The Auntie Clare’s Happy Home Magazine Expertease

You're listening to Expertise, spelled wrong, the podcast where the world's most expert experts discuss their areas of expertise expertly. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Expertise Knowledge Podcast, where you get your knowledge in podcast form and your podcasts in knowledge form. I'm your host, Danno Sullivan. Our topic of expertise today is homemaking. And my guests are Marianne Higgins, professor of traditional studies at the University of Coeur d'Alene, Charles Dehoog, a chemical engineer at Dow Cornell, and Clare Sera, the force behind Auntie Clare's Handy Home, a monthly magazine for homemakers.

Welcome to the show. It's time to probe your area of expertise. My first question on homemaking is for you, Marianne Higgins, professor of traditional studies at University of Coeur d'Alene. What are your top three suggestions for making a house feel like a home, Marianne? Let's turn it over to Charles Dehoog from Dow Cornell. Sir? Nothing? All right. We're going to need to get Otis on the tech here. Clare Sera, do we have a connection with you? Hello. Hello. Am I on? Clare, welcome to the show. Hello. Dan O'Sullivan? Dan O'Sullivan, your podcast host, Clare, and the topic today is home making.

What a great coincidence, because I have a magazine called Handy Home. So I do feel that I am an expert who is qualified in speaking on this topic, although I'm going to admit that I'm a little bit intimidated by being on the same program as a professor, as two professors who are- Professor Marianne, and it's Dr. Charles Dehoog. I don't believe he's a professor. Is that correct, Charles? Professor? No. Otis, we're going to need to check that line on Professor Dehoog. Nevertheless, Clare, no need to feel intimidated. We respect experts of every level, and I think what you've done with your publishing empire is something that our other two guests today can only aspire to.

How long has Auntie Clare's Handy Home magazine been coming out? It's been over three decades now that I've been- Three decades? Three decades. And I have to say, Clare, you don't look old enough to be publishing a magazine for three decades. It must have been your mother that started this. Am I right? Oh my goodness. I'm going to write you up in the happy uncle section of Handy Home. There's a lot of uncles that are handy, and I like to highlight them in my back page section. So that's the happy uncle section in the back pages of Happy Home magazine. And you know, when I hear you saying it back like that, it just sounds so backwater, you know, and I'm sure that the professor and the doctor have much more high-minded takes and ways to think about how to keep a handy home, rather than my silly uncle's on the back page section.

I feel like a real back- A rube? Rube. Back rube. A back rube. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I usually pay $25 an hour for a nice back rube. Let's turn it over to you, Dr. Higgins, and see, what's your take on an old-fashioned print magazine for homemakers? No. Otis? Doctor? No. Claire, back to you. Oh, okay. We have reams of letters from folks with questions about home making from Roseanne in Cincinnati. Roseanne says, Claire, I'm a longtime subscriber to your magazine and love everything except the somewhat frightening back pages with happy uncle, having had some bad experiences with a happy uncle myself.

Oh, she asked me not to read that on the air, sorry. She says, I received a glass-domed cake plate for a wedding gift, but my husband and I are both allergic to cake. Any suggestions on what to do with this beautiful tishware? Listen, that is a great question. Now, a lot of young brides are gifted rather old-fashioned handy home accessories, but you can display more than just cake. I find that hard to imagine, Claire. It is specifically named a cake plate. Right. But when you think about what is cake, anything that is caked on is cake. Oh, excuse me, Claire.

It looks like Professor Higgins is chiming in with a comment on your cake. Nope. We lost her. We'll come back to letters in just a minute, but Claire, let's focus in on your personal story. You obviously were not always a homemaker, but you must have been a home liver as long as you were alive and living in some place that was a home. Yes, yes. I'd rather be a home liver than have one. I always dreamt of having a, and this is not to correct you, but just to try to have you get it right from now on. It's called the handy home, not the happy home. Thank you very much.

It's happy uncles in the handy home. It's handy uncles. Your early publishing career took some interesting turns, didn't it? You went from living at home with a full family of many, many, very, very handsome uncles, it sounds like, to living completely on your own. That must have felt like a huge change to you. Liberation. And yet, it's liberation, you say. Yes. But even as a liberated woman out on your own, you're going to make it after all. There are still certain things that you have to be handy with around the home. I would love to hear what Professor Mary Higgins thinks on the materials that are used to make a happy and handy home.

Yeah, I know she has an article on a related subject. So let's turn it over to Professor Marianne Higgins, Professor of Traditional Studies at University of Coeur d'Alene. Professor? Otis, we're going to, we're, please, we're, no, okay, no, sorry. So back over to you, Claire. Okay, sure, sure, yeah. Claire, favorite colors for a living room? You know, this is going to sound controversial, but let me tell you that it's not. My favorite colors for a living room are shades of orange with a mauve lavender woven through. Shades of orange. You can't land on one shade of orange, it's too much.

The mind literally rejects it. And you see a blank space. That's scientific, and I'm sure Dr. Charles would have something to add to that. He actually has his hand raised. If we could just go over to Dr. de Hoog. No, I can see him gesticulating, but no sound. Oh, I'm sorry. You know, I have a confession to make to you, and to all of your listeners, and to all nieces and nephews, you know, that are out there. I am the niece of Dr. Charles and Professor Marianne, and I set this whole thing up just wanting to be reunited with family at last, and I feel like I'm responsible not only for paddling on about handy homemaking that I know nothing about, but the fact that they are not showing up, because that's been the story of my life since I was born a niece.

Hey, hey. Easy. Did you say you were born a niece? I never had parents of my own. This is the saddest thing I've ever heard. For our listeners at home, let me explain exactly what's going on. In our studios here, folks, we spare no expense to bring you the highest quality, top-notch audio podcasts, but what that means is Claire is unable to see on the screens that I can see as the host and producer here, that her uncle and auntie are both present. We're just having a technological snafu that stops their audio feeds from coming through. So, Claire, I'm going to try to translate from them to you.

Now, I'm not a lip reader nor a sign reader, but you know what? I am a student of human behavior. Well, I just really appreciate that, and I'm sorry to hijack your podcast like this. I would just have done anything, obviously, just to be in touch with my one aunt and my one uncle. Uncle. With my one uncle. This is a beautiful and a heartwarming story, Claire, and we are going to do everything we can do at Expertise to bring solace, comfort, and completion to this family unit. Now, it looks like Uncle DeHoog is gesticulating as if he wishes to... Let me see if I can make it out here.

I'm trying to get a sense of his meaning from just sort of the way he's leaning forward. He's got an arm up and an eyebrow that's cocked just so, and it seems to be... Oh, I love that eyebrow. My childhood. I can see you've got it too, Claire. You've got the same eyebrow. Oh, gosh. So he seems to be asking, did our niece Claire fabricate an entire career of falsely printing magazines and sending them out to subscribers for decades in the hopes of finally reuniting with her aunt and uncle? I could be misinterpreting this, but I think that's what he's saying.

It sounds like him. It really sounds like old Uncle DeHoog. He's calling me out, and it's absolutely true. I completely own it. I couldn't care less about homes or handy homes and handsome uncles. I've just been one long cry for reunification. He's crying now. Uncle DeHoog. Why can't I see him? I'm sorry. I wish the technology allowed for this. I don't think he's... Actually, I think he spilled a cocktail onto his cheeks. He was taking a sip, and it spilled out. If you can take any comfort in that, that he's at least pretend crying. Well, he never showed emotion before.

So maybe he's older now, and maybe they regret what they did, and they're willing to take me back. Your auntie, Marianne Higgins, professor of traditional studies, University of Coeur d'Alene, is shaking her head vigorously. I don't know how to interpret that. Well, she's older. She might have a little bit of nerve damage. Maybe her head is waggling. It's not like a palsy. It's like just a really back and forth, left to right, sharp, sharp, sharp. Are you feeling like I could be reunited with my aunt and my uncle, my one aunt and uncle? She is just in a fervor right now, Claire, the way she's moving her head left and right, left and right.

She's always so passionate, always so passionate. I think that's love, don't you? That's what I felt when they put me out that one Saturday morning and onto the bus for a fun day on my own, my first day on my own. They sent me off with a suitcase. You can feel the love. To send you off with a suitcase so you would have everything you needed for that day of adventure. Right. How old were you? I was six. Six. So excited. And I see that Uncle DeHoog is, again, I'm not sure if he's weeping or if that cocktail glass in front of his face makes it hard to see, but some of the moisture is on his cheeks as he's thinking back to that wonderful day.

Because we lost each other, sadly, on that day. The bus apparently made a mistake and kept going. And it crossed state lines, which I know was not their intention. I was just going to the local daycare for an afternoon of crafts. But the bus kept going. And I know that they have been trying to find me ever since. Marianne's head back and forth again. You know, it's just so sweet to see. You can tell, Clara, that these people love you with all their heart. Oh, speaking of hearts. Uncle DeHoog is clutching at his heart. Just the emotion you're bringing out in him right now.

I'm just imagining with all that alcohol he's been consuming through this podcast today, coupled with just the over-ringing emotions that you're bringing up, just appearing before them like this. And the way he's clutching at his heart now to show that love and the way he's fallen out of frame. And I bet he did it handsomely. I can see like his finger, his hands coming back up into the frame for a second. Reaching, reaching for me, reaching. I think that's what it is. I don't know if they even know that I made my way back. I made it through a series of questionable foster care homes, but I did find my way back.

But they had been, they must have been evicted because they were no longer there. And I just felt so badly for them. And they went through some hard times and I wasn't there to help them. I'm sure they left no forwarding address out of consideration for you to keep you from that never-ending struggle, that never-ending search for the auntie and uncle that had given birth to you. So Claire, my kudos to you as a podcast host for really undermining the system here, taking advantage of our good nature and our expectations that you would be a knowledgeable guest on the homemaking.

Yeah, I know nothing. I live in a condo, the top of Cincinnati, mid-rise. Folks, thanks for tuning in today. My guests have been Marianne Higgins, Charles DeHoog, and Claire Sarah. I'm your host, Dan O'Sullivan. This is the Expertise Knowledge Podcast. Otis. Otis. T's, spelled wrong, podcast is free and, like the Amish, all are welcome. Be sure to sign up for our email announcements at funnypodcast.com.