Stephanie, P.I.

I like to think that I am a private investigator.

It all started in about 1979. My sister Jennilyn and I played Charlie's Angels. All.The.Time. Especially while roller-skating in the neighborhood. With our steel skates. Ksk ksk ksk ksk.



She was always Kelly (Jaclyn Smith) and I was Chris (Cheryl Ladd). We were on super secret missions. We carried cap guns in our purses. We freaked out every time we went to the airport (probably twice) to pick up my dad from TDY (temporary duty in the Air Force, aka business trips). It was back in the olden days when you could meet your party at the gate, rather than at the not-so-invisible line known as the TSA. Oh, don't be fooled. You still had to go through the metal detector and put your belongings on the scanner. But you could keep your shoes on. In fact, the security officials would have become mighty suspicious if you took your shoes off and put them through the X-ray machine. We freaked out, since we were sure that we had forgotten to remove our guns from our purses. Never mind that most of the time we picked my dad up curbside and didn't get out of the car, much less within eyesight of the dreaded x-ray machine.

Later, I became detective by virtue of watching every episode of Remington Steele. I partially had a crush on Remington and partially wished I was as smart as Laura Holt. And I wanted her white convertible VW rabbit.



I grew up. And got a job in the "real world." No fun investigating for me.

Then along came google. You could google all sorts of things and look really smart. You could easily find out:

• Where your long-lost roommate was working (in China as a head-liaison for Chinese-American adoptions).
• Where your brother placed in a bicycle race (ok...I used to be able to find this, but can't anymore).
• And even that you are listed on the "Missing Graduates" list for your high school (Never mind that your parents live in the same house they did when you graduated).

Next was facebook. I joined in its "infancy." I had about eight friends, mostly members of my family and friends of theirs I had met, for about a year. No one I knew wanted to be on facebook. It was talked about in the same hushed breaths as myspace. Little by little, friends I knew in town joined. Then friends I hadn't seen in years. Then friends I hadn't seen in decades. I "spied" on people--you know you do it too! I would check their photos, boxes, notes, info, and profiles to see what had become of them. I loved it when I found someone that I didn't really want to re-connect with, but who had a very public profile. So I could be incognito in my spying. Or when one of my friends was friends with them and commented on a photo, so I could then see the photos. Yeah. I guess I am a little bit stalker-ish.

One of the clinchers in my quest to be a private detective was when I got my current job. I am a consultant with a company that contracts with insurance companies to complete forensic audits of (mostly) mortgage loan applications. I basically go through the documents in the loan files to ensure that they are authentic, unaltered, and accurate. I use the skills I have honed for the last thirty-one years.

So, when one of my favorite bloggers was in need and called out to the blogging community for help, I knew I was the right one for the job. Long-ish story short-ish. She had gone to London for work, pleasure, a little of both, and had visited (shopped at) Harrod's. She went to the loo (you know, the Ladies' room) and found that the fancy water closets throughout Europe have collections of perfume that would rival the longest perfume counters in the US available for your pleasure. She found a perfume that smelled divine and misted herself with it. She loved the scent, but could not remember for the life of her the name of it. Shortly after leaving the store, she was in a nearby garden and her friend told her the perfume with which she was mesmerized smelled just like the flower they walked past. But they did not know the name of the flower. She took a picture of the flower to investigate further.

This is where I come in.

I read her blog with the above story and immediately went to work. I, being extremely bad with identifying flora (and fauna--which is which?), guessed that it looked like a peony since I do know they are similar-ish to a full and open rose found in old lady gardens. I googled peonies and the flower does, in fact, look a little like the flower on her blog.

Next I googled "perfumes that smell like peonies" and the top hit was Flora by Gucci. Clearly, this was too easy to be correct. But I decided that sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct one (Like, am I beautiful? Yes. Well, that happens to be true!).

I went to Harrod's website (it's almost like taking a trip to London for free) and clicked on their "Beauty" tab. Lo and behold, Flora by Gucci was the perfume featured on the "Beauty" tab. Coincidence? I think not!

I left a comment on Aunt Spicy's posting and kept my fingers crossed.

Well, about four months later, she was flipping through a magazine and flipped right past the perfume ads. What was that? The part of her brain that is responsible for putting shapes of bottles together with light scents was sparked. She flipped back and thought it may just be what she was looking for. And what was it?


Flora by Gucci.

Mystery solved. She emailed me and told me she would make me something for my "trouble." Sort of a finder's fee. Well, I am on cloud nine! I love everything she makes (or at least everything that she has featured on her blog). I have friends who will be jealous since I know they read her blog too. And I think this makes me a professional private detective.

Thanks, Aunt Spicy!

PS-My cell phone ring tone is the theme from Charlie's Angels. I think of it as the theme song of my life.

Idle (The Rabbit Song)....by Hem

So periodically I choose a totally random song from my music library and post about it.

It makes me use my stream of consciousness many times, since the titles can be a little "out there."

Have you ever known someone who absolutely cannot, for the life of them, sit and do only one thing? Or, especially, nothing?

I have known people like that.

I, however, am not one of those people.

I can sit, unfortunately, for hours and do next to nothing. Especially when I have a long list of things to accomplish.

I seem to function best when I am moments away from a deadline. In school, I was the one who would start researching my essays the night before they were due. I would take a lower grade, even, and so I could turn them in late.

I am constantly running late because I wait as long as possible to get ready to leave. That, and my talent for grossly underestimating the amount of time it takes me to get ready for my day.

One night, a roommate and I were talking about the "Mysteries of the Universe" and how she could spend hours contemplating the unanswerable questions of life. She asked my opinion, to which I responded, "Hmmm...I don't really think about that stuff." She was aghast! How could I not think of such imponderables?! She asked what I could possibly be thinking during my idle time. I told her I really didn't know....that my mind must be blank. I think she almost decided that I was entirely too shallow for words, since I didn't even know whether I had thoughts.

I sometimes try really hard to do more than one thing at a time--to multi-task with the best of them. The most I can do is listen to music and do another task. An easy task. Like dishes. Watch TV and work out? Nope! Laundry and TV? No way! TV and listen to my husband? Yep! Unless I'm supposed to retain what we talk about. I guess the problem here is TV. I spend way too much of my idle time with it and I am addicted. I have way too many shows that I DVR. We have actually run out of DVR space before. On several occasions. But it's my crack and I'm not ready to give it up.

It is, after all, the way I discovered Hem. I kept seeing a commercial for Liberty Mutual insurance about "paying it forward." It had a great message and the song was beautiful. I would listen to a bit, pause the DVR, write down some of the words, listen to more, and so on. I googled the phrases and came to discover Hem. They are one of my favorite bands.



And so you see, a little Idle-ness can bring some happy-ness.

*PS-I usually link to the song that inspired the post. But, unfortunately, after I wrote this post, I realized I couldn't find a link to the song. So I posted the song that inspired my search for Hem.

Date from (and in) Hell

So, as part of my attempt to help you feel better about your dating life, whether it is past or present, I bring you part three in my "Dates from Hell" (can you hear it echoing?) series.

This particular date was just a few months after the date in "Dates from Hell, Part I."

I was just a month or two shy of 21. I was semi-attending community college (I think by this time, I had either dropped or just stopped going to all my classes, except at the Institute) and worked about 4 hours a week as an administrative assistant at the home of a contractor/Amway rep. Basically, I compiled the Amway orders and mailed (this was when fax machines were really expensive and no one had them at their houses--and I don't think Al Gore had invented the internet yet) them to my employer's "upline" and wrote payroll checks to myself and one other employee. So, yeah, I had a lot going for me.

But I had a swimming personality that made up for it.

I was a member of Lambda Delta Sigma--the LDS sorority that was basically Young Women's for the college crowd. I joined at Ricks College and when I moved to Tucson, I joined the chapter at the University of Arizona. There was also an LDS fraternity--Sigma Gamma Chi. The thing about the sorority was that it was fun and there were always great girls in it. The thing about the fraternity was that it was full of dorks. Date number one was a member, if that gives you any idea of the quality.

One of the members of Sigma Gamma Chi was "Stu." Stu was someone who always sat on the side lines and never said much. One of my fellow Lambda Delts liked him at one point, but gave up on it since he never talked. And she was the type of girl who talked so much that she didn't ever notice when someone else didn't.

Stu and I had "talked" a few times. Basically, I would say hi. He would say hi and then nod his head, with a silly grin on his face, but say nothing else. I think in the nearly year I knew him prior to our date, we had talked less than six minutes combined.

As I've said before, I never learned the art of just saying no when asked out. I think mainly since I got asked out so infrequently, I jumped at any opportunity. Or I was so caught off guard, I could not figure out any response other than yes.

So, when Stu asked me out, I said yes. But I think it was also a little bit associated with the activity he had in mind.

You see, Stu was getting ready to graduate from the University of Arizona. Apparently, he was a mining engineering student (whatever that was--the gold rush of 1849 was over about 150 years earlier, so what was the need for miners?). As a mining engineer student, he had joined the mining engineering club. Since there were so few people in the club, he was the vice-president. Just outside of Tucson are several mines, mainly copper, and one of them was going to bestow a monetary gift upon the mining engineering club at the University at a "Black-Tie Gala"--his words, exactly. The club president could not attend, so the vice-president, aka Stu, needed to show up and accept the endowment.

Long story short (yeah, right), I heard "Gala" and my mind was aflutter thinking of all the fancy clothes. So I said yes.

Then I remembered I earned less than $25 a week. Which meant, "No new dress."

That's okay, though, I had my black velvet formal dress I had sewn a year earlier.

It was a lovely thing. Yep...it was a pioneer-style dress with a white lacy collar that was so huge, one of my friends asked if I used a tablecloth.

Stu picked me up and gave me a gerbera daisy, with which I was unsure of what to do. It had a card that said, "Beautiful flowers are for beautiful ladies." I think I threw up in my mouth a little because, 1-It was a little bit dorky sounding; and b-Did this mean he liked me? 'Cause I didn't like him!

The Gala was being held 25 miles away at a resort outside of Tucson. Since there are not really freeways running through town, 25 miles is at least an hour's drive. Imagine driving for an hour and saying about 17 words. Between the two of us. Just a little awkward.

We arrived at the resort, a little ahead of schedule and made our way to the room holding the event. We were among the first people to arrive. The schedule of events was posted outside the room and I was able to see that we would be attending the "Gala" being held on the last evening of an annual convention. Hmmm...maybe not so bad.

So we waited in the large, nearly empty room. About ten minutes later, the bar opened for the cocktail hour. I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but I was about 2 months shy of my 21st birthday. Not that it mattered, since I wasn't going to drink.

There still weren't many people, so I looked a little more closely at the convention itinerary. Apparently the event scheduled immediately before the gala was a golf tournament. It must have run late, since everyone who was at the cocktail hour was wearing golf shorts and shirts. Either that, or the "Gala" wasn't "Black Tie." I think it was more likely option two.

As I look around, which is about all I can do since Stu doesn't have anything to say, I notice that not only am I EXTREMELY overdressed, but I am EASILY the youngest person by about 20 years.

The hell of cocktail hour finally ends and we are seated to dinner. It seems like we ate some really dry chicken with steamed vegetables of some sort and a dessert that looked about 30 times better than it tasted.

After dinner, which again had little to no talking, we sat through an excruciatingly long awards ceremony. It must have been a sales convention and just about everyone there received some type of award. At the very end, they announced the gift they were endowing upon the mining club. It must have been at that point that everyone else in the room figured out why there were two practical teenagers who were overdressed.

I think we left shortly after the award was presented. We made the long drive with very little conversation.

I'm sure we "talked" a few times after the date, but we never mentioned the hell of the evening.

March forth!

My friend, Jamie (Post) Melin, has celebrated March 4th as March Forth.

She learned about it from its founder, Geo (who I totally don't know and hope she doesn't mind me linking to her blog).

Geo "invented" the holiday as her New Year's Day. The day to move forward and either do the things you have been putting off or do something that re-invigorates you. Or both.

Every year, Jamie writes a little something about her March Forth and I am always jealous that she remembers and I don't.

This year I decided to celebrate it on the Sixth. For two reasons:
A--I forgot about it. Again.
2--I needed to wait until Saturday, when I didn't have to go to work and could devote the day to me. Sound selfish? Ok, maybe a little.

But, I decided that next year, I will NOT procrastinate (one of my biggest weaknesses!). I added March Forth to my Outlook calendar. So even though next year's March Forth is a Friday, I will celebrate it on the fourth.

And maybe the fifth, too!

Only ten months until Christmas, and

it's also Julie's birthday!

Julie just turned 32, so she obviously is my much older sister!

Ok. It's a lie. She's actually my next-to-the-youngest sibling.



I was in second grade when she was born. She was originally due on February 24th. We lived a little ways away from my school (we lived in Arkansas and my parents were afraid the public school would stunt our educational growth, so we went to a private school), and we carpooled. When I got home from school that day and saw that my mom was still pregnant, I was so confused. She was supposed to have a baby. It was her due date, after all.

Unfortunately for Julie, my parents had their hands full with three older kids, so there weren't many photo ops they took advantage of. I think the few baby photos we took were non-slide photos. The reason this is important information is that a couple of years ago, Julie digitized my parents' slides and gave each of us our own copies. So, we'll have to make do with the older Julie photos.

After moving from Julie's homeland of Arkansas, we moved to El Paso, Texas. About a month after we moved there, it snowed. We weren't really equipped with snow gear, but it looks like Julie still had fun in the cold.



She and my brother Todd shared a room for awhile when they were young. They had some pretty fancy wallpaper. I think Julie and Todd learned "G," "L," and "T" the best, based on that wallpaper. If you look closely, her pants had the alphabet on them, too.



My Dad took photos of us each year on the first day of school. I think this is the first day she went to preschool. She was the only of the Ingermanson kids to attend a real preschool. I thought she was so lucky! Her teacher was married to my Texas History teacher. And, yes, I took Texas History.



Julie was always such a happy little girl. (And she still is a happy girl). She could be counted on to cheese for the camera. I love this photo so much!



She has a fab sense of style. I think she's been to the fanciest of parties--even several galas. She always sews her own evening gowns. Although she didn't sew the following dress, you can see she had style from an early age. The German dirndl, the black tights, and the white peep-toed shoes.



She always achieves the unachievable. Once she puts her mind to it, she will do it. Or if she decides she isn't doing something, she won't. Last summer she hiked Havasupai. She moved to New York City, at the last minute, with no job, just to say she did it. She even got into a spaceship and flew to the moon!



She is a chef extraordinaire! She has an award-winning chili recipe that knocks the socks off anyone who eats it. Her chocolate-peanut butter cake is to die for. She could single handedly make a meal for 250 as easily as she can make a meal for 1.



Just about 20 years ago (REALLY!?!), our family got a dog, named Molly. That dog was CRAZY! And she LOVED Julie! If I ever wanted to excite the dog, I would ask her where Julie was. Julie almost even had her trained well. Julie would make Molly sit in the other room while she poured food in her bowl. She would make her sit there until she told Molly it was time to eat. Molly would sit there, but almost had a stroke waiting. Molly wouldn't obey anyone else.



Julie took years of German in high school and maybe even college (I'm a bad sister). There is a Primary birthday song that says Happy Birthday in several languages. One of those is German. When I was little I learned the song. I always sing it for her: "Glee klicker goo burts tog!" She crings and yells at me that I am singing it wrong. Finally, I told her to look in the orange Primary songbook and see that I am singing it correctly. Since she know German, she knew that I was wrong and she was right, so she marched to the book and showed me that I was, indeed, singing it....correctly? I told her since the Church pronounces it that way, the Germans must pronounce it incorrectly, since the Church is true! She tells me every year that it truly is pronounced "Frer licher guh burts tag." I still think the Church knows best!



When she was in 5th grade, all the fifth graders went to San Diego for a weekend. She used my parents' 110-film camera. You know, those skinny rectangular ones. She took a whole roll of pictures. When she got them developed, they all looked weird. We couldn't figure out any of the pictures. And then we realized they were of her ear, nose, face, etc. She had the camera facing the wrong direction. Here is a photo she meant to take:



Julie has always traveled to see her family and friends, even if it is a short little trip. About three months after she moved to NYC, I was in Florida for a week for work. She took a quick trip to see me and we had a great time. Julie is a fun sister and I'm glad she's around. I don't see her as often as I should, since she lives in Tucson, but I always have a great time when I'm with her.



Happy Birthday Julie!

It was a sad, sad day

Did you feel a little sad last Tuesday? You know, the 16th of February?

I did.

But I wasn't sure why.

At first, I thought it was because I had just had three days in a row away from work. But, I wasn't particularly annoyed at work.

Then, I thought it was because I had forgotten to pick something up the night before at Costco. Nothing is as sad as knowing you were JUST at Costco, but didn't get everything on your list. But then I remembered how much Darrell and I love going to Costco, so it would be the perfect excuse to go back soon.

So, after much thought, I couldn't explain why I was in a funk.

Until I read this:

Ronald Howes, a lifelong inventor responsible for creating the Easy-Bake Oven (as well as defense weaponry), died last Tuesday.

It's true folks. One of the true heroes of our day has passed away. And it was last Tuesday, on why-am-I-feeling-a-little-out-of-sorts day.

Let me tell you a little about why this man will always be a hero to me:

As a little girl, I always wanted an Easy-Bake Oven. Every Christmas, when the big, seven-inch thick Sears catalog showed up, you were guaranteed to find the page with the Easy-Bake Oven was going to be dog-eared. I HAD to get myself an Easy-Bake Oven! It was similar to Ralphie's obsession with the "Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time" in The Christmas Story. Only, no one ever told me that I would shoot my eye out.

I was fascinated that you could bake a whole cake with nothing more than a light bulb! Clearly there was magic involved!

But I didn't get an Easy-Bake Oven when I was eight, or nine, or even twelve. No! I had to wait until I was--are you ready for this?--thirty! Yes, I was a full-on adult. I was even older than my mom had been when I first asked for one. (OK, as a side-bar, that makes me feel really old!).

Now let me tell you how I came to get my Easy-Bake Oven. At Thirty.

My mom had spent the better part of her life hearing about my desire for an Easy-bake Oven or how that was the only toy I ever wanted, but it eluded me. So, the day after Thanksgiving--yes, BLACK Friday--before the economy melted down and people spent money they didn't even have, my mom (who only spent a part of the money she had, and never spent money she didn't have), braved the crazies at WalMart. Yes, the devil store itself. On the devil's shopping day. To buy nothing more than an Easy-Bake Oven for her 30 (THIRTY) year old daughter. Who, by the way, was earning enough money to buy one herself.

A couple of days later, I called my mom to tell her of my good fortune! My co-workers had felt so bad that I had never had an Easy-Bake Oven, so they bought me one as an early Christmas present.

Okay, so there are a couple of issues here:

First, a thirty year-old woman is telling her co-workers how horrible her life has been since she never had an Easy-Bake Oven.

Second, they feel bad enough for her that they purchase her the said toy.

Third, her mother had endured WalMart, the day after Thanksgiving, at-did I mention it?-FIVE in the MORNING, so that she could give her daughter the funnest Christmas present. EV.ER.

Fourth, it was spoiled by the daughter's ridiculous pre-occupation with this TOY!

So yeah. I could have TOTALLY had TWO Easy-Bake Ovens and been the luckiest girl in the world!

A couple of days after I got my Easy-Bake Oven, I made an adult-sized cake mix (and, as a thirty year-old, I was allowed to use the electric hand-mixer) and took it, along with my Easy-Bake Oven to work.

We made cakes all day long.

It was the birthday of one of my co-workers. She got a four layer cake.

Come to think of it, I think it may be time to dust off the ol' Easy-Bake Oven and make me a treat!

RIP Ronald Howes, RIP!

I heart love

Here is my latest creation.



I won't take credit for the idea, but I did do it all by myself and I finished before the holiday.



Extra points for hanging it up.



I wish the photos were better, but I was having severe technical difficulties with all three of our digital cameras!