Saturday, September 9
Last night, Mike and I were chatting, and I told him that one of the highlights of my day was a phone conversation with Aleece in which we laughed at one another's pain. It made me feel better to laugh, to say out loud the problems that I have and to see the absurdity in them. She and I are both in situations in which our lives are changing. From this point forward, things will never be the same as they were before, and that's hard. But as she and I were talking, I was able to see the humor in it all. At some point, she said, "these are great stories. Why do I not see these on the blog?" I think funny plays better on the phone than in print, but I'll give it a shot.
I'm not an outdoor girl...not a fan of nature... Florida has these weird little frogs. They're tiny - about the size of a dime, big ones top out at quarter-size - and all green and slimy looking. And they appear to have decided that my mailbox is THE place to be. So every day, in order to put something in or take something out of the mailbox, I whack on the side of it for a minute or so before opening it. My theory is that I'll give them plenty of notice & they can shimmy to the back so I can do my mail business. I'm willing to live and let live. But this hopping on my mail is just too much!
Sometimes, though, they suffocate, so I find a dead tiny frog in the mailbox (imagine how my mailman must hate me, especially since my kids often insist on waiting for him and getting the mail in person, often singing the mail song from "Blue's Clues") and then I have to yell at Mike - "dead frog!" - and have him take care of it. (He just came in from mowing & had a frog riding on his arm. Ugh.)
And I've been riding in the van alone this week to and from work, and I've been thinking about how homesick I am and I've been crying, and I've managed to give myself a stye. Lovely.
And Mike had a student lie to him about why she couldn't meet with him one afternoon, and upon discovering the lie, he left his office, got in his truck, and drove across campus to the school pool to see if he could see her. He said he spotted a "blonde with big boobs" (which, here, isn't a distinguishing thing... everyone's blonde with big boobs) but that he couldn't tell if it was her or not. I asked what his plan was... what he was going to do if he determined it was her. He said, "oh, it didn't matter. I couldn't find a parking spot." So my dear husband's detective work was thwarted by the lack of good parking.
The popular trend in mowing down here seems to be electic lawn mowers. They're quiet, sure. Mike's out there with his big, old gasoline mower making tons of noise, and you can hardly tell these guys are out there. Except that they're funny looking. It looks like all of these men are vacuuming their lawns. It's the same principle. They carry the cord in one hang, slinging it out of the way, and mow with the other hand. Vacuuming the lawns.
Last weekend, the sheriff's department visited our house because Eliza decided to go ride her tricycle on the porch before anyone else was up & set off the alarm. When the alarm company called, Mike gave them the wrong code word, so I met the cutest little sheriff's deputy.
My class at work is a hen party, full of young women. I sat yesterday eating my Peanut M&Ms and listening to them chatter about this and that, mostly about their weight and how to be skinnier.
Yeah, this stuff is funnier on the phone.
[ posted by Chel on Saturday, September 09, 2006 ]
[ 3 comments ]
3 Comments:
Okay, that was plenty funny. We got a big laugh here at our house. Classic stuff there. :)
Yeah! It makes good reading when you miss people who were so much a part of your life.
By 
, at
7:31 PM
i don't know about funnier on the phone... i laughed out loud at the warning you give the frogs. are you sure they suffocated? maybe you gave them a heart attack...