Tag: Humor

Sock it to me

Published on by NouveauSoileau3 Comments

I’m a fan of shoes; it’s a fairly well-established fact that I more or less view life through a high-heeled prism and any conversation you’re apt to have with me might either end, begin, or somewhere in-between contain the words “heel,” “sole,” “pointed,” “adorable,” “stocking,” or “boot.”

Or, perhaps, all six.

Given this information, it will come as no surprise to you that I also spend otherwise productive amounts of time ruminating on the subject of socks. They are, after all, devices which encase the feet — that alone gives them a leg-up on any other type of attire. The color, weight, thickness or thinness, appropriateness and compatibility with the various kinds of footwear … it’s all absorbing to me. As I strolled along the grocery aisle yesterday afternoon with my daughter, I engaged her in discourse on the socks I was then wearing — black, thick, servicable numbers that I generally wear with boots. Thick, as I say. Yesterday, I had crammed them into clogs that I usually wore with thin, stocking-like affairs with absolutely delightful results. Normally this clog made my feet tired after only a few hours of wear, but with the addition of thick socks, they were magically transformed into the comfortable shoes they should have been all along. I was delighted with my discovery.

“Socks,” said Claire. “Gotta love’em.”

OK so, while no one’s going to be tremendously bowled over by this vast philosophical insight, it did get me to ruminating on socks in general and the various problems and delights I have had with them over the years.

First and foremost — One Size Fits All.

Oh it so DOES NOT.

For most of my life I’ve worn a size 9 shoe — not tremendously big, but you know, a little bigger than average. I’m 5-foot 9, it’s proportional, right? In the last few years it has been brought to my attention by the expert fitters at a local running store that I actually wear a 9½ — so be it. But come on, sock industry, One Size Fits All? How could I possibly wear the same sock that Miss 5-Foot Nothing slips on her size 6 feet?

So it was with a great thrill, many years ago, that I discovered in the now-defunct McAlpin’s Department Store the existence of Tall Girl Socks. Oh yes. Socks which promised a heel that covered my heel and did not end up somewhere in the vicinity of my arch. An array of colors. Substantial, durable construction to stand up to even the most problematic of footwear. They were located on the second floor next to the escalator. I was a frequent shopper.

Yes, of course they were discontinued. Yes, of course McAlpins went out of business. Yes, now I buy socks that have no reasonable acquaintance with the location of my heels, or I get men’s socks, which are always, always, ALWAYS too big.

Problem #2 — Children

Yes, this heading could apply to so many things, but today we’re talking socks. The worst thing ever in the history of garment manufacture is baby socks. Just imagine: you’re the mother of a darling newborn, whose very existence is completely dependent upon you, the mother. You grew the thing in your womb; now you’ve got to feed and clothe it now that it’s emerged into the wild. It has tiny darling sweet little feet which, even in high August, are bitterly, bitterly cold. So as a conscientious mama, you sock those baby feet. Pow, the baby kicks them off. And why? Because people who manufacture baby socks apparently have never seen an actual baby and mistakenly believe that their feet are an inch and a half long. The heel of the sock hits Baby Foot around the end of the toes. If you’re a month-old infant, you have four jobs: eat, sleep, poop, and kick off socks. Bonus points if you can do all these at the same time, while crying.

Probably somewhere in the universe — more likely, on the Internet — are socks that would fulfill my every sock need. Perhaps I have even perused such a website (like a couple years ago when I got friends’ new baby faux lace-up sneaker socks, not unlike the Nike numbers pictured above). But as a consistent thing, life is punctuated with sock peril. They don’t fit, they flee from pairing. White socks get dingy, all socks get holey.

I shall continue my quest for the Perfect Sock — and since socks and shoes go together like peas and carrots, I foresee that this is a Destiny that I can cheerfully fulfill.

Be still my heart

Published on by NouveauSoileau5 Comments

Clogging an artery near you

I spent several hours at the state fair last week, and while the reprehensible sights one can behold at such an event are usually so numerous they could fill at least one, hair-raising book, this vision leaves them all far, far behind.

Behold: The Donut Burger. Forgetting for one moment that the spelling “donut” alone makes me spit up a little, let us take a few minutes to contemplate this frightening foodstuff.

According to the Courier-Journal, which paid one of its reporters to actually eat one, the Donut Burger packs a hefty 800 calories per sandwich. And unlike the affront to culinary sensibilities served at the Wisconsin State Fair, which plated its cheeseburger demurely between a single, horizontally sliced donut, the Kentucky version brazenly slapped its cow patty between two whole fried-dough confections.

If the combination of doughnut and beef isn’t enough to stop your heart, the intrepid diner can also add cheese and, that most sinful of all foods, bacon. Approximately four slices, if my field observations are to be believed. Of course there is lettuce and tomato which can be piled upon the foul mix as well — although with a heart attack like this going, I have no idea why anyone would introduce anything as close to health food as vegetables into the mix.

It should probably be mentioned at this point that there is no way in hell that I would ever eat a Donut Burger, so if you got this far looking for a review, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Perhaps your misguided curiosity can be placated with my favorite part of the Courier’s story:

Two bites, then three and soon it started to taste like a regular cheeseburger with a hint of sugary glaze. By the fourth, fifth and sixth bites the doughnuts had flattened from trying to handle it and the grease was starting to mix with the glaze, creating something that doesn’t really have a name. Let’s just call it “glease.”

The booth where I spent my hours at the fair wasn’t far from the Donut Burger stand, and at no time during my stay did I ever look donutward and not see a line of similar length to the one depicted before you. It was generally made up of persons of girth commensurate with the main bulk of the population; that is to say, people lining up to get at this thing were thin, average and alarmingly overweight.

I myself indulged in a pork-loin sandwich and, I must admit, strayed into Donut Burger territory, grease-wise, in my choice of sides: a mighty plate of deep-fried, freshly cut spiral potatoes. An entire paper-plate full. I ate every one. I am certain that this indulgence would rarely lead to cardiac arrest; I am not so sure of our pal the Coronary Burger.

Will each of the fair-goers who succumbed to its greasy siren song do penance this week on the treadmill — or add it to their list of sins when seeking the solace of the confessional? I have to admit, while my one  greasy plate of tates did launch me into a renewed burst of cholesterol-fighting energy on my walks over the weekend, I did stop short of frightening our parish priest with my tales of state-fair sin.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone did, though; it’s so rare to see, in the wild, a victual so heinous and so sinful that it’s literally heart-stopping!

We never talk

Published on by NouveauSoileau2 Comments

Hi. Remember me?

I know, I know. I never write! It’s just that I’ve been busy — I know, that’s no excuse. We used to be so close! Remember all the good times we used to have, hanging out, talking about cooking and old prints that hung on our dads’ office walls? I know. Those were the days, weren’t they?

I mean, it seems like it was only last September when I threw myself out on the Internet and announced I was A Blogger. Wait. It was last September.

Well, it’s been a busy month or so. I have an excuse. SUMMER has arrived. Things have heated up ’round the old Soileau homestead.

For one thing, vermin have been eating my garden just as fast as I can plant it. I’m feeding several species of darling wild mammals here — mammals who are perfectly capable of supporting themselves, mind you … DO YOU HEAR ME, WILD MAMMALS?

Chipmunks: bah! You are dead to me, you sunflower digging-up little cretins. And bunnies. Bunnies! What could be cuter than bunnies? Well, listen you darling little things, I ain’t having NO MORE OF IT. Quit eating my Dianthus. And stop consuming the sunflower leaves that managed to poke their way skyward, despite the chipmunks. Go be cute elsewhere. There is no feeding trough here. I see plenty of clover out there, ready to become your sustenance. Stop it.

That’s funny. I didn’t know bunnies could chuckle.

And speaking of cute, would you look at this? Trassie is attracting flocks of girls.

Girls are appearing out of the woodwork.

OK, not the woodwork. But definitely from across the greenspace, the lush area behind my house which, I guess, supports an animal population of endless proportions. (Where are the OWLS, I’d like to know? I’m looking for Circle of Life stuff here — and the raptors crap out on me.)

But back to the girls: directly opposite our back yard live The Girlies: Allison, Lauren and Catherine. The first two are 8-year-old twins, the the remainder, a 5-year-old. Trassie likes ’em all. They jump on the trampoline, they eat popcicles. They tramp in and out of the house, gathering up Mario paraphernalia; they fly across the divide to THEIR home, amassing mermaids and stuffed floppy doggies. Piles of socks have appeared on the grass. Sandals and ponytail holders have sprouted on the deck. I’m having flashbacks to Claire’s girliehood.

We’ve also been doing yard work, which involved something I’m calling Prune Surprise.

Tras took the trimmers to the trees along the street which, as trees will do, have been growing and impeding Progress. This Progress is mainly mail delivery. The mailman got tired of fighting the limbs blocking the mailbox and finally one day got medieval on them. I found them twisted and broken — but certainly out of the way of the mailbox. Not wanting to inspire any more violent outbursts on the part of postal personnel, Tras himself went medieval on the very same trees, and ended up with a container full of trimmings. Here, Christopher poses with the container.

But let’s look a little closer.

It appears to have contained something more.

The old Prune Surprise.

Tras asked the rest of us, indivdually, to come outside and take a look at the lawn, and more or less scared the living daylights out of us when the container full of branches began wildly giggling.

If you’ve ever owned and operated a 5-year-old, you know they don’t tire easily. In our case, they don’t appear to tire at all — so the game was just as fresh by the time the last family member was fooled as the first.

So June has arrived and we’re all outside. It’s a light-filled, exciting time – one that leaves precious few moments for the deep introspection and quality philosophizing you’ve come to expect as the hallmark of NouveauSoileau.

Hey! Don’t tell me that’s the bunnies chuckling.

In the high hide

Published on by NouveauSoileau6 Comments

In the movie The Lost World, the sequel to Jurassic Park, something called a High Hide is prominently featured. Because I recall the book by Michael Crichton better than the movie, I’ll describe what I remember from it, not the movie … but if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s this tall platform that animal researchers can use to observe dangerous predators, like lions, in their natural habitats without danger to themselves. They were not designed for dinosaur observation and thus we have forward momentum of the plot.

But at any rate, the term has been on my mind for the last several weeks, as Tras completes his array of high hides in the garage.

Not that we have any predators to observe. We just have a garage with a high ceiling, a vast open space that screams “potential storage area” to my handyman (and pack-rat) husband.

Ok that, wasn’t exactly fair. Yes, he is a pack-rat, but he’s not the only one. When you combine households, as we did six years ago, you get a lot of duplication (and triplication: at one point we had three sets of washers and dryers). That duplication also comes in the form of stuff — he and I both had boxes and boxes of college textbooks, files, and the various flotsam and jetsam of life we couldn’t part with, not to mention  all the paraphernalia, equipment, toys and clutter associated with the children I had then so far produced.

So this was his solution: affix to the high ceiling, and walls, various shelving units which could store all the things that probably would be best off out of the attic (fragile, melty stuff among them) and leave up in the attic what could be stored there (bunk beds, other furniture, suitcases).

It’s an exciting project for me because, in order to affix these various high hides to the garage ceiling,  they had to be bolted to the floor above … a space otherwise known as the attic. And to accomplish the delicate task of finding the right stud to mount [stop: this is a G-rated blog] the bracket to, the attic had to be cleared of most of the things previously stored therein.

So we’ve had some boxes sitting around for a while while this project unfolded. And soon, they will go back into storage. But in the meantime let us celebrate: Tras was justifiably proud of his handiwork, once finished, and couldn’t resist demonstrating its cargo-lifting capabilities with young Trasimond, who enjoyed his trip into the high hide thoroughly. So much so that he couldn’t resist a goofy expression or two.

So now, should any prehistoric creatures threaten, we know we’ve got built-in safety measures already in place. I guess all that storage it can provide was just incidental.

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