Mom's words, not mine

There's someone who Tweets "Shit my dad says," and the comments are hilarious. It made me think that my mom says some pretty funny stuff. Her comments are a bit more verbose than Twitter's 140 allowed characters so instead, I'll share her comments with you, here. Keep in mind that mom will be 78 in December. She's able to get around, and she drives. She goes to the grocery store on Saturday mornings, often she comes back with stories.

One Saturday, she arrived home and as she often is, she was perplexed with her shopping experience. Our closest grocery store is Jewel. It's a regional chain, our store is one of their smaller stores. As you can imagine, Saturdays are busy days in the store. Apparently at the point she arrived, so did a van carrying handicapped adults, most of whom were in scooters. The scene, as she described it is as follows:

"I'm just trying to get my shopping done, I wanted to get in, get my groceries and come home. The aisles are small, and I kept running into these people on those damn scooters. I know I'm slow but COME ON, why do they have to be here when the entire neighborhood is shopping? I got to the end of one aisle and there's one of them, he's a big one, and he's slumped over in his scooter. I thought maybe he was dead. I said "excuse me," then said it again but he didn't move. I needed to get past him. The sticker on the back of his scooter read "I MATTER." I finally pushed through with my cart and said "I MATTER TOO, NOW GET OUT OF MY GOD DAMNED WAY!" I was so mad."

I would like to say that I was stunned, but this is typical. I just said "mom, you did NOT say that to him!" She paused and finally said "well, no...BUT I WANTED TO!"

I think she would have, had she waited much longer.

The Close of the Weekend

File Under: Friends and Laughter

As far as weekends go, this was a pretty good one, all things considered.

Friday was an OK day at work. Everybody was in lively spirits because it was the day of our annual Holiday party and it was our first year back having it with all 4 of the area hospitals. This means major fashion show. Something I enjoy very much. It helped too that I was at my Central location, away from Lakeshore, and not constantly reminded that Matthew lives in the apartment building across the street. That was always a convenience feature, when I visited him, I could park at work. Now when I'm in any of the administration offices or in the lobby, I look directly across the street and see not just his building, but his windows. But...I digress.

Friday night, the party was a blast. My friend Sonny made certain that I never had an empty glass. She has been so supportive and caring during all of this. The party was non-stop laughs and good times. My CEO from Lakeshore came over to me, put her arm on my back and rubbed it and said "I am so glad to see you here." I said "well, I'm glad to be here, and I wasn't going to miss it. I'm having a wonderful time." She said this because I was anything but glad to be at Lakeshore on Thursday, a mere 12 hours post "the phone call." I was pathetic in the building all day. People sensed it. Anyway, it was sweet of Diane to seek me out and check on me during the party.

Afterwards I met up with my friend Steve and his partner Ben. Steve is someone I knew from long ago, we have an interesting past. He moved to San Francisco about 5 years ago, and I hadn't seen him for probably 4 years. He read my Facebook status update and immediately emailed me and asked me to meet them for drinks since they were going to be in Chicago for the weekend. They were so sweet, and we had a great time catching up.

Saturday was "return day" and I made a mad dash thru Old Orchard, taking back Matthew's Christmas gifts. For those of you who said I should have bought myself stuff, I will wait until after the holidays and reward myself with something fun.

That evening was Dan and Luis' "Christmas in Delaware" party. It was so much fun. 21 people showed up. There was obnoxious Christmas music, trashy food, and some sinful desserts, including my "Twinkie-misu" a version of tiramisu made with Twinkies, Cool Whip, instant vanilla pudding and 3/4 bottle of Khalua. I have to say, it was delicious! The gift exchange was fun as always. I came home with a book on how to talk to kids about drugs as well as a Britney Spears journal. Or, as I referred to it, Britney's autobiography (blank pages! - LOL). Towards the end of the night, I started to feel a bit blue about things but managed to get busy helping to clean up. Tina drove me home and I think I fell asleep not long after I arrived at home.

This morning I awoke having a panic attack. I popped a happy pill and laid back down for a while. I eventually got up, ate breakfast, had some coffee then hit the gym. Afterwards I went in search of a small Christmas present for Sonny who has been so nice during my ordeal. The gift I got her relates to a running joke between us. I'll photograph it and post it later this week.

Tonight, I relaxed. I poked around on the internet for a while but spent most of the evening chatting with my QTS friends.

I feel pretty good about things. Tomorrow will be a bit of a test because I'm back at Lakeshore. I haven't heard from M in response to the email I sent. I don't expect to, and that's okay. I'm going to believe that he read it and hopefully gave some thought to his actions both in how he ended things and in how he handled the relationship as a whole. For me, it's going to be onward and upward. I was reminded this weekend that I've got the best bunch of friends that a guy could ask for. From my QTS crew, to those who chimed in on Facebook, to my work friends, and of course my Chicago pals. I love them all so very much.

And, lest I forget, I love my blog friends, too.