-image-Advice to my Elderly Neighbor
Happy New Year. Although we’ve lived here seven years, I’ve never said hello. Yes, I’ve waved, but I’ve actually only seen you outside your home less than a minute total in those seven years. I’m glad someone finally convinced you to sell that Honda hatchback…I’d never seen it move in over six years, so hopefully it went to good use instead of just protecting that six feet of the driveway from the elements.
I don’t want to bother you. I know you’re not in the best of health, and I have introduced myself to your nephew and offered to stop by and check on you. I realize it must be lonely. Or maybe you like it that way. Just you and … the newspaper? I know you pick that up off your porch daily, although I’m not sure you read it. Yes, I’ve seen your back porch, too, from your side neighbors’ backyard, and I think part of your daily regime may be to pick up the paper from the front porch, shuffle to the backdoor, and toss it out, unread, onto your backporch. I’m not sure how financially sound or environmentally friendly that is… well, I do know, but it’s really not any of my business.
I know, I should probably just zip it and let you live out your golden years as you want. BUT then that wouldn’t be in line with my efforts to speak my mind, albeit, I’m blogging it, and I can pretty much guarantee you do NOT have me listed in your Google Reader.
I just wanted to make some suggestions and have one small request. You seem heck bent on bending over and picking up your paper without leaving your house, although the paper is a full step down from your entryway. I notice you use a cane while doing this, so you do have an extra “leg,” so to say, it’s still a scary act I’m watching. From speaking with your neighbor, you’ve had a couple of falls, and that’s what I worry about with you stooping over to grab the paper. Why don’t you slip on some shoes, step down and bend over instead of tempting gravity and possibly knocking yourself out on the icy cement porch? What if I’m not around watching out for you? Everyone else is at work! You will lie there on top of your unread (not that that matters, we’ve established) paper in the frigid cold, and the mailman doesn’t come by until late afternoon, so you’d be a total Popsicle. That’s no good.
That’s all. Oh, and no matter if you decide to take my advice and step down onto your porch or not, would you please (here comes my request) put some pants on over your tighty-whities before opening your front door? What with the bending, reaching, shuffling, cane-maneuvering, paper-retrieving ordeal, I actually stood and stared at you (again, in your tighty-whities) way way way too long out of worry of witnessing a possible head injury and now I’m kind of scared of going near the front window.
Good day. All the best in the coming year!
With warmest personal regards,
Mrs. Squirrel
Posted by Mrs. Squirrel @
2:26 pm |
-image-Things that Bother Me about HGTV and TLC
I threw TLC in there because I realized the other day that I used to heavily prefer TLC over HGTV, but then TLC went away from home improvement/decorating shows, which I liked, to more family-centric reality shows, which apart from J&K+8 (which I was into for awhile, but I need a break from K8), I don’t watch.
Plus, they have that Bringing Home Baby show which just pisses me off. I caught it a few times while I was pregnant with the Nugget. Do any of these new moms get post-partum depression? I wish wish WISH I would have been on that show after birthing Jojo. The sound guy could have hung the microphone close to the bathroom door, while I sat peeing the sitz bath because the stitches from my episiotomy were ripping from all the bawling I was doing because I was a sleep-deprived, completely frazzled and insecure and in extreme pain from birthing and breastfeeding. Hot mess? That was me. But noooo. The moms are always tuckered out, but happy, and their families are coming over, delivering meals and taking turns holding the baby and no one seems to mind the razor sharp boiling hot pain of breastfeeding (perhaps my experience only). Not that I’m bitter.
Where was I? Oh yes, well, let me just wrap this up about TLC — you lost me when you went all stupid on “Trading Spaces.” You got rid of Mindy Paige Davis Page and tried letting the designers and some of the annoying carpenters “host.” That bombed. Except for Carter HotPants and AmyWynn, the carpenters were annoying, and I wished they’d accidentally wood glue their lips shut. I’m looking at you, Faber. And sometimes Ty. Then they brought MPDP back (yay!), but they tried to do some sort of therapy/drama along with the actual makeover, like having two feuding neighbors work on each others’ houses. Ok, that one wasn’t too bad. I liked that episode, but the one where the moms wanted their high school daughters, who had grown apart (read: one a cheerleader, the other not so much), to be friends again. It was beyond awkward. Awful. Terrible. And MDPD, as much as I love your little spunky self, you’re no Dr. Drew. You knew it was painful. You saw the writing on the high school bathroom stall wall. Anyhoo, as long as Paige is on, I’ll tune in every once in a while, but TLC’s schedule is too chock full of LPBW and J&K+8, that I never end up just having TLC on, like I do with HGTV.
While I prefer HGTV, I still have my gripes. I know…me?
1. Carter Can. Please switch the name to “Carter Can…and How” with some naughty music and play it at all times and have him lose the shirt.
2. I heart Designed to Sell. LOVE IT. Ok, I can’t think of a gripe with this show. I heart Clive, and well, oddly that leads into my next problem:
3. You take a show that’s working, grab the same cast of characters — except one person has to have a foreign accent — and film in a different city with a different show name. That just gets annoying. For me. If I were a hot Brit with some tv background, I’d fly my pale ass across the pond to grab a show. Brilliant.
4. All your effing improvement shows are filmed in the LA area. I have next to zero sympathy for people in the LA area. They already have sun the majority of the year — must they score all the awesome landscaping, decorating and remodeling gigs as well. Throw us East Coasters a bone new backsplash.
5. Like the adorable David Bromstad (Color Splash) and Kim Myles (Myles of Style)… send those bursts of talented sunshine on over to the east coast. Sit down for this: we have home improvement and furniture stores here, too…and lots of in-need rooms.
6. That goes double for Candice and Chico. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you only do Canadian households. You’re pulling in some serious cha-ching from the American telly, lady, so belly on down past the bar and redo my parents’ bedroom. And WTF on doing a professional hockey player’s basement and a bunch of rich people’s rooms (like the last room they’re too busy to do because they’re up in their immaculate home offices counting their money). I like shows that remodel or improve people’s normal homes…homes that haven’t been touched by a decorator or unlimited budget. ACK. I’m on a roll!
7. House Hunters. Love the show. House Hunters International? Still love it, even though you get more douchebag buyers. Sorry, but it’s true. I wonder if the young couple who relocated from Texas to RemoteTropicalIslandVille (not it’s real name) are thumpin’ themselves after having their first child. Goooood luck with that, asshats. I heart it, too, when people are very concerned about having a large enough entertaining space, but they are moving someplace where they don’t know people.
8. Cash in the Attic. John Sencio, I remember you as a dirty little hottie VJ on MTV, and that is why I cannot take you seriously on this show. I’m waiting for you to turn to a mirror and rip off your sensible hair and unleash the wavy sexy hair that I wanted to run my hands through in the 90s. Allegedly. But now? You look like a serial killer.
9. Decorating Cents. Go away. The end.
10. Design on a Dime. You’d think I’d like this show. I’ve tried to like this show. I do like Spencer. I like Spencer a lot. He reminds me of Minneapolis, which is odd because he’s from Texas. At the end of the show, I rarely like the room. It always looks like the room was redone for a dime. Like 10 cents. I guess I kind of expect a Vern Yip level of inexpensive remodeling…which brings me to …
11. Deserving Design. Vern, I love you but let’s cut the drama.
12. My House is Worth What? If you’ve seen the show, then you know there’s a lot of dead time where they pan between the home owners and the real estate expert and the host…and you’re just like JUST TELL THEM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! It’s kind of like when “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” first aired, and Regis took like seven minutes drawing out the drama on the first question while you’re screaming at the tv and pummeling your head with the remote. I like the show when I have the Tivo remote handy.
13. Dear Genevieve. I wrote. You never came. I think you can’t handle the challenge of my kitchen. Oh yeah. I said it. You can’t handle the remodel. My kitchen’s wallpaper is too tough and ugly; the layout is too bizarre; the backsplash is too wheaty (yes, pictures of waving wheat…not so sweet). Never mind. I’ll find a real designer to tackle it. (note to self…reverse psychology roks!)
14. OH THE IRONY. I cannot find the show that bugs me the most on their website, mainly because it’s getting late and I want to hop into bed and cuddle with the spiders. I mean, read. There’s this show hosted by a man and woman, and they’re always outside and walking towards the camera, gesticulating as they talk and smiling like they’re on some seriously good uppers. I hate them. I don’t know the show name, because as soon as I see them folding and pointing and fingertipping, I turn the channel. BAH GO AWAY EVIL NAMELESS DUO! GO AWAY!
I’m sure I’ll continue this list another day. Until then, my crotchety self is nighty-night.
Posted by Mrs. Squirrel @
9:25 pm |
-image-Dear HGTV
I see your motto for the year is Dream Big.
I have been dreaming big thanks to your network for a while now…if you know what I mean. Who am I kidding? Of course you know what I mean, he’s hott.
Many thanks,
Mrs. Squirrel
p.s. Regarding the Dream Home, is there a little Kato house in the back for my many visitors?
=====
Dear HGTV,
I would like to apply to appear on your Designed to Sell show.
I think Lisa LaPorte and that saucy host, Clive, could really put $2000 to good use on my home’s nonfunctioning and eyesoreific fireplace (why aren’t we showcasing it? DUH!). I think our local real estate expert’s head will explode when the see the cacophony of design fugliness that is our kitchen. I know, I know…new hardware, fresh coat of paint…but make sure you rip down that nasty butterfly/strawberry/vines wallpaper before you paint, ok?
But our two new bathrooms! Cha-ching, right? Come on — that’s gotta make everyone happy, right? Work won’t have to halt when one of the crew drops a deuce. I’m sure you’ll want to spruce up our front yard, too, and that shouldn’t eat up too much of the budget. Do you guys remove any roadkill for the open house? That would turn me off if I were looking for a house. Plus, I don’t want any prospective buyers dragging in maggots or squirrel intestines on their shoes. Maybe we can just ask people to leave their shoes at the door.
OOH I’m so excited. I hope you can come soon. I’d really like these changes made. I mean, I’d really love to get my house ready to sell.
Yeah, we’re selling! We have to sell. I mean, it would really suck if you made all those changes and then our move fell through so we’d have to stay! Has that ever happened? If it did, did the homeowners have to pay you back? My, what a poignant episode it would make. But we’re moving! Yup! Gotta sell! Hope we get on the show. I’ve always wanted thought highly of white kitchen cabinets. Oh one more thing, it’d be really fun if when you come, we could pretend you’re all from “Design on a Dime” or something for my husband. It’ll be so funny! Promise!
Fingers crossed!
Stacy Squirrel
Posted by Mrs. Squirrel @
10:36 pm |
