Real Conversations with Mom: Gardening

Mom:  "Listen!  If you don't do what I tell you, your ass is grass, and I am the lawnmower!"

Me:  "Mom!  Where did you hear that?"

Mom:  "I've known it for a long time.  A long, long time."

Me:  "Fine, well, could you carry this folder inside while I get the bags?"

Mom:  "I don't know.  That might be too heavy for me.  I am delicate, you know."

Me:  "The sarcasm is running pretty thick today."

Mom:  "Vroom-vroom!  Vroom-vroom!"

Me:  "What?"

Mom:  "Vroom-vroom!  I am the lawnmower, and don't you forget it!"

The Office Door

Hello, beloved readers!  Today, I must confess, I have gotten a bit out of hand.  You know how sometimes you have a good idea, one that is slightly funny or witty, but which, once you get it going, you find yourself unable to stop until you swerve into a fast lane of ridiculousness that overwhelms your sense of self preservation, dignity and good sense?

Okay, well, it happens to me all the time.

For example, I am teaching an independent study this fall on Old English (no, not Shakespeare.  No, not Chaucer.  Never mind.  If you want to know, you can take the class), and, unfortunately, my dedicated and brilliant students kept getting interrupted by people wandering into my office.   So the solution we came up with was to hang a little sign on my office door.  Voilà!

Of course, once I had such a sign, and I saw that it was reversible, I had to add something to the, well, reverse:

But there's more!  You see, these lovely door signs came in a package of eight, so, of course, I had to fill them out with increasingly stranger and more inappropriate messages.  I tried to stop.  I really did.  But I just couldn't.  Please don't judge me.

Worlds Collide

Hello, delightful readers!  Today was an unusual day, for I find myself in a quandary, a confusing confluence of events, and I need your help.

In preparing for class today, I noticed these lines from a 15th century Middle English romance about King Arthur (I have translated them for you, good readers, as some of you, sadly, do not read of the Middle English):

"Sir Perceval and Sir Gawain;
Sir Gaheris and Sir Agravain;
And Sir Lancelot du Lake;
Sir Kay and Sir Yvain
(who could fight well on the field
and undertake battles!)
King Ban and King Bors
(who had a such a great reputation
that men never saw their like)
Sir Galafré and Sir Launfal,
About whom a noble tale
awakens for us!"

Now, some of you, loyal readers, are thinking, "Okay, so what?  Nothing actually happens in those lines.  It's just a list of knights."  But others of you, those who bear the weight of heavy nerdosity, are thinking, "Wait!  Wait!  Sir who?!"

To which I respond, "Sir Galafré, that's who!  Or, possibly, Who!"

And now, many of you are thinking, "I don't get it.  What is this post about?  Can't we hear more about your mom? I like those posts."  But others, those dearest to my heart, are standing up and shouting, "?!?!"

And indeed, those who are speechlessly shouting in punctuation, you are my people.  For the rest of you, let me explain:  Galafré--or, in Modern English, Gallifrey, is the home planet of the Time Lords.

Moreover, when I first read this romance, precious readers, generally referred to as Sir Launfal, for my oral examinations in grad school, I read it repeatedly, and I read it well.   And yet, I have no memory of this Sir Gallifrey.  And why do I have no memory of him?  Is it because I am getting old and forgetting those things I once knew?  Or...is it because a certain Man with a Blue Box, not satisfied with his role as Merlin (see "Battlefield," Season 26) also became, between the time I got my Ph.D. and now, a knight of the round table?!

Now, I know what you're thinking, beloved readers.  You're thinking, "But nay!  If such a thing had happened, your memories would have been altered, just as the text of yon medieval romance was altered."  And, yes, they should have been!  So why, why have my memories of an alternate version of the romance with no Sir Gallifrey remained intact?  There can be only one conclusion.

At some point in my future, I too will enter the Blue Box, journey to the time of Arthur and meet this Sir Gallifrey, therefore becoming a part of what is clearly a fixed point in time.

So from now on, you may call me Sir Natalie, Knight of the Decorated Pots.

Technical Difficulties

Greetings, oh, readers of mine!  Today has not been a happy day.  Today has been a day of technical difficulties.  This morning I bent a spade in half, and then a wheel came off of my garbage can and rolled around desultorily before collapsing with exhaustion in a compost pile.

That was not an enjoyable sight.

Then I came to work and, well, there are computers here, and they are not doing what they are supposed to do, or, rather, they are only doing what humans tell them to do, and humans are apparently telling them to frak with my life.  Repeatedly.

Luckily, when the machines let you down, there is always human contact to billow you up, and today's billowiness comes from my beloved mother, who left a note in my lunch.  Looking at it, I thought, "More adults should get notes from their parents in their lunches.  And cute little indecipherable drawings.  I know!  I will billow up everyone's mood by sharing a collection of napkins from Mom!"  And as it was thought, so it is done.  Enjoy!

Mom's happiness on Mondays can be disconcerting

Mom had an injured hand and wanted me to think of her suffering

Mom does not approve of Black Friday

Mom does approve of Spike the Cat

And Mom likes to leave warnings when I get out of hand

The Danger of Accessories

My doctor:  "So, it says here that you've come in today because you think...um...you think you have a brain tumor?"

Me:  "Yes!  There are two lumps growing on the back of my head!"

My doctor:  "Have you had any other symptoms?"

Me:  "Anxiety, steadily increasing towards panic."

My doctor:  "Let's take a look.  Ah.  Hmm.  Right here?"

Me:  "Yes!  That's it!"

My doctor:  "Okay, well, let me ask you something:  how often do you wear this hair barrette?"

Me:  "The one I have in now?  Lots!  It's my favorite."

My doctor:  "This exact hair barrette?  This metal hair barrette with very pointed edges?"

[Long pause]

Me:  "Oh.  Wow."

My doctor:  "Maybe you could rotate hair accessories from day to day."

Me:  "Um.  So my diagnosis is hair barrette too pointy.  That's what you're saying?"

My doctor:  "Yes.  In fact, I'm putting it right into your patient file:  avoid pointy hair accessories for one week."

Me:  "This is a pretty humiliating experience."

My doctor:  "At least you don't have a brain tumor."

An Unholy Conversation in the Grocery Store

Me:  "Mom, this is Ben.  You haven't met him before, but he works at Wofford."

Mom:  "Hello, Ben!  Are you a football fan?"

Ben:  "No, although I like European football.  Soccer."

Mom:  "Just soccer?"

Ben:  "Soccer."

Mom:  "Oh, well, my silly daughter is a Cubs fan."

Ben:  "Is that a baseball team?"

Me:

Me:

Me:

Alas, me:

Reasons for Never Giving Me Your Cell Number

Greetings, beloved readers!  It has been too, too long, and I have neglected you frightfully.  But I am back in the groove.  Well, more or less.  Last night, I was at a most delightful gathering when several of my so-called friends began to ritually humiliate me by sharing a plenitude of misdirected and/or misspelled / autocorrected texts that have appeared without warning on their respective phones.  From me.

I am not good with the texting.

I am good with stealing the amusing ideas of others, however, so here, my precious ones, is a list of the most...er, strange?...text messages that I have sent to the wrong person or persons over the last few years.  I will point out that, naturally, almost all of them made perfect sense in context, a context which, alas, the textees did not in fact have.

Natalie's Worst Misdirected Texts

 (some with Amusing Autocorrect Fails included!)

• It's the cab that has been shamed.
• I am mad at the rabbit
• Getting dressed then going to meet a feather striker.  Stroker.  Whatever.
• Dildos on Wednesday night, yes?
• No, no!  Klingon.  Silurians don't need them due to claws.
• I have cut myself in the face with my debit card.
• Might have to start calling you Sir.  Or Batman.
• To all the people who received my misdirected text:  please do not be alarmed.  I do not have cholera.
• If I planned better, I would have minions for when I get dick.
• The humid air outside is just a nighthawk when you have brontosaurus
• Mom is drinking mudslides at airport. I have a cherry cough drop.
• Godzilla RAWR!
• Frustrated by that reign today.
• Everyone's arguing about the length of their pants.  Feel like stabbing myself in the eye.
• Creepy lights stopped.  Resume normal operations.
• The migraines are little people trying to escape from their heads.
• Not with sugar, no.
• It zips!
• Getting rid of the last of the fetuses and old electric outlets
• Don't ever touch it if it's wet.
• No, the little puppet version was naked in the cage.
• I really think that approach is, aside from boring, paleographically unsound.
• I seem to have sent that text to ten people.  I suck at sexting.
• Elastic druids are the hot new toy.
• I am quite stunned by all of these dragon vaginas.