author – Page 5 – Cindy Hval

Keep the Orange in Halloween!

October 30, 2017October 30, 2017 Cindy Hval

Sometimes you just have to take a stand – a produce stand.

After two back-to-back zucchini columns, I really thought I was done writing about squash.

I thought wrong.

You see, autumn is my favorite time of year. There’s nothing better than taking a stroll around the neighborhood under a crisp blue sky. Leaves crunch underfoot and trees show their best colors; a riot of russet, red and gold.

Halloween and fall decor comes out with bats, witches, spider webs and jack-o’-lanterns appearing on porches and lawns.

But the past few years I’ve noticed a rather alarming trend – ghostly white pumpkins. At first I thought folks were painting them, but then I saw the pale imitations popping up in grocery stores.

Turns out farmers are growing varieties of albino squash with names like Lumina, Cotton Candy, Full Moon, Polar Bear and miniature Baby Boos. They’re planting them mostly to keep up with decorating demands.

That’s right. Pinterest is ruining pumpkins!

An article on a travel website about the new crops, stated, “Orange is so yesterday.”

Have they even noticed who’s in the White House?

Speaking of, I don’t mean to be divisive, but unlike the Lorax, I didn’t speak for the trees, the Christmas trees, that is, and look what happened.

White flocked trees meant to simulate a dusting of snow, quickly devolved into madness when the new generation of artificial trees arrived. You can now purchase Christmas trees in most any hue; silver, pink, blue and even rainbow.

Taking the green out of holiday trees is an abomination. We might as well jettison Santa’s red velvet suit and put him a tux. While we’re at it, we could color his snowy white hair, trim that fluffy beard and give him a man bun and a soul patch.

Obviously, I’m a holiday purist.

Pumpkins have been orange since the Garden of Eden and I see no reason to adulterate them. Honestly, I find the albino variety ugly. Our landscape is soon going to be buried in white; can’t we enjoy a bright splash of tangerine before winter dulls our vistas?

As expected, when posting a potentially controversial opinion on social media, the haters came out in force. I was called “squashist,” “gourdist” and even “orange supremacist.”

I accept the charge of pumpkin profiling and am not ashamed.

This slope has already proved treacherously slippery. One Facebook friend admitted to owning a pink pumpkin. PINK! For the love of gourd!

My sister told me she’s even seen a teal squash. That’s something you can’t unsee.

It’s enough to put me off my Chocolate Chip Pumpkin bread and my Spicy Pumpkin muffins. Well, almost.

Another friend posted a meme of a field of albino squash captioned, “White pumpkins drained of their spice by illegal poachers. Please demand ethically sourced Pumpkin Spice lattes.”

Someone else replied, “#allpumpkinsmatter.”

I admit that gave me pause, and I briefly considered aborting my “Keep the Orange in Pumpkin” campaign, but I’d already gone to the trouble of creating a #pumpkinpurist hashtag, and feel it could be trending soon. It would be a shame to lose momentum.

When a friend wrote, “I judge a pumpkin by the content of its character,” I had to admire the sentiment. To be fair, if you slice into an albino pumpkin, you’ll find orange flesh, and supposedly these pale imitations have thinner skins, making them easier to carve.

Nevertheless I must persist.

And while I’m at it, pumpkins are fruit, so don’t go saying you got your vegetable servings in for the day, after three slices of pie.

As I wrapped up my research, I read this headline, “There’s no rule that pumpkins have to be orange.”

To that I can only say, well, there should be.

Contact Cindy Hval at dchval@juno.com. She is the author of “War Bonds: Love Stories From the Greatest Generation.” You can listen to her podcast “Life, Love and Raising Sons” at SpokaneTalksOnline.com. Her previous columns are available online at spokesman.com/ columnists. Follow her on Twitter at @CindyHval

Columns

Squirrels Gone Bad

October 19, 2017October 19, 2017 Cindy Hval

In the annals of feuding you may recall the Hatfields and McCoys or the Capulets and Montagues. Soon historic records may include the tale of the Hvals and the Squirrels.

The long-simmering conflict between Norwegians and rodents shows signs of heating up again.

“Gosh-dang, flippin’ dangin’ squirrels!” my husband recently hollered from the Delightful Deck. “Leave my garden alone!”

I’m not censoring his language. That’s an exact quote.

It seems the squirrels that run along our fence line, taunting our indoor kitties, have gotten bolder and are tiptoeing through the garden, leaving a trail of holes in their wake. They don’t even have the courtesy to take a zucchini or two with them when they scamper off.

When a freshly picked cucumber tasted bitter, Derek blamed the squirrels.

“I bet they’re peeing on my plants,” he said.

He’s not the only Hval engaged in rodent warfare. Several years ago his brother bought a lake cabin. His wife thought the squirrels that skittered and chattered among the pines near the deck were adorable.

“We fed them,” she recalled. “Then they started eating our beach towels.”

Well, that wasn’t cute.

They stopped feeding them, but the squirrels called squatter’s rights to their deck. And their roof. And their beach towels.

So, my brother-in-law got some humane traps, and they launched the Hval Catch and Release Rodent Relocation program.

It turned out to be a full-time job, which wasn’t ideal since they are part-time lake dwellers.

“The squirrels came back with their cousins and their friends and screamed at us for trapping them,” my sister-in-law said.

Things escalated the year they returned to open the cabin for the summer and found squirrels had gnawed their way through the bathroom ceiling.

The pesky varmints had chewed up the drywall – and the bath towels.

“They destroyed the bathroom,” my sister-in-law said. “Thank God we’d shut the door, and they couldn’t get into the rest of the house!”

That was the last straw.

Armed with BB guns, my brother-in-law and his sons declared war on squirrel. I won’t go into the gory details, but let’s just say squirrel hunting became something of a family hobby.

You’d think the message would have been clear, yet each year the squirrels spend several days berating and taunting my in-laws when they return to the cabin.

Property damage is one thing, but personal damage is quite another.

Recently, a Facebook friend related a terrifying tale of a squirrel gone bad at Manito Park.

Heather Rose Clarke was taking an early morning Sunday stroll through the park on a paved path when she saw a squirrel off to the side. She stopped to take a picture and the squirrel approached her.

“I thought it was really cute! It went behind me and grabbed my ankle, so I turned with my upper body to take a pic,” she wrote. “That’s when it locked its claws and started biting me! I was so surprised. I tried to shake it off, but it was really attached. I reached to grab it off and that’s when it clamped onto my right arm and wouldn’t let go.”

In a few terrifying minutes the squirrel left her a bitten, bloody and scratched-up mess. A friend took her to minor emergency, where the doctor allayed her fears about rabies, cleaned up her wounds and gave her a prescription for an antibiotic. He told her he sees this a couple times a year.

“The one thing I want to stress is that I did not antagonize the squirrel to make it attack me. It literally came up to me, and at no time did I move toward it or threaten it,” Clarke said. “It totally took me off guard. I have walked in Manito hundreds of times and never had an incident.”

According to Fianna Dickson, a spokeswoman for the parks department, Clarke is not alone.

“We’ve received reports of two squirrel attacks recently, and have called out a wildlife management contractor to provide advice,” Dickson wrote in an email. “As I’m sure you’ve read, some wildlife experts speculate the squirrel who attacks may have been hand-fed by someone, and then seeks food again from humans and is frantic when it doesn’t receive food. We continue to ask the public to please refrain from feeding wildlife in parks.”

So, no matter how photogenic you think those furry, brown-eyed rodents are – don’t be lured into offering them a snack, unless you don’t mind being an appetizer on their menu, or having your beach towels served up as the main course.

I, for one, agree with Carrie Bradshaw, a character in the television show “Sex and the City,” who said: “A squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit.”

Columns

The Unhappy Camper

October 19, 2017October 19, 2017 Cindy Hval

You think you know someone.

You think you can really trust them.

You think they’d never do anything to harm you.

And then they drive you out into the wilderness and dump you. They peel out of the gravel parking lot, leaving you and your small blue suitcase behind – abandoned like a box of unwanted kittens.

At the tender age of 9, I had to confront the harsh reality that my parents no longer loved me. Frantically, I wracked my brain, trying to remember what I’d said or done that resulted in my banishment to the godforsaken wilderness of Silver Lake Bible Camp.

It didn’t matter. It was too late.

“Bye! Have fun!” Mom yelled out the window of the rapidly disappearing car.

Fun? FUN? Who was that woman and what had she done with my real mom?

I’d been dropped off somewhere near Medical Lake with no trail of breadcrumbs to follow to find my way home. Since we lived in Ritzville at the time, it would have taken a lot of bread. But still.

“You’ll love it,” my mother said. “It’s on Silver Lake, just like your favorite book!”

I was a passionate Laura Ingalls Wilder devotee, but this was nothing like “By the Shores of Silver Lake.”

There was no Ma. No Pa. And no one was calling me Half-Pint. Instead, the camp director swept me along with a group of similarly abandoned children and began calling out cabin numbers.

I trudged to the small, wood-framed cabin without air conditioning, my suitcase bumping the gravel as I dragged it along behind me.

Rows of bunk beds lined the walls. This was it. The Big House. The Hoosegow. The Home for Unwanted Children.

The other kids didn’t seem to grasp the desperateness of our situation. Giddy, giggling girls vied for bunks. Most of them seemed to know each other. I didn’t know a soul. Finally, just two of us loners remained.

“Hey, girls! Here’s your bunk!” camp counselor Candy said, encircling our drooping shoulders in her tanned, toned arms. “Who wants the top?”

I shrugged. My bunkmate stared at the floor and then threw herself onto the bottom bunk, sobbing.

“Okay!” said perpetually perky Candy. “Cindy gets top bunk!”

It was all downhill from there.

I hated camp. I loathed it with every fiber of my small-for-my-age 9-year-old body.

Recently, I wrote an article about two friends who met at Camp Sweyolakan 60 years ago. They loved camp so much, they are still volunteering there. I enjoyed meeting them and sharing their story, but, honestly, it was like interviewing people from an alien planet. Everything I despised about camp life – these gals adored!

When I shared the story on social media and confessed I was an unhappy camper, I was relieved to find out I wasn’t alone. Response was fairly evenly split between those who thrived at camp and those who wilted.

I definitely languished.

Things I hated most in no particular order: arts and crafts, group activities, lake swimming and pig-kissing. Things I liked: the Snack Shack and chapel.

Let me break it down for you. I am not and never have been an artsy-craftsy person. I rarely colored between the lines. I was incapable of deciphering the correct amount of glue for any given project, and really, who the heck needs a macrame wallet?

Though I loved the water and could swim like a fish, my comfort zone included chlorine and concrete, not murky water through which tonight’s dinner might swim.

And softball, volleyball and obstacle courses? Listen. I was a reader. Not a doer.

Which brings me to the pig. The messiest cabin in camp was designated the Pig Pen, and the inhabitants thereof had to kiss a pig at evening chapel.

Did you know “cleanliness is next to godliness” is not actually anywhere in the Bible? Well, apparently the camp directors did not know this, and one day our cabin wasn’t up to snuff. Each resident had to kiss a pinkish, snorting, whiskery, slobbery pig.

Eventually, I kissed a lot of pigs before finding my Pork, er, Prince Charming, so I guess this was good practice.

I did, however, enjoy the singing at chapel.

“It only takes a spark to get a fire going. And soon all those around can warm up to its glowing.”

It was beautiful. The harmonies were lovely. But then the warm glow of communal worship was traded for the clammy confines of my mom’s sleeping bag on the top bunk, where I cried myself to sleep every single night.

My bunkmate’s parents loved her. She was reclaimed on Day Two of the five-day journey to Hades, leaving me to weep alone, while Candy patted my shoulder, her Close-Up, whiter-than-white teeth gleaming in the dark while she whispered, “Cindy, sweetie, your parents didn’t move while you were here. Of course they’ll come to get you Friday.”

Shows how much Candy knew. My parents did, in fact, take advantage of my absence to move to a new house.

The one remaining joy of Silver Lake Bible Camp was the Snack Shack. Well, it was until Day Two, when the three whole dollars my Depression-era parents gave me ran out.

Giddy with sugar lust and seduced by the name, I sunk my final 25 cents into a Big Hunk – the worst confection known to man.

Which meant when “free time” finally occurred, I had no money for the pay phone and couldn’t call home. I finally resorted to begging for a quarter, but my parents were moving and the phone had been disconnected.

So for every “Camp was the best experience of my life and shaped me into the confident, successful woman I am today,” there’s a tale like mine.

One full of grief, pig-kissing, macrame wallets and a lifelong loathing of Big Hunks.

Columns

Barely bothered by roadwork

July 6, 2017 Cindy Hval

I’m not at my best in the morning. I admit it. I don’t relish the sunrise. In fact, I’d prefer not to be notified of its occurrence.

I say this to explain why I inadvertently exposed more of myself than strictly necessary to the road crew working on the gas lines in front of my house last week.

It’s not like I was unaware of their presence. I mean, it’s pretty hard to ignore a backhoe parked across your street. Or a guy with a jackhammer breaking up the asphalt at the end of the driveway. Or the port-a-potty perched up the hill. After all, it’s the first thing I see when I open my living room blinds in the morning.

Still. It was the crack of dawn on a Monday morning (OK, 8 a.m.) and I hadn’t yet had my first cup of coffee. I usually enjoy my coffee while I read the newspaper. My husband or sons set it inside the door when they leave for whatever they do before 8 a.m., but on this day, there was no newspaper to be found.

I slumped down the stairs, opened the door and found our delivery person’s aim had been a bit off. The paper wasn’t nestled against the door; it was perched precariously on the edge of the porch.

Squinting my eyes against the morning glare, I stumbled forward, bending down to retrieve my sun-warmed newsprint.

A slight breeze shifted my short summer nightgown. The garment I hadn’t bothered to throw a robe over, since I was home alone.

Newspaper in hand, I straightened up. That’s when I saw the flagman with the STOP sign at the end of my driveway. That’s when I noticed the half-dozen hard-hatted workers swarming across the street.

Mortified, I gathered the slim remains of my dignity (and the even slimmer fragments of satin fabric) and shrunk toward my doorway.

The flagger slowly, raised his hand to his hard hat in a solemn salute. Then he grinned.

I know from my husband’s days as a military officer that I should have returned the salute, but like I said, I’m not my best in the morning.

I backed in through door, holding the tightly wrapped newspaper in front of me like a shield. Unfortunately, Monday’s paper is the slimmest shield The Spokesman-Review offers.

I took a few deep breaths, gulped some coffee and called my husband.

“Can you pick up something for dinner tonight? I can’t leave the house.”

He found my humiliation hilarious.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ve seen worse,” he said.

“Worse? Do I look that bad in the morning!?”

Turns out my husband isn’t at his best or brightest in the morning, either.

Of course, I couldn’t hide in my house all week, but when it came time for my afternoon walk, I admit, I snuck out through our backyard and took a shortcut through the neighbor’s yard to avoid making eye contact with the friendly flagger.

The week and the street work on. Many mornings I awoke to the jarring sound of a jackhammer. Waking up is hard enough for me. Waking up to a jackhammer proved positively painful.

I finally penned a poem and posted it on social media.

Ode to a Jackhammer and the Man Who Wields it Outside My Front Door

For the love of God,

STOP!

Yeah. So, I should probably stick to journalism. At any rate progress is proceeding at a glacial pace. Replacing gas lines can’t be done quickly. But I’m rather fond of hot showers and my gas fireplace warms my basement office all winter. Plus, the crews are working long, hard days in horrible heat, so I keep all this in mind when I navigate our torn-up streets.

I drive slowly and always try to offer a smile or a greeting when I’m forced to wait for a backhoe to move, or truck to rumble by.

On Friday, the flagman at the end of my driveway motioned for me to roll down my window as I backed out.

“Thank you for your smiles and friendly waves,” he said. “You would not believe how many dirty looks we get.”

I’m sure his appreciation had nothing to do with the nightgown-newspaper debacle. And his words of gratitude prompted my own thankful reflection.

The noise and inconvenience of the roadwork hasn’t been pleasant, but as I sat on my couch and gazed out my front window that evening, I realized things could be worse.

We could be the house that’s had a Porta Potty parked in front of it for two weeks.

Columns

Caution: Kids at Work

April 20, 2017 Cindy Hval

The friendly bagger shook open my reusable bags on Saturday, and eyed the flood of goods making its way down the conveyer belt toward him.

“How heavy should I make these bags?” he asked.

“Load ’em up,” I replied. “I’ve got kids at home to bring them in.”

The cashier paused her scanning. “Your kids help you unload the groceries?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Only if they want to eat,” I replied.

Her surprise baffled me. If I work to earn money to buy the food, and then shop for it, and turn it into delicious meals, why wouldn’t my kids at least carry the groceries into the house and put them away? It’s called being part of a family.

I’ve been amazed by how many parents I’ve encountered who don’t expect their children to help with the most basic tasks of family life. On the contrary, they’re struggling to do it all so their kids can have it all. But the newest video games, the fastest computers, the sleekest phones and being part of elite club sports teams can’t replace lifelong lessons learned at home.

Specifically, skills learned while wielding a toilet brush or vacuum cleaner. Those skills will be far more useful in daily life than the super speedy thumb work needed to unlock a new achievement in “Gears of War 4.”

Work has never been a forbidden four-letter word at our house. The adage “Many hands make light work,” is so true, and with four sons, we had plenty of helping hands.

Toddlers love to help, so while our kids were still in diapers they learned to set the table for dinner. Picking up their toys before going to the park or watching a video became a breeze thanks to a simple song all four of them can still sing.

“Clean up; clean up, everybody, everywhere!

Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share”

Of course, as they got older getting them to do their work became an onerous chore for me. Arguments about whose turn it was to clean the bathroom, who was supposed to mow the front yard and who didn’t empty the dishwasher ruined many a Saturday morning.

That’s when I bought a white board and hung it in the basement. Each kid had a list of tasks. No television, no video games, and no hanging out with friends until their work was done.

This worked great until they became teenagers. Suddenly schoolwork, sports and socializing, made holding them accountable difficult, but as priorities shifted, so did the workload.

Thankfully, habits ingrained when they were younger paid off. Simple things like rinsing their plates and putting them in the dishwasher after a meal, or taking the trash out on Tuesday before leaving for school, were already second nature.

When I complained to my sister-in-law about my middle-schooler having a fit one morning because his favorite shirt wasn’t washed she said, “Why on earth are you still doing his laundry?”

Bingo! The next day, I gathered all four of them in the laundry room and showed them how to use the machines. To avoid fights, I assigned them each a laundry day. No one ever yelled at me again about not having clean clothes.

The only drawback to raising kids who know how to work is that as soon as they’re able, they want to work outside the house. You know, where people actually pay them money for their labor.

Our three older sons got jobs while still in high school. As long as they maintained a respectable GPA, made time for sports or social commitments and didn’t seem overwhelmed, we encouraged their efforts even though it meant a re-division of the workload at home.

Now, Sam has followed their example. Two weeks ago he started working at Shopko. As if that wasn’t enough change in our household routine, our middle son Zach is moving to Nashville.

I might want to start having my grocery bags packed just a little bit lighter.

Columns

Decorations hold decades of memories

December 28, 2016 Cindy Hval

She’s still radiant at 65. Her blue satin dress shimmers, matching the glint of her round cerulean eyes. Silvery wings arch above a crown that has a distinct tinfoil gleam. A slim silver belt circles her waist and a glittering star adorns her collar. Her prim red lips are pursed in permanent pucker.

moms-angel

My parents bought the angel at a downtown drugstore for their first Christmas in 1951. They purchased a tree at a nearby lot, and Dad hefted it over his shoulder and they walked the few blocks to their first apartment on Pine Street.

Several weeks ago our youngest son, Sam, helped Mom unearth her decorations. She stopped putting up a tree when Dad died, but she still displays the angel every Christmas. Sam hung lights around her front window while she regaled him with the angel anecdote and tales of Christmas past.

I’ve been thinking about those stories while preparing to pack away my own decorations. What goes up must come down, including Christmas trees – especially fresh trees. The needles are starting to fall and it’s time to take the tree to the curb. But I linger over the ornaments – it seems each one tells a story.

A laminated blue star features a kindergarten-era, gap-toothed smiling Sam. Next to it dangles a silvery orb with a photo of 6th grade Sam – his childhood documented in decorations.

Zachary’s snowflakes are suspended next to a bejeweled ball, each gem affixed with copious amounts of glue. Zach’s always been an if a little bit is good, a lot is better kind of guy.

Alexander and Ethan angels hang with a multitude of heavenly hosts near the top of the tree, and speaking of angels, our tree is topped by one in a gold-trimmed burgundy gown.

Unlike Mom, I no longer have our original angel. One year when the boys were small, our tree topper threw herself from the tree to the stairs below, cracking her head beyond repair. The boys insist they saw her fly, it was just the landing she failed to nail.

Her aborted flight came a few days before Christmas, and we needed an angel ASAP. In haste, my husband and sons decamped to the Dollar Store and returned with a replacement. This golden gal was lovely to behold, but when Derek plopped her atop the tree, our oldest son burst into laughter and pointed out with glee, “She has two left hands!”

Indeed, she did.

Her awkward appendages distracted me, so during the post-holiday sales, I bought our current, more anatomically accurate, angel. However, I wrapped her afflicted sister in tissue, and the next time all the boys are home for Christmas I plan to give her another shining moment at the top.

Many of our ornaments reflect our interests, like my stack of antique books suspended from a blue satin ribbon. And one that always gets front-of-the-tree honor – a string of gingerbread hearts that reads NOEL. It’s the only craft I actually completed during the many years I was a member of a Moms of Preschoolers group. I’m craft-impaired and glue gun-challenged, so this was a major accomplishment.

Derek’s cross-country skier and a ball featuring the Norwegian flag honor his heritage and his love of the slopes. For some reason he always forgets to hang his 2007 ornament that proudly proclaims “Real men like cats.”

I hang it for him in a prominent spot, preferably where the light can catch it. I’m thoughtful like that.

Mindful of these memories, I’ve been taking lots of photos of decorations cradled in piney boughs before I pack them away for another year.

More than dated ornaments dangling from a tree, it’s the reminders of Christmases past they represent that add joy to the present and brings hope for Christmas future.

Columns

In which I enjoy being a girl

October 6, 2016 Cindy Hval

Today’s Spokesman Review column finds me attempting to update an old song.

If there’s one remark guaranteed to rain down the wrath of Mom upon my sons, it’s when one of them says to the other, “Don’t be such a girl!”

Using gender as an insult is a nonstarter in my house.

Besides, as Doris Day famously sang, “I enjoy being a girl” – at least most of the time.

The 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune is fun to sing, but the lyrics are definitely not contemporary.

I’m a girl, and by me that’s only great!

I am proud that my silhouette is curvy,

That I walk with a sweet and girlish gait

With my hips kind of swivelly and swervy.

Let’s be honest here. After birthing four sons and reaching my fifth decade my silhouette’s curves are decidedly more pronounced. Are spheres curves? I’m not sure. I didn’t do well in geometry.

Also, my gait is no longer girlish. In fact, many mornings I limp to the kitchen to get my first cup of coffee due to a strained Achilles.

I still take the stairs two at a time, if by two at a time you mean carefully placing one foot and then the other on each stair before descending.

I adore being dressed in something frilly

When my date comes to get me at my place.

Out I go with my Joe or John or Billy,

Like a filly who is ready for the race!

We’ve already established that I’m not racing anywhere. I also no longer wear something frilly due to the aforementioned dangerous curves.

Fifty may be the new 30, but 30-year-olds are dressing like teenagers, so shopping is complicated. I recently bought some trendy jeans, artistically ripped in strategic places.

My husband said, “I could take a razor to your old jeans and save you a lot of money.”

“But, I’ve got bling! On my butt!” I replied, twirling around to show him my jewel-encrusted back pockets.

He started humming “Rhinestone Cowboy.”

I hummed “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed.”

Game. Set. Match.

When I have a brand new hairdo

With my eyelashes all in curl,

I float as the clouds on air do,

I enjoy being a girl!

My sons used to pluck out a stray gray hair whenever they’d appear. A few years ago, my youngest announced, “I don’t think we should be pulling out your grays – you’re gonna get bald.”

So, now my new hairdo involves regular appointments for highlights – not to cover the gray, but to camouflage it. It doesn’t cause me to float on air, but it does lighten my wallet considerably.

When men say I’m cute and funny

And my teeth aren’t teeth, but pearl,

I just lap it up like honey

I enjoy being a girl!

Men do say I’m cute and funny and I love that. Of course, the men who tell me that now are generally over 70 or under 20.

Also, my teeth aren’t pearls, but there’s definitely some silver and a few crowns involved.

I flip when a fellow sends me flowers,

I drool over dresses made of lace,

I talk on the telephone for hours

With a pound and a half of cream upon my face!

OK, here’s the deal. I learned long ago, that while flowers from a guy are sweet, I can buy my own roses any time I want – no need to wait around for Valentine’s Day. And I like lace as much as the next gal, but not necessarily where it can be seen by the public, if you know what I mean.

I’ve come to terms with moisturizers, eye cream, toners and “miracle” repair, but I draw the line at a pound and a half of cold cream. Actually, the only cold cream I have is in the refrigerator and I pour it in my morning coffee.

Who talks on the phone for hours anymore? Texting and instant messaging are much more efficient. However, I rarely use emoticons. Especially after I sent what I thought was a chocolate cupcake to a friend on her birthday. Apparently, there are poop emojis. Lesson learned.

And one lesson I hope my sons have learned is that “being a girl” is not an insult. After all, without this girl, they wouldn’t even be here.

Contact Cindy Hval at dchval@juno.com. She is the author of “War Bonds: Love Stories From the Greatest Generation.” You can listen to her podcast, “Life, Love and Raising Sons,” at SpokaneTalksOnline.com. Her previous columns are available online at spokesman.com/ columnists. Follow her on Twitter at @CindyHval.