Wear Your Helmet!!

This is something our unfortunate neighbors get to hear me yell approximately every day. Sometimes I open the upstairs window and bellow it from inside, sometimes I march downstairs and stand on the front step to yell it, and there has been an instance or two of me chasing a motorcycle around the yard yelling it.

Taggart, my 13 year old son, rides his motorcycle through our yard at the fastest speed possible. Speed isn't the only issue -- wheelies are big (and he's pretty good at them), as is jumping anything that gives even a slight lift-off.

His biggest problem is that he really isn't fond of his helmet. As his mother, I am very fond of his helmet and tend to get pissed when he doesn't have it on. I've tried several tactics to convince him it's a good idea. I've tried yelling as mentioned above, and it hasn't been extremely effective. I've tried reasonable conversation about why it's important to wear it. I've even tried, "Just do it for me." Nothing is consistent.

Today, I was trimming bushes in front of the house and looked up as Tag flew by on his motorcycle, without a helmet. I finished filling my little garden cart with branches of the bush that I had just mutilated, and headed off across the yard to dump them. This is also the direction Tag had headed. He saw me with my cute little cart, and stopped to tell me I was pushing it wrong. As I fumed over the fact that he was helmetless, and telling me how to push a cart, I had a great idea. A new solution to the helmet problem.

I suggested to Tag that I go back inside and get his baseball bat. He was confused. "Why?" he said. I told him that I thought I'd smash him in the head with the baseball bat, and then he might get a small idea of what it felt like to wreck your motorcycle and smash your head. I then just walked away to go dump my branches.

As I got back to the front of the house, my little angel drove by again -- this time wearing his helmet. The only problem with the picture is that he gave me a double thumbs up as he drove by. I would have thought that keeping at least one hand on the handlebars was a given.....I guess I'll work on that one later.

Nothing Exciting

So, I'm on the phone with Kenzie, who is in Costa Rica on a college trip. I ask her what's on her agenda for the next day, and this is what she says to me, "Oh, we're not doing anything exciting tomorrow. Just ziplining and another volcano." Please.......give me a break. I'm telling you, the kid has been full of one-liners since she started talking.

Here's another classic Kenzie one-liner. She had been at college for a total of 3 days, and I call her up, hoping not to find her homesick and sad, and ask her how she's doing. Her response, "Mom, I'm at 95% good. I mean, can you really ask for anything more than that?" What could I say besides, "No, Kenzie. 95% is pretty damn good."

Really, if you think about it, life could be way worse than 95% to the good, and hey - if you've seen one volcano, you've seen them all?

I Believe in Ghosts

I'm sitting here chatting with Sydney, and the subject of ghosts came up. I believe in ghosts, and have met a few in my life. As it turns out, Sydney believes in them, too.

My Aunt Donna's house has a ghost. I can't remember what his name is, but I'm thinking it's George. He's a pretty creative ghost. Donna's husband, Gene, hates lights that are left on, and he would obsessively turn off lights when he left a room. George thought it was funny to turn on all the lights in the house after Gene went to bed. He would also randomly slam kitchen cupboard doors when everyone left the kitchen. There was also a certain page in the Bible that George would always open it up to. You could walk past, shut the Bible, and low and behold, a little while later --- open to the same page!

My personal introduction to George happened one weekend when I was spending the night with Aunt Donna. I had Kenzie with me, who was about 3 years old at the time. We had the "Gold Room" at Donna's house, so named because of the gold headboard, I'm guessing, and the muted gold wallpaper. I woke up at some point in the middle of the night and knew that someone was in the room with me and Kenzie. A quick look around assured me that the only thing in the room besides me and Kenzie could only be George. I was a bit stressed but tried to play it cool. Pretty soon, the headboard started swaying. I reached back and stopped it. I'm sure you can guess, it started again, and once again I stopped it. We followed this routine a couple more times, and I tried to maintain some sense of sanity. Finally, I said out load, "George, you're scaring me. Please stop." Go figure, the headboard stopped swaying and I felt George exit the room. I did thank him, out loud. Although I was relieved, I was still completely freaked out, and stayed awake the rest of the night. Have you ever actually witnessed the paper boy throwing the paper on your front stoop at 5 a.m.? This kid was a pretty good shot.

Now that I've told you about Aunt Donna's ghost, I'm reminded that I haven't talked to her for quite awhile. Since she's in California, and that makes her 2 hours behind me, I'm signing off. I think I need to call her. Good night, George.

"Drinkers"

I've thought of this story often. Tonight seemed like the right time to bring it up, since I'm sitting here with a glass of wine contemplating whether wine really makes some things more clear and others less clear, OR does it really make EVERYTHING less clear and you just don't realize it? These are the things I ponder. Back to the story......

One day a few years ago, when Sara and I were in our whiskey phase, we were sitting in the bar next to our office after a brutal (okay, maybe not so brutal) day of work. We were chatting and started talking about a lady from town that had recently been in a car accident. Sara leaned across the table and quietly said to me, "I heard she's a drinker." "Really? I thought so," I replied just as quietly, as I had my hands wrapped around a hoop glass full of Crown and 7. I looked down at my glass of whiskey, looked up at Sara, who was looking at me, and at the same time we said, "Holy Shit. Do you think people call us "drinkers?" "

For some reason, we were using the word "drinkers" as something negative. I should also point out that every time we say "drinkers" we like to make quotation marks in the air with our fingers. By telling you this, I'm hoping every time you read "drinkers" you are raising your hands in the air to make quotation marks.

We have since spent the last several years trying to distinguish if, in fact, we are "drinkers." The next obvious question is, does it really matter if we're "drinkers?" After we answer those two questions, we move on to, do we really care if anybody thinks we're "drinkers?" So far, we have decided we do not care. That was the easiest question to answer. Once we have the rest of it figured out, we'll get back to you. (Did you remember to make the quotation marks in the air?)