Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

In May 1994 my Dad gave this to my Mom for Mother's Day. Okay, in reality he rescued her from neglect.  She was about a year and a half to two years old when we got her, she had lived with a cat for a year, so she was . . . She acted like a cat most of her life, tried to climb trees after squirrels, and chased my dog Charlie.  She taught him to climb on the back of our couch, which is why until his death the sofa had a permanent dip in the back.  Charlie died about six years ago, and she loved to hang on his fur and be carried around the house.  Best trick Muffin had, I had taught her to find Charlie for me.  Charlie was a medium sized dog, so the six comparison was amusing to say the least.  He was loud, chased lunch-meat trucks, and belched and farted on command.  My high school friends and I can take credit for that trick.   Sorry, I don't have one of the two of them on my computer.  Honestly, I don't have it in me to dig up ri...

Last week while watching "Project Runway," my Mom made mention (for about the hundredth time) that she can't stand Anthony. For those not in the know, he's the black and dramatic gay guy who talks and talks and talks. She does this lovely this shake and shudder thing while stating that she can't stand him. Even better for the drama around here. While she was carrying on about Anthony I started having flashbacks to when my brother would kiss her. You should know that Bubs was six foot two or so--somewhere in there--lanky and tooth less. Heh. Whenever he kissed Mom she would shudder, shake, cringe, and bellow "I got kissed by a boy." There's just no way to aptly describe it. I started laughing, Mom started laughing, and we looked at each other and mentioned Bubs at the same time. Laughing some more, she said it was a shame he wasn't around to watch this show with us. She wanted know what he would say about Anthony; as she referenced that he was wor...

Yup, it's that time of year when the reformed fundamentalist in me is thrilled not for peeps and candy coated eggs but for baseball. Eight-o-five pm tonight brings the best stress relief yet. It's the Yanks v. the Red Soxs. Sorry, I did remember that it's Easter too!

I'm coming back from another conference--this time St. Louis, for which I'll detail later--and I am never not amazed. There's the usual internationally weary eyed traveler asleep on the floor, the young children acting as sound birth control for anyone within a hundred miles, there's the religious minded praying before flight (more touching since today is Easter), and then ... there are a group of Phi Sigs. Yes, folks, that's fellow Phi Sigma Sigmas from the sorority I pledged in college. I'm watching there lettered shirts fill up a row of seats, hearing their incessant laughter, perhaps I'm smelling the remnants of their weekend, and my ears bleed from the singing. Oh. Dear. God. I refrain from complete jackassery, and showing my age, by not standing up and shouting "I have seniority in the hallowed walls of Phi Sig, so shut your pieholes!". Instead, I suck on a Diet Pepsi in the Detroit Airport's C concourse.