Friday Funday- Last Man Standing

It was the early nineties, I had three rowdy little boys, and a husband who carved pumpkins with a power saw, fixed a broken mixer by plugging a beater into his electric drill, and could blast an entire neighborhood with his giant stereo speakers. And, Tim Allen was starring in a sitcom that was the story of my life…..as  it was happening. Home Improvement. I had the husband who insisted that everything should have ‘more power’, and the boys, well, let’s just say they kept me on my toes.  The only thing missing was a wise neighbor, like Wilson, to keep Hunky Hubby on track. The show began airing one month before I gave birth to our youngest son, and ran until a year before the oldest son graduated from high school….and I could have written weekly episodes for that show the entire time it ran….heck, I could still be writing episodes.

Anyway, when Hunky Hubby and I realized that Tim Allen had a new sitcom, Last Man Standing, we were instant fans. I immediately went to the internet to find out how to get tickets to watch a taping. Wednesday was our day.

Hunky Hubby made sure the car was gassed up the night before so that we could hit the road the minute he got home from work. I packed a picnic meal of special sandwiches, strawberries and rice crackers to eat while we waited in line, and when Paul got home from work we headed to the CBS Studios where this ABC television show was being taped….I know, but that’s the way things work in Hollywood, well, actually in Studio City.

Now, even though you’ve got tickets to see a show taped, you are not guaranteed that you will get in to see the show. You want to get there plenty early.  As you arrive for check-in, you are given a number. First they take the VIP’s in and seat them, then they take small groups of people in the order you arrived. This is why I pack the picnic dinner and we arrive at least an hour, but up to two hours ahead.

Once inside the studio there is a ‘warm-up guy’. A stand-up comedian whose job it is to get the audience excited and keep them entertained during the taping. Some of the warm up guys are amazing, others….well, at least Hunky Hubby is always willing to entertain.

That’s right, Hunky Hubby took his juggling balls with him and was invited into the spotlight to juggle for the audience. Okay, he’s pretty talented, but what grown man walks around in public with his balls in a bag…..just waiting for an opportunity to put on a public display. Woops…..did that sound wrong?

A sitcom taping…in my vast experience takes anywhere from  three hours for a short one, to…., well, a taping of Hot In Cleveland that we went to see took about five hours. As tired as we were when we left the studio that night, we were so glad we went. The stars were funny, Valorie Bertinelli engaged with the audience and was not only incredibly beautiful, but very charming, and Betty White, well, what can you say about Betty white.

But back to Wednesday night. The cast of Last Man Standing is so professional. They knew their lines, the taping moved right along, and Hunky Hubby received an autographed picture of Tim Allen for playing with his balls in public. I’m so sorry, that sounds wrong too….but that’s what happened.

If you haven’t gone to a sitcom taping, you really should go at least once. If you take a juggler with you (or if you’re the juggler) you could come home with a cool prize….who knows. What did you do for fun this week? Tell me please, I could use some inspiration.

Tari’s Special Sandwiches

(No, these are not like the Special Sandwiches on How I Met Your Mother!)

4-6 servings

1 loaf of Jalapeno Cheese Focaccia bread,  ½ pound thinly sliced deli roast beef,  ½ pound thinly sliced deli black forest ham,  ½ pound sliced Havarti cheese, 1 ripe avocado, thinly sliced,  2 roma tomatoes, thinly sliced and drained on a paper towel, Fresh basil leaves, Special Mayonnaise

Special Mayonnaise Ingredients-½ cup mayonnaise, 3 strips roasted red peppers, 1 tsp minced garlic,  2-3 fresh basil leaves, Freshly ground black pepper

Put all ingredients for special mayonnaise in a food processer or blender and pulse until slightly chunky, but well blended.

Split the focaccia bread horizontally. Spread each half with special mayonnaise. Layer the meats on the bottom half of the bread, folding them in half to ‘fluff’ them up, arrange the cheese on top of the meat. Top with thinly sliced tomatoes, avocados and finally the fresh basil leaves. Put the top bread on the sandwich and cut into 4-6 pieces depending on the size of the focaccia bread. Take to a sitcom for dinner.

Just Me on Monday- Love Between the Sexes

I have no problem sharing stories about my, shall we call it ‘blondness’. And although I generally believe that I’m reasonably intelligent, I see the humor in the fact that I can find my way around any mall even if I’ve never been there before, but get lost driving to my best friend’s house even though we’ve lived two miles apart for five years, and of course, I met Hunky Hubby because I was trying to find Ports ‘O Call, and ended up at Shoreline Village. Close, but not quite.

This story, is not however about my blonde short comings, it’s about my sweet Hunky Hubby, and I write it knowing full well that he will read it, because he lovingly reads every word I write, but he won’t be able to comment because although he can fix the fuel injectors on the car, remodel a kitchen and create an innovative money saving system for the city’s HVAC system that has the mayor calling to congratulate him on a job well done…..he can’t figure out how to comment on a blog. (He also can’t resist a challenge.)

Some of you may know that my handsome, brilliant husband, whom I frequently refer to as Hunky Hubby, is a little bit of a male chauvinist. I’m okay with this. In fact, I prefer it this way. Oh, he can tease me because I get lost everywhere I go, and I’m afraid to leave my three mile radius (hey this has increased from my previous two and a half mile radius and the center of the radius has moved). I don’t care, this just means that he drives me pretty much everywhere I go, because he’s worried about me. Yes, we know about GPS, but I can’t figure out how to use it, so although he’d be able to find me, he’d still have to come and rescue me, so he might as well drive. He can even tell me to ‘sit down, buckle up and just look pretty’, he’s driving, his rules.

This story though is about how my sexy, manly Hunky Hubby can sometimes put his foot in his mouth, and may not live it down.

As I’ve told you, over the summer we bought a little fixer upper, and we’ve been hard at work on it ever since. Clearly I’m not doing any major work, as I said, Hunky Hubby is a male chauvinist. He hides hammers, nails and even paintbrushes from me, because I shouldn’t worry my pretty little head about these things, I don’t know how to use them anyway, and he does. This is true, but sometimes I don’t like to wait, as my friend Beth can attest. Years ago she got tired of seeing my paper towel holder on the counter, went and got some tools and hung it up for me, this lead to me buying a hammer and nails of my own so that I could hang pictures. After all, if Beth could use a hammer, so could I! (Wrong.) I hung them, he didn’t like it, and he hid my hammer and nails. (I purchased hammers and nails several more times, all went missing.)

Anyway, we moved into the house in July, and there was no washer and dryer hook-up. None. Not anywhere. So Paul managed to get the washer hooked up, but the dryer would be more work and it got put on hold. He put up a clothes line in the backyard for me…..and guess what that big hunky man said to me. He said “Maybe you won’t even want a dryer. I kind of like the idea of you hanging laundry to dry while I’m at work, it’s so domestic.”

Yep, that’s right, that’s what he said. I stood there too stunned to say anything. I said nothing at all. I know, it’s hard to believe that I had nothing to say, but seriously, who would expect that? So for about two weeks I lugged heavy wet laundry from the garage to the clothesline, prayed for warm days, spent approximately twenty minutes hanging each load and another ten taking it down, not to mention the ironing time because everything ends up wrinkled, and the crunchy towels because, well, towels just don’t come out soft on the clothesline. Then one day, Paul is in the kitchen rearranging cabinets, and you know what? He’s using power tools. That’s right, he’s using a cordless screwdriver to remove screws, lower the cabinets, and move them to the height where they should have been installed originally. (You should have seen the way this house was remodeled by the flippers. Kitchen cabinets up so high that I couldn’t reach the bottom shelves.)

 

So I’m watching him with the power screwdriver and it hits me. “Honey,” I say in my sexiest kitten voice. “I think it would be so sexy and manly if you did this with hand tools…. you know, the old fashioned way.”

He stopped and looked at me. “Huh?’

“Yeah, in fact, I’d stand right here and watch if you removed all of those screws with a hand screwdriver, and remounted those cabinets one by one with hand tools.” I tried to use a breathy Marilyn Monroe voice.

“What is wrong with you? This work would take me twice as long, why create extra work for myself when I have good tools to make the job easier and faster?”

“That’s right isn’t it honey? Just like using a dryer to dry the clothes.”

It finally dawned on him what he had said to me, and he had the good grace to look a little sheepish.

The point is that I’ve been hanging laundry for the last six months, and finally I have a dryer hooked up. I can’t tell you how happy I am about that. I think he would have done it sooner, but I will admit that he’s worked non-stop just trying to rearrange the silly things that were done in this house….did I mention they put the dishwasher on the opposite end of the kitchen from the sink? And the exhuast hood so high over the stove that I’d have to hit it with a broom handle to turn it on?

So I love my hunky male chauvinist husband, and I think he’s learned an important lesson from this. Don’t touch a girl’s power tools unless you want to lose your own!!

And over the years, I’ve learned a thing or two myself. Such as, when a girl with a male chauvinist husband buys herself a hammer or screwdriver, she should be a pink set with lots of flowers on them so her husband doesn’t lock them in his own tool box where his friends may see them.

Now I’d love to hear your stories about love between the sexes. I know you have them!!