That There Clark's an RV

My house exploded today. That tends to happen when you combine three excited kids with four tubs of Christmas decorations.

But the official start of the season doesn't happen until husband and I and the kids watch Christmas Vacation.

There are so many great lines to this movie. But by far our favorite is this exchange:

Clark: "So, when did you get the tenement on wheels?"
Eddie: "Oh, that uh, that there's an RV. Yeah, yeah, I borrowed it off a buddy of mine. He took my house, I took the RV. It's a good looking vehicle, ain't it?"
Clark: "Yeah, it looks so nice parked in the driveway."
Eddie: "Yeah, it sure does. But, don't you go falling in love with it now, because, we're taking it with us when we leave here next month."

This line is all the more funny to my husband since many members of my family have RVs. We even have an entire weekend-long family reunion where we all stay in RVs (and some tents). I have to confess that during my youth I did sleep in an RV parked in a far-off relative's driveway. We did refrain from causing an explosive sewer situation--I'm pretty sure.

I think that every family has a little Griswold in them. We think Christmas has to be perfect, with big, fancy meals, spectacular decorations, and a huge family gathering. All of these things are great, of course, and I pursue them with all the enthusiasm of a traditional small town American woman. But as this movie reassures us, things can go wrong, terribly wrong.

So as we enter December and Christmas season enters its second (third) month, I hope your lights are untangled, your trees not too sappy, your family well-behaved, your moose mugs full of eggnog and your sled rides relaxing. Mele Kalikimaka.

The Four Minute Lecture

Growing up, we always went to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving. Grandma and Grandpa lived two miles away--on the same road. So by the time we could sing Over the River and Through the Woods, we were there.

But that didn't stop my father from delivering his annual four-minute lecture. I can still hear it... I don't care what your cousins do (there were nine of us) I don't want to hear any screaming or see any running. I expect you to behave the entire time. I don't care if your cousins are acting like animals. Do you understand me?

It's important to point out here that my cousins were far from animals. They were just kids who were excited to be with their cousins and celebrating a holiday. (You should have HEARD the lecture we got before we saw them at Christmas.) My siblings and I were also very well-behaved children who frequently received compliments from strangers on our public behavior.

So why the lecture? The only explanation I can think of is that that my father had incredibly high expectations for his children. The kind that applauded report cards full of As but demanded an explanation for the B. We lived in fear not of his punishments, which were pretty tough, but his disappointment.

My brother and I didn't really understand how unique our small town upbringing was until we were in college. My brother was in a class discussion about some ethical issue and they were asked to give reasons they would or would not do something ethically questionable. When he answered because I might embarrass my family, they all just stared at him.

So this Thanksgiving I am thankful for loving but strict parenting, for possessing a sense of shame and the ability to take responsibility for my own actions, and for well-behaved children--even if they sometimes behave like animals.

Maternity Ward

Well, we're finally seeing the results of all the hard work husband has been doing since September to inseminate the pigs... Oh, maybe that didn't come out right.

What I mean is that all of the planning and breeding that took place earlier on the farm is starting to pay off with the birth of several litters of pigs.

This litter of 13 piglets is two weeks old. The little gilts (females) and boars (males) keep warm on cold Ohio nights under a heat lamp. You can see on the left that they can exit their little warm spot to nurse with the sow but are protected by the fence from accidental squishing by their mother. Hey, if you weighed 500 pounds and had 13 babies underfoot, you might accidentally step on one or two.

Remember Miss? Well, her golden days as a State Fair beauty may be behind her, but she is getting ready to have her first litter of pigs any day now (early December). We'll keep you updated with pictures when the piglets arrive. (Unless it's too cold. I'm very much a fair weather farmer.)
Like Miss, we have several sows who are ready to farrow (give birth) in the next few weeks. Husband claims this sow is 11 years old. He credits her with raising several of the pigs Ryan showed this summer and says she is the grandmother of many of our other good pigs.

This younger sow is also due in early December.

You wouldn't believe the big spider in the corner of this guy's pen, spinning a web that looked like it had letters in it...

This little guy is actually from the first litter from our new piggy Daddy, Big Splash. He and his siblings were outside enjoying the sunshine, looking forward to this summer at the State Fair.

I've just got to say again, while LOTS of blogs can comment on brand disasters and family life, WHAT other blog can provide such fresh-from-the-farm cuteness?

PR Idea of the Week

I may be dating myself but how many crisis communications presentations have I sat through that praised Tylenol for its handling of the tampering crisis.

Well, get ready to update your PowerPoint Crisis Guys, there's a new pain reliever case study in town. And this time, you have to share your story with a million social media wonks who will liven up their versions of the story with screen shots of the Twitter search.

Of course, I'm talking about this weekend's Mommy blogger Twitter stampede to condemn Motrin for what many found to be an insulting ad about the pains moms get from "babywearing."

Huh

Kevin Dugan said it best: People reading this on Monday are in one of two camps regarding Motrin Moms – in the know or 2.0 slow.

I am relatively new to Twitter and just happened to be playing around with it this weekend when I witnessed what can best be described as a "brand-wreck" in process. For me, it started with Peter Shankman and led to Twitter search where even a newbie like me could see that becoming the number one topic, beating out Obama and Thanksgiving, is a sign of something great or BIG TROUBLE.

I pulled up the #motrinmoms search thread but couldn't read through the postings fast enough, Twitter kept letting me know that new posts were arriving--at the rate of about two per second.

Finally, the people behind Motrin tracked down all the right lawyers, marketing directors, VPs, janitors, etc. to open the doors and put together an emailed statement apologizing for the ad. Oddly enough, they couldn't locate their web team, so the janitor was forced to just pull the plug on their Web site. Apparently, their Web team was out most of Monday attending remedial Twitter school and couldn't plug the site back in until this afternoon. [I'm joking, of course.]

Seriously, you have to wonder what was going on behind the scenes there at Motrin. In hindsight, the ad is gone, a halfway decent apology is posted in its place and Twitter has moved on to Mark Cuban's SEC troubles.

But for those hours on Sunday afternoon and into Sunday evening, the company really missed an opportunity to... well some would say they missed a chance to join a dialogue. I say, they missed a chance to "stay in character." To keep with the somewhat cheeky tone of the ad but use that to say, obviously we missed the mark here and we've worked all night to come up with a new ad--here it is. As it was, they appeared to have gotten scared of their newfangled Internet gang and just shut the whole thing down until they could catch up with the chief legal counsel at his weekend home and write a typical corporate response.

Note to PR and marketing people planning to dip your toe in social media and online marketing
1. Get the authority to deal with issues in real time.
2. Have SOMEONE keep an eye on your online brand at all times.
3. Get the home phone number and address of your Web guy/gal. And have several people trained to edit all parts of the site from anywhere.
4. Know that you can't just take your ball and go home if it doesn't work out the way you planned.
5. Never, never, never screw with the Mommy bloggers. They will hurt you.

An Open Letter to Our New Neighbors

Dear A,

We're so excited that soon you and your family will be our neighbors. And by neighbors, we mean that in the country sense that you are located in our part of the county. Not in the cul de sac sense of neighbors who can open their respective bathroom windows and share toothpaste, Just hold the brush out a little farther...

But before you move in, there are some local customs you should know about, some social norms (thank you Soc 101) that you should follow.

I know you're not the kind of person who would do this anyway, but I want to remind you not to speak ill of anyone outside the private confines of your home until you have memorized the entire genealogy of the community. I am a lifelong resident and I still get kicked under the table by my mother at least once a month for saying something less than gushing about someone whose sister-in-law's neighbor's best friend is sitting in the next booth. There are people living here who are literally related to everyone in the community either as cousins, in-laws, or by virtue of the fact they have divorced all remaining non-related people of the opposite sex.

On the flip side, be careful who you are nice to. I can just see you standing in line at the bank, striking up conversation with a nice gentleman about how you just built a house out on K Road, but you could be unintentionally allying yourself on the wrong side of a decades old feud.

Lest you think it's all drama and scandal out here, I want you to know that the people in this community are very concerned about your eternal salvation. When word gets out that there is a professional couple moving in with school-age children, every church welcome wagon in a 5 mile radius will go into hyper-drive. We have a population of roughly 900 people and five churches. You could be deacon on your second Sunday. But be sure to tell all those Methodists to back off--we Presbyterians have already claimed you for the softball team!

Don't worry, A, there are tons of perks to moving here. We have our own historic movie theater, the By-Jo, that shows first-run movies for $3 a ticket. When you drop clothes off at Browns Cleaners, they don't give you a ticket--they don't even ask your name. When you come back to claim your laundry, they know your face and retrieve your clothes without any ID. When you buy your Maytag at Schenck Furniture, they will tell you honestly which model will work best for you--and deliver it at your convenience.

I could go on and on about our local restaurants and the scenic Germantown Dam, but you get the picture. It's a great place to live and we can't wait to share it with you.

Your Friend,

Holly

Sympathy for the Blogger

With apologies to the Rolling Stones...

Please allow me to introduce myself,
I'm a gal of wealth (I wish) and taste (I hope).
Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.

Hello, I'm Holly Michael. I started this blog 80+ posts ago to share my experiences straddling the sometimes equally stinky worlds of corporate public relations and farm life.

But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game...

I started out keeping this blog fairly anonymous, not sure if I wanted search engines finding this site against searches on my name. But a month or so ago I added this link to my LinkedIn page and search engine-wise, the gig was up. I'm proud of what I've shared here and don't see any reason to hide behind pen names (get it, pig pen, pen name, never mind).

So as I stand on the threshold of greatly broadening the reach of this site, I want to remind all you gentle readers of the rules I established for visitors to this blog.

And I thought this would be a great opportunity to share all the great writing that's already occurred over eight months of posts.

Note: If you are so humorless as to be unable to translate a dissertation on my mother-in-law's Frigidaire into wow, she can write! then stop reading here.

My favorite posts:

• Our May-December romance
• Happy Poop Day - some posts just write themselves
• Hey, That's not Hay
• Marketing to a New Generation
• My personal Brady Bunch story
• We interrupt all this pig stuff for a PR Bone(R)
• Funky on the farm
• Farm kids having fun
• Autumn on the farm
• My husband the crime fighter

Thanks for visiting. You can learn more about me here.

Rock the Vote, Don't Rock the Vote, Baby

Conversation with our daughter about the election process:
Me: Get your jacket on, so we can go vote.
Morgan: I want to wear my swimsuit
Me: No, you can't wear your swimsuit to the polls, it is chilly outside.
Morgan: But I want to wear it to the boat. I don't want to get my jacket wet.

Conversation with our son about the election process:
Justin: Who left that message, Mommy?
Me: It's from John McCain. Can you believe he called us?
Justin: I saw him on TV. If you don't vote for John McCain, you have to vote for that other guy, right? (starts making up a song) John McCain, John McCain, John McCain VOTE; John McCain, John McCain, John McCain VOTE

Conversation with our son about the election process:
Me: What did you do at school today?
Ryan: I voted for Barack Obama. The whole first grade did. He won 30-20.
Update from Ryan's grandmother: At school today he asked the teacher who she voted for and she said it was a secret. He responded: Well, then I'm not going to tell you who I voted for either.