Advice

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Ice Ice Baby

Today I am going to teach you something that will improve your life and possibly save your marriage.

And if you are already aware of this life-improving secret… Well, you are a genius and you can feel free to congratulate me for joining the realm of the geniuses. Without lording it over me or rolling your eyes at how stupid I’ve been for so many years.

If you are not yet a genius – at least not in this arena – your mind is about to be blown. BLOWN.

First, let me give you some background.

My husband and I live in an apartment, so our refrigerator came with the apartment. (It was actually a brand-new fridge when we moved in – or at least so clean that it was indistinguishable from a brand-new fridge – which was So Exciting after our last place, where the fridge had someone else’s hairs in it.) Since we had no input as to what kind of fridge we’d have or what size it would be, the fridge is on the small side. I mean, it’s not a mini-fridge, like people had in college. And it holds a good amount. But it’s not LARGE, is what I’m saying.

Also, where did the “d” come from in “fridge”? There’s no “d” in “refrigerator.” What is up with that?

Ahem. Anyway.

The freezer sits on top of the refrigerator part and it, too, is fairly modest. It came with a shelf-thing that divides the freezer in half horizontally, and I honestly can’t tell whether the shelf helps expand the amount of food we can keep in there or not. (Probably it limits the number of Giant Precarious Stacks we can have in the freezer. But that’s neither here nor there.)

Let’s take a minute to discuss what we keep in there. We have some goodies from Omaha Steaks. (My parents send us goodies from Omaha Steaks as a surprise every so often, and it is so much fun to have a real STEAK or a LOBSTER TAIL or a CRAB CAKE on a special occasion that I tend to hoard those things as though preparing for an imminent apocalypse. If and when the apocalypse occurs, we will be eating well.) We inevitably have a couple of pork chops that we bought and decided we were too lazy to cook, so we threw them in the freezer until we could deal with them. There’s some bacon, because, while we don’t really eat bacon around here, I occasionally use it for cooking. There’s usually a handful of microwave meals, which I can’t really stomach but my husband LOVES. There’s often some sort of frozen vegetable. Some popsicles. Some ice cream. And lots of baked goods of which my mother-in-law brought extra whenever she visited us last.

Well, it certainly SOUNDS like our freezer holds a lot. But it doesn’t FEEL like it.

And I try on occasion to thin out the junk in there, Internet. Really, I do. But you know how some men have sentimental ties to ratty old T-shirts or old video games or whatever and it’s impossible to get them to throw those things out? (I am this way with lots of things, by the way. It’s not just MEN who have de-cluttering issues.) My husband is that way with food. His mom makes DELICIOUS cake. Let me be clear on that. DELICIOUS. But I am not a big fan of once-frozen cake. And sometimes she will bring us cake that was frozen in her home, and defrosted here… And then we will re-freeze it and stow it in our freezer.

If I am not a big fan of ONCE-frozen cake, imagine how I feel about TWICE-frozen cake.

But my husband will. not. throw out the cake. It can sit back there for ten years and he will refuse to throw it out. His mom brought a tub of buttercream frosting to our apartment shortly after we moved in, and I think it’s STILL THERE because I am not allowed to throw it out.

Perhaps to him buttercream is as precious as lobster tail, so I try not to give him too much guff about the whole thing.

So. The freezer is full and it is hard to clear it out.

Of course, also inhabiting our freezer is that ubiquitous freezer dweller: ice.

We have two ice cube trays (which we purchased from Target when we moved here because I am inexplicably weirded out by using ice cube trays that the previous tenants used) and a deep rectangular ice holder/bucket (also purchased at Target) that sits in the door of the freezer.

However, since our freezer is so small and also so stuffed with crap, we only use one of the trays. It sits nestled on top of the second tray. (For many reasons, none of which are the point of this post, I refuse to put water in both trays and have them rest on top of one another.) (Also, I am not JUDGING you if you do this – my parents do this when their freezer is especially full, and did it my entire childhood, and it was fine. But I have my reasons.)

The point is that, at any given time, we have only 12 cubes of ice freezing in our freezer, plus whatever is sitting in the ice bucket.

Here we (finally) get to the crux of the matter.

Now, I don’t use ice all that often. If a diet soda is cold, I’m generally okay with drinking it straight from the can. But sometimes, I prefer it over ice. I actually go through long periods where I’ll drink it without ice… and then long periods where I drink it with ice.

FYI: I drink a lot of diet soda.

My husband ALWAYS likes ice with his diet soda. A lot of ice.

Whatever. Ice, no ice, whatever floats your boat.

But the problem lies in the ice SUPPLY.

It seems like every time I go to the freezer to get some ice for my drink, the ice bucket is empty. And sometimes – to add insult to injury – the actual ICE TRAY is empty.

That means NO ICE, Internet. And if I am in the mood for ice, and there is NO ICE… well, that makes for one crabby wife.

If my husband is home (unlikely), I might sigh loudly in a very put-upon way as I refill the ice tray. Or, if I’m feeling feisty, I will tell him straight out that he sucks.

If I’m by myself (more likely), I will grumble and huff and roll my eyes as I refill the ice tray.

Of course, my husband is not the only one who forgets to refill the ice tray (although I do it less often than he does – not that he makes a HABIT of it) and the ice bucket. I am not entirely innocent!

So it seems like we are always grousing at each other about the ice.

There’s the passive aggressive version: “Wow, seems like I just filled this!”

The plaintive version: “No ice? Man…”

The pointed, pointedly-cheery version: “Babe, can you try to be better about filling the ice tray?”

The overtly grouchy slash accusatory slash slightly-hysterical version: “You NEVER fill the ice tray!”

That’s a lot of attention for a stupid drink-chilling apparatus to receive.

But then I hit on my absolutely GENIUS solution.

It is so brilliant, it has COMPLETELY ELIMINATED all ice-related griping!

Instead of waiting for the ice bucket to be empty before we refill it with ice…

We now refill the ice bucket every time we use ice. And, of course, we refill the ice tray with water once it’s been divested of its cubes.

That way, there is ALWAYS ice in the bucket. There is ALWAYS water chilling in the tray. And, on those rare occasions when I’m using the faucet so my husband puts the empty tray back in the freezer without filling it and forgets about it, there is still plenty of ice in the bucket to tide us over.

Looks like I probably could have gotten to that part about the solution without writing 1,100 words of background. But what can I say. I like to hear the sound of my own keyboard keys.

Anyway, if you are not already doing this. TRY IT. It will improve your life immeasurably. Possibly because it will make very little difference in your life. But! If you are as consumed by ice as my husband and I apparently are, perhaps it will be immeasurable because it’s such a VAST improvement.

Speaking of ice, sort of, Vanilla Ice is the star of some sort of real-estate related show on HGTV.

That’s… really all I have to say.

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Did You Get That? Poor Subject Line Choices RUIN Friendships

You want to know something that annoys me?

Okay, that seems a bad way to begin.

How about this…

You want to know something that will make your life easier and more organized?

Make your email subject lines specific.

Say I have a question for you about, hmm, buying a kangaroo.

I would email you with the subject line “Buying a Kangaroo.”

And you would email me back under that same subject line. And any time we discussed the intricacies of kangaroo buying, we would do so under the “Buying a Kangaroo” subject line.

Then, at any time in the future, I would easily be able to search for and find the emails on that subject. You know, to forward to my other kangaroo-fanatic friends. Or whatever.

By the way… It totally doesn’t bug me if your email subject line says “hi” or “It’s Friday!!!!1!!1!11” or “OMG guess what?!?” or whatever. I send those emails all the time. But they are generally a) to my mom and b) not really about anything specific other than a little note to say, hi, the weather is snowy, I am making spaghetti for dinner or whatever.

But when there is Something Specific at Stake, I think the specific subject line is pretty much a necessity.

Yet so many people refuse to use them! They often completely IGNORE the subject line field, when it can be SO VERY USEFUL!

I also firmly believe that email conversations are excellent (in gmail, one conversation under the umbrella of a single subject line takes up one line in your inbox; I’m not sure what happens in other email services, but I think you’d have 20 lines in the inbox, all with the same subject line)… BUT if anyone involved in the conversation switches the subject, it is critical to begin a new email with a new subject line.

I mean, say we have been going back and forth about kangaroo buying, and then all of a sudden you want to know if we are still on for dinner next Tuesday and where exactly should we go?

Well, I think that requires a new subject line – something like, “Dinner Next Tuesday.”

Here’s why…

  1. If I see YET ANOTHER email from you about kangaroo buying, I may not open it right away because I am sick of talking about the stupid kangaroo… thus missing your important question about dinner and inadvertently snubbing you and completely ruining the friendship.
  2. If I forget, between now and Tuesday, whether we agreed to go to the new Thai restaurant or Olive Garden, it will be difficult for me to find the answer without bothering you again. Because why would I possibly open an email about buying kangaroos to find out about our dinner plans?

Along these lines, please, for the love of god, don’t just randomly pick out an old email and click reply because it’s easier than remembering my email address. That is what “Contacts” lists are for. Or, if you MUST do that because the old email has the exact right list of people in the CC field or whatever… please take the extra five seconds to delete the old email and replace the old subject line with something new.

Because there is nothing weirder than getting an old email that says RE: That One Scrubs Episode that doesn’t reference Scrubs at all and is, instead, about the best place to rent skis or something.

Oh! That reminds me of another way to make emails easier and better!

Try to stick to one subject per email.

Maybe this is more of a work-type issue (although I’ve certainly run into it with personal emails), but it happens All the Time.

A few years ago, a gal I supervised would send me emails with a bunch of different things in them at once. Like… She’d ask me a complicated question about how I wanted her to complete a project… And then in the same email, she’d ask who was the best person to contact about an HR issue… And which three people I wanted her to include on a weekly report she sent out… And then she’d ask me how my weekend was… And then a question about how to perform a certain function in Word.

So what I would do was break them apart. I’d respond to her project question – in an email with the subject line “Response to Your ABC Question about XYZ Project” – in one email.

Then I’d respond to her Word question in a separate email – with the subject line  “How to Do Footnotes in Word.”

Then I’d break her other three – smaller – questions into numbered bullets and answer them all in corresponding numbered bullets.

Then I would encourage her to ask questions like that in the future – giving big, complicated questions their own email, and asking multiple small questions in numbered bulleted lists.

She didn’t like me very much, if I remember correctly.

But! In any event! That is what I do when I write emails. A boss showed me how to do it a billion years ago. And it enhances clarity immensely.

And along the same lines…

Please don’t respond to just one or two of the 5 questions I asked you. I promise that I broke them out in a very clear, numbered list and I need answers to ALL of them, it’s not a “pick and choose” type of thing.

Maybe you don’t have an answer to one… Or you don’t have an answer YET… But please, for the love of lobster, just SAY THAT. It’s better than answering two of the questions and leaving me to fret over whether I should take your lack of response as “no” or “I don’t know” or whether I should email you back and risk getting an annoyed “I’m working on it” response.

Wow. I cannot believe that I just wrote 950 words about how to write emails. Clearly I need to get out more.

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Are You Sick of Me Talking About This Yet? Because I Am.

Guess what happens next week, Internet?

That’s right!

Thanksgiving Day of Football and Feasting!

I am ready. I am pumped. I am psyched.

I am totally going to kick some Thanksgiving ass, Internet.

But my poor mother-in-law… I think she is worried.

Now, she would never say it to my face that she is concerned, Internet. But she has been doing a lot of asking if she can help.

I believe this comes from a genuine desire to help me out. She is a very nice, helpful person, after all. Plus, she is an experienced Thanksgiving Hoster.

But I am guessing – and keep in mind that this guess is coming from a bona fide control freak – that she is feeling a little anxious about not having any influence on the Thanksgiving proceedings.

“So,” you say, “let her help! Help is awesome!”

To you I say, “Wow. You don’t know me at all.”

Allow me to stress a few things about me, the Resident Control Freak:

1. I have a tiny, nay MINUSCULE kitchen. It is seriously only big enough for ONE PERSON. Believe me, I know this from experience. My husband and I have cooked/unloaded dishes/unpacked groceries in that kitchen together many times. And he is a person I don’t feel bad about yelling at/bumping into/accidentally stabbing. (KIDDING.) (Sort of.)

2. I am very, very particular about many things. I have serious, specific ideas about washing dishes, washing vegetables, and handling meat. I care about where you put a dirty dish (on the right side of the sink) and where you set a vegetable (on the left side of the sink, preferably on a cutting board) and what you put IN the sink (ONLY dirty dishes and things you intend to put down the drain). I care about which dish towel you use to dry your hands or dry your dishes. I have very strong feelings about cleaning as you go. I even have TWO scrub brushes – one for dishes that go in the dishwasher; one for dishes that are to be handwashed. Are you getting the picture? CONTROL FAH-REAK.

3. I would so much rather be stressed about Making Food than be stressed about Whether You Are Following My Thousands of Weird Rules.

In an ideal world, I want my in-laws to come over, sit in front of a football game, eat the appetizers I will have thoughtfully prepared ahead of time, and WATCH THE GAME. Or snooze. Or chat. Or read a book. Until I announce that dinner is ready.

Oh my god, Internet. Do you not feel intense sympathy for my in-laws?

In response to past episodes of my whining about this holiday, you have thoughtfully recommended that I hand over a certain side dish to my mother-in-law to make… Or that I ask her set the table… Or any number of very smart and thoughtful and practical suggestions that will make her feel needed.

And to all of them, I pooch out my lower lip and say, “NUH UH. I don’t wanna.”

This is where you roll your eyes and think, “Holy cats, lady. I would give my left kidney for a mother-in-law who is helpful/someone to help me with Thanksgiving/an excuse to boss my relatives around.”

This is where you sigh loudly at me and say, “Just LET GO a little, weirdo. It’s not going to kill you if someone else makes the mashed potatoes.”

But Internet! I want it my way. Pout, pout, foot stomp.

I want to be a good hostess. Being a good hostess means making your guests comfortable. In order to make my guests comfortable, I need to be in control. But one of my guests also wants to be in control. So I can’t make her comfortable without relinquishing control which means I won’t be able to make her (or my father-in-law) comfortable.

And then my brain explodes.

Just to see if I can sway you in my favor just a little, let me add this:

My in-laws are flying here. So any food item they contribute to Thanksgiving would have to be [a] brought on the plane (is that even possible? I mean, can you put a tray of stuffing through the security x-ray?) or [b] bought here (and seriously, HOW is something store-bought going to be as good as something homemade?) or [c] made in my kitchen, which we have previously established as Not Possible Without My Being Dead or Unconscious.

And lastly, a tiny (or not-so-tiny) part of me wants to prove to everyone – to myself, to my mother-in-law, to whomever else who remotely cares about this ridiculous drama I’ve built up for myself – that I can do it. That I CAN make Thanksgiving dinner – from scratch, start to finish, by myself – without burning down the apartment or poisoning anyone.

What is it that they say about pride goeth before the fall and whatnot?

I don’t even know if I want advice or commiseration or if I just need some assurance that we will all get through this without hating each other or throwing a pot of yams at the wall or dealing with the horror of setting a peeled potato on the right side of the sink.

But I would like your thoughts. Even if your thoughts have nothing to do with Thanksgiving at all.

(Although fair warning: I reserve the right to respond to “Sheesh, girl, just give your MIL something to do” comments with a big ol’ pout face.)