Happy MLK Day!

“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Basically, everything has a ripple effect. 

Deep, huh? 

No, I’m not about to go all profound blogger up in here. I just thought it was appropriate to quote some MLK Jr on MLK Day, m’kay? And I like that one. It really makes me stop and think. I have to be careful with that, sometimes I stop to think and forget to start again.

Especially lately because I’ve been pretty sick and taking quite a bit of cold medicine and pain reliever. What do they put in that stuff anyways?  I didn't even buy the kind they keep behind the counter and make you show ID for. Hell, I didn't even buy the name-brand for that matter. But it sure did make for some whackadoo behavior. 

For instance, Saturday, after having consumed the suggested dosage of daytime medicine + 4 Excedrin, I donned an outfit you couldn’t have put together if you stole a donation box from behind the Goodwill.

And then I drove my kid to work in it. 

Because my husband doesn't love me enough to not let me out of the house like that. 


Ok fine that's not true. He wasn't even home, he was off working & making money blah blah. Whatever. I still think that if he DID love me he would have sensed that I needed him and appeared out of no where to take the kid to work and bring me banana cream pie. 


But he didn't and so there I was. 

In gray velvet’ish sweats (that fit me better in 2005, when they were only 2 years old), a pair of my husbands tube socks complete with toe hole, and a crème colored fleece hoodie that left giant fuzzies all over my black t-shirt. I was feverish and didn't really want to wear the sweatshirt but I needed to. It helped camouflage the fact that I was bra-less.

BRA-LESS. 

I know. I'm not proud of it. 

I walked out of my house, got in my car, and drove away without a brassiere – BUT WITH those stupid Hanes His Way man socks on. You could tell they were pulled all the way up too cause' my velvet sweatpants kept clinging to my calves real sexy like. Oh and maroon slippers. (Is maroon even a color anymore?) 

I get that appearing in public like this doesn’t bother some weirdo's folks (we've all seen the People of Walmart. And Courtney Love.) – but it’s a major sign of sickness and/or impending dementia for me. 

I always wear a bra and I almost never wear socks. 

Let's be clear here, I don’t need to be dressed up to go outside & I love weekends without make-up - but bra’s are not generally an optional accessory in my book.

My girls are neither itty bitty nor full of silicone. They require full service support with underwire, thankyouverymuch.

Plus there is the whole issue of living in the House O’ Testosterone to think about. (Remember the MLK quote people: “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”)

The nipple ripple-effects of traumatizing my sons by flailing about all Kathy-Bates-in-the-hot-tub style are far, far too numerous to consider. 

I clearly didn't think about it at the time, but I shudder to think of what would have happened had I been pulled over...gotten into a fender bender...or worse...like pulled up to a stop light next to him:

I big-puffy-heart LOVE Jim Parsons!!!

WARNING: Bad sentence structure ahead

Just so ya know, I'm long winded tonight....

First, and most importantly, thank you to so many of you for your kind words this past Friday. I made it through the work day with mascara intact! And I even spent the evening doing something a little different - something fun with a girlfriend who proposed a new way of honoring Kaitlyn: with a toast instead of a tear. 

Her name is Tina & she took me to a really yummy Indian place for dinner. Because she's, like, sophisticated n' stuff. 


I'd never been to an Indian restaurant before (kind of on purpose because the smell of curry makes me want to hurl) and the only other time I've even eaten Indian food is when Tina ordered some take-out - but this place was wonderful. :) 


I had the ginger-mango chicken in "medium" and HELLOOO spicy mama! I should have known when the waitress asked "mild, medium, hot or Indian hot" that they meant business in the caliente department. Luckily I lurves me some spicy. 


I also indulged with lots and lots of naan (bread?) and some kind of cilantro based sauce and some other sauce that may or may not be called Pinot Grigio. 


Tina ordered a drink that looked alot like ice cold pepto bismal in a tall frosty glass but really it was non-alcoholic fruit-milk (?) since she was the DD. Have I told you how many awesomes it is to be carted around on a girl-date in a silver convertible Mustang? LOVE IT. 

Tina is also my artsy friend (we saw Wicked together) so dinner was not all she had lined up for me that evening. After we were sufficiently full and I was warm & fuzzy from my wine spicy chicken we headed to the Starving Artist Studio and painted us some pottery.


And ate some more. 


Because no one is EVER too full for a chocolate fondue bar. 


This is my mug - oh, and also my travel coffee cup that I painted. We pick our pieces up this week, I'm so esssited to see how it turned out. :)

We went here, the Starving Artists Studio:

If you can't come to this one, find one near you. Go ahead and Google "paint your own pottery" ~ I'll wait. 


~~~

Saturday sort of became a make up day for Friday - where I let myself go and spent some time with a box of tissue and travelling down memory lane. Mother Nature and I seemed to be on the same wavelength ~ the storm outside mirrored my feelings inside. 

With Sunday came sunshine ~ also inside & out. As a matter of fact, it was all that sunshine in my face that made me see the horror of my eyebrows and ew, nails. Clearly time for a little appearance-maintenance. I love love love a pedicure ~ hot wax or sitting still for a manicure not so much. But the next 2 weekends are gonna be busy, the time was now. (Or then.)

Can I just say that if you are a creature of habit like me that it's okay to stay within your comfort zone?  Let's go with "it's Tina's fault" for what happened when I chose to hit up a different salon. 


All this time I have been perfectly content going to my little down-trodden nail shop with its 4 pedicure chairs and 6 manicure stations but only 2 actual people who work there. But my inner voice sounded suspiciously Tina-like when it was all "why go to that depressing little hole in the wall, dahling, when you can upgrade to the fancy place with the chandelier and the golden buddha for the same price?"....

You thought I was kidding about the chandelier & gold buddha??

BAD IDEA.

They were mean to me you guys. 


Meaner than the Rodeo Drive shops were to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. 


So mean that they did this to me:

Because apparently? I had a beard. Only I didn't. A fact I could have argued with the little old asian lady over had I only understood what she was saying under her sars mask BEFORE she slapped hot wax on my cheek. 

What I THOUGHT she asked me while I was laying back with my eyes closed all vulnerable was if I like my eyebrows thin. I replied "yes, shape them up please". 


Then, slap - aaaah! I sat up, opened my eyes, and gave her the "please don't kill me" look - to which she replied "it ok, I make you sexxy for summatye, good for skin, you relax."


I relax. Sure. Who doesn't relax with their double chin being ripped off one strip at a time? 

Due to "Miss Swann's" advantage over my precarious situation, I decide to not piss her off while she stops me from "alookin' like a man".

The immediate results: see above, lasted 2 hours.

The final results: unnoticeable difference - she did not, by any definition, make me sexxy.

Husbands comments: What the...?? Did they jump you in at the salon? Are you in a gang now? 

Yeah. I'm gangsta and I roll with balls of yarn. 

The One Where My Wallet Performs A Vanishing Act

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but you know what sucked in 2010? Getting my wallet stolen.

Or at least I think it was stolen. 

I did all the usual brain-wracking & visually re-tracing of my steps, but none of it conjured up images of having put it anywhere other than right back in my purse. 

I called the grocery store where I had last been, but they said there was nothing in the lost & found box. Then I went there in person, because you never know if the gum-smacking Flo on the other end is really looking, y'know? You'd wanna be sure too. 

Panic had settled in for the long haul and I couldn't sit still at work while my Betty Boop wallet was missing instead of tucked in my purse where it belonged. Plus a long holiday weekend was looming. My drivers licenses (current VA and sentimental CA), my social security card, my cards. No cash though. But the whole reason there was no cash is because there was a debit card - the only one linked to the bank account where I had just deposited my paycheck. GASP! No access to bank means NO access to grocery store. I had to go!

I ran home where hubby had searched high and low but to no avail. Then I RE-searched high and low because, Hello, he's a man and sometimes when he's looking in the refrigerator he can't see the butter for the milk. 


After that, I dug out my birth certificate, our marriage certificate, bills for proof of address - more panic! OMG, what will they think at DMV when they see that my gas bill is past due? Oh hell, no time for that. Go! Go! Go! 

I got ahead of myself earlier because this is the part where I stop at the grocery store to look over gum-smacking Flo's shoulder while she roots through the Drawer Of Lost Mittens & Baby Teething Keys. Do people really go back looking for baby's lost teething keys? That's just all kinds of gross. Even if you boiled them why would you want to stick them back in your kids gummy little mouth ever again? I guess people don't which is why they are still in that drawer and in which case why doesn't Flo just throw them away so she can better search for my Betty Boop wallet? No use. They could dump the drawer completely out and it still wouldn't be in there. 

The assistant store manager offered to let me come back later & watch the surveillance footage. How friggin awesome is that?! I'm sure its because I told them about the old man in the Dallas Cowboys coat who had asked me for money in the parking lot the evening before. Even though I told him I didn't have any he still took my buggy back to the cart return for me. He even waved goodbye. Someone mentioned that he could have pick-pocketed me but he never got that close. The shopping buggy was always between us and the guy is there alot. I'm not sure what his gig is, but he's not gross or creepy. He sometimes mentions having a wife but I think he drifts down from the veterans hospital and hangs out. 

It suddenly occurs to me that I know way too much about the Dallas Cowboy panhandler. But I'm observant when in parking lots thanks to my fear of someone stealing all my groceries while I'm loading them into the car. 

Next stop, the credit union. Where more awesome people work. The bank manager was super kind and very understanding and even printed out a ginormous copy of my drivers license that they had on file. Not that anyone will accept it as a legal form of identification, but it helped me. I still can only spout my California DL number. I've never memorized my Virginia one. I'll work on that this year. 

Twenty minutes later I had a brand-shiny-new atm card in my hand and was headed to the DMV.

I bet those three little letters made you cringe huh? They do me that way too. 

DMV: The place nobody ever likes to go because it's always something.


Long lines, dumb people, rude people, mean people, the stupid eye charts, the picture taking. Do they get hand me down camera's from the cops or what? I don't care who you are, you know you look like a convict on your driver's license. All that's missing is booking numbers. 

But guess what? I was in and out of there in lickity split time too. The lady at the information counter didn't even need to see my past due bill or anything! She gave me a form and a bingo number and pointed to a bank of chairs. I looked for an area with at least 2 or 3 empty seats surrounding it. I don't like to sit right next to people if I don't have to. I didn't find one so I had to sit next to this guy with, you'll never guess, a twitch. If ever I have to sit directly next to a person in a row of connecting seats they always have to have a twitch. Or the sniffles. It's my lot in life. I can never meet the "good" kind of interesting people, always the twitchy/sniffly/humming/gassy kind.

I didn't last long. I filled out my form, checked the bingo board to see how close I was to getting my number called, and headed to the ladies room. (Can I just say I don't think actual "ladies" use that room? More like they brought in some monkeys from the zoo to let them bathe in the sinks & splash water everywhere. Gross.) I went to grab a wad of paper towels to dry off a place on the counter so I could set down my wallet-free purse. Evidently, paper was not on the supply list this week. So I gripped my purse between my thighs and rearranged my bangs and removed the eyeliner smudges from under my eyes. 

Then I stood back and stared at myself in the mirror, realizing with defeat that on my new government issue I.D. I was going to look like the offspring of Medusa and Gene Wilder. Only less cute.

The little old man from UP processed my new drivers license for me. He even sort of grunted as he worked (see lot in life comment above). Grunting and chicken pecking keyboard skills aside though, he was very efficient and he didn't make small talk. Two qualities I prefer in a DMV employee. 

Feeling a little tornado-whipped, I returned to the office where I finally allowed myself the time to think about the possibility of my wallet having been stolen there. We had a worker guy come in to pack up the holiday decor that I felt uneasy about. Someone who many people have told me worrisome things about, including my coworker who mentioned double checking the safety of her own wallet when she saw him the last time. I'm not used to being around people like that and I don't really like it. I hate to sound so judgmental and base my opinion of someone I don't even know on the stories others have told me, but at the same time, I'd be stupid to not at least heed the warning. 

I shared my concern with my boss who immediately felt that my fear was probably not true but understood my need to ask. She has known the guy for a long time and provided him with side jobs and says he has always had her trust. That was total crap. When she helped to look it wasn't to ease my worries, it was to save face because I'm pretty sure she knew her creep worker had taken it. Ok thats not nice. In fairness, he had but one opportunity to really take it (and he probably did) and there's no way of knowing for sure if he did or not (except my Jedi-mind powers tell me so). 


My gut is so not satisfied. 

And what exactly do you do when you have a gut feeling but absolutely no proof? Well, I'll tell you.You alert everyone linked to anything in your wallet and you start over. It sucks. But it is what it is and I can't just go around pissing people off without evidence. 

I still haven't found a replacement wallet yet. The one I had was given to me by my kids several years ago. I'll keep looking. Wallet shopping is not as easy as it sounds. I keep comparing everything to the Betty Boop one I'll never see again. 

Now where is my crochet hook? I have a pizza scarf to get busy on....

Oooooh, aaaaah, MALABRIGIO WOOL hand dyed to look like cheesy goodness!

Dude, is this thing on?

It may be time for Sweet Mama Jones to Ctrl Alt Delete.

It's not that I want to exit the blogging world, it's quite the opposite: I want back in! But I need a new platform.  Somewhere I can be me again. What sucks is, I love Sweet Mama Jones. I bought the effing domain name for craps sake. But, as some of you know, SMJ security was breached awhile back and that leaves me feeling all cold and vulnerable here. Who can decompress under such conditions?

And y'all? There are days I seriously need to decompress or I fear I'll begin knocking over liquor stores all Thelma & Louise style. For FUN.

I've visited my "happy place", "taken the high road", and "turned the other cheek" so many damn times that I'm probably going to be ordained into living-sainthood and, like, have my own statue. Lifetime Movie Network will likely contact me to do a feature film (starring me as me), Oprah will want to build another school in Africa just so she can name it after me...and if she doesn't, then she should.  

Okaaay, so I exaggerate. I can't help it! I don't tell you how to use your gifts do I? Anyways, so nothing going on is that big of a deal per se, but it is affecting me. And that? Is so not cool.

Basically, I'm a non-confrontational person who keeps finding herself in the middle of the stupidest people's drama's. According to some friends that I've talked this over with, it's going to take GETTING confrontational for it to stop. Uuugh. Why do I have to have such smart friends? And they go and say all these new-agey things like: "look at it as an opportunity to grow" and "step outside your comfort zone and lay down your boundary lines" and "just punch them in the face"..errr, well, no one has said that last part, but it's a nice idea anyways.

ETA: just so you guys don't think I'm some big wuss, there really was a time in my life when I considered inviting an individual or two to smooch my shapely, iridescent, behind to be glorious fun. No, really, I did! But I'm not that person anymore. I just don't care about stupid people enough to give them any attention (nor do I want to contract any STD's) and yet, ignoring them is not working out. Sigh, big girl panty department, here I come...I'm ready for my fitting.

_________________________________________________________

In other, more exciting, and totally self-promoting news:::::::::

I am getting published! 

Wait.

Let me say that again.

I. Am. Getting. Published.

AND I'm getting paid for it! 

(***insert squeal of delight here***)

 I just found out today. OH, if only I had been here when the mailman delivered the acceptance letter I would have full on made out with kissed him. 

I don't want to say when or where just yet, but I am saying it here first, and only here. So those of you on my Facebook are sworn to secrecy, got it? Zip it, lock it, put it in your pocket. Not even my mama knows yet. I want to send it to her in the mail....so that she will want to kiss her mailman too.

It's just a contributing-freelance-editorial-type article, but it's a big damn deal to me. My biggest hope is that it's the start of a dream come true, not some bawdy one night stand that leaves me feeling dirty in the morning.....(for the record, no, it is NOT porn related.)

Private Eyes, Their Watching You

Remember this relic classic from the early days of MTV? Hard to believe it was once a Top 40 Hit, huh? Or maybe it wasn't. I don't know. I didn't have time to fact check my music history with Kasey Kasem, ok? So shoot me.
 
Crap. Totally stuck in my head now.

Anyways.....

So, don't know if it was noticed by very many or not, but I took my blog private for a couple days to collect my thoughts.

Ya see, it was brought to my attention that I had a couple of new readers that were really close to home...by "home" I mean in my circle of life, not actually under my roof...and it threw me for a little loopty-lou.  

It's not like they found me & got tickled & couldn't wait to tease me - no, they just "found me". And then they formed an investigatve posse. Probably. Or maybe thats just my imagination running wild. Either way, they are reading me on the "D.L."- hence the necessity for a little Hall & Oat's and the reason for the flurry of questions in my head - like:

Why don't they say something?

Why are they so interested?

Do they find amusement in my tales? 

Do they admire my mediocre mad crochet skills?

Or are they after dirt?

Looking to see if I talk about them?

Will they judge me?

Get mad?

Do they have a right to?

What about MY rights to MY opinions, MY intellectual property?

Then again...what if I have said something offensive?

Hurtful?

But who hasn't?

These questions danced around and around in my little pea-brain for most of the day...so I checked in with a few friends who's opinions matter to me and each one of them pretty much said the same thing: "Don't flatter yourself!" - they keepz me real like 'dat.

And at the end of the day kids, all I am on here is a Mama Blogger who loves to crochet, take pictures, and share stories with other like-minded-Mama's. I'm not some middle-aged Gossip Girl.

If, from time to time, I go off track and talk a little smack - so be it. I am an imperfect human being. I've been known to point and laugh at inappropriate times, have opinions, and get down right self-righteous. (All shocking revelations, right?) ;)

But what I don't do is I don't: do/say things to be mean-spirited, drink like prohibition is coming back tomorrow, or engage in family matters that are none of my business. I'm also not a liar, liar, pants on fire. Some folks hold gold medals do, but I like sleeping at night.

That said, what you see is not exactly what you get. I'm not a balls-out person who feels the need to express my opinions about everything, all the time, everywhere, to everyone. I'm quiet by nature and I'm happy to let others shine their little lights bright. I'm a watcher, a listener, a learner, and a doer. I can get along with people I don't really like for the sake of harmony for a period of time....but if pushed to my limits, I will get mouthy and stand my ground. I might even throw down, yo. I'm gangsta like that, yo. Ok yeah, I don't even know what that means. Throwing something down means I just have to pick it up and I'm too lazy busy for all that.

In any case, I went ahead and deleted any posts that might be hurtful. I admit there were a few that I had forgotten about. Still, it wasn't easy because I didn't really want to  - whatever I said in those posts may not have shined the best light on a few individuals out there - but it was still my honest take on situations that directly affected me, they were my experiences. People don't just go around tossing family pictures in the dumpster because someone in the shot was less than pleasing. Hell, it's usually the odd one out that gives the picture more character. Likewise, I don't plan on deleting any future editorials - folks are just gonna have to put on their big boy/girl pants/panties and deal.

Besides, those posts are few and far between - because like many a blogger out there? I'm just way too narcissistic & selfish to let it be about others for very long.

Now go smile at someone and make their day.

The Odd-er Couple

I've been officially blogging here for about a year now, but pre-official-blogger my ramblings took place over on our (now defunct) family myspace site. I know what you are thinking, "myspace...ew!", but it was prior to the Facebook revolution and it gave me a platform for sharing daily events, holiday pictorials, amazing kid tricks, and all forms of fodder for the kin-folk & close friends back home and beyond. 

It's where I discovered that I loved to blog.  

In the beginning, I sorta kept my ramblings on the down low from the hubs. I am sure the question of my sanity had crossed his mind more than once, so why give him anything definitive, you know? Besides, he’s so anti-computer I figure he’d just say something special that would hurt my feelings and then I would have to pout. 

He's sort of Oscar and I'm sort of Felix.

He's also sort of Oscar the Grouch and I'm sort of Zoey.

  

OK, so I'm more Cookie Monster, but that's beside the point.

Suprisingly, Oscar Mister Jones likes my little blog. Well, when he reads it - which isn't all that often, but often enough to wonder when I was going to talk about him.

So here it is. The thing about my husband.

The thing about my husband is that he is the oldest living 43 year old in the free world.

What I mean by that is – he makes Grumpy Old Men look like an episode of The Suite Life of Zach & Cody.

He is young in years and old in frame of mind. He does not like change. He pretends not to like computers. (But he does like VCR's, DVR's, TV's and electronics that help him to watch The Soprano's, Good Fella's and all The Godfather's - ad nauseum.)

Sure, he has learned to email and can navigate his way through Nascar and Lowes dot com, but he’s not thrilled about it.

I’d even go so far as to say that if it was up to this guy? We’d still be using rotary phones. Avocado green with a 4 foot twisted cord, no less.

What I can’t for the life of me figure out is when he decided he was 97 years old because cross my heart swear, he wasn’t like this when we met. He's a super smart guy, a total handy man, a lover of rock & roll and Levi jeans….yet he’d sooner use empty soup cans connected by a string than a carry a cell phone. (Though he always checks to see that I have mine on & charged.) The man is a study in contradiction to be sure.

The kids almost got him brought up to speed with an iPod once. They lured him in by downloading all his favorite hits, planting the earbuds in his ears, and handing him a beer. He liked it. He liked it so much that when he realized he liked it? He stopped liking it. Because, you see, he is also a man who is never happier than when he is miserable.

“The iPod has to be charged.”

This claim, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is why Mr. Jones cannot continue his relationship with the tiny little music player.

“Radio’s do not need to be charged. They can be turned off and on and off and on!”

True enough Mr. Jones – but can they pause? Can they play the SAME song over and over and over until you decide to move to the next song and listen to it over and over and over as you so often do with your CD’s? (Ok, so SOME radio stations do seem to do that, but you know what I mean.) Are they commercial free??? I think not.

We also live in very close proximity to the beach (and we are about to get closer!). All summer long people are over there playing volleyball, skim-boarding, swimming, relaxing, picnicking – basically doing all things beach fun related. Mr. Jones does not want have fun at the beach. Sometimes he does by accident though. Oh yes, about once every couple of weeks we can manage to get him to tag along & he enjoys it - he even swims! The next day will bring soreness from the sun or the exercise and so he must decide he cannot go again. Until he goes again.

We find it funny how upset he will get with all the seasonal visitors to the sandy shore.  The way he see's it - they are imposing on what he clearly considers is “our” property – even though it’s NOT at all and it's the kids and I who spend the most time over there. We may be "locals" but we aren't natives ~ we're transplants from California. (Where, BTW, he was raised in the Bay Area and considers the Golden Gate & Bay bridges part of his own personal territory as well.)

On the 4th of July he gets pretty dang pesky - though I must admit I'm with him on this one because it irritates me to see all the trash that people leave behind after the fireworks.

Thank heavens for the new fishing pier that opened last summer. The old one was taken out by Hurricane Isabelle some years ago (before we arrived on the VA scene) and its finally been replaced. To give Mr. Jones a little credit – he HAS been out on the new fishing pier of his own accord, and he truly enjoyed it each time. The first time he took our youngest son and strolled along – investigating it more than anything, deciding if the builders indeed did an appropriate job, and figuring out what he would have done different/better if he was, you know, a builder of fishing piers. (Ego much?)

Still, this excites me people. THIS has potential for getting Mr. Jones out into the world of fun & relaxation. THIS pier may be the answer to my “get this man out from under my feet” prayers! THIS pier may save his life, because I am one nerve ending shy of pushing him down the stairs. Ok, I hope you know I won’t really do that, but a wife can dream right? KIDDING!!!! Mostly.

Saddle Up Kids, Let's Take Stroll....

...right down memory lane...

It was Spring 2006 and we were settling happily into our rented townhouse by the beach. It wasn't the house we'd dreamed of buying here in Virginia, but we'd arrived in the dead of winter and after 2 months of living with the sibling-in-laws my husband (rightfully) feared that I would go Lizzie Borden if he didn't get me out of there, pronto. Not that my husbands family is bad, just, well - you move 3000 miles away & go live with people you barely know for 2 months and report back and then we'll talk, ok?


So anyways, back to settling happily into our rented townhouse by the beach...


I loved it! Sure, it was smaller than what we were used to, but I've mentioned "by the beach" twice now because, um, it's by the beach and what's not to love about that? Way better than a big backyard, hands down.


As I set about to make this little place our own, it became apparent that using too much of my same decor & chatchkies from "back home" was making us all a little homesick. I placed my favorites, stored the rest, and went shopping! at  Dillards Walmart and Nordstroms Target and Pier One and Kirklands. (Kirklands, in case you don't know, is like the Holy Land of all things home decor at supah-affordable prices.) I bought towels and dishes and curtains, oh my!  It was euphoric.


But the kids needed a little sumpin-sumpin, and I'm not talking 6-foot beach towels, no matter how cute. They needed a critter. Sure, we had big-fat-mean-cat Uma who came with us from California, but they needed something else.


A fish! Yeah, fish are cool, low-key, won't pee on the floor and just so happen to be on sale at Walmart. My dudes picked out a very colorful beta with bright reds & blue & quickly dubbed him Superman. I bought one of those big plant vases and pretty baubles for the bottom for him to live in, but no plant. The ones they had were a tad on the Little Shop of Horrors side and I figured better no plant than an ugly plant. Right?


Superman proved to be very cool and he clearly loved us very much. Any time I, I mean, the boys would press their noses to the vase he would get all flashy with those fins & show off.


"Mom, are you ever going to get a plant for Superman?", AJ asked a couple weeks later.


To be honest, I sort of like him "sans plant" - but AJ proceeded to lecture me about how beta fish like to play & sleep among the roots and how we were basically forcing him to live unsheltered and how he had no place to poop in private and pretty much making me feel like a neglectful fish owner. Was I really forcing Superman to hold in bowel movements until lights out so he could "go" unwatched? Did I really just ask myself that question? (Note to self: pick up a good book.)


The next morning I bought a plant: a beautiful but small peace lily that looked perfect in the fish vase.


And that afternoon...Superman died.


Yes, I killed - nay, murdered - Superman with a peace lily. Who knew they were freaking poisonous? Like kryptonite? Ok, besides you, who else knew? I just thought they were pretty, and it was springtime, very nearly Easter, it seemed appropriate at the time, ok? Get off my case.


I flew back to Walmart for a Superman replacement before the kids got home, you know, like any desperate Mom would do.


Except...they didn't have any in red & blue. Naturally. (At which point I probably cussed out loud.)

So I went to the pet store...where they didn't have any either. (At which point I definitely cussed out loud.)
******


Max was the first to notice: "What the heck?....MOM! Superman is a goldfish!" he hollered in amazement.


"Dude, that's not Superman," AJ glared at me.


"Sure it is, he's just Clark Kent right now." And then I walked away. Because I? Am an evil genius like that.


The end.