Something Suggested To Me By Lala

Now that Stan Lee is no longer available, I’d like to think that he would like it if Ryan Reynolds took over the role of the cameo king of superhero movies.

To Her Credit, She Realized What She Had Just Done Even Before I Could Say “Really?”

Last night while talking with Lala we were both struggling to come up with the right term for something when she looked at me and said, “Why can’t English be more like German where you can just take two words and mash them together like some sort of . . . uberword.”

That Just Wouldn’t Work

Yesterday it came up in conversation that someone Lala knows makes it a habit to say “I love you,” to all her friends.

“I couldn’t do that,” I admitted.

“Why not?” Lala asked.

“Put simply,” I replied, “because by my definition of love, I don’t love all my friends.  Some I do, but some I just like, and I’m there for all of them whenever I can be because that’s what friendship is to me, but love them all I do not.”

Lala seemed kind of saddened by this, and it’s not like I consider it ideal myself, but that’s the honest truth of the matter.  I would like it someday if I could be the type of person who genuinely loves everyone, but I’m never going to get to be that person by lying about it.

Still . . . We Know How They Feel

Lala visited us recently.

When it came time for her to leave yesterday, the heavens raged at her departure.

Today the heavens weep still.

The heavens here are really dramatic.

Of Course That Meant It Was Three-Quarters For Me

The following is a paraphrase of the events of last night:

Lala:  “These cookies have too many calories for me to have one.”

Me:  “I can make them half the calories, if you like.”  *breaks a cookie in half*

Lala:  *Eyes me with exasperation, then takes half the cookie.  After eating half of that, she hands the rest back to me*

Me:  “One-quarter the calories.  Even better!”

No . . . You Surely Aren’t (Part Two)

It would be inaccurate to say that Lala had a cavalier attitude toward money before she moved out, but now that she’s living in a self-imposed state of constant financial crisis, she has become intensely frugal to a degree that I occasionally find worrying, but understandable.  I didn’t realize how much her attitude toward money had changed though until I paid for her dinner out recently.

When the check arrived I didn’t think anything of it because I’m painfully aware of the cost of dining out in this area (which is why I prefer not to do it very often), but I saw Lala’s eyes widen at the cost of her meal, then she gasped out a horrified realization of something that I had known for the past three years or so:

“I’m no longer a cheap date!” she cried.

No . . . You Surely Aren’t (Part One)

To finally continue the story that I started on Monday, one of my major objections to Lala moving out was that I knew full well just how damn expensive everything is where I live, particularly when you’re living on your own.  At the time she tried to tell me that she thought it would help her better learn the value of money and how to better manage her finances.

While I felt those were important lessons, in this case I felt like she was proposing to learn them via the “sink or swim in a pool of razor blades” method, and “surely” she didn’t need to go to such extremes.

And in hindsight, I was surely and completely wrong about that, and it only took one recent meal to make that abundantly clear to me.

And That’s Easy For Me To Admit . . . Now

A while back Lala moved out and into her own place not too far from here, so we still get to see her a lot.  This makes everybody happy . . . now.  When the idea was first floated to me though, I was, to put it mildly, against it.  I could probably spend hours recounting why I was against it at the time, but in addition to that making for boring conversation, there’s another reason I’m not going to do that.

Because I was wrong!

Something I Began To Suspect Thirty Minutes Before The Movie Ended

“Just watch the first ten minutes of this movie, and if you don’t like it, we can watch something else,” Lala said last night.

This sounded reasonable to me, so I watched the first ten minutes and did indeed enjoy it, so I watched the rest of the movie.

Now if only she had suggested I watch the last ten minutes of the movie, I’d have known not to waste my time . . .

Oh. Oh! Then Yes I DID See You, But . . . Um . . . Yeah, I Saw You

So I’m out driving today, and while stopped at a stop light I noticed somebody’s arm flailing out the driver’s side window from a car ahead of me.  It takes me a moment, because all I can really see is the arm, but I eventually decide the gesture is intended to be a wave.

Why is that idiot waving? I thought to myself.  It’s not like anybody can tell why they’re waving, or even who they’re waving to!

When I got home I found Lala had arrived there just before I did, and the first thing she said to me was “Did you see me earlier?”

“No,” I answered.  (Yes, I know that you see where this is going, but at the time I had zero reason to expect what was about to happen next.)

“Really?” she asked, sounding disappointed.  “I waved and everything . . .”