Yellow Meal

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When the kids were little, they both said the color yellow as “lellow.”  Awww, so cute.  Lellow. 

Why all the yellow biz?  When I was younger, my mother would make what I called “Yellow Meals.”  Everything at the dinner table was yellowish in color – parmesan chicken (which my little brother called frosting chicken – aren’t kids cute?!), potatoes, corn. 

See?  Yellow.  Carb-loaded.  No veggies or fruit to speak of.  Just yellow carbs.

As a result, I have used this as a measuring stick against which I compare the meals I serve my own children.  Is everything all one color?  Nope??  Then we’re good to go.  Eat up chillun’s.

But last night?  Last night it all just hit me.  I could not decide ONE MORE TIME whether to serve broccoli or peas as the veggie which would still have several spoonfuls left in the bowl when the table was cleared.  So I served corn.  The kids LOVE corn, but I never serve it because I’m always serving rice or potatoes instead.  And while the potatoes in this instance were fancy herbed wedges, they were still potatoes.  And I did serve a fruit.  Pears.  These gorgeous YELLOW pears my parents send us every Christmas.  And the protein?  Frosting chicken.

Not a single, solitary kernel of corn was left after the meal, nor potatoes, pears, or frosting chicken.  EVERYTHING was consumed.  And?  The kids didn’t even ask for dessert afterwards. 

Oh.  My.  GoodnessGodnessAgnes!!!  My mother is BRILLIANT!!!  Here I thought she was just exhausted from the endless 20 plus year grind of serving evening meals to a family of seven.  But in fact, she just didn’t have any dessert to serve us.  Bee..arr…illiant!!! 

I am sorry I doubted you all these years, Mom.  You are GENIUS. 

More Yellow Meals from now on!  ‘Cept we’re gonna call them Lellow Meals.  Put our own twist on things so we’re not TOTAL copycats.  Lellow.  So cute.

Outta Sight, Outta Mind, Outta Gas

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Hey Mazda.  Just an opportunity for improvement I wanted to mention.  In your world, you might call it a design flaw, but I like to remain upbeat about things.  You know me, funny, pretty, always on the lookout for a chance to make things better – looking for opportunities to improve things, not getting’ mired in the negative…  But this has less to do with me and more to do with the “Empty Gas Tank” notification coming from the dashboard of my husband’s car.

Said notification, being down by my left knee, IS NOT HELPFUL!!!!

I never notice it down there.  Because it’s covered up by my knee.

As a result, when I was driving the kids home from school the other day, the car completely conked out in the middle of an intersection.  I lost the power steering, forward motion, EVERYTHING!  So I had to coast across two lanes of traffic and then do hand-over-hand manual labor to turn down some random side street.  We rolled to a stop while I flipped my funny, pretty, upbeat lid thinking the transmission had bottomed out.  At which point, my 12-year-old daughter leaned over from the front passenger’s seat and announced, “You’re out of gas.”

I am?!?  How did you know that??  HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT???  More importantly, HOW DID I NOT KNOW THAT?!??!!

“Look, right there.  Down by your left knee.  It says you have no gas left.  The car acted the exact same way when Dad ran out of gas.”

Aha!  AHA!!!

So it’s not just me.  It’s others as well.  This has “Current Owner Focus Group” written all over it, Mazda.  I’m happy to participate in that (as is my husband, I’ll sign him up, he loves it when I sign him up for stuff.  Hi, Honey!  Remember that one time when I signed you up for the school field trip nature hike thingie?!  And that girl in your group got some sort of hive-y reaction to nature?!  Gosh, so fun, right??  You’re welcome.).  But for now, we’ll just call this whole thing “customer feedback.”  Your Product Managers will want to build said feedback into your car “futures.” 

And if you need any more ideas, feel free to ping me.  I’m a helper, just a helper.  Doin’ some helpin’.  And even though you act towards my helping the same way my husband acts toward my signing him up for stuff, you don’t fool me.  I know you love it when I help!

Speaking of which, THIS has been helpful, right?  You’re welcome.

Mad Skillz

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Sissy was recently the President of the Netherlands.  She originally applied for the President of Russia – for which her sole qualification (lifted directly from her resume) was “I like cookies.”

Huh?

On the surface, it’s a puzzling and confusing statement which reminds me of that time when Sonny was about three and would randomly, apropos nothing, announce to strangers that he “liked guys.”  This would necessitate us saying into the stunned silence that followed, “He means superhero figures.  He likes superhero figures, which he calls ‘guys’.  In fact, he’s going through a Hawkeye phase right now.  And he’s hoping to get Hawkeye for his birthday.”  You can bet your bippy I stopped saying that anxious, rambling part about Hawkeye when I realized it sounded like HOT GUY which only made the whole situation even more uncomfortable.

Anyway, by way of explanation on the Sissy-front, this job thing is all part of an extra-curricular activity her class participates in.  When she was in 6th grade, it was called Ameritowne* and required her class to run a fictional town in the United States for the day.  Sissy was a fitness trainer for that experience because she wanted to play the Xbox in the “fitness center” where she “worked.”

Now that she’s in 7th grade, the whole program takes on a more international flavor and is called International Towne.*  The students are required to rule the world for a day having first spent weeks of preparation identifying jobs they’d be good at, then developing resumes, interviewing for the jobs and undergoing specialized job “training.”  During the final fieldtrip, they got the chance to put their new skills into practice in a variety of “countries” around the globe, all while wearing the signature hats of their assigned nations.  The chaperones all agreed our dearest wish was that there were no lice in those fun hats.  The students spend the day importing and exporting products, trying not to drive their countries into debt, traveling around “the world” getting their passports stamped, following the laws they created (doing jazz hands every time you walked past Germany was a big hit) and on and on.  In the afternoon, there was even an “international incident” where Latin American lost all its electricity.

Originally, for the International Towne effort, Sissy wanted to be president of Russia because that’s where they make and sell cookies as the “product” which they “export” duh!  Instead, she ended up being President of Netherlands, which was still a great job.  The Netherlands was basically the international police force and Sissy therefore got to be Chief Justice.  She even had an olde tyme curled English barrister wig she could wear to pass her rulings.  Good Lord I hope there were no lice in that wig!  Her winning qualifications for that job, in her own words?  “I like to tell my brother what to do.” 

So…if 6th and 7th graders can get jobs that they love and are good at, why am I having such a tough time finding something that matches my mad skillz?!  And I’ve STOPPED doing that whole shtick where I say “A MILLION DOLLARS!” and bring my pinkie to the corner of my mouth when they ask me my salary requirements.  I said I STOPPED doing that.  That wasn’t getting me anywhere, so it can’t be THAT because I’m not doing that any more.  I stopped.

My conclusion: maybe I’ve been playing the job search game TOO well, trying to be all things to all people.  Hedging my bets and as a result, looking like a jack of all trades, master of none.  Maybe I just need to lay my key strengths on the line??  Just really put them out there and hope for the best?!? 

So here goes:  I like to tell people what to do.  And?  I like cookies.  And?  Hot guys.

There.  Am I hired?!!

 

*As a side note, both Ameritowne and International Towne are PHENOMENAL programs.  They are developed and run by the Young Americans Center in Denver, CO and they give middle school students the opportunity to learn very practical skills which they put into practice in a simulated setting located at the Young Americans Bank.  And yes, the bank is an actual bank where students who want to start their own businesses can get loans.  International Towne is upstairs from the bank and is set up like a bunch of countries from around the globe.  Ameritowne is across the hall from International Towne and is set up like a Main Street, Small Town U.S.A.  In both settings, the kids get paid “salaries” to do “jobs” and they learn how to write checks and use “debit cards” without overdrawing their accounts.  See?  PHENOMENAL!  Snap, snap, snap.  Just want to give snaps where snaps are due.  Also?  We’re pretty sure there are no lice there.  So that’s a plus as well.

Christmas Program

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Well, that’s over – my final gradeschool Christmas Program.  Over.  Is this a rite of passage every mother goes through?  The final thing is done.  The final thing, that, when you first looked upon it, you worried would stretch on ad infinitum and never actually BE done?!?

And all I have to say is that Sonny does NOT tuck in his shirt very well.  How do I know this?  Because he looked fine from the front: black pants, white shirt, belt, red tie.  And then, when he turned to walk up the risers with the rest of the kids, the truth will out and all the non-existent shirt tucking that happens in the back was revealed.  Aha!  His comment about having a “very sensitive back” which was so “sensitive” that I shouldn’t look at it when he walks to his place on stage allllll makes sense now.  Turns out it his back was so sensitive ‘cause the breeze was gettin’ to it courtesy of the untucked shirt!

But apart from the state of untuckedness of my own son, it really was a very good Christmas Concert.  Let’s see…

There were the little first graders (is it my imagination or do first graders get smaller and smaller every new school year?!) playing the bells like a boss.  Or at least like angels.  It was so Heavenly; you couldn’t even tell where the sound was coming from when it started.  And half way through the song you feared it might completely peter out one…bell…at…a…time, but they eventually made it thanks to everyone in the audience holding their breath.  It was a very recognizable “O, Holy Night” which left you with the impression that you had just heard the memory of a song, rather than the song itself.  (Can anyone else hear those bells in my head?!?)

Then we had the requisite Christmas-song-played-on-the-recorder wherein half the kids sounded like they were playing a fun-yet-different Christmas song to different tempo.  Love that.  That’s a crowd pleaser every time. 

Finally, there was that part where a commotion breaks out over what to give Baby Jesus at his birth.  All the good presents have been taken by the Wise Men.  What to give Jesus?  [Panic setting in.] What to give Jesus?!? 

Cue: “The Best Gift Is Me” song, about giving Jesus our hearts at Christmas.  Now picture 200+ sets of little hands gently holding the precious gift of their hearts out to Jesus.  Waaaaaaah!  WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!  <–That was me crying, not the newborn Baby Jesus.

At the very end, when the suspense of “what’s in that BLANKET up on stage?!?” gets to be almost too much, the time comes to lift the newborn Baby Jesus up like the Lion King for all to see.  And?  End scene.  End Christmas Program.  End my spectatorship at Christmas Programs.

Waaaah!  WAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!

I’ll miss those 45 minute increments of Christmas Magic. 

Well, except for that part where the little kid behind me was playing with my hair.  And then pretending he was pulling stuff off and EATING IT!  AND MAKING SMACKING NOISES!!!!  Yeah, no.  I won’t miss that; I’ll miss everything, but that.

Paintball

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Hubby and I went paintballing when we were newlyweds – so something along the lines of 22+ years ago, when the sport of paintball was nascent.  (Whoop, whoop!  Word Wealth in the house!  By show of hands, who had to take Word Wealth with Mrs. Crane freshman year in highschool?!  I see you, L’il Sis.  Anyone else??  Anyone ever accidentally call Mrs. Crane “Sister” because they were fresh off of 8 years of Catholic Grade School where they were taught by nuns?  Awkward, especially since Mrs. Crane was Jewish.  Now I don’t see ANY hands raised, so we’ll move on.) 

What I mostly remember about this olde tyme paintball were the hematomas and the ticks.  But that was at the height of summer in Central Pennsylvania.  So THIS time around?  December in Colorado??  Hey, it was a Groupon so SHUT IT!  This time around I expected fewer ticks…and surely fewer hematomas.

And I was right!  Well…partially.  No ticks at all. 

But with advances in paintball and gun technology, you can now get even MORE hematomas, all at the speed of sound, via rapid fire.  You can get hit in all your limbs simultaneously and the bruises will already be bloomin’ before you even HEAR that you got hit.  Once you hear about it though, you alert everyone to the fact by throwing your hands up and shouting “I’m out!” all while sucking in big whoops of air like you just racked yourself on a boy’s ten speed bike.

And while I never actually cried, (I wanted to, so desperately, especially after Sissy snipered me in the knee at close range – that sonnofagun HURT! – see pic of damage) I did see Sissy with super glittery eyes at one point.  The particular round in question was over and she was standing there bravely, looking like an egg had gotten cracked into her hair part.  I think that stoicism on her part bumped her up about a dozen notches in the eyes of the random paintball dudes we were playing.

[As a side note, these dudes were NICE!  Just really nice guys with high-tech air rifles willing to share the field with a bunch of paintball novices.  And when I say “novice” I mean we were completely awful.  No strategy, but a lot of yelling and running and immediately getting “out.”  And while I’m glad we spent the time with these guys, for some reason, when I pictured who we would be fighting against/with on the plains of Colorado, I envisioned more Russian paratroopers and highschool kids yelling, “Wolverines!”]

Then Sissy got raised even more notches when she and Sonny got into a standoff.  Sonny has been waiting his ENTIRE life to say the words, “Surrender or die,” to someone, so he was all ears during Surrender Protocol review at “bootcamp training.”  He was about 5 feet from Sissy, they were on opposite sides of a bunker, and he yells out, “Surrender or DIE!”  Up pops Sissy and beans him point-blank in the chest.  Uhhhhh…I guess that’s a “none of the above” on the surrender or die question, but thanks for asking.

There may have been tears at that point.  Not Sissy, Sonny.  Yes, tears because he was hurt, but also because his one moment of glory so quickly evaporated in such a surprising way.  And for SURE there was a hematoma.  When we asked him afterwards if he still wanted to have his birthday party there, he said, “No.  Can you imagine what a really bad party that would be?  With a whole bunch of kids crying all over the place?!”

Good point.  That IS a bad party.  Paintball would be so much more fun without the crying…and the hematomas.  I’ll wait another 20 years before I go back.  Maybe they’ll have improved it by then.    

Goin’ to a Poh-Poh

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Was at the POH yesterday.  You know the POH?  It’s where you can mail packages and get stamps.  It’s spelled P.O. but pronounced POH.  Used in a sentence: Going to a POH-POH* today to witness a bloody headwound, do you need anything while I’m there – boxes or packing tape??

Because that’s exactly what happened yesterday.  Bloody headwound all over the front mat of the POH so that you couldn’t get in EITHER of the glass doors without getting bloody headwound all over your shoes.

I saw the ambulance and the firetruck completely blocking the parking lot entrance when I got there – and thus parked across the street and walked over to the POH.  (But I do have to mention that I love those ingenious folks whose cars are stacking up in the street waiting, waiting for the firetruck and ambulance to – er – GO already so they can park.  Love those folks.)

And so while I didn’t actually witness the bloody headwound in progress, I knew about it because…well, aside from the literal POOL of blood on the door mat…a woman walking behind me was talking to the ambulance-guy-who-had-just-closed-the-back-doors-of-his-vehicle, “Oh no!  Did she fall and hit her head?!  I hope she’s ok.”

Yes, I hope she’s ok too.  Also?  This pool of bright red stuff here on the entrance mat?  That can’t be sanitary.  Can we get a cleanup in Aisle Three??

At which point a disgruntled worker comes out with a mop and bucket that clearly came straight from its standing location in the men’s bathroom.  I don’t blame her one bit for her disgruntlement because the uniform pants ARE unflattering.  And then there’s the matter of “other duties as assigned” which include mopping up bloody headwounds.

So now we’re stacked up three deep trying to figure out how to get in the door without overly exposing our shoes to bloody headwound, when a firefighter comes up and picks up a stack of “used” napkins off the ground.  Without gloves.

Then he proceeds to offer to “wash” the mat off for disgruntled worker; She promptly accepted (surprise, surprise).  So instead of being forced to do a graceful gazelle HOP! like others in line for the POH, I wait until the bloody mat is removed and do more of a giant leap forward for mankind.

As I’m coming out of the POH, I see water running into the gutter on the other side of the parking lot, and the firefighter (still no gloves, disgruntled worker still no gloves) plopping the soaking mat back down in front of the building, which was then further swiped at disheartedly by disgruntled worker and her dirty bathroom water. 

Uhhh….ok, back when I worked in a leather tanning factory (I’ll just let that one sit for a while) I was required to attend the world-renowned DuPont Safety Training Observation Program (or STOP for short, nifty no?) and I happen to know that NONE of this should be happening.  This is completely against all protocol.  Further, washing someone’s blood down a public gutter??  Gaaack!!! 

And this is exactly why your mother is always telling you NOT to put your purse in the gutter and then put it on the kitchen table.  The bottom of that purse could be FULL of who-knows-what. 

*And yes, I could have made “an 80’s song for every moment in life” play here with “Going to a Go-Go,” that Miracles song which was covered by The Rolling Stones on their 1982 album Still Life.  But I won’t, because I thought we agreed we’d lay off with that game until you got better at it.  Way better. 

Shadowchaser

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Nothing wraps up a long Thanksgiving Weekend better than a bad movie from the ‘90’s.  For this purpose I recommend Project: Shadowchaser.  (Please note that I’m NOT referring to Shadowchaser II.  That’s the sequel to Shadowchaser.  I have never seen Shadowchaser II, nor will I, because I already saw Shadowchaser, the original project.  And that’s enough Shadowchaser for one lifetime.)

And while this movie isn’t as good for quoting awful quotes twenty + years on the way Steven Seagal’s Hard to Kill is…and you can take THAT to the bank, the blood bank…it does still have all the makings of awful, really just terrible, cinematics.

Firstly, there’s an android.  Named Romulus.  You can tell The Romster is an android because they gave him white blond eyebrows and matching white blond hair à la Billy Idol.  They also apparently gave him plenty of steroids.  (Romulus, not Billy.)

RommyRom* takes over a hospital where the president’s daughter has been coincidentally admitted for food poisoning.  WHAT a weird coincidence!   

Enter our intrepid hero, who is rumored-to-be-the-hospital’s-architect-who-died-and-then-needed-to-be-thawed-out-from-his-cryogenically-preserved state so he could share the floor plans of the food poisoning ward.  This is fun, right?

Hubby claims he recognized the intrepid hero as the bad guy from the Karate Kid movies.  I?  Didn’t recognize any of the play-ahs.  Although at one point I thought I spotted Sean Penn’s heavyset brother.  But then he got the ol’ defibrillator paddle treatment to his face, so I couldn’t be sure after that.

Anyway, the hero (who looked like McGuyver’s feathered hair married Gordon Ramsey’s Yorkshire ruffian nose) rescues the president’s daughter who is inexplicably dressed in a karate gi the first time he meets her.  Not knowing who he is, she tries to take him down with some awesome karate moves.  Or maybe she DID know who he was, and knew he was from The Karate Kid, and was trying to impress him and therefore get more amazing movie roles?   Eventually they get it all sorted out whereupon she changes into an evening gown which is much better suited for running around the hospital avoiding androids. 

They then spend the rest of the movie scrambling through the HVAC system and down dark elevator shafts shooting spark guns at the bad guys, who shoot spark guns back.  You know spark guns, they don’t shoot bullets, they just shoot sparks. Which are way better in terms of special effects than real guns ever could be.  Unless you’re the one bald guy wearing glasses in the whole movie.  In which case you’re the only one who gets shot at by a real gun.  And killed.  But only after you pop back up and get killed again, but for real this time.

I’m not really sure how it all ends; I fell asleep.  I do know that the hero gets a blood trickle in the corner of his mouth which Hubby thought looked like an unsightly cold sore.  But other than the cold sore, I’m assuming everyone gets out ok.  There is a Shadowchaser II after all.  Maybe that just means Romulus gets out ok.  The truth of the matter is that I was kindof dozing during the entire movie until I fell asleep, so excuse me if I got any of this wrong.  If you do want more details, please go to Wikipedia.  There’s a great write-up: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowchaser.

*I was gonna tell you that in the movie, Romulus is under the control of terrorists.  But then I thought better of it.  Because the mention of “terrorists” and “guns” and “president’s daughter” all in one blog post seemed like it might be accidentally misconstrued as “internet chatter” and could therefore bring the CIA down on me at any minute – which all seemed like a bad idea, so I decided not to tell you who was controlling Romulus.  But now I really do have to go.  Someone’s at the door.

Of Halos and Halos

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I was in Sprouts Monday getting all the produce in the world for $7.26.  It’s the best shopping experience on the planet; I highly recommend it.  I mean, you can get a grocery cart FULL of fruits and veggies for next to nothing.  Boo-ya!

Anyway, I’m checking out and my cashier has absolutely no hair.  I’m not being judge-y.  I’m just noting that clearly there seemed to be some physical hardship she recently experienced that caused her hair loss.

But she had the sunniest eyes and she was chatting away about Thanksgiving.  Was I ready?  Were we having anyone over??

I told her it would be a pretty quiet one for us this year but that I was actually looking forward to it.  She said it would be a quiet one for her too.  Her disabled, non-verbal brother unexpectedly passed away last month and he loved the holidays.  He lived with their mother who’s taken his passing really hard.  Now…in the wake of that loss…her mother doesn’t feel up to celebrating the holidays. 

But they’re doing Thanksgiving dinner anyway.  And setting up a Christmas tree at her mom’s house while they’re at it.  Her brother would have wanted them to continue all of the traditions; he would be disappointed if they didn’t.  He loved, loved, loved everything about Thanksgiving and Christmas.  But the turkey is too much, so they’re having pot-roast.

My inadequate, “I’m sorry for your loss,” is lost in her enthusiasm as she shows me the word “Christmas Tree” using her brother’s sign for it.  She holds her left arm out horizontally, then rests the elbow of her right arm on top, so that her right hand is pointing to the sky.  Then she joyfully wiggles the fingers of that hand to represent the lights.  It conveys “Christmas Tree” perfectly.

All I can think at this point is: I am completely going to start crying here in the checkout line.  All I originally came in here for were those new Halo clementines on sale for $1.98.  But what I GOT?  Was a whole lot more: An example of courage and hope in the wake of true physical and emotional devastation.  Perspective on what’s important.  And a reminder to be thankful for the blessings in my life, because they may just be on loan and not mine to keep forever. 

While I had to pay for the fruit, that whole other angel-in-disguise bit was free; no charge.  I TOLD you it was the best shopping experience on the planet.  Go to Sprouts now.  And look for that cashier.  Ask her to show you her brother’s sign for Happy Thanksgiving. 

And if you can’t do that on such short notice, then I’ll tell you.  I think he’d want you to know.  He loved the holidays, after all. 

You grab your wattle you know you have one, and please don’t bring the group down with comments on how surprised you are because it got so big allofasudden, and make appropriate gobbling movements with your mouth, which might have to include your tongue.  Have a big smile on your face, like you’re lovin’ every minute of it. 

See?  It conveys “Happy Thanksgiving” perfectly.

Not a Total Loss

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You ever have that car?  That car with all the bodily fluid stories?!? 

Ewww…that’s grody!  Why would you even bring that up??  And no, the term “grody” never goes out of style.  And no, don’t even look at ME like that.  You’re the one who brought up the whole bodily fluids thing.

I?  I was simply gonna mention about that car…the car that’s your very first brand spankin’ new car.  The one you still remember fondly.  The car that got you through thick and thin and was like a member of the family.  You ever have one of those?  I did.  I still do.  It’s going on thirteen years old now and was recently declared a total loss by the insurance company as a result of hail storm damage. 

When I got the news, my heart squeezed up.  My car?  A total LOSS?!?  But this car is FILLED to the brim with memories; It can’t be a TOTAL loss!  Admittedly, it’s no longer brand new and sure as heck isn’t spankin’ anything these days, but this was the car we brought a new baby home from the hospital in and then it subsequently held all of the different types of car seats for growing bodies the world has ever seen – until we got beyond car seats and those once-tiny bodies now sit in the front seat and fiddle with the radio. 

My daughter said her first sentence in this car!  (“Doo dees, doo dees,” all while waving her hand reverse-style like the Queen of England in the general direction of the drop-down video screen.  Turns out she was saying, “Do this.  Do this.” while trying to get us to put in a Baby Einstein video for the car ride to daycare.  We just couldn’t figure it out for a full two weeks because of her Latvian accent.) 

All the lost teeth that car has seen!  All the bloody noses.  All the triumphant sports replays discussed with teammates over Slurpees in the back seat.  Until the red Slurpees got spilled everywhere and certain people banned Slurpees in the back seat. 

It even kept us warm and dry during that weird have-to-pee-in-a-bottle-every-time-we’re-in-the-car phase some folks in the family went through. 

And speaking of warm and dry…there were all those rainstorms, even that one tornado, tons of snowstorms that we came safely through because of this car.  In fact, I remember one time driving home in a snowstorm from the Colorado Mountains; the visibility was about as far as my windshield wipers.  As a result I ended up driving down the middle of two lanes because I couldn’t see the lane markers or anything else.  I was also hyperventilating because I don’t usually drive in the mountains in the snow because it makes me hyperventilate.  Hubby had come up separately in his car from a business trip, so he was driving his car home while I was driving my car.  And hyperventilating.  (Did I already mention about the hyperventilating?  Seems like I did.  But it’s important to mention.)

I had a sorority sister visiting and she was co-pilot.  Sonny and Sissy were in the back seat.  Sonny had spent the whole glamorous Mountain Week-end puking ON Sissy.  So it came as no surprise that during this night ride home in the snowstorm when the death plummet off the side of the mountain was a very real thing, Sissy developed the throwing up sickness.  To which I say: thank the Good Lord for sorority sisters willing to man airsick bags which look remarkably like Ziploc freezer bags, gallon-sized.  And thank the Good Lord as well, for cars that keep these very same bags in stock for just such an occasion.

It was a good car.  It was also a good bag – one my sorority sister even tried to hold on to, filled with upchuck and zipped up tight, the whole time reiterating its “good bag” status and how we should “keep it” in case we needed it again.  NO!!  GET RID OF IT!!!  Which she eventually did, flinging it out the window where it was promptly caught by an updraft and spun off into the night.

With all that in mind, you can understand why I experienced such great relief when I found out that if I was willing to take a slightly smaller Total Loss check from the insurance company, I could KEEP the car.  (Which is what I ended up doing because A. I had no other car to drive and B. I of course wanted all those fun memories to live on – that Ziploc Puke Frisbee story is a total gas, isn’t it?!)

Yay!  Nuthin’ embarrassing about a car full of memories, a big red “Totaled” stamp on your title and money in the bank. 

Huh.  But now that I think about it, you know what’s weird about all those car memories?!  They DO involve an awful lot of bodily fluids, after all. 

Hey, Honda!  This has got “commercial” written all over it, don’t you think?!?  There appears to be a market for bodily fluid stories pertaining to your Odyssey minivan line.  So call me.  We need to talk. 

Ziploc, you too. 

Do Si Do and Split Your Pants Left

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Sonny split his pants in school last week.  While square dancing during music class.

Now I’ve been square dancing a time or two.  And unless they’ve improved it greatly in recent years, I don’t remember ANY opportunity that presents itself DURING square dancing that would require pants splitting.

In fact, during freshmen year in highschool, I took a gym class pertaining to various forms of public dancing and there was not one single, solitary pants splitting incident.  There was waltzing, the jitterbug, even the hustle…and yes, square dancing.  But nope, no pants splitting. 

And this DOES sound like the worst gym class in the history of the world, doesn’t it?  How ‘bout now, when I tell you that sometimes the gym teacher would turn the thumbscrews at the beginning of the class by calling out, “Ladies’ Choice!”  That’s when the girls had to ask the boys to partner them instead of the other way around.  BARF!  I would always rush over to a guy from my typing class to snap him up before anyone else could.  And not because I had a crush on him or anything (even though his hair WAS feathered), but because he was one of the only guys who was TALLER than I was freshman year.  My kids feel sorry for me when I tell this story because I apparently went to school with a bunch of shrimpy dudes.  (Their words, not mine.)

And you caught that part about the guy being from my TYPING class, right?  Yep.  That’s right: TYPING CLASS.  This makes the whole story even worse in my kids’ eyes, “What kind of a stupid class is that?  Couldn’t you have taken TECH class?  Or COMPUTER class?!?”  No.  No I couldn’t have.  Because those classes didn’t exist.  Only ballroom dancing and typing class existed when I was a freshman in highschool.

So NOW you would be correct and completely accurate if you have formed the impression that I should win an award for Worst Gym Class Story.  A bunch of highschool freshman, awkward enough as it is, then being required to move their arms and legs in synchronicity to a beat?!  Step, 2, 3, 4 STEP, 2, 3, 4.  In front of each other in a brightly lit gymnasium at 9 in the morning??!  Awful.  Especially when you consider that the guys were, for the most part, a bunch of tiny fellers, their heads coming up to my chin.  Hey!  Eyes up here!!  Lurching around on the dance floor, completely disconnected from their feet, which frequently stepped on MY feet.  EYES.  UP.  HERE!  And sometimes?  I had to go all Sadie Hawkins on them and rush around ASKING them for the privilege of stepping on my feet.  AWwwwwwwwFUL!  But I got an ‘A’ anyway.

So when Sonny came home on Friday with the whole ripped-my-pants-square-dancing-and-had-to-go-to-the-office-for-more-pants thing, having had my OWN horrific public dancing experience in school, I was completely prepared to sympathize and empathize with how horrible the situation must have been.

I asked him what happened, how on EARTH he could have split his pants square dancing?!  He replied, “I was dancing by myself doing a grand finale splits move at the end.  And then my pants split.”

Hmmm…this explains EVERYTHING.  Why you were dancing alone; why your pants split; and why I don’t feel sorry for you afterall.  I empathize with the music teacher instead.  And you deserve whatever grade you get in her class.  Now go change your pants.