15. Hooked on Betty

As night owls, Benjamin and I habitually turn off the lights close to midnight. So when we got an early wake up call regarding flooded toilets, it took a second for our brains to catch up to our ears. 

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. I had heard what she said. I just chose to ignore it. But flooded toilets, just days before a show was something we couldn’t ignore. 

“Benjamin . . . !” I hollered. “It’s your turn.” 

Like parents tag-teaming on dirty diapers, we had adopted an un-pottytrained house that refused to mature. It was one accident after another, with both of us anxiously awaiting the day we could wave our “child” off to college and high-five our efforts. For now, we still had a newborn on our hands — this horrific blend of blowouts, sleepless nights, and tantrums worthy of terrible two’s. 

With coffee percolating in the background, I watched as Benjamin wobbled toward the barn in his sweat pants, still half asleep. At least he remembered to put on a shirt. During that first month, there were days he would run toward an “emergency” in the barn, only to shock the female vendors with his exposed chest. Stumbling over words, they would look at their feet or toward the rafters, blushing with every glimpse of chest hair.

That was the downside of running a business out of our home; there was always someone there. We gave the team full access to the property, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. It never occurred to us to change that schedule, until moments such as these that started our day on the wrong foot. 

Watching from the window, I didn’t follow Benjamin to Commodious. Instead, I stood lost in silence, as if witnessing the life of a man I pitied. And for that brief moment, I was not part of the broken equation.  

Until, of course my phone rang. It was Benjamin calling me from the toilet. “Well, there’s about an inch of water pooling in the men’s room. Bring a mop.”

He hung up, and so did I, neither saying goodbye, just like phone calls in the movies. Still wearing my “Sleepy Hedgehog” pajamas, I walked slower than normal, with a cup of coffee in one hand and a mop in the other. There it was, a puddle deep enough to keep a fish alive. 

With mop raised high, I asked, “Where’s the leak?” 

I could tell Benjamin was frustrated. There were no visible drips, the window was closed, and the toilet seemed fine. Thus started the mystery of Commodious, which continued for several days. For the life of us, we couldn’t figure out why the bathrooms flooded not once, not twice, but every single day just before 7 am. 

“It was like a Beautiful Mind, with Benjamin calculating hypotheses on the H20 quandary.”

It was like a Beautiful Mind, with Benjamin calculating hypotheses on the H20 quandary. “I’ve got it!” he said sitting up in bed. “It’s the sprinkler. The flooding has something to do with the sprinkler timer.” 

My mad scientist was right. The water source that fed the sink was on the same waterline as the sprinklers. As bizarre as it sounds, our temporary solve was to manually turn on the waterline anytime someone had to use the toilet. Until Benjamin could figure out a long-term solution, that was the only way we could keep the bathrooms from flooding. 

Unfortunately, our vendors often failed to close the waterline after using the toilet, thus flooding it at least once a week. Mopping the bathrooms became part of my regular routine, right up there with midnight decorating and vacuuming the barn before each show. 

In hindsight, I overthought the decorating part of each monthly event, spending 12-hours a day on weekends, and working well into the night Monday through Friday. It was relatively standard for Benjamin to come into the barn after midnight to remind me of the time.

Fortunately, I’ve learned to streamline the process, delegating where needed and decorating at a faster pace. I certainly couldn’t have pulled off a single show without my mother who vignettes with vigor. She sings when she decorates and claps her hands when she approves of a scene. 

My mother keeps me hydrated, reminds me to eat, and calls me “baby girl” when she’s about to give me advice I don’t want to hear. Without her, I’d probably be curled up in a ball in the corner of the barn. But she has taught me to “rise up” with accountability nudges like “Let’s get an early start this month,” and well-strategized game plans that keep my sanity in check. 

Between her daily blessings and my father’s commitment to projects, I’d have to say that my parents are the unsung heroes of Brick n Barn. Just days after the Commodious fiasco, my mother didn’t have the heart to tell me a nail on our property punctured her tire. Then, the same thing happened to my dad’s trailer. The moment it happened to a vendor, we realized we had a major nail problem. 

When I mentioned this to the team, they explained that flat tires went with the territory. Apparently thousands of old nails and screws were buried in the gravel around the property after years of furniture repair. 

That’s when Benjamin ordered a rolling magnet sweeper. It looked like a mini-lawn mower except its sole function was to pick up nails, screws, and other pieces of metal. In one little push, I had magnetized hundreds of screws. Suddenly, I found myself running around the property like a kid, finding joy in the sound of metal slapping my mighty magnet. It was like my very own Fisher-Price Corn Popper, only now it was some 40 years later. 

Benjamin too was finding humor in the simple things, especially since we didn’t have too much to laugh about during that season. Now on his four-month break from work, the projects were nonstop. 

From the staircase to the master bedroom, Benjamin had committed to tackling the guest bathroom. Since the house dated back to 1883, plumbing was later added by “Betty Crocker” — Agnes White and her husband William Tizard. With the addition of the bathroom, they thoughtfully retained the original brick archways overlooking what is now our pool. 

When we bought the house however, the bathroom was designed to resemble a little piece of heaven. Puffy cloud ceilings, pink floors, and angel light fixtures were all design elements we planned to change. The clincher was the stunning brick archway which had been painted over in a shade of bubblegum pink. 

The only way to restore this slice of history was to manually chip away the paint by hand. Minutes turned into hours, and hours into days for Benjamin who endlessly stood on a ladder, softly chiseling away to unearth the past. 

Once that was done, he then changed out the lighting, painted the walls, and finally painted the floors. The latter task required removing the bathroom sink, toilet, and footed tub. My mighty man had carried out the sink and toilet on his own, but the tub was something that required a wing man, or in this case, a wing woman. Of course it weighed a ton.

“Can’t we just paint around the little feet,” I asked, already knowing his answer. “Or maybe just tape up the legs?”

He mumbled something about nothing being done right in this house, and now was our chance to change that. Alas, we moved that big ass tub into our hallway where it remained for a week until someone with bigger muscles could help lift the load. 

“That bathroom was a brutal journey, and part of the pain came in realizing that no one would ever know the effort that went into it behind the scenes. But as Benjamin always reminded me, “We’ll know.””

In celebration of our accomplishment, we decided to do something that would connect us a little more to Betty. We went to the Valley Center History Museum. It was there that we learned of past notable Valley Center residents including John Wayne, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, and of course, our very own Agnes White who made her debut as the first “Betty Crocker.” 

In the corner of the tiny museum was an exhibit dedicated to the baking legend herself. There rested a set of headphones where visitors could listen to a recording of “The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air.” 

Alone in that corner, I looked over at Benjamin who was now deep in conversation with a historian about “The Rainmaker” Charles M. Hatfield. Apparently this Valley Center local had held the secret formula to create rain in parched towns around the world. 

As fascinating as it was, I was hooked on Betty. Pushing play on the recording, I listened as she spoke about delicately folding in egg whites and preparing a roux of melted butter and flour. The recording was scratchy and crackly, with little pops to remind me of the era. All I cared about was that I was finally hearing her voice. 

A soft tap on my shoulder startled me. Pulling off the headphones, I turned toward a woman who introduced herself as a volunteer of the Valley Center History Museum. She was pleased to learn that we were the new owners of the Betty Crocker Estate. 

“We’ve been wanting to meet you,” she said. “Come, I have something to show you.”

Handing me a large cardboard box, she added, “You might need these for future tours of your home.”

Lifting the lid, I looked inside to find a glamorous collection of dresses, gloves, hats, belts, and purses all belonging to the lady who once lived in my house. And so it seemed, I was no longer channeling Betty. She was channeling me. 

Next story on "Channeling Betty" coming soon.