New Favorite People

Every year, 30,000 sci-fi fans come to my town and parade down the main street dressed as their favorite fantasy world characters.

In years past, without realizing what weekend it was, I have found myself downtown after dark surrounded by characters from Star Wars, Star Trek, Japanese anime, various video games, comic books and vampire series.

This year, we purposefully met up with friends and took the train downtown to check out the role players on parade.

There were steam punks, super heroes, Hobbits, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Sesame Street characters, Hogwarts students, Klingons, and people of the Middle Earth.

As the surge of Star Wars characters marched towards us, my friend Molly's husband Russ leaned over and said,

"I'm hoping to see a some Princess Leia action."

[Does every guy have the Princess Leia fetish?]

Russ didn't get his Leia wish, but he did get to see Wonder Woman.

[I'm thinking he did alright because she's totally WORKING that lasso of truth.]

Standing on the sidelines with my husband and my children, I was approached by a man dressed like this:

[Seriously. He looked like that.]

Anyway, this monster dude with the multi-colored face came up and started hitting on me.

You know, did I want to join him for the rest of the parade, share his hotel room and... whatnot.

[Picture the look of stunned surprise on my face.]

Then he told me that he was on the verge of evolving and would soon posses a forked, prehensile tongue.

Forked. Prehensile. Tongue.

"A tongue like a thumb," he said. Think about THAT!"

He winked and marched away with his fellow paraders before I could respond.

Poor monster, wasting his energy on the wrong girl.

How could he possibly know there's only one costume that works for me.

Feeling Celebrated

When I walked into the room last night he was tying a big bow around her chair at the dining room table.

Ribbons spiraled downwards from the light fixture and the moldings on the windows and doors.

Brightly colored helium balloons flew up from her chair back.

In the kitchen, he had just finished icing her cake.

He decorated it with her name in big, block letters and a giant number 3.

I had just finished wrapping what seemed like way too many gifts.

"Do you think she'll feel celebrated enough? he asked nervously.

[K worries about these things.]

I reassured him that she would, but then later I wasn't so sure.

When we crept into her room to make sure she was covered up, we found her tossing and turning in her sleep.

After a series of cries and moans we heard her shout,

"I want a pony!"

[Uh... I'm afraid her expectations WILL NOT be met.]

I was still in bed this morning when she woke up and came out to greet her father.

I heard her draw in her breath when she saw the dining room.

"It's my birthday!" she beamed.

********************

I'll always remember The Rooster's birthday as the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Gustav stays away.

There's still so much work to be done in the Gulf...

Manifest Stereophonic Destiny

At some point last weekend a miracle occurred and my children played nicely together for longer than 17 seconds.

I found myself relaxing on my bed reading an old journal and stumbled across an entry from January of 1997 entitled, "What I Might Like My Life To Be Like."

The entry described my hopes about the life partner and children I hoped to have, what kind of parent I wanted to be and more.

It made me smile to read it because much of what I wished for has come true.

I've heard it said that the simple action of cutting out pictures of the things you desire and hanging them on your wall will make your desires manifest but I never put much stock in it.

But maybe there is some power in making your heart's desire known to yourself in whatever form...

At the time that I wrote this particular journal entry, I drove a metallic-blue, 1971 Super Beetle with nothing but a dial knob radio.

In addition to describing how I wanted my life to unfold, the journal entry also outlines my automotive future.

[Because I'm a dork?]

The entry says,

"I want to drive a car that is safe, has seat belts and heat and is reliable."

[Okay, so I'm a practical dork.]

Then it goes on to say,

"I would like it [the car] to have a stereo that plays tapes."

Lo and behold!

Our vintage family Honda circa 1995?... Sports a tape deck!

Oh, the AWESOME!

Clearly I need to aim a little higher with regard to my desires in the area of vehicular stereophonics!

The Joys Dark Underbelly

"Mommy, we want to show you our new game!"

"Okay," I say.

The Mayor and The Rooster stand facing each other.

The Rooster holds out her hand with her palm facing up.

"Look Mayor! I've got a brand new baby!"

"Aw," The Mayor coos, "are you going to be such a good mom and take good care of your little baby?"

With a look of sinister glee, Rooster pops the imaginary baby in her mouth, makes noisy chomping sounds and swallows.

Baby devoured.

The Mayor and The Rooster laugh themselves to tears and begin again.

"Look Mayor! I've got a brand new baby!"

Oh, The Macabre House of Joy.

Quarantine

For the past twenty seven days, K has had a horrible wracking cough which, it turns out, is walking pneumonia.

He's already taken two rounds of antibiotics and he's still coughing.

The Rooster has been coughing for fourteen days and finally started antibiotics yesterday.

At one a.m. last night, The Mayor covered himself, his bed, his father and the bathroom in vomit and then continued to dry heave all night long.

This morning, The Mayor asked for a glass of milk.

[Roll Friday the 13th Music: Ree Ree Ree...]

With a great feeling of certain doom, I gave him milk.

The Rooster was sitting on K's lap at the breakfast table when The Mayor clutched his stomach and threw up all over the two of them and the dining room floor.

With sighs of resignation, K and I began cleaning up the mess.

I was bent over the sink wringing out a vomit filled towel and K was on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor when our town tornado siren started wailing.

Seriously?

Uncle. Enough already. I surrender!

[Mental note: shop for hazmat suit ASAP.]

If I Had Faith, It Would, Like, Be So Totally Awesome

Normally, I shy away from the idea that God might have a hand in the direction of my life.

I guess I feel like the political right has co-opted the concepts of God and Faith so much that it’s almost embarrassing for a left-wing, liberal such as myself to admit to even having an interest in the possibilities of faith.

A few months ago, the nonprofit organization that I work for held a massive national conference and, while there, I attended an interfaith session exploring the intersection between one's faith and service to others.

The session began with an interfaith prayer breakfast and representatives from Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Christian traditions shared traditional prayers and their meanings with the group.

I wasn’t raised in a particularly religious household, but I found this prayer breakfast moving.

Perhaps the inclusive nature of the session and the diversity of religious traditions participating made me feel more open on this particular morning.

The speaker representing the Christian faith said that he felt called to serve others from the time he was fourteen, but did not realize or believe that his calling came from God until later in his life.

Suddenly, an old memory came to me.

I remembered begging to go to vacation bible school with my friend Tomi at her Southern Baptist Church.

[From my point of view, vacation bible school seemed to be about crafts and candy.]

Tomi and I couldn’t have been more than eight that summer.

We were in the classroom in the church basement making bible verse wall hangings out of felt when the teacher asked us to come out into the hall with her one at a time.

When it was my turn, she asked me to pray and ask “the Lord Jesus Christ to come into my heart.”

I so vividly remember the hallway being dark.

I did as she asked.

Though I didn’t understand what I was doing at the time, the memory of it has never faded.

I remembered being terrified.

My focus and attention shifted back to the breakfast speaker as he began reading a prayer written by William Barclay.

Equip me today, O God, with the humility which will keep me from pride and from conceit;

The graciousness and the gentleness which will make me both easy to live with and the joy to meet;

The diligence, the perseverance, and the reliability which will make me a good workman;

The kindness which will give me a quick eye to see what I can do for others, and a ready hand to do it;

The constant awareness of your presence, which will make me do everything as unto you.

So grant that to me today, so that people may see in me a glimpse of the life of my blessed Lord.

I liked this prayer asking for the strength to persevere in doing good, and sitting there, I thought about my career.

I work in nonprofit, specifically to increase the number of people who volunteer.

Suddenly, I was transported again to a conference I attended in the early 1990s where another theologian talked about the way that some people feel called to serve while others do not.

What struck me about his talk was the way he openly discussed how difficult it could be to both feel and answer that call.

“Why is it that when you witness suffering you feel compelled to do something but others can simply walk on by? It isn’t fair. It's a burden. It's hard,” he said.

That was the first time I had heard anyone give voice to how I sometimes felt about my work.

It is often hard.

At the prayer breakfast, the Christian speaker closed with a quote from one of my heroes, Bishop Desmond Tutu.

Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours through him who loved us.

For some reason, the Tutu quote made me think about my Granny, the evangelical, close talker in the thrift store, the song on the radio and my wish that Granny could reach me with a message from beyond.

I sat in the prayer breakfast flooded with these seemingly unrelated memories and welled up with tears.

What if..., I wondered.

What if all those years ago, when the Baptist Bible school teacher made me ask God to "come into my heart," what if something really happened?

What if my career choices have been faith driven but I'm too dense to get it?

What if God IS love… …and tolerance… and peace… and hope… and everyone really is welcome…

Every one.

What if Granny is trying to tell me something right now?

For a moment, it felt like an epiphany…

...but then I felt like a complete and utter FREAK, so I shoved it all deep down into that dark church basement and decided to think about it later.

[Maybe.]

Catalyst

"You're stagnating," Buster said.

He was standing at the end of the lane looking down at me.

Buster was an African American guy about my age with an enormous smile.

"You need to change it up," he grinned.

I could barely see him through my cloudy goggles.

"What?"

"I can help you if you want me to," he said.

Twelve years ago, I used to swim during my lunch hour at a run down pool in a dicey neighborhood.

Every day I'd swim a mile of free-style and return to work.

I don't know what made Buster take and interest, but he started helping me.

From then on, when I showed up at the pool he would hand me a carefully thought out workout written on an index card.

He showed me how to wet the card and stick to a kick board so that it would lean like a gravestone against the diving platform at the end of my lane.

Buster made me add breaststroke and backstroke to my routine.

I was terrible at both. So terrible, in fact, that when The Cute Guy Who Also Swam There saw me, he looked down and said,

"Branchin' out, eh?"

[Luckily it's hard to blush when you're already red in the face from exertion.]

Buster made me learn to do a flip turn and then started adding endless sets of butterfly kick to my workout.

He made me do fly kick on my stomach, on my back and on my sides.

Back and forth, back and forth, over and over...

It was nearly impossible for me and I swore I was drowning.

Buster sat on the diving platform at the lane's end laughing and insisting that I keep trying.

"When it gets easy, you'll be able to fly," he said.

Swim the butterfly?

The idea made me snort.

I was a grown-up, drama club geek in size twelve pants.

I only exercised because...

I don't know...

My mother never ceased stressing it's importance?

It offset the beer calories?

Anyway, I swam the damned fly kick sets because I liked Buster.

I'd even say we grew to like each other.

I don't know why he chose to coach me the way he did. It was almost like he picked me at random.

Like he waved his finger around in the air until it landed on me.

We laughed and joked at my struggle with his intense workouts.

And then, one day, as if by miracle, I could fly and I loved it.

Soon after, Buster got a job with UPS and left his lifeguard position.

I have never seen him again.

This morning at the pool, I swam 40 laps of free-style to warm up and followed it up with 40 laps of butterfly.

Other swimmers look at me cock-eyed, like I'm a freak.

I mean, who swims that much fly?

I don't care.

I love the way it feels to swim the stroke and the resulting strength in my belly.

I thought about Buster as both arms pulled me up and out of the water for a breath.

It's because of Buster that now I think of myself as an athlete, a swimmer.

I am a swimmer.

I bet he has no idea that he changed my life.

Thursday Morning Nonsense

Even after six years I can't get the woman out of my head.

I thought about her again this morning.

K and I were hiking through small villages in the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal.

We were tramping down a road one morning next to a meadow filled with cows when a local bus came ambling towards us.

It stopped nearby and several passengers disembarked.

One of them, a woman, climbed down the bus steps, stopped right at the bottom and, facing us with her legs shoulder length apart, released a torrent of pee.

Her face showed no expression at all, it was completely blank.

I couldn't tell if it was meant to be an affront to K and I and our general foreignness, but it didn't seem like it. She looked neutral.

She was wearing three or four ankle-length skirts layered one over the other, a blouse, a jacket and a headscarf with sandals.

She appeared to be a local woman, likely poor.

When the woman finished peeing, she simply shifted her feet slightly and continued standing there with the blank look on her face.

I was completely startled.

It's wasn't that I perceived her as brazen or immodest...

[What do I care?]

..instead, it seemed to me to represent a complete lack of logic.

Trekking in Nepal, K and I routinely noticed that it was the women who were doing all the work.

Women chopped the wood and carried the water, shouldering life's burdens.

So the woman who stood there peeing all over herself...

Soon her legs and clothes were going to stink of-a the pee pee, no?

Who was going to chop the wood, fetch the water, build the fire and boil the water that would enable her to wash herself and her clothes?

Her, right?

All these years later, I'm still talking to her in my head,

"Hike up your skirt and cop a squat, for goodness sakes! Minimize your work!"

I have a ridiculous obsession with efficiency.

[Clearly, I am part Vulcan.]

And, since I am hovering (vaguely) near the subject of nether regions seeing as they are from whence pee comes...

I can report that this morning in the shower I slipped while shaving and created asymmetry in the... er... lower haircut.

Now being all ANAL and what not, I am simply unable to live with asymmetry and I couldn't leave it alone.

[So to speak.]

As a result, I am now sporting a piece of Fruit Stripe Gum on the Yippee Yahoo Region.

The absolute joys prevail, always.

Eggcordion Crimes

[Is this thing on?]


[Yes, it's true. A whole village of chicks will never hatch.]

And dayum if we can't recycle these cartons anywhere around these here parts.

What to do, what to do...

Know any good egg carton art projects?

Alternative uses?

Chicken and egg jokes?

[So we eat a few eggs? So what.]

A is for Alpha

While we were away at our family reunion, The Mayor spent a lot of time playing with his cousin Sean.

Sean is two years older than The Mayor, however my son had no trouble bossing him around.

One day The Mayor and Sean were pretending the bed was a big boat.

"I'm the boss of this boat!" The Mayor proclaimed.

Apparently, Sean has bossy friends at home and is used to politely editing their directives during imaginative play.

"Well," Sean said, "how about if there are two bosses of this boat and I'm one of them and you are the other one?"

The Mayor considered this.

"Okay," he said, "but I am the boss of the bosses."

Classic.

Similarly, it was raining on when I dropped The Mayor off for his third day of Pre-K.

He and The Rooster were wearing their firefighter rain coats.

"Are these your fellow firefighters?" his new pre-school teacher asked referring to Rooster and I.

"No!" The Mayor said. "Mommy and Rooster are the firefighters. I am the fire CHIEF."

"Well," said the pre-school teacher, "that's great and it completely fits your personality."

I looked at her and smiled.

"You nailed his personality in only two days?"

She shrugged.

It's that obvious.

Well then.

I think I'll just pat myself on the pack for passing on the bossy gene so effectively!

Go me.

One Upping Your Sister

This morning in the car K noticed a driver in another car...

"She was smoking, talking on her cell phone AND driving!" he tut tutted.

"I know what's really the bad-est for your body," The Rooster announced.

"What is that?" I asked.

"Smoking!" she said confidently.

Not to be out done, The Mayor chimed in.

"I know what's even badder for your body," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"Cannibals."

The Mess

When he was my intern there was a work trip to Americus, Georgia for a Habitat for Humanity blitz build.

We both went.

On the bus, I couldn’t help but notice that our legs were touching.

Neither one of us shifted away.

On our first night in Americus, he pointed out the architectural features he liked on the town’s older homes.

I learned the words soffit, fascia and dormer.

His t-shirt was old and fraying at the neck.

My arm accidentally brushed against his stomach which was flat and firm.

It was summer time and we were all housed in a local university dorm.

We each had our own narrow cinder-block room and foamy rubber mattress.

He spent part of the evening in my room and he read aloud from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

I wished he would touch me, but he didn’t.

The next day he taught me how to swing a framing hammer.

It was hard, exhausting work.

Afterwards, some of the male volunteers peeled off their shirts and dove into a local pond.

I hoped he would join them so I could get a look at that flat, firm belly, but he didn’t.

We boarded the bus to return to the city.

This time our arms were touching. Again, neither of us shifted positions.

My husband was at the hospital working when we got back to town.

He and I went back to my apartment.

There was a sudden thunderstorm.

We opened the French doors leading to my back deck and watched.

We sat oddly at opposite ends of the couch.

Tired, I flung a couch pillow towards the middle and flopped down.

I was afraid he might leave.

I wanted to be near him.

He touched my hair then stroked my head.

I tried not to react in any way.

I didn’t want him to stop.

He reached down and held my hand.

“We’re a mess,” I mumbled.

“What?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and tried again.

“The way I feel about you is a mess.”

*******************

While driving this morning, I heard It Ain't Me, Babe by Bob Dylan on the radio.

I was overcome by feelings of dread, fear and sadness.

When I first met K, he and is roommate were in a heavy Dylan phase and I heard this song often.

When I hear it now, I am reminded of the between time.

The time when I knew my marriage was over, but hadn't ended it.

The song reminds me of the panic I felt.

The lyrics of "It Ain't Me, Babe" captured what I needed to say to my husband and, at the same time, I feared they might also be what K needed to say to me.

What was the likelihood that he was involved in the mess for anything more than the affair itself?

Inside Outside USA

For today's tale to work, you need to know that I hate The Beach Boys.

I'm aware that they made a significant contribution to the genre of rock music and all that crap, but still.

I. can't. stand. them.

So.

Last month, I escaped from domestic life and went to San Francisco by myself for five days.

K stayed home taking care of the short and loud people.

But did he bow humbly to the task?

Oh, no.

Instead, he achieved the perfect revenge.

My dear husband taught the children the complete lyrics to "Surfin' USA."

And now?

They sing it over and over and over again, every freakin' day in high, falsetto voices.

[Ensuring that the GOT DAYUMMED song is permanently lodged in my head.]

"They'll be wearing their baggies, hurachi sandals too..."

Please.

I beg you.

Administer the ice pick to my forehead.

Change Is Hard

Twelve days of travel immediately followed by the first day of school is proving more than our wee ones can gracefully handle.

The Mayor started Pre-K on Monday and declared a moratorium on his own personal aging process.

"I don't want to get any bigger. I am NOT going to grow up ANY MORE," he said.

[Later he amended this proclamation by firmly declaring that he planned to stop growing completely once he reached the age of six.]

Change is hard.

Adding insult to injury, K and I randomly chose this week to discontinue all sippy cup usage here at the House of Joy.

[We are the axis of evil in our own wicked empire.]

As a result, there have been a whole series of ugly temper tantrums.

[Thrown by both the short and the tall people.]

Yesterday morning, The Rooster and I faced off like two burly hockey players.

[Two exceedingly stubborn women going head to head.]

Recalling her recent experience shooting arrows, The Rooster pulled back the string of an imaginary bow and said,

"I'm shooting arrows and YOU are the target, Mama."

The battle rages on relentlessly.

[LAWD HAZ MRCY!]

Harvest Time

“Oh, I’ve already thought of that. I would send you out to California to live with Uncle Jack and Aunt Pat until the baby comes and is put up for adoption.”

Put up?! PUT UP?!?! Like vegetables after harvest? Like the plum jelly mom makes every fall? Stuffed in a jar and hidden high on a shelf somewhere to be brought out at some later date?

I am recalling my mother’s response to a question I had posed to her a week or two earlier,

“Mom? What would you do if one of us got pregnant?”

[Out of the seven kids in our family, four are girls.]

How can a daughter ask a mother that question and a mother not pause to consider the reason?

“Miss Smith?”

I am called out of my contemplation and back into an exam room at Planned Parenthood.

The doctor appears and inquires brusquely, rudely,

“Do you think you are pregnant?”

“No” I lie, hoping that my answer will become the gospel truth.

“Why not?” he pushes.

“Because I am so irregular, once I went for seven months with out a period” when I thought I was pregnant - I don’t add... oh god...

“Well, you are and you’d better figure out what you are going to do quickly because you are close to ten weeks along.”

[no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no, no,no,noooo]

He turns away and leaves the room shaking his head, these ignorant, idiotic girls...

The noise in my head is reaching mind-blowing proportions...

[no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no, no,no,noooo]

...and I am thinking that there isn’t enough air in this place.

[no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no, no,no,noooo]

I can’t breathe

This can NOT be happening to me

I am a nice girl, from a nice family

I can’t breathe

I am going to college in a month

I have a roommate

I can’t breathe

We have written each other about how to decorate our dorm room

What about MY DORM ROOM???

I blindly stumble out of the exam room, down the hall, gaining momentum as I reach the waiting room.

I rush past Phil throwing him a murderous glance and run down the long staircase to the street below.

Phil hurries after me.

“I’m pregnant” - this I say flatly, belying the panic within.

[no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no, no,no,noooo]

Phil wraps his arms around me but there is no passion today. There is no affection. There is no love. It is not because he isn’t offering - it is because I am closed off to receiving.

We walk back to the car and get in. We have driven to a town forty five minutes from our own so as not to be recognized.

As we begin the long drive back [no,no,no,no,no, no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no, no,no,noooo] I glance at Phil and I see he is smiling.

What the....?

“I can’t help it, I think of you carrying our baby and it makes me smile...”

I am wondering if my swing is strong enough to shatter teeth. I am wondering if it is strong enough to shatter time and make this all go away.

I am wondering if I am strong enough...

As I stare at the ripening August fields rushing past I know harvest time is near.

I will be put up.

********************

Today's post was written by my friend Molly commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the moment she found out she was pregnant with her first son.

She did go live with her Aunt and Uncle until the baby was born and he was put up for adoption.

Many years later, her son found her and now he is an active part of her life and the lives of her family members.

I'm grateful to Molly for sharing this piece here and guessing that she might be considering a blog of her own.

She would love to hear your thoughts.

And We're Back

After a hellish experience with Airtran Airlines, The Family Joy has mercifully escaped what seemed like certain death-by-airline and returned from 12 days in New York.

We arrived, thanks to Airtran, eighteen hours after our anticipated landing and, within two hours of our New York arrival, K rushed The Rooster to the ER for the hot glue gun to the forehead treatment.

Yesterday, we spent HOURS on the tarmac and during that time we were able to entertain our children well.

However.

The Rooster screamed,

"BLANKIE!!! I WANT MY BLANKIE!!!"

the entire time we were actually flying.

At the end of the flight, a well manicured, high-glossed woman turned to me and, pointing a bony finger at Rooster, said,

"She's clearly not ready for your European vacation."

I turned my head away and said nothing because, though I tend to steer away from using THE C WORD, I was very sorely tempted to use it.

Hello?

It's simple Brady Bunch Wisdom, Lady.

If you don't have anything nice to say...

Shut yer effing pie hole.

[That's what Mr. Brady always said, right?]

Despite the horrifying bookends that were the start and end of the trip, the middle was very good.

Every other year, my mother-in-law treats us all to a family reunion at Silver Bay on Lake George in the Adirondacks.

Never mind that northern New York is having one of the wettest summers in history...

With oodles of Aunts, Uncles and, more importantly, cousins around...

The rain wasn't really an issue.

There were boat rides to be taken...

(And, in some cases, naps on boats to be taken.)

There were softball games to be played...

(Uncle Joe pitched in the Tigers vs. Ducks game!)


(Aunt Sheila took it very seriously.)

(The fans looked on appreciatively.)

There were arrows to be shot...

And celebrated...

Bullseye!

There was swimming to be done...

Shuffleboard to be... shuffled...

We were required to wrestle our relatives...

(This photo was taken right before Roo [2] took her cousin John [7] down.)
(This was not her first attack.)

There were funny faces to be made...

Ice cream to be eaten...

And flower beds to be trampled...

But now we are home.

And can you guess the first thing I did?

I stood in a nest of fire ants!

[INVOKE THE C WORD REPEATEDLY!!!]

[SPRINKLE IN ADDITIONAL CHOICE EXPLETIVES!!!]

The effing joys, I tell you!

Hot Glue Gun To Her Head

Rooster was really excited about the jewelry box her cousin had given her.

It's one of those with a wind up music box and a ballerina dancer that spins around on her point shoes when the box is open.

She ran to get it, eager to show her father.

Unfortunately, she tripped over the carpet and crashed head first into the coffee table.

K rushed her to the ER.

Roo got the hot glue gun to the forehead treatment.

[Dermabond.]

The whole notion of head glue strikes me as odd...

Still, they tell us it will be less likely to scar that way, but I don't know.

This is her second encounter with skin glue on her forehead and I can see the first scar clear as day.

[Sigh.]

Otherwise, my Internet keeps going in and out, so I'm giving up for the week.

I'll have my blog control panel back to normal on Monday and will resume telling idiotic stories as usual.

Until then, later...

~OTJ