Remember when...

...I used to blog?

Marriage is grand

"So, let me see," said Hubby.

See what?

"Your tooth."

What do you mean?

"Didn't you go to the dentist?"

Yes.

"Well, let's see it," he said, leaning in close.

Okay. Cheese!

"Oh WOW!"

What wow?

"You can really tell."

Tell what?

"You can really tell the difference!"

What? It looked bad before?

"Well, it was kind of gray..."

What?!?

"Isn't that why you had it fixed??"

Yes, but I didn't even know it was gray. The dentist told me it was gray. You could tell it was gray??

"Uh, yeah. It's your front tooth."

Why didn't you tell me?

"I thought you knew."

How would I know?

"Oh, Honey....I love you."

Ugh.

"Gray tooth and all."

Hip to be square

I love music. I love to listen to music. I love to play the guitar. I love to sing. I tinker with the piano. I occasionally pick up the drumsticks and can beat a simple rhythm. But put me on a dance floor and the best moves you will see will be my retreat to my seat.

I just can't dance.

My not-dancing is not the kind of not-dancing made famous by Elaine Bennes on Seinfeld. Although I don't have much more rhythm than Elaine, I do have the sense to keep my inabilities to myself. So when I found myself at a Huey Lewis and the News concert with Hubby and another couple earlier this week, I assumed the not-dancing position: hands in pockets and feet planted firmly on the floor, shoulder distance apart. Once in a while, my parts typically do an involuntary swaying to the sounds of the band, but as soon as I realize it, I realize it's not actually the band I'm watching. It's some other band in some other land, where the beat is irregular and the dancers are dorks.

I'm not really bothered by this handicap. In fact, if I didn't have dancing friends, I'd almost never think about it at all. But when they get the itch to go out and dance (which, thankfully, our status as mothers of small children generally prohibits), it really gets uncomfortable. Again, I'm not bothered by my inability to cut the rug. It's my friends who have the problem. It's my friends who insist that I MUST come and dance, even though I'd rather stick needles in my eyes. It's my friends who, for some reason, think that I secretly want to dance, and that they are doing me a favor.

While off-beating to the beat of the Power of Love, I couldn't help but look around at the other concert-goers. What a spectacle. Directly in front of me was a man with an exceedingly large head. Even bigger than my head. I'm thinking big heads prohibit good dancing, because he was just standing there, blocking my view. The girl to his left was doing some kind of pony-riding 80s technique that wasn't all that attractive, but she was keeping time with the music. Four chairs to the right was a girl dressed in black who is clearly the queen of her dancing friends. I am such a non-dancer that I don't even possess the vocabulary words to sufficiently describe the skillful coordination of her moves. Suffice it to say that she can dance. Over yonder, on the other side of the rotating round stage was a woman who is clearly a big fan of Huey. Very big. She was dancing like no one was watching. The man gyrating in the middle of the aisle next to her was dancing like everyone was watching, and he knew it.

As I quietly swayed to the Heart of Rock and Roll, I looked over at my friend who stood beside her husband, hands in her pockets and feet planted firmly on the floor, and I realized that there is a place at this concert for dancers and non-dancers alike. I'm just glad I went with a friend who dances as well as I do.

Help wanted

Cake decorators wanted. No skills required.

Synchronized blushing

It's not the actual diving that is keeping me out of the Olympics. I can dive. And I'll bet I could even synchronize it if I tried. It's not the towering height from which they leap in perfect unison toward their medals that scares me either.

Nope. It's the suit.

To the untrained eye, the suits appear to be structurally identical. The colors vary, but the square yards (feet) of fabric employed to maintain a modicum of modesty are minimal at best.

Covering just enough of, er, well, you know, the derriére, these suits would make me break out in hives. Just short of a thong, the dive competition uniform is revealing, but surprisingly stable. Rather than fight the swimsuit wedgie, the Olympians seem to have instead embraced it. And there is no wedgie worse than the swimsuit wedgie.

Time to grow up

I was one of those kids who grew up before their time. I used to think it was the circumstances of my life; my parents split up when I was very young, I went to three different elementary schools, my mother remarried and had a new baby when I was 12. All of that seemed to carve my destiny in stone, a destiny of marked independence and maturity.

Now that I have children of my own, I'm not so convinced that it was the circumstances of my life that made me old beyond my years. I think I was just born that way, something I have learned from my oldest daughter who is very much like me in that regard.

Regardless, for whatever reason, I was never really all that kiddish when I was a kid. And yet, I've been waiting to feel like a grown-up. I'm not sure what I thought it would feel like to be a grown-up, but this was definitely not it.

Over the past few years, I have lost two very important people in my life, and I am poised to lose a third very soon. With each loss, there is a sadness that lingers, an empty place that can never be filled. Maybe that empty place is where the last of childhood disappears, because, suddenly, I feel very much grown up.

It wasn't turning 40 that aged me so much as it was the realization that life is temporary. I know it sounds cliché, but it's a cliché we all have to embrace at some point. Intellectually, I know that we all die at some point. But dealing with the death of a parent or a grandparent has nothing to do with intellect and everything to do with emotion. Very grown-up emotion.

How stupid do they think I am?

You know, I get a fair amount of Nigerian con-artists with dead husbands or mothers with terminal illness, begging me to somehow help them retrieve their money from some place or other in exchange for a sizable chunk of the fictitious pot of cash, but this one takes the cake.

My Dearest.
My name is Mr Marc Lawrence, I
am the Eastern region branch Manager
of the Lloyds TSB, of London United
Kingdom.
(sounds impressive so far... hardly noticed all of the punctuation errors...)
I do not want problems (uh-oh) but I just
hope you can assist me. I write
you this letter in good faith.I am in
control of the sum of 30,000,000
(Thirty Million British Pounds sterling
which was an excess of profit
made by our region branch office in
the last quarter of the year
2003,which I have carefully placed in
an Escrow Call Deposit Account in
our Bank under the name of Adam smith
(that's smith with a lowercase "s")
and did not declare this to my
head office,
(gasp! you want me to help you steal??)
Can I really trust you to
hold this money for me until I
arrive your country and pick it up
myself and you deduct 30% of the
total money as your commission?
(Yeah, sure buddy, you can trust me...heh...heh...heh...)
All I need is for you to get me a good
current account in your bank where I
can move this money into.
(Sure, no problem. How's about I throw in a blank check as a gesture of good faith?)
l will need the following information from you.
1) Your Full Name:------------------------- -------
2)Occupation:----------------- --------------------
3) Your Address:---------------------- -------------
4) Your Telephone Number:-----------------------
5) Your Fax Number:----------------------- --------
6) Your Mobile Number:----------------------- -----
7) The Name of the Closest Airport to your:------
8)City of Residence:-------------------- ---------------------
9)Account to received the money:---------------
(Who would seriously give this info?)
10:International Passport:.....................

There is practically no risk involved; (hardly any) it will be simple Bank- to-Bank
transfer.
I hope you understand my situation.Take my word.Thank you and God bless.
(Let's leave God out of this, okay?)

Regard,
Marc Lawrence
Branch Manager
Lloyds TSB

(I am so calling Lloyd....)