It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Specifically, it was the time my mother switched out the Mother's Day gift I got her for something better - for something I had gotten for my grandmother, in fact. Confused? You're not alone. There was no one more confused than me at the time - confused, shocked, offended, and secretly impressed. Ask any of my friends and they will agree: ain't no story like a Joyce Knott story.
The following are actual emails sent between myself and my mother in the year 2003. They are unedited. This story is completely true. There is no poetic license. There is no James Frey I-meant-it-as-a-memoir crap. This is totally Will & Grace style ..."JUST JOYCE!"
By way of background, in the year 2003, I did not return to Scranton, PA for Mother's Day. Because of this, I sent two gifts of boxed chocolates to my parents' house - one for my mother, one for my grandmother. Each was wrapped with ribbon and had a card attached noting the beneficiary of said gift, but no wrapping paper was involved (my fatal flaw).
By way of further background, the Knott family sweet tooth is legendary. We are not big on food. Food keeps you alive so that you can wake up another day to eat chocolate. I STILL have to physically restrain my adult (may I say OLD) parents from diving into the pumpkin pie prior to Thanksgiving dinner. It is perfectly acceptable, and even praiseworthy, to show up at a family dinner with a half eaten dessert. Well, at least we shared, didn't we? You're welcome!
It was a strange juxtaposition then, to marry into my husband's Italian family. To people who behave as though cured meats and aged cheeses are exotic treats. To people who can taste, smell, and consequently discuss at length the quality difference between different brands of extra virgin olive oil. {You didn't notice it, but I LITERALLY just capitalized "olive oil" as I was typing, and had to fix it - as though I had just typed "God" or "President Bush" or "Tuesday".} To people who put hours and courses between themselves and dessert. On purpose! And then when dessert finally does come, part of it's nuts and fruit. NUTS AND FRUIT. What the hell kind of crazy joke is this? You mean you don't spend most of your waking moments trying to destroy yourselves with fat and sugar?? You mean that just because fruit tastes sweet and good that is counts as dessert??? AND YOU CALL YOURSELVES AMERICAN????? Oh wait, you don't. You call yourselves Italian. Der.
Here I stand, ten years later, a foot in each food world. I've largely adopted the Italian way of eating. Frankly, it's just better. Vegetables, when not from a can or in a casserole, are not a type of punishment. Meat, when properly seasoned and prepared, can taste wonderful. And most importantly, there is an enormous difference between brands and styles of olive oil. Seriously. If that's not enough to convert, it's also acceptable during these meals to drink fantastically excessive amounts of red wine! Woo-hoo! If you are not Italian (or some other culture where food is a big deal) please do yourself a favor, and fix that immediately.
But does nurture ever really win over nature? Can we as humans be more than the sum of our genetically predetermined components? Maybe you can, but I can't. I can eat relatively well most of the time, but if you sit me in a restaurant with a menu, a slight variation of the following meal will be ordered: gigantic piece of medium rare red meat, mashed potato, token vegetable to be ignored, carafe of house red (keep it comin!) and dessert - always chocolate, usually prefaced by "triple" "death by" or "flourless". The only acceptable fruit involved are reduced in a sauce and drizzled artfully over the chocolate, with maybe one tiny piece garnishing the whipped cream. And so help me Jesus, if you try to pass off some frigging cobbler, or pie, or some shit like that as dessert, I swear on my life I will KICK YOUR ASS.
Perhaps now the events of Part II in our drama will make sense. Please proceed, but with caution.
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The Big Bad Blog Beginning: Marketing Gone Awry
So awhile back, I was talking to my home business and web marketing diva. I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, "Big deal! Everybody has a home business and web marketing diva." Maybe so, but if you're not talking to Dina at http://www.wordfeeder.com/, then you've got the wrong gal.
Since I have the right gal, Dina said, "You should start a blog to help promote your website."
"Really? How come?"
She then said something along the lines of "Hoogety boogety search engine optimization foogety moogety page hierarchy loogety toot toot meta-tags and strategic links...." and many other extremely smart things. Please keep in mind Dina has never actually said "hoogety boogety" to me in any context. What she did do was give me a brief explanation of web marketing that made complete sense, but the wisdom of which I would completely mangle upon retelling. The relevant gist was as follows - a blog, when properly done, can be a great tool to drive traffic to my website.
I mulled this over for quite some time. Could I write clear and informative articles about the decorative painting business? Er, sure, I think. New techniques, preferred paint and brush brands, offers of free templates.....Ooh, but how bout the funny fellow painter ladies I see at my teacher's studio? Or the nutjobs who I meet at craft shows?
And then I started thinking about other humorous stuff, like the time my mother swiped HER mother's mother's day gift from me and refused to give it back. And the stories from my grandfather about the 8-10 different ways he's accidentally electrocuted himself throughout the years, and yet still stands. Or about the time I spent half a day convinced that drunk people snuck into my yard during the night and dug up 48 newly planted impatiens (until I realized a deer ate them).
That's about the point that I realized that I actually want a blog to show the world how hilarious I am, and if I can throw some web marketing in there, so be it. I can make it work. For example, the two funniest things I do are 1.) garden organically 2.) allow people to speak to me. Since I paint flowers and creatures and landscapes, does it count as web marketing if I blog about growing flowers in a landscape while shouting obscenities at creatures? You betcha! And when my mother does something bizarre, should that go in there too? Absolutely. Ah, yes. Yet another blog is born.
So in the end, I will market my website the way I organic garden - seek out the advice of experts, change it all around, and find myself continually shocked when my system doesn't work. Effective? No. Funny? Oh yes indeed! Keep reading.....
Since I have the right gal, Dina said, "You should start a blog to help promote your website."
"Really? How come?"
She then said something along the lines of "Hoogety boogety search engine optimization foogety moogety page hierarchy loogety toot toot meta-tags and strategic links...." and many other extremely smart things. Please keep in mind Dina has never actually said "hoogety boogety" to me in any context. What she did do was give me a brief explanation of web marketing that made complete sense, but the wisdom of which I would completely mangle upon retelling. The relevant gist was as follows - a blog, when properly done, can be a great tool to drive traffic to my website.
I mulled this over for quite some time. Could I write clear and informative articles about the decorative painting business? Er, sure, I think. New techniques, preferred paint and brush brands, offers of free templates.....Ooh, but how bout the funny fellow painter ladies I see at my teacher's studio? Or the nutjobs who I meet at craft shows?
And then I started thinking about other humorous stuff, like the time my mother swiped HER mother's mother's day gift from me and refused to give it back. And the stories from my grandfather about the 8-10 different ways he's accidentally electrocuted himself throughout the years, and yet still stands. Or about the time I spent half a day convinced that drunk people snuck into my yard during the night and dug up 48 newly planted impatiens (until I realized a deer ate them).
That's about the point that I realized that I actually want a blog to show the world how hilarious I am, and if I can throw some web marketing in there, so be it. I can make it work. For example, the two funniest things I do are 1.) garden organically 2.) allow people to speak to me. Since I paint flowers and creatures and landscapes, does it count as web marketing if I blog about growing flowers in a landscape while shouting obscenities at creatures? You betcha! And when my mother does something bizarre, should that go in there too? Absolutely. Ah, yes. Yet another blog is born.
So in the end, I will market my website the way I organic garden - seek out the advice of experts, change it all around, and find myself continually shocked when my system doesn't work. Effective? No. Funny? Oh yes indeed! Keep reading.....
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