Listen To Your Mother Milwaukee 2014 Videos Are Here!

It's just like the holidays. When the Listen To Your Mother Show videos go live, my internet goes wild. Everyone, cast and producers, are sharing. This year, LTYM had 32 shows in 32 cities. Our videos are ready for viewing on our channel, Listen To Your MotherYoutube Channel.

I had the joy of sharing a story again this year in our Milwaukee show. Giving you a feel of life, when your grandmother considers modern medicine, a far cry from anything to be taken seriously.

My piece, "The Medical College of Abuela."

More Like How To Get Yourself Arrested

The weather here in Wisconsin has been true to the fall spirit; rainy, drizzly, overcast -- in short, perfect weather for hanging around in book stores.

Yesterday, littlest and I headed out to our local book store to find something funny yet clever, simple yet complex, relevant yet random, to read. We stuck side by side as we ran our fingers along the titled book spines on the shelves, since he's a lot like me, reads with his fingers.

Not finding anything that grabbed us a must have it!, we decided to find some fun writing journals instead. I used to call them diaries, he calls them journals. The aloof must've-been-a-cat once store employee pointed us with one finger to the left side of the store, without even looking up -- also correcting us as to the *diary for her/journals for him* now being called "chronicles."

We were like kids in a candy store with the chronicle cover choices, turquoise, monster faces, tie dye, a Darth Vader patent black.

And way on a top shelf, but not so high up we'd miss them, something I had never seen before. Self help "chronicles." I've bought plenty o' self help books, that's for sure. And I have just as many diary/journal/chronicles hidden away under my bed -- but the combination of both together made it impossible for me to resist pulling a simple flower covered one down.

"Oh, look, Auggie. It's a journal and it's full of ideas on how to be better. It's called A Deed a Day, with pages for you to write about how you did it."

"Better at what. Let me see." My youngest examines the inside and outside and says, "Better at what? It doesn't tell you."

"Better at being alive. Like a better person; kinder and not grumpy. Or maybe learning something new or trying to be brave. You 2.0," I explain while thumbing through the pages.

"Look, like this one," I say and begin reading out loud, "Bake some cookies for a new friend. You don't know them yet, but you will after today." "See," I tell him, "here they tell you to make a friend."

"Yeah, mom, but would you? Would you really? Cookies for a stranger and then take them to them?"

"Probably not. But what about this? Write a letter to someone you want to meet, tell them why you like them."

"I'm not writing letters to strangers telling them I like them, and then ask them to meet me. And I know Dad wouldn't be happy if you did that. You already don't have enough friends as it is."

"You're right. Well, here, listen to this one -- Go for a walk and give yourself a pep talk. Be good and loud and make sure you hear yourself."

"See? Now that's another crazy one. Do they want you to punch the air while you're shouting, too? Give me that, mom, I'll find something. Ha! Found one that you CAN'T do: Don't spend money today. This book is nuts, mom, just look at the last thing they want you to do." He hands the book over.

I read, "Tell a stranger her child is beautiful."

"See, mom? They want you to do all these things to strangers. This book's title is all wrong, A Deed a Day, more like How To Get Yourself Arrested.

Thanks for saving your mom today, little boy. I'm left home all alone with hours before me, and the road to prison was almost paved with a $5.99 paperback of good intentions.

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What Happened To The Meat??

I am relieved I figured it out. I was getting scared it was me.

I thought I had it for sure.

I would get in the car and look at the dashboard to see a big E for empty, and ask myself, But ... didn't I just fill the tank?

When I would open the pots and pans drawer in the kitchen, there would be my set of white measuring cups. They belonged with baking items. But what's worse, the cups were not just in there, but DUMPED in there, scattered as if someone snuck into my house and stuck a gun in my back while I was in the middle of putting away the dishes. Either that or I had lost consciousness mid-chore.

Hunting around for juice glasses suddenly became a daily part of my life. Are they here? Did I leave them in the bathroom? I always put them by the larger tumblers, but where are they now? And why aren't they where I put them in with the other glasses?

I am losing my mind.

I open kitchen cabinets and say to my kids, begging for an explanation, "I put the can opener in with the pot holders? Why?"

And then I remember whose turn it was that day to put away the dishes.

Whose turn it was to fill the gas tank.

Who shoves things in drawers then slams it boom shut quick.

My teens.

When my teens empty the dishwasher, it's like watching the loudest silent "I don't give a s**t" in action. They stash things away in places that later make me feel like I'm living with early onset dementia. My kids frighten me, they make me worry about myself. Is it me doing things that bring me to question my faculties?

Like tonight, when I made meatloaf. My kids love my meatloaf, that's why I make it. Let me give you this freebie since you're already reading this anyway -- I use apricot jam. That's the secret to meatloaf loving kids. Jam magically holds the ground meat together and gives the baked loaf a sweet irresistible aftertaste. You're welcome.

I make this often-requested dinner entrée in double batches. It takes its sweet time (sorry can't help myself) early in the afternoon because I know the kids will walk in the back door crazy starved with hunger after their two hour swim practice. At 3:00 pm I pop the meatloaf in for an hour. I set the timer, run and get my one non-teenager to bring home from school, then pull out the meatloaf at 4:00 pm and set it atop the stove to let the apricot jam juices circulate and render the meat juicy and sweet. By 5:00, it has settled in and re-absorbed the jam and when the teens bring down the back door and they smell heaven in the oven, there is no future life partner for them that can compete. It will be TeamMama forever.

The only thing left to do is let the barbeque sauce simmer on the stove while I start some laundry and keep one ear open for them. But when I walk back into the kitchen to check on the special sauce, there is no meatloaf cooling on top of the stove.

And my alarm begins again. The inner dialogue of confused self questioning, Didn't I just make a double batch of meatloaf? I know I made a double batch of meatloaf. I could have sworn I did the recipe x two.

What happened to the meatloaf???

What happened, is this: My boys had come home earlier than expected and swooped in and ravaged the meat they saw on the stove. I was sorting and folding sorting and folding, the washer and dryer noisily running in the background, and both kids grabbed tablespoons and said Don't Mind if I Do and had at it with the browned and glazed brick slab of goodness.

Never mind the butter and garlic smothered potatoes, mom.
Forget the crisp green salad with cherry tomatoes from today's market.
Just a fistful of meat is all we need.

And with that, the meat was gone. Since I had made their ears bleed with years of DISHES IN THE SINK, that's where they had put their "dishes" aka the two loaf pans. Meat? Maybe once upon a time, but to my eyes, I saw no trace of what I had just spent two hours preparing. At least, I think I did.

Have I lost my mind? Do I have to make an appointment with my mother's neurologist? Didn't I make meat for tonight?

Where is the meat???

Before you begin your own down on your hands and knees APB alert for missing items and misplaced coffee mugs - and meatloaf - ask yourself: Are there teenagers in your house?

I hope, for your sake, the answer to all your mystically placed and combobulated items, is a much relief filled sigh of *yes.*

And if you need me to commiserate, I'll be here. Down on the kitchen floor, where I came to get cutting boards and instead found forks and spoons jammed in between and wondering what in Sam Hill would make me cram silverware where the cutting boards go.

I swear I put them in the silverware drawer where they belong. Didn't I? 

* * *

The Grim Reaper Finally Got Him

I assure you, our guy did not look this good

I've tweeted about our scraggly bedraggled blue betta fish for over two hundred years now.

Made jokes about building him a tiny little fish wheelchair. Poking fun at the way he'd lay half on his side, half upright, he'd appear asleep or dead, both looking the same.

I'd harass him at dinner and bring him over in his fish bowl over to watch me filet whitefish.

I was so wrong -- but I only did it because I knew he'd last forever.

Why? Because three or four years ago while downstairs one day, probably again fileting whitefish, I heard my three boys upstairs shouting for me. "Mom! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!"

Slapping the boning knife down on the plastic cutting board, I leaped the stairs two at a time. I ran into the boys' bathroom where GoldFish Massacre III was now playing, in technicolor. Seems the separating mesh screen that kept our two pet betta fish apart had fallen to the side.The reason for the screen is the aggressive nature of the betta fish breed. My children stood, wild eyed, fingers in their mouths, as red betta fish was now pulling off scales one by one from blue betta fish. The fin brothers were going at it.

Have you ever seen betta fight? I'll tell you this, they're known as Siamese Fighting Fish for a reason.

It's nasty, dude. We had to painfully watch them circle one another while they took sneaky nips at each other and yanked each others' fins off. They moved, darting so fast, I just couldn't get them off of each other fast enough.

Amid my children's horrified screams, I hurried to remove at least one of them from the bowl, but with all the float like a butterfly sting like a bee Muhammad Ali stabbing and jabbing going on, it felt like forever trying to pull them to safety. The brawl was only seconds, but it was enough for our little blue guy to feel the brunt of it. From what was left of BlueFish, clearly, RedFish was winning. I frantically fished them both out (ha!) and kept them permanently separated after that. All I could think was how here we had moved to the suburbs, and my kids somehow end up with ringside seats to a Mexican cockfight.

While Mr. BlueFish did not emerge victorious, he did emerge with his life, albeit one fin shorter. Barely surviving his war torn state, we were sure we'd be playing taps for him before the sun came up to greet the day.

Well, if 7 a.m. the next morning didn't have us sounding like Gomer Pyle because, Sergeant Carter? Surprise. Surprise. Surprise. BlueFish was Christmas Miracle healed! And it was RedFish that had put his weary head down, never to Siamese fight again.

BlueFish had lived.

That was three years ago. Mr. BlueFish kept going, and we kept feeding him; me occasionally changing his water (though admittedly, I could've been more conscientious). Every day he'd call up his Siamese warrior genetic coding and play his game of "Ha! Try and catch me won't you, Grim Reaper!" We'd walk past and bend over his little bowl, whispering little fishy words of encouragement like "hang in there." I kept him on his toes by taunting him with translucent whitefish filets waved before him. There'd be weekly family updates on BlueFish.

That fish is the longest fish we've ever had alive, Mom.

I know. I don't know how he keeps going. Every time I look at him, I think he's dead.

Or depressed. Depressed or dead. That can look the same. (*thanks worldly wise 10 year old.)

Our family kept watch as BlueFish fought the good fight, heroically working his one remaining fin, it serving him like a broken oar to swim circles in his little environs. He became my cooking buddy, keeping me company in the kitchen as he sat in his bowl right next to the sink.

All plodded along well, until late Sunday night. I went to sprinkle in his black poppy seed-like shrimp krill just as I had done every evening for the past 877 nights and gasp! ... no need.

At the bottom of his round home, amid the blue and black speckled gravel, lay a lifeless glinting sliver of flesh. I gently shook the bowl, though I had a sinking feeling there'd be no movement other than his limp body in the resultant waves. Nothing, not even a pathetic attempt at a one-finned last wave good-bye to us. BlueFish had gone to a better place, one with cleaner water, where those without two working fins can swim. In a straight line.

We miss you, BlueFish. Now who am I going to wave this whitefish filet in front of?

**We miss you, little guy -- you were a scrapper. And will live on forever in what is now our family's rally call when times get tough, "What are you?! BlueFish or RedFish?!"

* * *

photo credit: Cherrie 美桜 via photopin cc

Death By Skeleton Key

The Funniest Women on the Planet

Some kids are fine left alone for a few minutes. They occupy themselves and you can go do what needs to get done.

Yeah. I wasn't one of those.

I tell you about the plight that befalls the unattended, in my monthly column, Memoirs of My America , featured today at FunnynotSlutty . Posting of my childhood misadventures -- about the days of figuring out life in America as a kid from another country -- is something I look forward to each month at FunnynotSlutty.

I hope you stop over and read my tale today, of The Unattended, and maybe you have a child like this? One who should never be left unsupervised.

*I've been blessed with a mini-me: my third boy who goes by the name of Auggie.

Bite Me on FnS

It's Bite Me Theme Time at FunnynotSlutty: the internet's premiere website for bringing some of the funniest women on the internet all together in one place.

This month, FunnynotSlutty is celebrating "Bite Me: Funny Food and Cooking Stories."

I've got a good one over there. On what happens when you're raised by a fancy lady who really finds time behind the stove less than thrilling.

Don't worry, nothing a few grown-up hours of eating Twinkies and Arby's and Rocky Rococo's didn't cure.

Hope to see you here.

The Grunting You Hear Is A Dead Giveaway

I don't even notice that I do it. I can't hear a thing. But I'm told it goes on.

As I plopped my fat butt down onto the footstool after work today, my body making contact with the cushioned leather seat, I let out a big oooophtah.

Taking a deep breath in, I bent over to remove my rain boots, I'm told I accompanied that movement with a sound reminiscent of a Russian weight lifter. Struggling to pull my snug boots off, I let out a strained aaaayyngyaaah sound, as the boots finally gave way and my strangled feet were set free. The relief was so sweet from the eight spent in vise-grip crampedness that I couldn't help but let out an appreciative sigh reserved for a more private room.

Stretched out against the brown leather chair, I finally relaxed after being gone from home all day. I let the air out of my body like a slowly deflating balloon. Audibly. And my children had to let me know about it:

Mom. You can tell you're getting old because you make a noise every time you do something, just like old people do. You sound like a dead person trying to get up.

What? I do not.

Yes, Mom. You do.

And with the snap of a finger, my three angels descended upon me like jackals surrounding a fresh kill. They continued:

It's like you have to announce every move you make, Mom. Pulling off your shoes, hanging up your coat, unloading the dishwasher, making the beds, carrying the laundry upstairs. It's ALL THE TIME, Mom.

Really? I announce everything every time I do something? And this bothers you? All of you? 

It drives us nuts. You're old.

How much does it get on your nerves? I mean, does it get on your nerves so much you'd give anything to not hear it?

Mom. Seriously. Have you ever heard yourself parallel park?

Hm. Well, then, seems to me this is all easily fixed. If I make annoying sounds with every buttload of work I do around here, how about YOU all empty the dishwasher, make the beds, carry the laundry, take off my shoes ... Voila. No more grunts and groans from your gramma mama.

::crickets::

What I thought. Now, if you all will excuse me. I've got to get up off this chair and start some dinner ... nnnnnnyyghaaa ... one of you boys help me up, will you?

Photo cc

But It's Not A Gun

Boys.

Guns.

Toys.

And my collective 17 years experience with this.

No boys? Come read what it's like.

Then send me flowers.

My post up today, at Aiming Low, How to call it a gun when mom says no guns.

Hope to see you there.

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**HEY! Have you all met Lynn from AllFookedUp ? She writes a blog where there is never a dull moment. She also features funny bloggers on her Thursday series, Go Ahead, Amuse me. She invited me to guest post there, and my post is up today, where I talk about striking out with my pick up lines at the mom's meat market: the park. Stop on over and get to know Lynn, and email her your own funny post to be featured on her Go Ahead, Amuse Me Thursday series.

Oomancy

What do Colombians do for New Year's Eve?

Well, you know it wouldn't be something as tame as wearing plastic hats and blowing confetti filled horns.

Stop on over to FunnynotSlutty today where I share an interesting way to ring in the New Year.

Live an out of the ordinary life, through me. You're welcome.
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*HUGE Thank you and many bows done with a rolling hand to Melinda from the very funny Finding The Humor. She's brightened my New Year already by giving me The Versatile Blogger award. She also says some pretty nice things about me *blush and beam* Thank you, Melinda!

The Non Traditional Holiday Post

Blogging has opened up many wonderful opportunities for me. I am grateful for the places I've been able to write, and the people I've met that have offered their sites to me.

One of these sites is TikiTiki Blog, where I post a monthly column on growing up as a first generation American.

Today, my post on "Thanksgiving for the Non American" is being featured there.

And, today, I am grateful for TikiTiki Blog, for creating a community for all of us online to share memories, laughter, nodding agreement, and a peek into what life is like for others.

I hope you'll stop over to TikiTiki, and learn a little bit more about life in the USA when you grow up as a child of immigrants.

Happy Thanksgiving...and do I have to tell you how I am most grateful for you? Yes. I do.

Thank you. 
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**An extra helping of Thanksgiving thank you to ANDREA, of the sweet, cute, funny, interesting blog, Maybeit'sjustme , for the Versatile Blogger Award. I appreciate this, and you made Baby E smile by also giving him this bloggy award. You're good people. xo

My Weekend Was Not Mine and Now It's Monday

This is me having a good time like I didn't get to do this week end

Baby E post day here today. It's Monday, and -- as always -- when he feels he needs to get an outside opinion on the unfair state of his life, he turns to the keyboard.

Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. 


[if you're new to Baby E, you can go here for his first post. If he has something to say, I give him Mondays here as his space. He loves knowing that]


Here is his rant, which I typed out for him Sunday night while the words were flying out of his mouth: such is the injustice that he endured at our hands this past Saturday and Sunday. [thanks so much for tuning in...means a lot to us xo]
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Hi. It's me, Baby E and my mom is typing but she cannot stop me from the stuff I'm going to say.

This weekend was not mine.

All weekend we had to do stuff for my family and I had to do it, too.

On Saturday, we had to drive an hour away to go to my big brother's Lego Robotics competition. And the car ride got so long and hot that I barfed.

My other big brother helped me.

But that is not a fun Saturday day for me.

Then on that day we had to wake up at 6:00 to get to the place on time.  This was on Saturday morning that I had to get up early like that.

That is not my weekend wish for me.

On Sunday it was nice out and that made me think "oh no" because then we have to rake and it is dumb to rake.

The wind comes anyway. It's just dumb.

Oh, but wait, I just remembered my mom took us to see PussnBoots on Friday. Yeah, that was a good part.

Now my mom says I have to remember another good part: Okay, my mom did make us cinnamon rolls on Sunday. That was another good part.

Oh, wait. And my dad did buy me a new Beyblades Barf prize on Saturday because I got sick because he is an old man that has to have the heat on superhot in the car because he is an old man.

And my dad is getting crazier. Today, I told him it was too cold to go outside and rake and he looked out the window and said, "I don't see that it's cold out," and I said DAD! You can't see the temperature!!

And then my dad, when he was reading the paper said, "Look, Disney is opening up a new resort in Hawaii," and my mom said back to him, Tell me dishwashers are on sale at Sears and maybe then I'll get excited.

And that made me laugh because I love when my dad gets powned.

And then I had to go to indoor soccer. I forgot about that. That was good.

Basically, I'm mad because my favorite day is Saturday and my favorite thing is screen time and that didn't happen to me this weekend. And my favorite part of the day is to sleep and relax.

And now it's Sunday and my weekend is over and it feels like I never got it.

Bye.
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A Good Scare Will Shut You Up -- A True Halloween Tale

I awoke that morning in March 1989, with the very same thoughts I had had all month long.

I lay in bed, uncomfortable, but not wanting to get up. It had been a month since my grandmother passed away, and the heart ache of living without her still felt like a fifty pound weight sitting on my chest.

As I stared out the window, full of sorrow for myself at the thought of what this first year without her would be like, I felt the energy leaving my body, even after ten hours of sleep. 

I sighed as I looked at the clock on the dresser that faced me. In the middle of the dresser there was a pink bedroom lamp, and next to the lamp there was a framed picture of me at eight years old sitting on my grandmother's lap.  The sunshine was coming in now, strong -- and there was no need for any lights to be on. The brightness of the room made me remember what my grandmother would always say when we'd put the lights on in the house on a sunny day, "The sun is out! What a sin to have the lights on when we have the Lord's light!" She'd then furiously walk through the house, flicking off every light switch with her determined hand.

As I thought of her I pulled the covers up to my nose, and knew the thirtieth day of beginning my mornings in sobs was seconds away. The familiar bottom lip trembling began, and right on time, the floodgates opened.

My tears were hot and they spilled out of the inner corners of my eyes with no forced effort from me. I was home alone and gave in to the luxury of loud, heaving cries of emotional pain that felt so good.

How I wailed, how I self indulged; "Oh, grandmother, what will I do without you? What will I doooooo? I miss you so much. I don't want to do anything but just lay here and cry..." The clock on the dresser said seven, I disregarded it. I didn't care about anything. This was how it had been for four weeks now.  

I was full throttle on with self pity. I had been crazy about Shakespeare in high school and took to memorizing any lines that spoke to me in my sophomore angst. I knew even back then, with the melodramatic mindset I was developing, that there'd be plenty o'times a Shakespeare quote would come in handy in my lifetime. Like just this very morning, "My grief lies all within and these external manners of lament are merely shadows to the unseen grief that swells in my tortured soul." 

Dude knew what he was talking about.

I continued on with the wails and chest thumping and thoughts of how no one had ever suffered a broken heart like this. 

Remember Smokey Robinson? You think Smokey was singing about losing a girl in "Just To See Her Again?" No...no no no and no. You would be wrong. He was singing about my grandmother. 

I lay in bed, ten feet deep into my one woman show of offering up croaked bars of "...I would give anything...just to see her again..." and decide to call in sick to work -- once more -- and spend the rest of the morning wallowing in this personal pain. "Why, gramma, why?? WHYYYYYY???"

As I enter round three of woe-is-me, the pink bedroom lamp on my dresser begins to flicker off and on like a strobe light. I gasp and stare wide eyed, incredulous at what is happening. Time felt suspended, and what may have been a just a millisecond felt more like minutes.

I have always been a kid, then later on the type of person, that responded quickly to a good, swift kick in the ass.

I shuttup.

Tears, gone.

I knew who it was. I spoke to her, tremulously, "Okay, gramma, okay..I'll get up. I'm scared. I'll stop. I'll get up..."

Just to make sure I did get my sorry wallowing butt out of bed, she then decided to knock down the picture -- the one of us together -- to the ground.

Holy cow, you've never seen anyone throw back covers and jump out of bed faster than me that morning.

"Okay, Okay, Okay, I'm all done with Smokey, no more Shakespeare. Loud and clear." I raced through the house, got dressed, found my shoes, grabbed my keys, and slammed the door behind me.


Up and at 'em. From bed to door in twenty minutes flat.


And this is my true Halloween Tale for you today.

Living Through Childhood Halloween Nights

Happy to be at FunnynotSlutty today, where I get to go on and on about how Halloween nights of old done me wrong.

But, you can get the details here.

Thanks for following along, I have so much fun telling these stories.

**If you're new here and following over from FunnynotSlutty: so happy to have you. Please check out the Best of Page, and I hope you leave with a good laugh at or two.

Totally at my expense..

xo
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FunnynotSlutty is:
Funny not Slutty features comedy for women created by female producers, writers, humorists and comedians. FnS Original Productions have been featured by Funny or Die, BestViral.com, TVGuide.com and Internet Video Magazine.

We Make Women Laugh

That Which Doesn't Kill Us

FunnyNotSlutty

Have you seen the FunnyNotSlutty redesign?

It's beautiful.

And have you checked out the new columnist there?

She writes of the funny growing up hispanic in a time of the not so hispanic in America.

As they say, that which doesn't kill us, makes us funnier.

I hope you click over, see the new look of FunnynotSlutty, and leave me a comment on my intro post there. I'll be writing there twice a month, for my column "Memoirs of My America."

Thank you for all the support you've always shown me.

See you there!

**If you're visiting here for the first time from FunnynotSlutty, Thank You. Please check out my "Popular Posts" page. If you like what you see, maybe you can buy the house for sale across the street, and we can be friends? OK, then, well, I'll settle for a wave back in the school pick up lane.
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The Sacred Bleeding Heart of Jesus

I write monthly for a blog that I have so much fun preparing posts for.

It's TikiTikiBlog, and they feature my childhood stories of growing up Hispanic in America.

Today, I write of the Latino answer to ADT home security systems.

You'll have to click over to TikiTikiBlog and find out how you can protect your home, day and night, the Latino way.

Hope to see you there, and thank you!

To The Group of Horrified Teens Sitting Next To Me At The 10 PM Showing of Crazy Stupid Love: I Am Sorry

Was That Me?? Sorry!!

I am sorry.

You group of youthful youthy beautifully perfect barely sixteen year old girls that I  shared a row of seats with on a crowded weekend night showing of Crazy Stupid Love.

Oh, I'm sure you remember me from the Ten PM show.

Ryan Gosling? The gasp? Now it's all coming back, isn't it?

I took myself to the movies Friday night -- yes, I took myself. You can't understand the desperation it takes to decide to go see a movie alone, at Ten PM; but I saw a block of time; free, unscheduled, and made for the door before anyone had the chance to ask me if I knew where their soccer uniform was.

To the girl with the pretty pointed toe leopard spot flats who had half my soda dumped on her feet, I'm sorry. I just didn't expect Ryan to whip off his shirt like that. Is that what they do now?, on a date, I mean.

I am sorry. I usually don't do things to get people's attention. I've never been the class clown, despite my lone Three Stooges act that night with you.

To the girl who got her entire bucket of popcorn dumped onto her lap while she sat whispering about Emma Stone, I am sorry. I hope you got all the popcorn picked out of your waist length black hair--I just didn't know the arm rest we shared would go flying up that quickly. 

I am sorry to the girl who got hit in the head with my summer purse, even thought it's now autumn, while she sat peacefully on the end. I couldn't see a thing when I first entered the theater. It takes a helluva lot longer for your eyes to adjust to the dark after a certain age. It has to do with slower muscle contractions --I know this because when you get older, Google becomes your health care provider and you search out every new overnight growth or body change in hopes of finding out just what the hell is going on.

I realize all of you had to share a row with me on a crowded night and that meant you all had to smell the smell of fried Tilapia fillets. I am sorry. That was my hair. You see, it's my boys' favorite Friday night meal. And so I make it for them. Because that's how exciting my life is now, I live to make fish on Friday nights. If you stay in college, this could be your dream life, too.

I  am sorry to the girl that I kept giving answers to questions that I thought she was asking me, when she was actually just trying to talk to her friend on the phone. I should have known you weren't asking me if I'd do Ryan Gosling. Do me a solid, and keep that answer between us, would you? Thank you.

To the girl I kept creeping out by telling her how cute she was, I am sorry. You really are. So cute. You don't know this yet, because all you see is your imagined physical shortcomings when you compare yourself to the girl sitting in the middle of the row. Who, by the way, is not even close to being half as adorable as you are -- and that look she's sporting? totally sleazy.

I am sorry to the girl that had to keep moving her matchstick legs to the side for me, because I kept having to get up and down and up and down to go to the bathroom. It's obnoxious, I know. But after three children, your bladder ...see...um....I'm sorry.

I am sorry to the girl whose water bottle I kept kicking over with my feet --I was not trying to play a game of me kick you pick up. My feet are slowly becoming flippers, getting bigger every year. I graduated from high school a size seven shoe, and I'm not used to these size eight and halfs yet.

For the ninety minutes that I sat next to you ethereally divine angels in the theater, I thought of how you must think of me: a walking billboard for "Don't get old! This could happen to you!"  You see me, a middle aged woman, with hair that never did make it in for its appointment last week, dressed in a thrown on stretched out sweatshirt since she's not cool enough for a hoodie and too tight brown yoga pants that she's been in all day. On my two months ago pedicured feet are green flip flops that don't even match my clothes, but they were the shoes closest to the door. And I'm in a theater, alone, because I really want to see this movie; and so, without time to call anyone else, I go.

This won't be us, I know that's the promise you make to yourselves. We'll never wear clothes that look like they're our husband's, or let our feet get all gnarly like that, or go to the movies ALONE. I practically read your minds.

The thing is this: you are all so beautiful. Being young is so naturally beautiful. And you're blind to that right now. But, one night with me and you're feeling like Emma Stone up there, aren't you?

And that's all right, because then my work here is done. I live to serve now: just come watch me some Friday when it's fish night at our house, I wield a mean Tilapia.

I am sorry.

And you are welcome.

But, Do You Really Want To Be Normal?

I like to take my children places and not tell them where we're going.

They call it kidnapping. Tomato, tomahto. They pretend to hate it. I don't think they really do because in the end, it always turns out to be a memory.

Determined to wring the last loveliness out of summer, I blindfolded the three of them and drove to an undisclosed location, I took them to a place where they found themselves waiting to ride a zip-line.

Don't google it - the first thing that comes up is a video called "73 Stitches and What Went Horribly Wrong!!"

Predictably, the sixteen year old was mortified when he realized our destination, "Mom ... look around. Do you see any other moms doing this? Show me where you see some other moms doing this. You won't. Why? Because it's crazy. You're crazy."

"Honey," I asked him in surprise, "Have I EVER said I was normal? Have I EVER been normal? Why are you even wondering why other moms aren't doing this? Have I EVER done anything that other moms do?"

Without having to think too long, the fourteen-year-old and the nine-year-old answered, "She's right, you know."

And so their day of being held without ransom began--and ended--with the nine-year-old summing it up this way, "Just another day of life in a house like ours."

That's right.

Too much time has been spent in my life, trying -- and failing. To be normal. Normal, I am not.

Tonight, I offer you this evidence; as I am sitting here typing, I am snacking on a head of lettuce. Whole, like an apple.

Oh, stop it--it's been washed.

Sometimes my children will come downstairs to find me running in place. Why? Because I like the tingly feeling in my legs when I'm done.

They no longer even notice the sound of my feet pounding on the carpeting at 11 p.m.

But, let's just say, for the sake of looking at all possibilities: let's say if I were given the choice of being NORMAL. Would I take it?

I couldn't say with certainty that I would.

I've got layers like an onion, I know, I know: I think I want to be normal and lament not fitting in; but then, at those moments when I'm being clear blue honest with myself; I'd have to answer "no."

Where would our zip-line moments come from, if I were normal?

Where would the memories of the mom who'd run in place because she liked the feeling, come from?

They'd miss a shopping cart with four heads of lettuce in it for the week.

True enough, there are some days where it's impossible to believe that not fitting in can ever be a good thing. But trust me on this ... stay WHO YOU ARE, you will not be sorry.

Some day, your kids will begin to tell a story about you, and they won't be able to finish that first sentence without a laugh they can't control.

My children ask me at least three times a day, "Are you okay? You're acting weird again." I'm used to their question.

They will ask, but there is no trace of alarm in their voice.

I have thrown in the towel on blending in, I surrender, I know I will never be the one that slips through without a notice.

I will, instead, one day be one-hundred-and-three-years old, sitting in a double diaper that has been soaked through, laughing and talking to myself while I stare out a window in wonder of the life I've had; and if one of my children happen to be there blessing me with their company, I will stifle a laugh with my gnarled fingers and whisper to them, "Remember that time I may have peed a little on that five point harness when the zip-line took off??"
________________________________________________________________________

It Was The Eighties, and He Was Down With The Ladies

I wish I could tell you that throughout my life, I have made only wise, non impulsive, emotionally free decisions.

Ha!

There have been decisions made where I had no other choice, where life decided for me, or where I did the best I could do at that time.

And there have been the decisions where, having once made them, we can call ourselves graduates in the school of hard knocks. Lessons Learned The Hard Way 101.

Nothing brings these technicolor flashes of memory of some of the things I've done to the forefront of my mind quicker than a blast from the past burst of a song on the radio.

While driving my three children from one place to the next earlier this week, with the car radio on good and loud in celebration of summer, Funky Cold Medina snuck on and slapped me between the ears like a wet fish.

Oh my precious of all things precious, I just began shaking and trying to stifle my laughter at that awesome three-beat-intro, because I did not want my three baby boys in the car to ask, "Mom? What's so funny?"

Because then I'd have to tell them the story of when I decided to try and get the The Most Handsome Man in Milwaukee, to like me.

Which, of course, is what ended up happening; him liking me, and me telling them this story:

One night, while in college, as I was busy waitressing at the beer and sandwich place on campus, I looked up from my tables, to see what the buzzbuzzbuzz was that I heard going on over at the front bar.

There was a group of people -- mostly tittering females -- gathered around someone. I found an excuse to work my way up toward the front, and that's when I saw one of the cutest boys I had ever seen.  Heart-ache cute like this:

Mr. DDG (drop dead gorgeous)

It still hurts to look at this.

Indulge me a bit longer? Thank you. He was dressed in his monkey suit, exacto as the picture above, just getting off of work from wherever they were lucky enough to have this angel from heaven bartend. This pretty boy came complete with the cigarette barely hanging onto his fabulous lower lip. 

*sigh* Anyway, the story: I had just turned 21, so I was legally able to tap a beer, and felt pretty unstoppable in my role behind the bar. Ever seen how guys go crazy over a young co-ed expertly top a beer? It's a sight to behold, and a very powerful feeling, indeed.

This guy was causing dilated pupils all over the place, and I knew I had just a window of time to get his attention. So I drew him a perfect beer. Beautifully capped with one inch of foam, and in an iced glass.

I set the frosty Pilsner glass in front of him, and walked away.

With someone this gifted in the looks department, I knew the less in your face adulation he had, the more intrigued he'd be.

I made sure I stayed too busy the rest of the night to come back again.

My evil genius plan worked, and DropDeadGorgeous waited around for me until closing time.

The end of the night at a bar/sandwich place is move-'em-out mode. Everyone is pushed out the door, the place gets wiped down, you count your money, get your tables set for the morning shift; and then you can sit around with your crew, feet up, nurse a rum and coke or brew and swap stories from the night.

Mr. Handsome stayed, it turned out he was our lead bartender's new roommate. All that coquettish work for nothing, I would've been seeing him over and over again anyway ... which I'd find out soon enough.

As our after-hours party wound down, the lead bartender leaned in close to me, so close that I could smell his Drakkar Noir, and whispered, "my roommate wants to talk to you." Bingo! I had just won the lottery.

Someone this fine, and I mean his face was a pleasure to all the senses, had to be the coolest person to know. I had instant fantasies of all the cool things we'd do on our cool dates together.

Do you know those times in your life, where things change too quickly -- right in front of you -- before your brain has a chance to think about what just happened?

It's important that you try and conjure up that feeling again, so you get what I'm about to tell you.

The night is young (bartime young) and we're all the bold, the young, and the beautiful, happy to be who we are and it's a weekend. It's good to have times like these in your life, so happy and without a thought ... and ... then life plays its sense of humor. Hands you a situation just.for.you. Custom made because you're so special and you'll blog about it 50 years from now.

I'm feeling good, relaxed, content, flattered, celebrate me! And, then, Tone Loc busts out on the jukebox with "Funky Cold Medina." Everyone loves this song, and some of us more than others.

My beautiful handsome roomie man TAKES to the dance floor, on HIS OWN, and busts moves that I have never seen on this planet since. His arms are swirling, and he is doing things that are usually reserved for those with single dollar bills in hand. I don't know where he just came from, but I am seeing gyrations like he is trying out for a Chippendale Rescue Ranger.  All I can think is how much I feel like I am watching a documentary from my Soc Class called, "The Mystery of The Devil," Part I.

Sweet heaven above, more fervent prayers from anyone's lips have never been whispered as those leaving mine at that moment. "Please let him keep his shirt on, please let him keep his shirt on." The horror of dress shirt buttons flying everywhere should this whirling dervish completely engulf himself in himself, were making my chest pound. Where to look, where to look, eye contact was NOT an option.

types of dervish:

• whirling dervish, whirler (noun) - a dervish whose actions include ecstatic dancing and whirling

The dancing wasn't enough, the hands running through his OWN hair not enough, nonononono.  He had to start singing: in my direction.

At the part where Tone confides:

You know, ain't no plans with a man
This is the 80's, and I'm down with the ladies
Ya know?


Mr. Chippendale whips his torso around, locks eye to eye with me and says RIGHT to me, "I'm DOWN with the ladies."

You know I just couldn't hold it together anymore, right? I spit beer. I spit beer as if I were at a Comedy Club with the best seat in the house.

Now, I enjoy beer spit-up moments as much as the next guy, but not in this case.

Bye, bye, Mr. Most Handsome Man in Milwaukee.

We could have had Paris .... until you decided to go and make doves cry.


Blast from the past, over and out.