Unmitigated

A Perfect Shoulder Spoiled

The following text message exchange took place last night. Parentheticals added today.

Middle-Aged-Woman: Made Dad watch Dr. Horrible. He sez it has its moments. Promise tat will be small? (See where this is going? Dr. Horrible provided excuse for me to contact 18-year-old-Girl and beg, quietly, for her not to spoil her perfect skin with a tattoo)

18-year-old-Girl: Mooooom!

Middle-Aged-Woman: What?

18-year-old-Girl: Is ums a widdle nervous?

Middle-Aged-Woman: You have small shoulders.

18-year-old-Girl: How very true, my dear. (Does she sound like the daughter?)

Middle-Aged-Woman: U haven't promised yet.

18-year-old-Girl: "Promises are like pie crust--easily made, easily broken." (I was quoting Mary Poppins before you were born beeyotch)

Middle-Aged-Woman: not so easily broken, I think. (because I know my girl)

18-year-old-Girl: Mom you worry too much. (Notice how I'm keeping quiet here. Letting the guilt worm its way in, unnoticed)

18-year-old-Girl: What do you mean by small?

Middle-Aged-Woman: 2 - 3 inches across. (But you gotta be ready to strike while the iron is hot)

18-year-old-Girl: Its about 3.5 inches long. Get online Mrs. Fussy.

Middle-Aged-Woman: Sigh. (See the guilt skills I have?)

I had already seen the picture. A lotus blossom and the Sanskrit symbol for Om. And I was in bed and too lazy tired to argue any further. Plus, she's 18 and it's not up to me anymore, and she's financing it herself. She called and reminded me of all these things, which I already knew to be true. It's just a mom thing, I guess.

But just so you know what I'm talking about, here is a picture of the perfect shoulders:

Sigh.

Here is the result (forever):

Because, Sometimes, Meetings are Boring*

For some reason, the other day, 16-year-old-Boy decided to rummage through my purse. And when he found the little cars I keep in there for emergencies (read: meetings), he began making that car noise that only boys can make properly. I can't even type it because I am not a boy. When I was a kid, we rode around in Krazy Karts (before Big Wheels and their horrible ratchet-y sound came along). One of my friends, Cheryl, made the car sound by saying, "Naaaaaaaaa, naaaaaaaaaa, naaaaaaah," rising and falling like a transmission shifting gears. Not the same. Also, boys make excellent bullet noises. It must be on the Y-chromosome.

C and D are the tiny little cars he found. I think they are left over from when he had a million Micro Machines cars and the fucking SuperVanCity that came with four sheets of decals (FOUR! SHEETS!), which meant I was up until 3:00 a.m. Christmas Eve applying stickers so the damn thing was play-ready in the morning. I was a happy camper that day, let me tell you.

Anyway, those two, along with F are what keep me entertained at staff meetings. F is my Homie. Really. I got him out of a vending machine for fifty cents. On his back it says 'Homies, TM China.' I find myself very amusing at meetings when I hold him up in front of me and say, "Homie don't play that." Someone has to entertain me.

A is the metallic Sharpie I paid like six bucks for because I am stoopid. But it comes in handy if you need to mark something that is black. Like when the offspring and I all got new laptops ($450 each? Shit! Gimme three!), and I was able to mark mine as my territory without having to pee on it.

B is a key chain Husband got at 'Close-It-Already-Yankee-Stadium' and gave to me after I whined about it. The baseball has a real leather cover on it, actually stitched. Cool.

E is a button I found on the floor at school and nobody claimed. Not sure why I kept it, but the same could be said of 16-year-old-Boy, so there it is.

And G is a key. To something. No idea what. But you know the minute I throw the damn thing out, I'll remember that I desperately need it to shut off the self-destruct mechanism, "...five...four...three..." Uh. Oh.

*Sometimes? Who am I kidding?

Another Really Nice Thing Happened to Me!

So, Captain Dumbass of Us and Them, you, too, are the shit! Plus, I really enjoy your blog! Visit there. Feed the fish.

Mary K. is the Shit!

This is not quite on the same level as the Colorado Dude's awesome helpfulness toward Sweetney, but I thought it was still quite cool. Plus, I have no other way to thank her for her good deed, so I'll share the awesome-ness with the internet.

Back in April, Husband and I spent lots of time obsessing over which Tiger games we'd like to see. Turns out: bad idea, because tickets were going like hotcakes. Fwick*. Anyway, we selected five games, got decent seats for those, and later I snuck back on and got great seats for the June 24th game for Husband's birthday. Yay, me!

The tickets arrived a couple weeks later, and we've been using them one set at a time. Lots o' fun. Love the Tigers.

Then today, an envelope arrives in the mail. Obviously handwritten on the outside. Return address reads only Mary K., Warren, MI. Here's the letter that was inside:

 

How nice was that?! And how dopey am I that I never even realized I was missing a set of tickets? I guess I was so busy corresponding with the deposed minister of finance in Nigeria so he could transfer those funds that I didn't notice. That's okay. As soon as my $2.5 mil arrives from Nigeria, I'm gonna buy season tickets for all of us. Where do ya wanna sit?

So that was my Pay It Forward story for the day. What's the last really nice thing someone did for you? Gimme some comment love, internet.

* Spell-check wants me to replace this word with fuck. But I would never say that.

Is That the Cow's Name?

You know how milk cartons have a date stamped on them? And that's usually around when the milk will become vinegar? Well, for some reason the milk carton we just finished had not only the date, it also had the name Lillian printed next to the date. This is mostly remarkable in that it is my middle name. So I showed it to 18-year-old-Girl.

"What's that?" she said. "Is that the cow's name?" And she was serious. Now you know why I refer to her as Partly Cloudy.