So I’m doing some work for a client that requires me to learn about the latest forensic technology. Cool, no?

In an effort to better understand some of the equipment, I went on a tour today. To demonstrate the equipment, my fingerprints were taken.

And. They. Suck.

“What are you, a bricklayer?” the technician asked. “These are horrible!”

She might as well have announced I had bad breath.

“What? Why?”

I mean, my prints weren’t matching up with any criminal activity, so good points for that, right? How else could a fingerprint be “bad?”

But I learned something new. Good prints are those with well-defined ridges and minimal scarring and scratches. Bad prints, like mine, are those where the ridges are worn down, so the print is less discernible.

Still, the pads of my fingers couldn’t be THAT bad. “How bad are they?” I asked. “What grade would you give them?”

“Probably about a D-minus.”

A D-minus!! So in addition to wrinkles and flabby knees and all the vanity crap I worry about, I also have horrendous finger pads. What next?

Well. CLEARLY, I’ve been working too hard. That’s what I was told. No worries. The prescription is plenty of rest, my friend. No more scrubbing down the counters and washing pots and pans. Those harsh chemicals I use to clean the shower? No more. Yard work? Fuhgeddaboutit. And cooking. That has to have something to do with my D-minus, although I haven’t quite put my finger on it. (Pun intended).

So, that’s it. I’m off duty.

It will be hard, but I’m nothing if not a beacon of self-improvement.

This ran yesterday in The Cary News. I’ve had a lot of comments on it so I thought I’d display it here too! Thanks for reading:)

Thoughts for the New Year

I turned forty at the end of October, and that milestone combined with the New Year has made me engage in a bit of reflective thinking. Of course, sometimes my reflective thinking results in something profound, but more often than not it simply reveals a truism that folks have been telling me for years but that I, too, finally accept.

Below, a few truisms, at least from my perspective, for 2012:

• Sometimes good enough is good enough. This applies to dinner, getting the spots out of carpeting, helping with homework, cleaning the shower, getting dressed and any other activity that leaves you feeling you’ll never get it quite right. You won’t, so move on.
• You are sometimes going to lie to your children. Duh, right? You’d be surprised at how many people are on the bandwagon of not lying to children. Without lying, there’d be no Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny, and your kids would know what you really did as a teenager.
• If you need caulk and are out of caulk: Use Gingerbread House frosting. This, after spending the morning with a putty knife trying to break free long streaks of frosting from the kitchen floor.
• Things that are highly overrated: Gingerbread houses, the SAT, corn mazes, ironing, Black Friday and trying to lose that last ten pounds. Regarding the latter, I want to be healthy, but I want to enjoy life too. So if we go out for pizza, I’m not eating a salad.
• Two things I’m finally smart enough not to do again: Golf and fishing. I’m sorry; this hurts some people, I know. But in the past 20 years those two activities have made me cry, and I wish to high heaven someone had given me fair warning. If you find you must participate in one or both of these activities, just know it’s a whole-day affair and, oh yeah, bring sunscreen and a cooler stuffed with adult beverages. If you only have time to grab one thing, make it the cooler.
• Parenting well is hard. But not parenting well is even harder in the long run.
• Learn to say “So what?” To all those “theys” you think are judging you. We think about what people think about us a lot more than they actually do, if that makes sense. Just tell your neurotic self, “So what?” and keep on trucking. Most of us do the best we can.
• When you get stuff, you just want more stuff. And then your stuff suffocates you. We don’t need more stuff. Go for experiences.

Finally, I just want to enjoy 2012 as much as I can. It’s not a lofty resolution, but it’s a pretty tall order for a worrywart like me. I’m starting to learn I have a lot less control over most events than I initially thought. It’s a paradox that surrendering worry and control is the easiest thing in one way because you don’t have to do anything, but the hardest because you have to give something up—the illusion of being in control. I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it.

For now, I just want to enjoy the ride.

Have you ever bought a deal from Living Social, Groupon or Twongo?

Of course you have! Those deals are everywhere. I’m addicted to them, although my secret fear is they’re all going to go out of business (because, really, how does anyone make any money?) and I’ll be left with a vouchers for steak knives, teeth whitening and carpet cleaning.

Anyway, the writers of these deals have their hands full trying to entice customers with a snappy sales pitch that jumps right off the page.

Most of the time they succeed.

But sometimes they get a little punchy. If you have to write too many things, too fast and everything is expected to be clever and fabulous, you’re eventually going to start sounding like you’ve fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole or found some really good drugs.

Keep an eye out and you’ll see what I mean. I have fun trying to guess what they’re selling before reading more.

A few examples, coincidentally, or not, all from Groupon:

• Neglected cars try to escape their owners by parking in tow zones or running away from their garages to join the demolition derby. Keep custody of your car with today’s Groupon to Neo Automotive. Uhhh, obedience lessons for your vehicle? 
• America has always been the most extreme country, from the Boston Tea Punchings to having the first man swear on the moon. We hold this shredding guitar solo to be self-evident with today’s deal to the.…. No idea on this one.  Any guesses?
  
• Last one: Unlike serpents, humans can’t subsist solely on their own tails. Consume endless dinners with today’s Groupon: for $10, you get buffet-style cuisine for two people during lunch or dinner at Golden Corral. Okay. I gave that one away, but I can’t get over the visual of humans subsisting on their own tails. Probably not quite the branding Golden Corral had in mind: “Come on in to the food trough, folks, and eat your ass off.”

The bleepin’ Gingerbread House. Looking good here.

Five minutes later. I want my money back.

Now you would think I’m gonna be talking about loose coins, popsicle sticks and pet hair, right?

I wish. That crap I could at least clean out and throw away.

I have a gym behind my couch which gets pulled out nearly every morning as someone does a bunch of exercising and stretching at crack-o-dawn.

I might add that we’ve dedicated a separate room in the house for these follies—it even features a monstrous Bow-Flex—but for some reason the mini-gym stays behind the couch.

It actually stays in the middle of the floor most days unless I have time to shove it back behind the couch. When I don’t and a neighbor stops by, it’s always a little awkward.

“What IS all that?”

I get it because, frankly, a few parts of the mini-gym look like implements of torture.

I mean, there’s a rope. Which I tie around Sister’s neck to take her out when I can’t find the leash.

Then, there’s a stick-like apparatus with blue handles that looks like a bludgeoning tool.

I can’t forget the muscle-roller-outer (I don’t know the real name) that looks like a battering ram.

And the push-up paddles look like the defibrillator paddles used to restart a heart.

You might notice the baseballs, too. Technically, those are for working out a knot in your muscle. You actually position yourself on the floor and roll around on the ball. They could also conceivably be thrown in a heated argument.

Last but not least is the balance board. It’s homemade, a  heavy hexagonal-shaped piece of solid wood with sand-papery no-slip strips on it. It goes on a plastic cushion-like thing and you balance on it.

Tyler tried it once and fell and the non-slip treads made his side bleed. I don’t know what water boarding is exactly, but this board would be a good candidate.

Anyway, take a look at where all this crap fits. In my living room.

Kinda makes me feel like hurling a baseball.

What’s behind YOUR couch?

Jerry’s ear looks like its been mangled by Mike Tyson.

On Saturday, he and two buddies went mountain biking, and Jerry slammed into a tree, cutting his ear and whacking his collarbone, all of which he relayed to me on the phone on the way to tailgate with the same guys for the NC State game.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“It hurts like hell!”

“Welllll, maybe you should get it checked out. Maybe you need stitches,” I said.

It was stupid to even suggest stitches. My husband NEVER gets stitches. Hand caught in a motor? It’ll be fine. Chainsaw mishap? Brush it off.

Unless he’s in an OR and the surgeon puts them in–kind of a one-stop shopping thing–he just doesn’t do stitches. Stitches, apparently, are for wusses and babies and people who enjoy biding their time in waiting rooms.

So the next morning he’s telling me something and I really looked at him (it’s amazing how infrequently we do that) and all I could see was the bloody stump of his earlobe.

“Your ear!! My God!”

“What? I told you.”

“You’re missing, like, 25 percent of it! It looks…awful!”

“If you think that’s bad, look at my collarbone,” he said, pulling up his shirt. The area was bruised and there was an odd lump on one side. “There’s probably a break, but not a major one. I can still move my arm. I hit pretty hard. I think I blacked out for a minute.”

“WHAT?? Are you serious? What if you have a concussion?”

“What would they do, put a cast on my head?”

And, this, my friends, is where you can see the major difference between men and women. Or, more specifically, between my husband and myself.

If it had been me and my girlfriends, we’d have detoured to a freakin’ emergency room. Or at least an Urgent Care! One of us would have the task of comforting, the other would be in charge of making calls, the last person would take on logistics–food, water, directions, insurance cards etc.

Actually, let’s back that up. We wouldn’t be in the woods in the first place. On bikes.

Belks, maybe.

But I’ve never had a shopping injury this bad.

Bring joy to the world with a Sharpie. Or practice for a spelling test.

Gather acorns from the yard, toss them in the fan blower under the hood of the car and see if husband can figure out what that rattle is. Mwahahahaha!

Make alien hat from magnets, Kinex and a tin lid–for a very patient dog.

The other night as we were turning in for bed, Jerry complained of his lips being really dry.

So I said, “Oh, here, use my Chap Stick.” Because I’m a Chap Stick addict and I have tubes everywhere, including one on the night stand. I don’t even care. There are way worse things I could be addicted to.

“No, that’s okay,” Jerry said. “I’ll just wait til morning.”

“You’ll sleep with me but you won’t share my Chap Stick?” I asked. “That makes no sense at all.”

“Let me see it,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I bet it has a rounded tip because you put it on weird and glom it all around your mouth.”

Glom? 

“No I don’t!”

So I showed it to him and damn if he wasn’t right!

“How did you know that?” I was a little amazed.

“The same way I know your toothpaste tube is in a mangled wreck right now at the sink and that it’s probably all clogged up. You just use whatever will come out, don’t you?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Normal people get a tissue and clean it off until it’s unclogged. And squeeze the tube from the bottom.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, that takes way too much time. I’m in a hurry. What else do you know about me?” I asked.

“That there will always be a big tennis shoe to trip over in the middle of the night because you leave your shoes everywhere. And you never let the car warm up. And the pool towels will always be draped over my bikes in the garage and…”

“Fine! That’s enough. You know me,” I said, getting into bed. “Do you want to use the Chap Stick or not?”

“No.”

“Why?

“It’s called ‘Soft Lips.’”

“So?”

“It’s girly stuff.”

“I’m girly. And I’m in the bedroom.”

That shut him up.

Yeah. Score one for the toothpaste-mangling, chap-stick-rounding girly girl. Finally.

I finally made it into the 21st century by getting an iPhone for my 40th birthday. Man, is it cool.

A good friend of mine told me about this game you can play called Words with Friends. It’s pretty much just like Scrabble, which I’d never really played.

So I signed up to play a bunch of games–12 to be exact. Why so many? I don’t want to be rude, so anytime I got an invitation to play, I accepted.

To be blunt, I suck. I’m getting better, but right now I still suck. A lot of people put up words that are worth 50 to 60 points. My words are usually worth about 12.

I was asking Jerry for words one night and he said, “Lemme see that thing.”

Once he entered the word, the scoreboard came up on screen. “Whoa! You need some help here.”

So he came up with a few more words. Scrabble is a mix of math and spelling so we made a pretty good team. I thought it was kind of sweet of him to want to help me increase my score. Save my reputation. Help me out. Which he did.

But then he saw the scores of all my games. “Damn, you are getting your ass kicked by everyone!”

“I know. Sometimes you have to lose to learn.”

“No you don’t! Who told you that? You are losing every single game.”

“I know! Quit saying that!”

“It’s terrible! Maybe you should just quit!”

I hate it when good chivalry goes bad.

When Tyler asked me how babies were made a few days ago, I did what I’d promised myself I’d never do: I ignored his question.

Oy. I really didn’t want to tell him this young. Then again, I’d rather he hear it from me than another kid.

And I remembered I was eight when I asked my mom, after which I bellowed, “THAT IS DISGUSTING!”

Feeling guilty, I asked Tyler a few days later if he still wanted to know.

“Yes,” he said. “I mean, do you just get lucky?”

Oh, I should have just said “Yes” and ended it there, adding a disclaimer like  “The guy gets lucky and the girl gets pregnant.” But I figured that was cheating.

Instead I sighed and said, “Well, first, you have a man and a woman who are MARRIED and IN LOVE….” Now, I know this isn’t always true, but it’s my version and I figured I might as well open with it.

“Mom, I know that! I mean, how are they made?”

At that point I decided it would be a good idea to borrow a line from one of the websites I’d googled after he asked the first time. “Well. The man gives love to the woman and then a baby grows in her belly and comes it out when it’s ready.” Even to me it sounded vague and confusing.

“What? But how? I don’t get it.”

ARGhghghghgh. He wasn’t going to let me off the hook. So, finally, I told him the real deal, plain and simple, careful not to give too much information, but using the correct terms.

Silence.

“I know it’s confusing and it may sound weird, but it’s a very beautiful thing,” I added hopefully.

Tyler looked dubious. And confused.

“Are you confused?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. But I know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Now I really don’t want to get married!”

I guess you could say Mission, not accomplished.

Back to the drawing board and, maybe, the library.