The story of my life

My mother asked me yesterday on the phone a question that did not surprise me, even though I’ve been with my new company for nearly two years.

“What is it you *do* there?” she asked.

I told her.

“Oh,” she said. “I had someone ask me the other day, and I couldn’t tell them. I said that I thought you were in management or something.”

Uh, no. Not particularly.

“Oh,” she said.

I wanted to say, “Mom, there are a million things you don’t know about me, because you’ve never asked. You assume you know things about my life, but you don’t know. I’d be happy to tell you, but I just always assumed that if you were interested that you would ask.”

I didn’t, of course. But I wanted to.

How to confuse a child #187

Yesterday a girlfriend of mine and her three kids picked me up to head over to a spring festival put on by a local martial arts group. We found the spot where it was but were disappointed to realize that there were only three booths – we had hoped for more. So we headed to the bigger park in town, hoping to catch some music and food there only to find that they were throwing out the last bags of trash from the party. As we decided to go back to Plan A, my girlfriend piped up with a big, enthusiastic:

“Let’s go back and party with the Pagans!”

“Party with the Penguins?” the nine-year-old asked quizzically.

“Penguins?!” the little one said, careening her head around to look out the window. “Where?!”

“Pay-guns,” their mother repeated with emphasis.

“Penguins?”

“NO,” she said. “PAY-GUNS.”

“What are pagans?” the oldest one asked.

We looked at each other, not knowing quite what to say next and made something up about nature and trees and religion and the earth.

“Oh,” the little one said. “I wanted a party with penguins.”

“Penguins can be nice, too. But I don’t think there are going to be any at this party.”

Maybe next year.

My most recent addiction

Buttons:

Today’s totally shallow thought

Maybe it just all comes down to the shoes you’re wearing because I feel effing tremendous. And to think, all this time I thought that it was much more spiritual than this.

A most excellent find

My yard will never be the same

In the clash against my yardmate, the score now stands at:

Ang 0
Gopher 25

If you like pina coladas

So I’m screwing around on match.com today, just checking out the possibilities and asked the computer to choose only 100% matches for me. I’m what he wants, and he’s what I want.

On page two (which was infinitely easier to find than the first time four years ago), I found:

MY HUSBAND

And yes, he says he’s divorced.

So apparently, we’re divorced. I didn’t realize it, but hey, it’s just a piece of paper so there you have it.

My girlfriend said I should wink at him.

I didn’t feel like it.

Oh, I did. Four years ago. I suppose the lesson is that profiles and attraction to a photo won’t tell you how a relationship will go, how it will end. Parts of it were lovely while it lasted. For those parts I am truly, truly grateful.

Today’s random thought

I’m sitting in the coffee shop listening to a woman talk about just taking off for Jamaica — deciding that she needed to get out — didn’t tell anyone — didn’t ask a friend to go — just went.

It’s alluring.

This Stella most definitely needs to get her grove back.

STELLA!

My life

Picture me with a soup spoon in hand, kneeling in front of a gopher hole, scooping out enough dirt to make a path into the hole, unscrewing a bottle of Lysol (undiluted) and pouring it in said hole. Rinse. Repeat.

My life. In a nutshell.

Because this felt appropriate today