Life in the Slow Lane

No doubt, many of you have been losing sleep, wondering exactly how many plastic pieces it requires to make a hula hoop rattle. As always, we at Slowlane Labs aim to make your life better and have taken it upon ourselves to solve this particular mystery. The answer is one. Unfortunately, most hula hoops have between 100 and 300. But fortunately, that same little bit of plastic piece that makes so much noise in a hula hoop does not make any noise inside of a cat.

Weighed wedding dress. Began engineering ways to insert helium balloons to offset weight. (Don't worry, El, we'll make sure the wedding dress doesn't keep you from floating.)

Mission Wedding Dress to be completed in eight days or less Day 1: Remarked on vastness of white Day 2: Remarked on vastness of white Day 3: Started search team for poofy petticoat Day 4: Acessed biggest petticoat. Agreed with search and rescue team that it has a distinct fish smell. Agreed with mission head that the biggest petticoat still lacks in desired poofiness. Day 5: Made trip to Walmart. Purchased two "Maui Hoops" (formerly known as hula hoops) and three yards of tulle. Set up dress form with a swivel bar stool, two file boxes, and an upside down salad bowl. Got lost in tulle. Re-emerged to find wedding dress approaching desired poofiness. Problems still to tackle: How to remove noise makers from inside hoops. How to keep bright pink and blue patterns on hoops from showing through the white. How to ascertain that hoops will not keep bride from sitting down nor keep groom from coming within three feet of bride. (Perhaps the true reason that it is considered bad luck f...

I am happy to announce the arrival of Sir Pimple Ginormous. As always, his impeccable sense of timing allows him to be in attendance for the upcoming festivities.

It is a good thing that my bed is queen-sized, because for the last sevaral days, there has been a mountain of white taking up more than half of the bed. Part of the reason that it is still there is because I'm not sure I have the faith of a mustard seed to move it. You see, it is a wedding dress... a wedding dress that I need to make alterations on. We have a lovely dining table. We have seated as many as 13 people at it before, but for the last couple days (ever since the Thanksgiving meal, actually) we have moved two chairs into the kitchen where we have taken turns sitting down to eat. That is because the makings of five vests for groomsmen are sprawled across the table. I keep wishing I had a clipboard that I could attach to my waist so that everytime I thought of something I could note it down, but it doesn't seem that I can hang on to any particular thought long enough to jot it down. I suspect that some time around May I will suddenly remember what I have already forgot...

Several years ago I read a book on house cleaning where the author claimed that the good house keeper should be able to make a bed by circling the bed only once. I've made many beds since then, of many different sizes, and the only bed I was able to accomplish that feat with was a doll bed which only had one blanket. On a good day with a normal mattress, I have to circle once for the fitted sheet, once for the top sheet, and once for each of the blankets and comforter. On a bad day, the mattress pad and fitted sheet pop off of the corner adjacent to the one I'm working on, preceding me all around the bed as I attempt to anchor it. On a bad day, the top sheet and each of the blankets will not land evenly and so I go from one side to the other, pulling to even things out. Maybe the author was a relation of Mary Poppins.

I was somewhat distracted when one of my boys informed me that he had the hiccups. I'm always interested in hearing how people "cure" hiccups, so I asked him if he knew how to get rid of them, hoping to gain some interesting anthropological data. With my brain now occupied with two different things (wondering what method his family used and building my Thomas train track), I didn't notice him lean into my ear. That is, I didn't notice until he yelled into it. If I had been the patient, I would have been cured. I pointed that out to him... that someone was supposed to scare him, not that he was supposed to scare someone else. My heart still pounding, I suggested that he try holding his breath. He immediately complied by clamping his mouth shut, puffing his cheeks out with air, and breathing through his nose.