Perfectionist

Mother had a good heart, but she was prone to judge everything and everyone that came along. Names were a prime target. Even though Mother had given her own daughter a weird name, she felt free to critique the names other people had bestowed upon their children. Houses were also  fair game. As a devoted reader of Better Homes and Gardens, she mentally critiqued every dwelling she enetered, and, when she was home, gave the family her review. Her gavel also came down on how people dressed, fixed their hair, and lived their lives. Of course, Fiorella absorbed the perfectionist eye--and the mouth--at her mother's knee and made herself extremely unpopular in school by voicing her own judgments. Even now, in her dotage, she struggles to scrub off the vestiges. Back off, Fio. Live and let live.

New Addition

Fio has noticed a disturbing trend lately toward bigger and bigger homes on smaller and smaller lots.  She and Husband drove through a new addition of $350,000 homes a couple of miles down the highway and were shocked to realize that a person stretching his arms out could touch the air conditioner units of the long, shotgun-style houses on either side.   Why not just make the houses attached and be done with it?  After all, any claim to country living has already been lost to the chainsaw massacre of the native oaks and cedar elms.

Plaints and Complaints

House and Garden TV has opened America's eyes to the excesses of the excessively rich.  Fio never realized people could casually drop a couple of mil into a Caribbean vacation home.   She never realized people could sink a cool million into one room.   She never realized people could be so picky about what their kitchen cabinets were made of when half the world be thrilled just to have roofs over their heads.
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The sound is out on Fiorella's TV, Mozy messed with her when she was trying to sign up, and she is worried about getting everything ready for the arrival of Older Son and his wife on Friday, not to mention the anniversary celebration on Sunday.  She's stressed.
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Fiorella is a Facebook idiot.  She can't put up pictures on her own and there's some weird lock on her clever comments that is probably keeping people from replying--or they're just not interested.  Email is so much simpler.  Handwritten letters would be even simpler.  Heck--take it down to the smoke signal level.