for future use. My 1970s-era microwave cookbook said this could be done in an hour and a half on 30% power. The Internet told me that it could be done in a conventional oven at the lowest possible temperature in 8 hours. Both seemed pretty wasteful of energy, but I chose the oven as I could fit more tomato slices in.

Unfortunately, (you knew that was coming, right?) after 8+ hours the tomatoes on the top rack of the oven were still moist. I decided to finish the process in the microwave--set it at low power for 15 minutes--and burned the remaining tomatoes to a crisp. I figure my remaining sandwich baggie of dried tomatoes cost about $100/pound. And I don't even like tomatoes.

A little prettier than the previous post...

I liked the way my skirt looked drying on the line... kind of like a lily pad. If it were hanging on a clothes line.

Embarrassing revelation

While ironing tonight, I realized that I was looking at our "wine cellar"--one bottle of wine lying in a cardboard box in the basement. And the bottle of wine had been purchased at a gas station in Wisconsin.

Still alive...

Just not blogging. Somehow, nothing has hit me as appropriate for a pseudo-clever post. When I got my white hair dyed light blondish, I thought I could create a humorous essay about people's responses. But except for my husband and son, no one said anything! Either it wasn't much of a change or people don't look at middle-aged women in the first place.

But the Minnesota State Fair is about to start, so perhaps some excitement is in store! I'll be dropping off my bulky, heavy crop art entry on Monday and probably going to the first day of the fair on Thursday. Will I do better than 3rd place in my new "irregular shape" category? Will Rush Limbaugh kill me personally or send some hired goons to do the job? Stay tuned...

Memories of W

The crop art that never ends

I am now working on the banner which will run across the triptych. The banner base is made of various pieces of balsa wood glued together. Joel inadvertently provided me with a great idea when he knocked our little wooden elephant hook off the wall. I made a similar one out of some ancient clay I found around the house (picture is of my masterpiece curing in a bowl of cool water). Now it's painted and seeded and soon to have googly eyes and a hat. It's like my doll!

Finally, something interesting happened to me!

As usual, when Joel was at his musical rehearsal I was trying to use my enforced 'home time' (no car) productively. I was huffing and puffing around the front yard with my German reel mower when a big, shiny black Lincoln pulled up across the street. But rather than Hank Williams or Elvis, a little old lady jumped out and made her way toward me. Turned out she and her husband used to rent the apartment in our upstairs from the previous (and original) owners. I ended up inviting her in so her daughter could see where her mother's water broke on the back stairs before she was born.

The tour group included Marge and her husband Jack, their daughter (from Costa Rica) who lived here as a newborn, and a 10-year-old grandson in an Eminem shirt who was visiting from Italy. (There were two other punky-looking people in the car, but they took off to go for a walk, understandably embarrassed). I soon realized that Marge had a bit of dementia, evidenced by constant talking and little retention, but boy, was she complimentary! She said my gardens were beautiful, my house was beautiful, Koko was beautiful, and I was beautiful! The nephew loved Koko and Liv's rats and the husband told some stories about former neighbors and a cottonwood tree that blew over and uprooted our yard. The daughter mainly tried to get her parents to shut up and leave--she didn't seem nearly as interested in their tales of walking the floor with her crying from colic as they thought she'd be.

Of course when I told my mother this tale, she said, "Maybe they were casing the place."

I've found someone I like to portray as much as GWB!

Crop art is hard!

As I have planned a rather grandious crop art project for this year's state fair entry (a triptych), I have already been working on it for a while. Liv commented that it was surprising that I had patience for placing tiny seeds one-by-one with a toothpick when I am not noted for my patience. Surprisingly, that doesn't bother me as I can listen to music and daydream while doing so. The hard part is figuring out exactly HOW to execute the design within the limitations of seed shape, size, texure, and color; and fair rules and traditions. For example, I may want to fill in the background with green, but all the good green seeds are twice the thickness of the important image in the foreground. Sigh... I'm sure some other people have every detail planned out (I'm talking about YOU) but I just figure out what works as I go along.

As a little teaser to my devoted readers, I'll post various details as I progress. Try to guess the context!

Silver-haired discount

This afternoon I went to Linder's Nursery to pick up some flats of impatiens, purposely chosing Wednesday because it was Senior Citizen Discount Day. Although I am usually offended when assumed to be a senior, now that I am actually 55 I thought I might as well take advantage of a 10% discount. Unfortunately, my shyness kicked in when I got to the register and internal doubts began to assail me--"Is Wednesday really their discount day? Is 55 really the age? Would I be compromising all my 1985 Newsweek principles if I took a senior discount?" By this time, I had already signed the credit slip and then naturally started to berate myself for being so stupid--"Didn't you drive here specifically to get the discount? Weren't you factoring in the 10% off when picking out extra perennials?" etc.

And, of course, when I looked at my receipt, I'd been given the senior discount anyway.

Somehow I thought Socialism was going to be better than this...

Koko's ready for his close-up

Having been trained with treats to sit quietly for pictures, Koko thinks whenever I get the camera out, it's for HIM. Whenever I attempt to take a picture of some handiwork/thrift store find on the floor, he insinuates himself and poses. I just realized how many of these pictures I had! (Dress on upper right is newest sewed creation for Liv's hot summer in Phoenix and Baton Rouge--if you can see it around Koko's butt.)

Pieces all together

Looks awfully short, though! (front and back)

Another fine mess...

Despite just getting back from vacation and needing to catch up on work and prepare for hosting Easter dinner, I decided this was the year to dye Easter eggs naturally. (Also despite having no little children or grandchildren as an excuse.) I got instructions from Martha Stewart online and went to the grocery store for the ingredients.

Some discoveries: 1) boiling tumeric makes one cough, 2) beets dye everything (hands, cutting board, kettle) bright red except the eggs, which only pick up a faint tint, 3) red cabbage is used to make blue dye, 4) Joel's usual too-strong coffee solution is good for something!

Suffice to say, it was fun, but expensive (compared to a Paas kit), complicated, and messy. A once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Trip report

After my kids made fun of my careful reporting of every meal on prior vacations, on our recent trip to Atlanta/Disney World I just noted funny things. Some of my favorites:

1) Patrice at the Hertz counter called Joel "precious" because he had been born on Thanksgiving and baptized on Christmas. (You may wonder why that even came up... so do I.)

2) At the official Florida Welcome center on I-75, a family had their parrot out of his cage to get some exercise.

3) At one of the DW minigolf courses, a man was yelling at his son, "Why do you always hit the ball so hard??? Why don't you watch me and do as I do?? Don't you see how I just trickle it in the hole??" The funny part was when he ended his rant with, "We're here to have fun!!!"

4) A man in line at the Great Movie Ride kept guessing the names of the movie clips--loudly, and always terribly wrong (e.g., "South Pacific!" for "Footlight Parade" and "Blazing Saddles!" for "The Searchers").

5) A father told his son to hold onto the pole while standing in the Disney bus. The boy mused, totally seriously, "They should grease these things."

6) An enormous RV pulling a pickup truck with a golf cart attached to the back.

7) Florida's "Silver Alerts" for wandering old people (of course, Norris kept pointing at my head and shouting "Silver alert!")

8) Every Florida Citrus Center advertised a 13' gator... we didn't understand how they could guarantee they'd stay this size (replace them, starve them, bind them?) until we finally stopped at one and realized they were dead.

9) A man riding on Splash Mountain shaking his finger at a tied up Brer Rabbit and saying, "You're not laughing now, are you?"

10) The many sleazy billboards on the Georgia side of I-75 advertising "massage parlors" (trucker discounts!) and "Strippers--Need We Say More."

Pattern pieces

For some reason Liv wanted me to make her a dress for her college graduation, and for some reason I agreed to do so. She sent me some ideas based on vintage Vogue patterns but they seemed too complex for me (plus requiring at least 6 yards of material for the full skirts). Butterick patterns were on sale this week and I managed to find one that looked a bit 1960s, and a lot Michelle Obama and Liv Anderson. The fabric I chose is very cool because it can be reversed which I plan to do for the collar and belt. The photo above is of some of the unsewn pieces laid out with pins. My only fear (based on past experience) is that it will turn out beautifully and won't fit at all. Stay tuned...

Cars

As Liv will be working for Teach for America in the Baton Rouge area, we (or hopefully, her grandparents) are going to have to buy her a car. That reminded me of two car stories...

1) In the summer of 2006, Joel and I were having on-and-off-again problems with our Ford Focus losing power. It was pretty scary to be driving along the freeway and suddenly realizing that you were just coasting. Of course it was the type of problem that never could be replicated when bringing it in for service. While we were procrastinating about buying a new car, Norris's old Mercury Mystique (formerly my parents) broke down on the freeway. As it would need some expensive work, we decided it would be better for him to get a new car. I had to drive him out to a Toyota dealership in West Saint Paul one evening, and yes, you guessed it--my car conked out in the middle of Robert Street during rush hour. We managed to glide into a parking lot and eventually re-started it to complete our journey. Norris still likes to chide me about my whispered words of advice as we entered the dealership: "Now remember, don't act desperate!" What if you are?!

2) Many years previous to that story, the kids were having dinner with a neighbor and I was going to meet Joel at the Mall of America (he worked out in Eden Prairie at the time). Unfortunately, I had a flat tire on 280, just minutes from home. I called our local service station from a nearby pay phone and a nice looking young man named Rob came to tow the car and give me a ride. We chatted a bit about my ruined evening and he dropped me off at my house. In this pre-cell phone era, I had no way to notify Joel that I wouldn't be able to meet him, so I sat around nervously, hoping he'd eventually wonder what was up and call home. The minutes turned into more minutes, and then an hour... I was really getting upset. Finally the phone rang! As soon as I heard a male voice say, "Teresa?" I started spewing out a jumbled and tearful tirade, concluding with "What have you been doing? Why didn't you call earlier?" There was a pause, and then: "Uh... this is Rob at Park Service. Did you think I was your husband?"

Another less appealing example of bits and pieces

Because we have to jam today's ubiquitous double rolls into our old-fashioned inset toilet paper holder, we fight an ongoing problem with white toilet paper lint in the bathroom. Unfortunately, my new cheap Target brand towels are now continually adding a layer of red to the mixture. Even after several washings, red lint continues to dust every surface, as illustrated by this lovely close-up of my sponge. If our bathroom were a textile mill, OSHA would shut it down.

A real example of bits & pieces

Koko has been cold at times this winter, especially after getting his hair cut. He started out wearing a dog sweater Liv crocheted in junior high (for which she won a ribbon at the State Fair) but it got stretched out and kept twisting around his body. Next, Joel bought him an adorable cable knit turtleneck in 'oatmeal' tones which caused Norris to continually quip (in Koko's faux squeaky voice), "I'm an Autumn!" Unfortunately, this coat was a bit too long where it mattered for Koko and we had to roll it up every time he went outside to do his business. When Joel forget to do so once, I had to wash it and instead of shrinking, it stretched. A lot. The lower edge now trapped his tail so it couldn't even wag and the former turtleneck was now a saggy cowl neck (Norris now had Koko saying, "I'm Jennifer Beals!")

Today I decided to try to make him a coat out of an old thrift store fleece jacket I was throwing away. It turned out pretty well. What will Norris have Koko say now?

Is there something even greater than a piece de resistance?

Noticing how ugly the pipe flanges were, I suddenly realized that perhaps they still manufactured such things. I made Joel bring an old rusty one into Menard's (I was too embarrassed) and we now have some new plastic ones! They shine like the top of the Chrysler Building!

Explanation of the art (as much as possible)

While in the middle of the bathroom project, Joel, Norris, and I went to our favorite Unique Thrift. Norris always searches the bins of LPs, looking for favorite old artists, musicals we've been involved with, or just funky album covers to display. He found a pristine copy of the Broadway version of The Music Man, and then noticed that it included some sort of insert. Turns out, the album had been distributed as part of a promotional effort by Dimensional Products, Inc. in 1958. The insert included a letter ("Dear Mr Turnbull: You have a perfect right to wonder what this ia all about...") and two glossy photos of Mr. Magoo touting Stag beer.

The letter then tortuously tried to tie together Meredith Willson's spunk in creating the great American musical, the "charm, color, and action" of life in River City, and Dimensional Product's ability to create a point-of-purchase display that will reflect the high quality of Mr. Turnbull's product (Hamm's beer) as they did for Stag beer. The letter concluded, "Let us parade our trunkful of ideas into your future planning!"

Very strange (but interesting). Given that I love Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, I love The Music Man (and will be playing for it the third time this summer), I needed some black and white art for the bathroom walls , and of course, I love being an ironic hipster, Norris suggested I frame the photos.

I cobbled together a third piece for the ajoining wall, copying and pasting photos from a collection of coasters from the Magoo Stag beer ad campaign. And in looking up the link to post here, I just ended up buying an identical set of coasters on Ebay. This would all make a lot more sense if I liked beer...

The piece de resistance-er

After the major success of the toilet paper holder frame, Joel and I decided to frame our ugly old medicine cabinet mirror. As these mirrors are common in houses from a certain period, I was sure I'd find some advice online, but Google had absolutely NOTHING, surely a first. So, for anyone interested, here's what to do.

1) Buy light wood trim and mitering tool at craft store. Measure twice and cut once.

2) Glue pieces together with wood glue and then paint with rejected original wall color which is now known as the trim color (paint both sides, because the back will be reflected in the mirror).

3) Glue the frame onto the edges of the mirror with a minimum of Gorilla Glue (this glue expands and looks unsightly if you use too much). Hold in place with the help of a popsicle stick glued onto the back of the frame top and plenty of painter's tape.

4) Wait 2 hours and then enjoy! (more on weird framed photos in another post)

The piece de resistance

We have an old-fashioned built-in toilet paper holder. Not only does this make it hard to use the ubiquitous double rolls of toilet paper, it had raw metal edges showing once the wallpaper was removed (originally the bathroom walls were covered with green plastic tiles which covered up this edge, and I had been hiding it with wallpaper ever since).

When browsing at Michael's craft store I came upon decorative wood trim and a tiny miter box and saw with which to cut it. So Joel used his engineering mind to figure out the dimensions, and I held the pieces to the wall for about 45 minutes while the glue set (next time I will use a different glue!) The paint color is the darker gray that I orginally bought for the walls--it makes a nicer trim color than wall color!

What's another coat or two...

Well, Captain Nemo turned out to be too much like living inside a submarine. Not only did the dark color suck all the light and life out of the room but the semi-glossy paint that I chose (against the advice of 'Tom' at the paint store) highlighted all the imperfections in the walls. So I repainted with a lighter gray and am much happier, especially after Joel installed a new white vanity today.

After two coats of paint

The color is called Captain Nemo!

All primed and ready to go

Better than the nose close-up anyway...

Too much information?

My nose after sanding today

Bleak House

A week ago I decided to try to peek under our downstairs bathroom wallpaper to assess the condition of the walls. We had always wallpapered this room, despite the problems with moisture and subsequent peeling and mildew, because we considered the walls too uneven to expose with paint. But after stripping and painting the upstairs bath, I really liked the clean surface despite the flaws. Of course, my attempt to "peek" at the walls downstairs accidentally led to stripping off a large piece of wallpaper and we were committed. (Is it true there are no accidents?)

Whereas the upstairs walls were made out of some kind of cardboard, the downstairs walls are plaster and I have been finding it somewhat satisfying to dig out loose pieces, patch, and sand with my new random motion sander. This has made quite a dusty mess, and given that we spent the week in black clothes for our orchestra pit committment, the timing was not ideal.

Here is the current look.

Essay to take up space...

As I have nothing exciting to report in my present life, I will keep this blog active by writing about something that happened 5 years ago. When Liv was home over Christmas break, we looked through some old trip photo albums. I was proud of myself for 1) keeping trip journals, and 2) taping envelopes with the journal pages to the back of every photo album. How many mothers do so much? But no, my kids had to make fun of me for meticulously detailing every meal we ate. Even I was shocked by some of the things I left undocumented. So, in the spirit of full disclosure, here are the strange/funny things that happened when Liv accompanied me on my WHO-related trip to Geneva in June 2003.

1) I attempted to check in with the wrong airline (Northwest) out of force of habit.

2) I thought the young man checking our tickets in the security line said, "Tubular!" but he really said, "To Newark."

3) Once in Geneva, we were in a bus accident right next to a U.N. sculpture display about land mines. Our driver hit a car, resulting in an old man being thrown to the floor of the bus and going instantly deaf (actually his hearing aides had fallen out with the impact and been thrown away by the driver who was more intent on picking up her bus and yelling at people than checking on the casualties).

4) We also were almost killed visiting the Jet d'Eau, supposedly a safe tourist attraction. We ended up clinging to a chainlink fence out by the jet as waves of water crashed around us and one of our flip-flops floated away.

5) I had checked out the phone in our hotel room when I first arrived to make sure I could ask for a wake-up call before my meeting later in the week. Imagine my surprise when I went to make that call and found they had replaced the phone with a non-functioning phone! Very strange... (I ended up getting a wake-up knock.)

6) My meeting was held in a secret location--an old garage out in the country, with no amenities and chickenwire over the windows. After crossing an ocean and then the city in a bus, I arrived right on time, only to be told that they were still in the 'members only' part of the meeting and I'd have to wait. An aide brought me out a glass goblet and bottle of water to sip as I sat in the dust on the curb in my dress and heels.

7) Needing change to take the bus back to town after my presentation, I gave a 5 Euro bill to a cashier in a nearby restaurant and asked for change. He threw the bill in the till, slammed it shut, and laughed at me. (Eventually he gave me change. And then the money-dealie on the bus was broken so I didn't need it.)

8) Liv and I went to a little cafe for lunch and were directed to their outside tables. Although we were starving, we allowed the server to take our drink orders first. When she returned with our waters, she plunked down the check for about $8.00 and left, never to return. Oh, for my high school French skills!

9) Later, when Liv and I were sightseeing, a cab pulled over and the driver yelled, "Parlez-vous anglais?" I was so thrilled that my English skills would be needed that I shouted "Oui!" He then opened the back door of the cab to reveal an Indian woman in a sari who said (in perfect American English), "Oh, thank heavens! Would you please tell him in French that I want to take photos of the U.N. building and then be driven to Old Town?"

And yes, we did eat a number of meals but I will not say one word about them.

To quote Mark Twain, nothing to throw overboard

On January 1, the Star Tribune printed a list of ways to improve one's life in the new year. Surprisingly, except for eating healthily and excercising regularly (which is NEVER gonna happen with me) I already did almost all the recommended activities, which included learning how to send text messages, starting a Facebook page, and even joining a community band! (They didn't say anything about the risk/benefit ratio of joining multiple community bands.)

Now today, the Strib's official cheapskate columnist wrote about ways to save money in the current economy. Again--no ideas for moi! Cut back to basic cable (never have had anything more than the minimum), get rid of one car (only have one), buy things secondhand (we know every thrift store in St. Paul), save on garbage pickup (we share service with a neighbor). Obviously, the columnist has not lived with a Depression-era parent if he considers this cutting back! What about surviving on beans and playing board games (from the thrift store)?

Okay, I could work on the one suggestion common to both articles which involved eating only healthy homemade food...