Who doesn’t love the Jetsons?
It’s “Almost Your Mother Pod Cast Day” once again.
Now, for those of you who have heard this little show, you know that my almost-son Jeremy thinks we have a single listener for these things. However, our numbers actually are climbing and some of you are starting send in feedback at “almostyourmother@wwub.com.”
Many of you have told us this thing is funny and worth listening to, while some of you have indicated an unwillingness to lose even a minute of your lives to our drivel. No matter which side you fall on, we are honored that you listened and took time to send us a word or two. Others have left comments on here, my blog, and we have read those, trying to absorb ways to improve.
So here’s the dealio…pod casts are not new, we are very aware of that. But we also know newspapers today compete against a huge number of information AND entertainment opportunities. So, what can I say — we decided to try something out. We’re committed to growing and learning and offering something the Union-Bulletin doesn’t typically offer. So far, many of you seem to be with us.
This week, we once again launched into a conversation about the Jetsons after a new fan (And Craig, I hope I’m not overstating your sentiment) alerted us to a couple of websites that talk exactly about what has come true, sorta, from that old Hanna-Barberra cartoon. I’ll list the sites here and here, but take a listen first, if you’d be so kind.
Click here to listen!
Finally! My efforts noticed.
Hey, there, Mr. Gas Station Guy (I believe your name tag actually said “John”)
THANK YOU for noticing how I leaped — gazelle-like — out of my car this morning to wash and squeegee my own windows.
See, I’m used to guys wanting to be rewarded for doing “women’s work,” such as, oh say, vacuuming the popcorn off the couch. And who got the popcorn on the couch? Well, not me. Or when they change the baby’s worst diaper in recent history and tell every single person about it for the rest of the day. “Oh, man, you shoulda seen that thing. Like a nuclear explosion, with carrot chunks!”
And, let”s face it, washing one’s car windows while the car is filling up is non-genderized. But in my previous life, that man I loved always did it, mostly because he was such a chatter. Any time he could hang out at a gas station and yak it up was a good day.
So anyway, John, when you said “You’re pretty good at that!” as I squeegeed, flipping the water off the rubber between swipes, I thought, “Hello there, ‘man’ compliment! I’ve missed you.”
And now I am drinking hot coffee from my fav deli (the coconut scone is long gone) and thinking, “This could be a good day.”
Third rattle out of the box
This is week three for “Almost Your Mother,” our little pod cast project. Which we hope to someday grow into a regular and enjoyable feature for y’all.
We’ve tweaked some more, tried to incorporate your feedback (no body hair discussions this week!) and are working on length. Our time is always over before our tongues are.
AND we have an email address now, so you guys can send in suggestions — like, who would you like us to invite over to what we affectionately call our “ghetto” studio? What topics would you like to hear about? How annoying IS Jeremy? Tell us all those things at almostyourmother@wwub.com.
Listen to me…I love how responsive you’ve been. Please keep it up, we’d really like to make this a gift to you, not something we’re just doing to hear ourselves talk. Goodness knows, we do a lot of that already.
Episode 3 (which is normally embedded, but some Internet deity is mad at us)
If you live in a glass house
you should be swimming!
We have a new abode for Gilligan, a reward for living this long. Almost as soon as he moved in, Gilligan began exploring. Within minutes he was loop-de-looping, obviously enjoying a bowl that was as twice as big as before. He then wove through the roots of his spider plant, swimming up over the leaves and swishing his little blue tail.
Almost immediately, the little showoff began depositing bubbles under a leaf to begin a new bubble nest. He is SO smart.
That was our entertainment for the evening. As we leaned in close to watch, I am pretty sure we heard a gurgly “Woo hoo!”
Almost Your Mother, second liftoff
OK, fans and people I’ve guilted into listening, it’s time to shoot out our second podcast trial balloon. We shortened the title to “Almost Your Mother” and we talked more about Jeremy this time.
I have to say, I am humbled by the overwhelmingly positive response we received from last week’s debut. Some of you kindly said you wished it had lasted longer, many of you indicated through ROLF and LOL that you, um, laughed out loud. And one of you said I needed a mother myself if I was going to talk about my sex life. Which, to this person, seemed somehow more lascivious through spoken rather than written word.
You can only blame it on yourselves that we tried it again, and actually committed to a three month run. We’ve got some fun plans and we absolutely want feedback from all of you. If you didn’t hear our first podcast from last week, scroll back a post or two and you’ll find it. Easy to catch up if you want.
I guess we’ll have to start giving these titles, hmm? Look below, click on the arrow, you know the drill. And LET US KNOW how we’re doing!
I am cutting edge
I am so high tech, I can put my grocery list on my phone.
A tasty little something (I hope!)
So, many of you remember the infamous “Every Day in May” blog war of 2009 between myself and U-B social media guy, Jeremy Gonzalez. Lots and lots of you participated and made the whole thing fun, even when I wanted to grind that boy into dust.
It was all worth it when I won by a small landslide (is that an oxymoron?).
We’re ready to try something else. Jeremy, while bantering with me about stylish underwear (don’t ask) was just shocked when I said I had purchased undies with little sayings embroidered on the, um, hip right before my wedding day. “What!” he said. “I didn’t think Baby Boomers were into that.”
Oh, brother. Such conceit of the young.
Anyway, Jeremy thought we could do a weekly podcast and talk about things from each other’s perspective. Furthermore, both Jeremy and our Web Dude, Carlos, feel like my blog audience (YOU!) is responsive and interactive.
Which means you all are Guinea pigs for our test drive. Won’t you please listen and give us feedback? You can leave a comment here, email us (I’ll stick those addresses below), post your thoughts on the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin Facebook page or even call us up.
Or, and how crazy is this idea, write us a letter! With a stamp, envelope, the whole meal deal.
OK, my phone number is 509-526-8322, my email is sheilahagar@wwub.com. Jeremy is jeremygonzalez@wwub.com and Carlos is carlosvirgen@wwub.com. Take a listen, give a shout out.
Want to add a timed comment instead? Use the blue bar in the music playerMania can be a SUCH good thing
From my Home Place column:
I’ve spent several days at home recently, following a not-very-exciting surgery. More pain than I voted for, for sure, but nothing to Facebook about.
However, the event provided more down time than I’ve had in 34 years, even if I had to move around every 15 minutes to keep blood clots at bay.
Kind of a deadly combo for me. Do nothing strenuous for several weeks, but do something every quarter turn of the hour. In other words, a prescription for taking an obsessive-compulsive person right to the top of Wacky Mountain.
It began in the living room, where I was ensconced on the sofa with my legs elevated. The old Flexsteel reclining sofa, the couch-that-will-not-die, all 1990s in navy blue.
In that position, I was in line-of-sight of the sitting room, where the new sofa was living, plush and warm caramel-y, with butterscotch-colored cushions. Like a fabric hug.
Hmm. Why it is I never thought of putting the blue couch in there, where the new rug and other items can embrace and distill its navy-ness. Then the new, yummy couch could get promoted into the living room. Genius.
That was just the beginning. My oldest daughter had volunteered to play nurse, meaning she was home for the first real length of time since 2004. Every night of my convalescence, we snuggled on my bed and set up Hulu Internet TV on a laptop. Oh my word … do you have any idea how many Home and Garden shows you can access on Hulu? For free?
What was a small flame signaling change leaped into a bonfire, fed by episodes of Design Star, Kitchen Impossible and Color Splash.
Full on rampage is what we’re talking. Up for 15 minutes? Sand the fireplace screen with steel wool. Next period of activity, cover the old-school shiny brass with black matte high-heat spray paint. It worked so well then, the brass floor lamp was next. Donated to me by a friend, it’s a wonderful, hard-working lamp. But so very shiny.
Not now. Today it sports a fine coat of Rustoleum’s Hammered Bronze, also out of the can. Looking all neutral and stylish.
Then there were the fireplace bricks. A peachy terra-cotta, they were no doubt unique in 1946, the year part of my house was being born. Sixty-four years later, the adobe-vibe had held me hostage long enough. Jared-the-color-guy at my favorite paint store babysat me through the agonizing decision of how just to cover those babies and release me from color prison.
Those bricks are now richly olive-khaki, in a color called Rain Barrel. Which look spectacular against the Merlot of the rest of the fireplace and close to my new couch.
Down came my grandmother’s wedding-ring quilt, a 16-year focal point in that room. Suddenly, I had unbroken wall space to create a tableau of artsy-fartsy, all mirrors, overpriced sticks (Honest. Just sticks), a new clock pretending to be old and an antique print I grew up with.
And what about the old bench I employ as a coffee table? It was sanded down to wood, but wouldn’t it look nice in the same color as the bricks?
It does.
Too, the mantel — usually highly overdecorated with my “summer” doodads — wears an air of sophistication with a few of my grandfather’s books stacked just so and my grandmother’s white teacups balanced atop. Plus taper candles. Nothing says “adult” like taper candles.
It’s like I’m hosting my own home improvement show, only I change stages every 15 minutes.
I repotted plants, switched pictures around and picked up paint samples. I called the cabinet guy, met with a color consultant and renovated my kitchen in my mind.
Thank goodness I am back in the newsroom, unable to stare at my kitchen walls and imagine the quaintly-floral wallpaper covered in rich vanilla paint. That doesn’t mean the addiction is laying low, however, serpent though it is.
Hammering out press releases and event advances, I think “house” and see a mudroom no longer painted to accommodate 2-year-old twins. I speak “garden,” wondering aloud where I can put those Shasta daisies coming my way from a friend’s yard.
The real world will intrude soon enough. I’ll tamp down the house lust and wean off home shows. The taped-up paint chips will eventually loosen and fall. School-supply shopping will dent my budget and Christmas will be hard on the heels of that.
Still … what do you think of white cabinets?
//
Mel should have met David
Mel Gibson’s most recent shame is spread over the media like oil over the Gulf of Mexico.
Many of you have heard excepts — or even the full recording, which is incredibly icky — of Mel’s nearly incoherent verbal abuse flung at his ex, Oksana Grigorvieva, in a phone call. No need to say more than that here, the rant is available with a simple Google search.
If you haven’t heard it (actually, there are three tapes and counting), spare yourself the vomit of violence, racism and hatred.
I, like many, believe Mel is mentally ill. Big time. I feel sorrow for everyone involved in this whole mess.
And I feel bad for the Mel who once was, or who we thought he was. Remember when he was a promising actor devoted to his family and his God? At least in public.
I wish Mel could have met David. Now, my man wasn’t perfect, but he knew that. And he lost his temper on occasion, but would have sooner cut his tongue out than say the things Mel is on record as saying.
Like Mel, David had challenges. He knew a thing or two about feeling thwarted in his dreams, feeling like age was starting to beat up on him. David knew the tremendous financial and emotional challenges to having a big family.
Unlike Mel, David was devoted, kind, compassionate and supportive. He used the phone in a completely different way, to call me up and ask me to hurry home, to say “I love you,” to tell me some corny joke that just couldn’t wait.
Maybe it’s true, what the song says. Only the good die young.
No, no, Jack!
This is Jack.
Jack lives at our house. He is very spoiled. We think it’s cute that he is so spoiled. We call it “beloved.” We boast to our friends how Jack gets what Jack wants.
This is the new couch. The one thing Jack cannot have.
No couch, Jack. No, no!
Jack does not match the couch. Jack is not allowed on the new couch, although he has a perfectly good sitting room couch in navy blue to lounge on.
But Jack wants to sit in the living room with his people, and he is pretty sure there has been a mistake made. How could we not want Jack to be right there on the couch with us? How can we imagine the nice carpet is good enough?
We are now paying for spoiling the dog, tortured blink-by-blink of sad puppy eyes.
We will see who wins.
