Tag Archives: Mary-Louise Parker

Hand Jive

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We’ve already discussed how that one softball mom thinks I look like Mary-Louise Parker, which I find absolutely mind-boggling.

But then just recently?  Recently I was poolside at the country club where I met the husband of a tennis teammate who told me I look like that actress…

At which point I chimed in with “Mary-Louise Parker!  You wanna buy some weed?!  Har, har, har, harrr!!”

Turns out the guy I was talking to was campaigning for State Senate at the time.  And he was looking at me warily, like I might be on the verge of producing some paparazzi to take our picture in front of a Pot R’ Us step and repeat.  So he had to get ready to…run.  Quick like.

After an awkward pause where he’s scooting back a foot or two to a safer location in case the cameras start snapping, and I’m trying to explain about “this softball mom I know,”  he begins again with, “You look like that actress…whatshername?  Stockard Channing.”

For a bizarre, heart-stopping moment, I thought he meant CHANNING TATUM and was horrified.  Yet oddly flattered.  I guess if I’m being offered young, buff dude lookalike, then I’ll TAKE young, buff dude lookalike.

But then I realize I’m being offered Rizzo, the leader of the Pink Ladies who’s a good twenty-five years older than I am in real life; not to mention a smoking, drinking, swearing toughie with a “reputation.”

Uhhh…gee, thanks.  Somehow?  Selling weed to Magic Mike seems a little more appealing.

But, coincidentally, in highschool I was actually IN “Grease.”  This is how I know alllll about Rizzo.  Of course I was in the total cringeworthy highschool play version of “Grease”; not the made-for-the-silver-screen version with big name stars like Stockard Channing.

I played Cha-Cha DiGregorio.  They call me Cha-Cha ‘cause I’m the best dancer at St. Bernadette’s.  I was the one who went to the prom with Kenickie, but when Rizzo stole him away from me, I ended up partnering with John Travolta and we won the Hand Jive dance contest.  Yay!

But you know what all of that means, don’t you?  It means I know me some Hand Jive, Baby!

So while I may NOT have been born to sell weed, or be an actress.  Or even be a buff dude.  I was…BORN TO HAND JIVE BABY!  Slap, slap, clap, clap, over, over, under, under, fist thump, fist thump, thumb back, thumb back.  Born to hand jive, BABY! [big finale] BOOOOORN TO HAND JIVE, BAAABBY!!! 

WhadoIwin?!?

Take me out to the softball game!

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Oh, goodygoodygoody!  It’s softball season time again!!

Yippee! 

I can’t get enough of dramatic enactments performed by 6th grade girls, so that’s where my daughter’s softball team comes in; It’s the perfect forum in which to get my fill.  Yay, softball!!  Also?  There’s mucho, mucho accidental hi-jinx, so there’s that as well.  Good times all the way around.

But first?  A word to the wise: eye black runs.  So if you think you’re intimidating your opponent by wearing eyeblack, then don’t start crying halfway through the game, because then you just look like a sweaty clown wearing really bad mascara.

And I KNOW that they’re only 11-and-12-year-olds trying to find themselves, but most of these lil’ cuties (did you know that they have a pony-tail “channel” built inside the hot pink batting helmets?  Love it!) could win BIG awards if they ever went into acting.

Consider this one-girl-play performed at the last softball tournament I witnessed.  A girl on the opposing team was bustin’ to first base, when the ball that she JUST BATTED hit her in the leg.  Or it could have been an accidental underthrow from the catcher.  Who’s to say, really?  Because that’s the nature of The Three Stooges, Softball Version.  The girl goes DOWN like she just stepped on a landmine.  Then she starts marine crawling to first base, all the while dragging her lifeless legs behind her.  I’m comin’, Sarge.  I’m gonna make it! 

Uh.  Ok.  But you’re still out.  Because while you were doing Full Metal Jacket Saves Private Ryan, the first baseman who happens to be my daughter, picked up the ball and tagged you, then tagged the base, then walked back and tagged you again for good measure.  So thanks for playing.

And let’s not forget the part of the softball shenanigans where one of the other mothers on the softball team confided to me years ago – when that Showtime series, Weeds, was still airing – that she thought I looked just like the lead actress.  (The lead actress is Mary-Louise Parker.  And yes, I look JUST like her…if you live in BIZARRO WORLD!!) 

Anyway, in the show, Ms. Parker is a pot dealer.  [This is more of a viable career opportunity than one might think, especially here in Colorado.  But I’m not one.  And that’s really where my resemblance to Mary-Louise ends – she’s got a high-paying job any way you slice it, I don’t.  THANKS FOR BRINGING IT UP!  Stink eye, stink eye.] 

But naturally, every time I see this other mother, I have to offer to sell her pot.  Then we laugh uproariously while the other mothers look at us aghast.  But also like they might want to buy some.  Right now.  Before the next game starts.  Now!  IT’S STARTING!!!  SELL. ME. THE POT…NOW!!!!! 

Awwww, softball!  What’s not to love?!?