Wally World Party On Excellent

You simply cannot make up the stuff you see and hear at Wal-Mart. When I am feeling down and need a quick pick me up, I head over to the White Settlement Wal-Mart. Everything about my life feels good afterwards. BTW, that is a Texas flag in the store and not a Confederate flag in case some of my Yankee friends were wondering. So yes, this woman was (way) older than me and was a walking piece of tattoo art. Hmmmm...first pick me up. Then I stood in line for a money order because believe it or not, there are institutions that only want a money order - no check. no cash. no debit card. no credit card. For this you must stand in line at Wal-Mart, like the lady in front of me who waited (this is no exageration) about 20 minutes, with her teenage son who was WAY MORE PATIENT than mine ever could have been, to get her 20 cent coupon (no lie) refunded because the check out person had forgotten it and there was "no way she was getting ripped off by Wal-Mart". Is 20 minutes in the Wal-Mart service desk line really worth 20 cents? I would have given her 50 cents for the show...maybe even a dollar.

And while I am thinking about all the garden spots I have been to lately, and overheard conversations: there is the Sonic incident (ice cream for Lili and unsweetened tea for me!) - where the very large man very loudly ordered the buy one get one free Hamburgers with "absolutely no vegetable matter on them. No pickles, no lettuce, no tomatoe - do not even put Ketchup on it either because it is vegetable matter. Mayonaisse instead....Got it?" JAMIE OLIVER WHERE ARE YOU?

Color inside the lines

Yes, this is my child...William...Willy...Willster...Williard. Yes, he is anything but conventional and has taken me down some eye opening roads. No I do not approve of the tattoos. And yes, he is the very different identical twin to my other son Richie. Willy is pictured here with his 2 year old daughter...apparently all the twisted paths lead to her! Today we spent the day doing ordinary things including coloring. As Willy and Lili colored together, I overheard him tell her how to COLOR INSIDE THE LINES. WHAT???!!! The boy who has been coloring outside of the lines for all of his life - the boy whose favorite food in Kindergarten was Mango while everyone else's was Pizza or Mac N. Cheese...whose favorites songs as a toddler were "I'm Bad", "Burning Down the House" and "Bad Bad Boys Make me feel so good." I could hardly believe my ears which got me to thinking... When do we get squished into these little boxes? Does parenting make us safe..make us conventional...make us suck the creative life force out of ourselves and our children?

Secretly, I'm hoping that Lili will color outside of the lines...well maybe not as far as her daddy.

Girls vs. Boys Birthday Lunch Out

My business takes me to interesting places and interesting experiences. I would like to blog about them sometime but you can't slap the hand that feeds you. All Ears had the unique experience recently to have her own birthday lunch with the girls, head east to work and then crash a birthday lunch with the men (the short version: in LA the state not the city, Need to find a locals place, get directed to one that is a dive with tasty food, had to share the picnic table with the group of birthday celebrating men of a certain age). Girls lunch conversation: the kids, the grandkids, kids sports, new jewelry, travels...Boys lunch conversation: boobs, beer, "little man" (which I'm assuming/hoping was his son), golf, boobs, young girls, alligator eyes, boobs, fishing, boats which kind of sounded like a mine is bigger than yours converation and more boobs. It was so much fun listening in - of course it could have been because of the at least three rounds of Bud schooners they had. BONUS - when they realized I was listening in, they called me out on it and offered to buy me a beer!!

There's this great mystery between the sexes - when women are alone what do we talk about? When men are alone what do they talk about? Are we really that different? My summation: we're not all that different. Men like boobs. We have them.