Help Pick My Next Blog Topic!

Yes, I'm procrastinating (see #6), in the guise of making my blog interactive. Here are some first lines, or so, of stuff I've been working on. Which one would you like to see developed?

Leave a comment and let me know! (And if you don't know, leaving a comment can be a two-step process. First you type your comment and hit submit. Then you need to type in the system-generated word to verify that you're not spam.)

1. I'm a high C.
2. Weentsy.
3. I'm considering hiring a private investigator to find my hairdresser.
4. I always thought that the New Age belief about putting your goal out there and the universe will respond was crap. Until the summer my son proved me wrong.
5. Plant. Baby. Dog.
6. Aside from pride...and taking the Lord's name in vain...all right, and being a moody b-word to my son and husband, my biggest sin is procrastination.
7. Simon LeBon is my David Cassidy.
8. My mom became a werewolf during her mid-life crisis.
9. Diving into the wreck of my attic.
10. My son wants to google who the fastest boy is at his elementary school to see if his name comes up. Wouldn't it be great if you could google what you were meant to do with your life?
11. Hi. Do you know RH? I'm a fan of his.
12. Thick skin required.
13. "When you make a wish, how does it come to you? Does it just appear, or does it come in the mail?"

I Won! (Or could win.)

My son recently brought home his empty chocolate milk carton from school. When I asked him why it was in his school bag -- and not the trashcan -- his eyes got all big and sparkly, and he announced, "Because I won!"

???????

So I looked on the side of the carton.




Son's "winning" milk carton.

 
I laughed and told him he had to go on the Internet to enter to win. I shook my head and marveled over his optimism, wondering when he might outgrow that.

Later that same week, I was at the gas station pumping gas into my car when I noticed a piece of paper taped to the pump: "Powerball up to $100 million. Tickets sold inside." And I found myself heading into the store to buy a ticket...and a CHANCE TO WIN $100 MILLION!

Ticket in hand, I began to fantasize about what I would do with the money if we won. After taxes, that would be about $40 million in a lump sum... 

Once home, I promptly forgot about the ticket.

Until my husband asked me about it. Did I check the numbers? Where did I get the ticket? He'd heard in the news that an unclaimed ticket that won $250,000 was from a local store.

He thought it might be ours.

I suspect in my son's case, he may never outgrow his optimism!

Say What?

I once witnessed the following conversation between my son and my nephew a few months before my entire family and their families all went on a Disney Cruise together. At the time, my son had no idea we were going on a cruise, much less an understanding of the word itself.

          Nephew: "When we go on the cruise, we're going to have to get shots."

          Son: "You're going to get shot?"

          "When we go on the cruise, we're going to get shots."

          "You're going to get shot? Will you go in the fire?"

          "No, Leo! The cruise. We have to get shots."

          "Wait...what?"

          "The cruise."

          "What?!?"

I think I've had similar sounding conversations with my husband. In fact, this past summer we had...or rather, I tried to have...discussions...OKAY, they were rants. I'm not proud. 

You see, there's this pan that my husband uses for what he calls his cooking (and which I call scorching the hell out of whatever he's wanting to eat). And I needed him to wash this pan whenever he was done. Instead, I found myself being the one to clean this pan. Every time. And you know how these domestic annoyances build up over time.


Infamous pan that almost ended my marriage.

Anyway, sometimes the other person isn't ready to hear what you have to say. Perhaps he (or she) needs to grow more, expand his (or her) vocabulary, as was my son's case. Or sometimes he (or she) might need you to find a way to cut through all the noise of life to hear what you have to say. In my case, I suspect I was like the Charlie Brown teacher to my husband during our discussions.

What I suspect my husband hears when we talk.

So I found another way to tell him. An old-fashioned way. One that made him laugh. One that made him wash the pan. Praise be to God! And one that became the inspiration for the following poem.

I wrote him a note.

To My Husband
Please wash that pan before I divorce you,
with your burned, blackened, stubborn grease
that I have scraped, scrubbed, soaped and soaked.

Now it's your turn.

Please wash that pan before I divorce you.