Five Things I'm Not Good At. The Reds confess!

RHYS BOWEN: Last Time I hosted JRW I posted five weird things I was good at that most people weren’t.

Having confessed to all the things that scared me yesterday I thought I’d confess today to things that I am not good at, things that other people find perfectly easy.

1.         Opening things. Packages of cake mix. I invariably open one end just as I read the instruction “Open other end.”  Jars. Bottle tops. Potato chips. Medicines. If I were left alone I’d starve because I couldn’t open any item of food successfully.

2.         Also wrapping things. When I was in a gap year I worked in a corner grocery store in Germany. When customers bought boxes of chocolates we had to gift wrap them. You should have seen the faces after my attempts at wrapping. And thank heavens you can buy gift bags now because my Christmas wrapping was pathetic. My biggest fail is with strapping tape. I pull out a length. It immediately gets itself stuck on my clothes, folds up on itself, sticks to the wrong part of the package etc etc.  Always a disaster.

3.         Ironing. I have never mastered the art. My mother ironed everything, including my father’s underwear. When my girls were small she sent me adorable smocked cotton dresses for them. They were worn once then sat in the ironing basket until they were outgrown.

4.         Running. I have always been a terrible runner. When we had to run around the field at school guess who was among the last?  Strangely enough I’m good at sports that just involve short bursts of speed. I was a pretty nifty tennis player. Played for school and college and women’s league. And table tennis. I can still beat younger people. But my legs just won’t obey when I run.

5.         And finally proofreading.  I am useless at proofreading my own work because I see what I think I have written, not what is actually on the page.

So how about you, Reds. Five things you don’t do well that are a breeze for everyone else.

JENN McKINLAY: 

1. Navigation. I have no sense of direction. I will always go the wrong way. Always. I’m not even allowed to go to the mall by myself because my people fear they’ll never see me again.

2. Being sick. I am the WORST sick person. I whine and complain as if I’m about to die. Thankfully, I am rarely ever sick, which is a mercy for those who have to live with me.

3. Housekeeping. This is probably why I don’t like stuff. I don’t enjoy cleaning things and I can’t have cleaning people because I’d have to clean before they got here. Our dust bunnies have names and live in a warren under our couch. LOL.

4. Taxes. I can never get my paperwork to my accountant on time (she has the patience of a saint) and while we file on time, I rarely pay on time because I’m never prepared. Every year I promise to be better but nope.

5. I am a horrible musician’s wife. While I can know the words to a song, I can never remember who sang it, when it came out, or who produced it (why does anyone need to know this?). Hub knows all these things about every song ever written, I swear. He is a tolerant man. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Rhys, I’m laughing at your running comment. I had to do a questionnaire for my last physical therapy evaluation - you know, rate your ability to do this activity from 1-5. I got to running, and said to my therapist, “I haven’t run since I last got pregnant in 2000!” She let me skip that question.

1. Like Jenn, I’m not good at housekeeping. While I’d LIKE a sparkling clean home, I absolutely don’t care enough to engage in the endless grind that is dusting a 3,000 square foot 200 year old home where two cats and two dogs live.

2. Cooking. I don’t mean I can’t cook tasty meals, I can hold my own as a kid-pleasing home cook. But that’s as far as my talents lie. I constantly marvel when I’m visiting Celia and she turns out adventurous, gourmet dinners in a kitchen that’s smaller than mine! Like the cleaning, there are just too many other things I enjoy more than cooking, so any possible advancement gets sidelined.

3. Keeping plants alive. I have loads of houseplants, all of which are the hardiest species known to mankind. Any plant that couldn’t survive a nuclear winter is not going to make it at my place.

4. Keeping in touch, especially by mail. My poor mother and I were so mismatched in this regard, and it resulted in a lot of hurt feelings on her side and guilt on mine. She had a book solely for tracking every family member’s birthday and anniversary. She bought cards a year ahead of time and kept them in a box with monthly dividers AND she would write the mail-by date in light pencil on the envelope. Me? So, so not that. If you’ve ever gotten a card from me, save it, because it’s a collector’s item.

5. Getting out of any social situation on time. Because I like to talk. Lord, do I like to talk. Ross and the kids used to do a kind of huddle around me when it was time to leave the after-mass coffee hour. They would force me to the door, while I continued conversations over the childrens’ heads. I try to be better when I’m a guest, but honestly, there’s a 50% chance I’ll be the last person standing after a dinner party.

HANK PHILLIIPPI RYAN:  

1. Finding the meeting link. People arrange virtual meetings with me, they send a link. I swear,  totally swear,  those links vanish the minute they hit my mailbox. Where do they go? Where? I am ALWAYS looking for the darn link at the last minute and my editor now knows to just send it to me just before the meeting starts.

2.  Navigation. Totally. NO idea where anything is or how to get there. It’s ridiculous. I can read a map, turn onto Elm Street in three blocks,  that’s no problem. But how that translates to the real world is baffling. And dead reckoning? My husband can get there from here by just imagining how you’d have to go to do that. Never. Not a chance.  I do think it stems from the “north is up” problem, and also being left-handed. Sister left-handers will understand. Do NOT go the way I suggest.

3. Figuring out how showers work in hotels. Push, pull? Up, down. They say: the pointer always points to hot–but which end is the pointer? I could go either way on that. Plus, once you make the decision, the water temp always changes midstream, and then IN the shower, you have to make the terrifying  high-stakes decision of which way to turn the thing.   So I wind up scalded or freezing as well as wet.  

4. Small talk. I am terrible at small talk. I meet a new person, and after hi-how are you-fine, I am DOOMED. I know all the stuff you are supposed to say and I know the rules but it never works.  What’s the latest with you, I ask. Nothing, they say. Same old same old, they say. GAH. I tend to simpy run away.

5.  Labeling things for the freezer. “I’ll remember what this is,” I tell myself. “You can clearly see it’s chicken and zucchini.” “You’ll be able to tell by the shape that it’s a baguette.”  My poor freezer is filled with unidentifiable little packets. Do not tell me to label things. I know that,  I just don’t do it.

 LUCY BURDETTE: Rhys, these are things we think we aren’t good at, not what our husbands think, right? Because I think I’m an excellent navigator, but this makes John giggle…

1. Parking the car properly in a normal space. I tell myself to stay right or left and then I'll be fine, but I almost always end up with the car hugging the line so the next driver can’t get out. I pin this on my macular pucker surgery–depth perception hasn’t been right ever since. 

2. Getting rid of books I’m certain I won't read and preventing myself from buying new ones. This is a disease, Reds, and I'm afraid it’s Not Curable.

3. Addressing the kitty litter box early and often. I hate this job and every time I do it I tell myself if you’d scoop every day this wouldn’t be a problem. But it is.

4. Small talk, if you think Hank is bad, imagine two or three times worse. I was once on a  date with a cute boy in high school and I didn’t say a single word the entire time. Not a Single Word. Things have improved since then, but not so much…

5;. Spreadsheets. The Friends of the KW Library has some new smart board members and they want everything done on spreadsheets, in Google Drive. My brain does not work in spreadsheets. Period. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: So funny! I am totally with Lucy on the parking. I thought I was the worst parker in the world, but maybe I have competition! (In our defense, we're short, and that makes it harder, I swear.)

1. I absolutely cannot remember the words to songs. It's like algebra, there's a missing link somewhere in my brain. But I have no trouble singing along once the song has started! And I can recognize songs from the first couple of notes. (Husband plays guitar–he's always testing me.)

2. I cannot fold. Anything. T-shirts, towels, you name it, I can't fold it. Everything comes out looking like lumps. Weirdly, however, I can fold a fitted sheet pretty darned well.

3. I can't keep up with email. (That is a whole other blog topic, email. Gah.) So if you have emailed me and you haven't heard back in a timely manner, I apologize. Send me a reminder. Or two…

4. i read recipes online all the time. I am especially addicted to NYT Cooking, to which I subscribe, and I love my Recipe Box. BUT I have never managed to make a recipe in the amount of time stated! Do these people have sous chefs? Do they do all the prep and then start the countdown timer? I am organized, my kitchen is organized, and I have pretty good knife skills. So what gives?

5. I am terrible at any kind of time management. See #3 above, as well as #4.  I'll say to myself, "I should probably start that recipe a half hour earlier…" But do I? Nope. There is always hope, however.

RHYS: I'm nodding my head and saying "Oh yes. Me too" as I read this list.  Housekeeping...I can wipe the kitchen counters and floor occasionally but thank heavens for Mirian who comes in once a week and does a thorough clean.

And Hank, those hotel bathrooms! A complete enigma to me. The number of times I've been hit in the face with cold water because I turned the faucet the wrong way!

Julia, keeping plants alive.  I kill every orchid I'm given even though I read the instructions and try hard. But I am good at navigating. Once I drove from Houston to New Orleans and turned into the hotel parking lot without having to check my route once. And this was before GPS.  And taxes. I do my taxes on time, every year. This is why the US can keep up with Stealth Bombers, because I fund them, single handedly.

So Reddies, now it's your time for confession!