Emma gets here tomorrow!! I'm supposed to be applying myself whole-heartedly to, you know, like, washing the sheets on the futon and taking out the trash and maybe even running the vaccuum if I get really motivated...
I am also suffering from a lack of sleep, and I have to get up early to pick up Em. I have lofty aspirations of going to bed early tonight.
This means you get two cute Mom stories and some pictures.
We're inside a big box computer store. My mother is talking to the salesguy. He's probably eighteen years old.
Salesguy: We can install this if you'd like...
Mom: No, that's why I have children.
Stepfather: Right, because you knew...
Mom: Exactly, the entire time I was having sex, I was thinking "Some day I am going to need children to help me with my computer."
New Year's Eve, Mom's come home and is slightly appalled to learn that we are not lighting off fireworks. Frankly, the bottle of champagne and a long long distance phone call to a boy had completely distracted me from the part where she made a point of telling me where they were...
So, she got them out and we learned that Emma hadn't ever done New Year's Eve fireworks and further didn't know about the difference between a Lady Finger ("Aren't they the cutest little things? I started the girls on them when they were little."), TNT and an "inch and a half" ("One time I had a whole strip of them blow up in my face." "Wow, you don't even have scars." "No, but I didn't hear for a week and a half."). She'd never even played with a bottle rocket.
Em: I love your mom.
mary: Everyone knows I have the coolest Mom ever.
Mom: Really?
mary: Well, yes. Obviously.
Mom: I'm not that cool. I mean, I did grow up and have kids.
mary: Um...
Mom: Oh, I guess that's sort of a prerequisite for the title "Coolest Mom Ever".
mary: Yes.
Pictures!!
The view from the porch where I sat and smoked:
The driveway of so many problems:
The barn and the hill (at the top of which you can get a tiny bit of cell phone reception):
The little valley and the creek and the neighbor's barn:
