Hints, Tips and Tricks

In a local bathroom:

Thank you for the reminder. I do have issues with my garments sometimes.

Someone Take This from My Hand

I've had a bad cold and I'm in a bleary-eyed, weakened state. I'm vulnerable. When the screen suggested that I input my e-mail password so that FaceBook could help me find more friends, I did.

Someone should take this technology from my hand. Actually someone kinda did. I'm on FaceBook friend restriction for two days. But, I will go to my grave maintaining that I was tricked. At no point in the rather quick process did this

or this

or anything as straight forward at this

pop up to warn me to consider what I was doing before proceeding. Nope. The powers-that-be in FaceBook land all smiled, twisted their pencil-thin mustaches and whispered, "Click it. Click it. Do it."

So I did. I clicked GO.

Immediately another box popped up on my screen, reprimanding me for being such a gullible sheep as to give away my password. And, it said that FaceBook was putting me on friend restriction for TWO days for inviting people I don't know to join FaceBook. AND, this is the worst, FaceBook started calling me names: Spammer. That's still not all. FaceBook tried right then to get me to do it again. It begged me to enter my e-mail password and told me ten of my friends had done it and had successfully found lots of their friends on FaceBook.

The nerve! I might be a fool, but I'm no idiot.

Okay, I'll admit that I don't know the customer representative at University Games personally. We did have a good laugh the day I called her and told her about my cat swallowing the green game piece and she was kind enough to send me a replacement part, but I'm not silly. I know that doesn't make us best friends or anything. I was misled by FaceBook. I thought that the application would search for people in my address book on FaceBook and then allow me to send them friend invites if I wanted to. I had no idea it would send out e-mails to all 1,000 addresses.

Imagine my surprise when my husband called and asked why I was inviting him to join FaceBook. "We're already friends," he said. "Don't fill up my in-box with junk mail."

"Oh my gosh," I gasped. "What did it say?"

He had already deleted it.

If I get one more message that asks, "Remind me again. How do we know each other?" I'm going to throw up. I am so embarrassed. Not only did the University Games customer service rep get an invitation, but also my pest control service, our orthodontist and our parish priest.

How about a little thank you, FaceBook, for the free PR from the carte blanche access to my e-mail address book? How about it FaceBook? But no, instead you brusquely tuck my skirt in my panties, call me a spammer and tell me to run.

But I can't!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't want to miss what happens next on FaceBook.

Lounging About

Ugh. I came down with a miserable cold this week. The only things I've been able to muster the motivation to do is to sink into an Eames lounge chair and shop at CSN stores on-line. I used my limited strength to prop up my feet, plug my nose with tissues and peruse home decor and kitchen gadgets and gardening gear.

Not for my self, mind you, but for my dear, sweet mother who has supplied me with a batch of her special chicken soup recipe (It has healing powers). Mother's Day is just around the corner and she deserves to be remembered and honored with just the right thing; something that says, I was thinking of you when I curled up in my Eames lounge chair, eating medicinal chicken soup while stuffing tissues in my nostrils so as not to drip on my keyboard, which would ruin my shopping experience.

When I can see clearly enough through my watery bloodshot eyes, I'm going to click Check Out. Just so you won't have to go forever wondering what I bought in my snotty, disheveled state, In a few weeks I'll post a review of whatever shows up in a cardboard box at my front door.

I do love Mother's Day surprises! Don't you?

Is That Lucy Adams on the Cover?

People keep asking who is on the cover of my book. They want to know if that's my pantie-clad bottom exposed to the world. Watch the video to find out my definitive answer:

Problem-Solving for the People

A man almost dead center of the room raised his hand. It wasn't timidly raised, either. Based on the vigor with which he waved it in the air, I knew then that he hadn't heard a word I'd said. He'd spent the last 30-40 minutes concocting this one burning question.

As the guest speaker for yesterday's meeting of Sunshine Club, I can say that they're a right cheery group. They have sunny dispositions. And they were a wonderful audience, laughiug when they should laugh and clapping when they should clap. By show of hands they all concurred that doing stupid stuff in public is utterly unavoidable. And they nodded in concerted agreement when I explained each of my strategies for surving an embarrassing situation.

When I at last arrived at the end of my talk and gave my final piece of advice, which pertains to what to do if none of my other advice works, there was simulataneous laughter and applause. Really, who couldn't resist a grown woman miming lifting her skirt hem and shoving it deep into her undergarments.

But then came the most dreaded portion of my program: The question and answer session. It's unscripted and off the cuff and, I believe, somewhat dangerous to the image I've developed for myself over the last 30-40 minutes.

"Yes sir," I called on the man.

His face lit up at the recognition. "What do you do," he asked, "if you're not wearing a skirt?" He went on to take the floor and joke about having a fine selection of skirts in his wardrobe that he wears on special occaisions.

Then he fell silent and waited for my response, as did the rest of the room. At the time I judged the silence to be baited with heavy expectations for my answer, but in retrospect the crowd may have been contemplating the man and his skirt collection. My mind raced, His thought provoking question, whether serious or not, deserved a solid answer. He brought up a very real problem, particularly for men. I would forever fault myself if I did not do it justice.

I looked him in the eye in front of all those people and told him, "If you happen not to be wearing a skirt when you find yourself in an embarrassing situation, then what you do is take the hem of your wife's skirt and tuck it into her panties. Then you run, but in the opposite direction from your wife."

My answer satisfied him, It did not, however, satisfy his wife.

Now that I've had time to give the question and the answer more thought, I think the skirt of the closest woman would do in a pinch. Furthermore, what I think could be even more interesting, if you're not wearing a skirt of your own, would be to tuck the nearest person's skirt into your own underwear and run.

Really, I should quit thinking about all of this and be thankful he didn't ask me what you do if you're not wearing any panties.

The Language of Love

Hello Romeo.

Today is your big day - St. Valentine's Day. By 10am your heart will nearly pop from the pressure, if you happen to remember today is the day you should feel pressured to make a big show, as television, radio, print and Internet media have reminded you at every opportunity for three weeks now. Yesterday's intense, last minute advertising campaigns even drove you from your Sunday sofa sanctuary.

It's amazing how we humans can be cajoled into contorted guilt.

Consider the phenomenon of Global Warming, a self-created future of swimming in boiling oceans while dead polar bears float by in the surf. But Global Warming has not turned out quite as predicted, what with one of the coldest winters in decades having descended upon us. So now, instead of talking about Global Warming, we're faced with Climate Change.

Bottom Line: We still must feel guilty for being human and acting on that innately human desire to control our environment and make it suit our needs, thus accusedly wreaking havoc on our world's delicate balance. We'll be the first generation in the thousands of years that hominids have occupied the planet to up-end it from its axis.

How do these semantics relate to Valentine's Day? Well, Hallmark has taken a tip of the hat from the go-green camp. The folks at the greeting card dynasty understand the anxiety a day set aside for love, and love alone, causes the male gender. They know this is the most dreaded holiday among men; a holiday filled with expectations they can never possibly meet. So Hallmark is getting their attention with a new slogan: It's not I love you, it's I love us.

Bottom Line: You still have to feel guilty for being human ; for the inability to muster compulsory romance or even remember that some spectacularly meaningful statement of your love is mandatory today.

Global Warming/Climate Change. I love you/I love us. Potato/po-tah-to. Tomato/to-mah-to. Don't you wish you could call the whole thing off?

In a Toenail Funk

My husband walked into the bedroom when I was taking a picture with my cell phone. The scene disturbed him down to the tip of his appendix. It made him feel a little queasy, what I had just recorded as a digital image.

"What are you doing?" he gasped, horrified.

"Nothing," I said, quickly picking up a sock.

"No, really," he got more serious. "What are you doing? Why are you taking pictures like that? What are you planning to do with them?"

I'm no fool. I know he always wonders what's behind every door, hesitates and considers simply not opening most of them, so as to keep the worms in the can. I'd be suspicious, too, if I lived with someone who refers to her pajamas as house pants and hides chocolate in her underwear drawer. I guess walking in on me like this, in our bedroom, he had to ask, even if he thought better of it.

"I'm saving memories," I said, defensively, "before they're gone."

"Nobody wants to see that," he said, climbing into bed.

But I didn't really care. I was cold. And when I looked down, well, I was reminded of days past; warmer days. Days that had slipped by and I felt compelled to save a souvenir picture of that Georgia Red #9, what was left of it. It made me feel like summer again.

That's it. Just that slim patch of red. The rest all chipped away. That's all that remains from September's Bahamas ballyhoo and breezy days.

I apologize, if you find it offensive.

Who is Lucy Adams?

See for yourself:

Once Upon a Remodeling Project

Once upon a time, there was a lovely woman (pictured at right) who had a lovely husband and four lovely children.

They all lived together in one big house that had lots of "issues."

But usually the family was happy enough to turn a blind eye to the sloping floors and the old pipes and the iffy wiring. They all knew they would get around to fixing it "someday."

Despite that, every now and then the woman and her husband, over a delightful , delicious family meal, would forget themselves and say things like, "Wouldn't it be great if we remodeled one of the upstairs bathrooms." They would share dreams of double sinks and a modern tub and freshly grouted tiles. They smiled at the idea of designing an oasis of comfort and pampering within the walls of their very own home.

Always, the lovely woman, so as not to dwell on things she knew she could not have in the near future, would forget about the conversation and focus on driving carpool and fixing snacks and writing books and magazine articles and being an all-around outstanding wife and mother. But all of that changed one fateful evening. She returned home from one of her very smart and athletic children's soccer games to find a tub on her porch roof.

And when she rushed up the stairs to see what had happened to her lovely, lovely husband, the scene that greeted her was this:

 

And her dastardly, sledgehammer-wielding, grinning husband stood in the rubble, prouder than puddin' of what he had done. Well this lovely woman and this lovely man suddenly found found themselves at odds with each other. He began pressuring her to pick tile and choose flooring. She uttered unseemly and unladylike phrases and threw epithets as if they were dishes in a Greek restaurant. Their four children all crowded into one bathroom with them every morning and every evening. And to this once happy family, it seemed as if life would never be normal or drywalled again. It was scary what they had become:

If only they had known about Diane Plesset's book, her manual, really, The Survival Guide: Home Remodeling, their status as a lovely, happy family might have been preserved. It has questionnaires and surveys and checklists (ladies of the house certainly do love to fill out questionnaires and checklists) to help homeowners wrap their heads around what it is they really want out of a room remodel. Planning guides, with worksheets, take homeowners step-by-step through budgeting (there's more than one approach to determining a budget, and none of them include yelling louder than or pouting more emphatically than your spouse).

Although she is from California, Plesset should have been a southerner, because she clearly knows the importance of good manners. She devotes an entire chapter to remodeling etiquette. It''s important to know when, and when not, to tell someone how "stupid idiotic" towel bars in showers are.

The Survival Guide: Home Remodeling is an honest look at the entire process, from the dinner discussion of "Wouldn't it be great . . ." to the deciding what to do and how to do it to the getting it done. She outlines the details, while at the same time offering a reality check for people who think it'll be a snap to get a bathroom gutted and rebuilt in a week for $1000. Not only that, but she tells readers something no one else does: you might not feel happy the whole time and your spouse is going to tick you off and your furniture will get dusty. Knowing those things beforehand definitely softens the blow and makes them bearable.

As for the lovely little family, they can't wait for happily ever after to start. And it will start a lot sooner now that they have a survival guide.

(Lucy Adams is the author of two books: Tuck Your Skirt in Your Panties and Run and If Mama Don't Laugh, It Ain't Funny.)

Inspiring the Fight Against Breast Cancer

From Lucy's FaceBook Wall:

Lucy, just wanted to let you know I love your book, TUCK YOUR SKIRT IN YOUR PANTIES AND RUN! I have almost finished it and I want you to know the story on pages 47 & 48 really inspired me. In fact you inspired me so much that I shaved my head, but not for money, for support of my sister-in-law who has breast cancer. When I saw your picture and you looked so great, I knew I could do it too. Thank you so much for sharing your gift of writing, sense of humor and inspiration. Keep up the good work!!!
Love, Phyllis Martin

Phyllis shaved her head to support her sister-in-law's battle against breast cancer. You can give support, too. Contact the American Cancer Society or join the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.