Judging From the Paint Job…

It’s always been fun for me to try to judge the personalities of people by the way they decorate their houses. What does it say about my own personality that I’m attracted to people who like a mixture of bright colors, eclectic styles and lots of patterns?

I have a decorating-for-under-$50 book, and one woman (gotta be female) painted her kitchen with a base coat of yellow and a top coat “ragged on” in bright red. She painted the window frames a really cool, funky purple and hung up fifties style red curtains, and the cabinet fronts are painted cool, funky green. Talk about eclectic! And I love it; makes me happy just looking at it. If I ever manage to buy my dream retirement trailer, I’m going to paint it the exact same colors, including the purple window frames.

I’d be willing to bet a lot of chocolate she would be a fun woman to be friends with. Probably has been parachuting and likes to spend whole days at the beach and shares pizza with her dogs. Maybe she’s a writer, too, or better yet, a blogger. (grin) Since she’s only spending $50 to do her kitchen, I’m assuming she doesn’t make much money, which suggests she’s really creative.

Another woman in the book, however, did her whole living room, except for the tan carpet, entirely in white. Even most of the books were white. I’m guessing she’s one of those really fussy, disapproving people who are hard to get along with. I don’t even like to look at the picture.

Then there are those who use baby barf green and diarrhea yellow, and they always somehow strike me as being insecure. A couple of the living rooms in the book were painted in really dark blue, or dark red, and they made me feel depressed. Couldn’t help feeling that the person who would want their living space painted that color must be chemically depressed, and wanted their surroundings to match their mood.

 I could, of course, be entirely wrong about all this. The people who paint in white or dark red or puke green could be just as fun and charming and secure and happy as I’m judging the yellow and red lady to be, and simply have different tastes in color than I do. Though I will admit, if you invite me into your home and have one of those colors, you’re probably going to have to work extra hard to convince me that my perception of you is wrong. Here’s a hint; feeding me chocolate chip cookies or cheesecake and letting me play with your bulldog would go a LOOOONG way in convincing me you are a fun and sweet person, in spite of your color choices.

Incredibly Stupid Jokes

Please understand that these jokes are not from my head. I heard two of them from an old acquaintance I ran into the other day. He’s actually a very smart man; a retired electrician for the phone company, but I guess we all have our weird quirks, don’t we?

Here’s the first one:      What’s the difference between an old ten dollar bill and a new one?

Answer: Nine dollars                        Leave me a comment if you need it explained

Second one: Two blonds are sitting in a fishing boat in the middle of a lake with fishing lines in the water. A DNR guy comes along and asks for their fishing licenses. The girls tell him they aren’t fishing. He gave them the typical DNR look and said, “You’re not fishing, hey? You’re sitting in a fishing boat with your lines in the water, what do you call that?” They told him, “We’re trying to pick up garbage off the bottom of the lake,” and pulled up their fishing lines, which had magnets attached to them. The guy scratched his head and said, “Well, I guess you’re really not fishing, are you? Sorry to bother you and thanks for cleaning up the lake.” They waved him off, put their lines back in the water, and one said to the other, “That idiot, hasn’t he ever heard of steel heads?”

Here’s the third one: What do you call a couple of Latin mice?

Answer: A para-meese-ium

And with that, I think I’ll go get some lunch

Robert Redford

Got your attention there, didn’t I, ladies? Don't worry, I'm not just trying to fool you; this really is about him.

I recently read about a lady who was in line to get ice cream on a hot summer day in Hollywood, and found that Robert Redford was standing in line behind her. Naturally, she got flummoxed, wanting to tell him how much she loved his films, and if she’s anything like me, wouldn’t at all mind simply staring and soaking up his beauty while she could. 

He must be used to female types gaping like dying fish, and wanting to be nice, he said something about it being a hot day. She said she was so ticked at herself that all she could do, in this opportunity of a lifetime to charm Robert Redford, was say, “Yeah, hot day,” step up to the counter and tell the girl, “Strawberry, please.”

As I read this, I screamed at my computer, “You idiot! Why didn’t you tell him a story?! He was obviously willing to talk, if you had just given him an opening!” I sat mocking her for the “Yeah, hot day” line a few minutes till I could calm down and remember that most people are not natural storytellers; they can’t come up with a good story at the drop of a Robert Redford like I can, because I have a thousand of them in my head at any one time.

If it had been me, remembering a great line from one of my favorite movies of his, I’d have told him about my retired Army tank mechanic friend John, who’d bought a half assembled gyrocopter at a yard sale. Between him and his aviation mechanic friends, they got it flyable, for the most part.

I’d tell Robert that John said his first hour of flying instruction was absolutely terrifying; he used either too much power or not enough, and took innumerable nose dives the instructor had to pull him out of if he couldn’t do it himself before they crash landed. He said it was just like learning to drive his dad’s stick shift when he was fourteen, except now, he was five hundred feet in the air, with no place to go but down; quickly.

Hopefully, I’d have my fellow blue-eyed blondy’s attention by that time, and I’d tell him that the first thing John’s flying instructor told him was that, with gyrocopters, it’s never a matter of if you will have to make an emergency landing, it’s a matter of when. Apparently the guy was right; in his very first solo flight, John ended up in somebody’s cow field. Fortunately, the farmer had watched him land, and came out with his tractor to pull him out of the cow shit. 

By that point, we would have our ice cream, and I’d get to the point of my story. I’d say, “John had to drive six hours each way over three weekends to get enough instruction to earn his license.” Then I’d ask Robert, “Do you remember your line in ‘Out of Africa’ when your character Denis first bought the air plane and Karen asked when you had learned to fly?” I’d hope he would flash me that famous smile and quote, “Yesterday.” Then of course, he’d ask me to come eat dinner with his family because I’m such a fascinating conversationalist, you know. I understand he has a really sweet Golden Retriever it would be fun to play with.