So She Definitely Called It

“There’s a bear in our backyard,” L’s Mother announced yesterday, and despite my skepticism, she was right . . . in a sense.

The “bear” in question turned out to be a big friendly shaggy dog that happily followed me for some water and Milk-bones while I checked his collar for a phone number. One phone call later revealed that he had slipped out the door a couple houses down, and had been happily adventuring through the flooded streets until he ended up in our backyard.

He was quickly returned home and all was well again, but I’m still chuckling over it because the name on his collar was actually “Bear.”

And It Probably Never Will

The other night I had a dream that I was essentially a ghost, and my sole method of interacting with the world was via touch. Even that, however, was limited to touching people, not objects. I had a message I was trying to get across, but I couldn’t even write it, and I was starting to get frustrated even though I could understand perfectly why people weren’t sticking around long after feeling an unearthly presence touching their skin.

As bad as this was, it got worse when word started to get out about the “haunting,” and thrill seekers started seeking me out like I was a cheap Halloween attraction. This finally culminated in a group of college-age girls coming to my location and throwing giggling dares at me to “touch them.”

Even in my dream I recognized this as an awkward situation because on one hand I don’t like saying no to a request (particularly a request like that one) unless I have a reason, but on the other hand, there was room for doubt as to the seriousness of their request, or at least some doubt that they seriously thought the request might actually be granted.

“You could have just booped their noses,” L’s Mother opined when I told her about all this when I awoke.

Chuckling a throaty chuckle, I smirked and admitted, “I can honestly say that option never even occurred to me!”

I Think She Was Making A Joke, But It Was Greek To Me

This needs to stop before this gets even an iota worse!

– L’s Mother upon hearing of the formation of Tropical Storm Zeta

Well I Would!

The other night L’s Mother was telling me how she was behind on her vitamin supplements, and that she didn’t want to take them all at once, so she was going to take her thiamine now, and “B12” tomorrow.

“That’s going to make our plans for tomorrow night more than a little awkward,” I told her.

She looked at me quizzically.

“If you’re going to be twelve tomorrow, I’m going to have to cancel,” I explained.

When She’s Right, She’s Right

The other day I was scouting the difficulty of a repair I’ll potentially be doing in earnest over the weekend. It’s nothing major, just a broken switch in a ceiling fan light, something I’ve even replaced before. The only complication was determining which breaker cut the power to said ceiling fan (Remember, kids, electricity can kill!), but with that having been done, I decided to quickly determine how tough it would be to reach the switch on this particular fan. The answer was no more so than normal . . . if I hadn’t dropped one of the screws.

This left me with the problem of not being fully confident that everything would hold together while I searched for the dropped screw, so I quickly cast around for a temporary replacement. What I found was a sturdy plastic Pikachu toy whose ear I hoped would suffice for load bearing for the few moments it would take me to locate the screw. Long story short, it did.

When telling this story to L’s Mother though, at this point she looked at me with concern in her eyes and proclaimed, “Rob, that was really dangerous!” I started to assure her that I was just being extra cautious, and the extra load bearing probably wasn’t even necessary, when she cut me off.

“Pikachu is an electric type, Rob!” she informed me with a smirk.

I . . . Guess I Can See That

We’d find a way to make it even as vampires, I just hope I wouldn’t have to subsist on gluten-free people.

– L’s Mother not being quite as random as you might think because this was actually relevant to our morning conversation about a dream I’d had last night

A Bit Of Sunshine On A VERY Rainy Day

This morning was one of those mornings where it was dark enough to make you wonder if the sun had decided to just not bother showing up today, but nevertheless it was time to start to our day, so start our day we did. It was in this gloomy twilight that I noticed L’s Mother was exercising without having turned on the light.

After staring at her a moment, I said, “It’s too dark for me to be sure, but I’m pretty sure that you’re looking socksy right now.”

Because (as I suspected) she was indeed wearing black socks as she worked out, she proclaimed, “I’m dark and socksy today!”

A Question I Didn’t Realize I Knew The Answer To

With five minutes to go before her meeting started, L’s Mother came out this morning proclaiming in a fake panic that she didn’t have tea, or snacks, or “anything,” and the whole display reminded me of something, but I didn’t want to verbalize it.

Evidently though, L’s Mother picked up on it too, because she then launched into a credible imitation of Kermit the Frog flailing his arms in excitement, and then I had to say it:

“If I’m ever asked, ‘Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be married to a Muppet?”, I can truthfully say that I don’t have to wonder.”

I Can Totally See That Happening

L’s Mother mentioned in passing the other day how she once heard someone discussing just how much of our early language learning as children is all “by ear” and without context. This leads to situations where a parent hears their child asking if they can have “an apple,” and nobody thinks anything of it until the child asks for “another napple.”

And That’s No Exaggeration

I hate how it plays to certain tropes, but it’s no secret that L’s Mother is a big fan of alternative foods, and I am . . . not. She’s been right just often enough about the foods that she’s had me try that I don’t wince at the idea (any more), so these days I frequently just go all in on what I’m trying.

With that said, today I tried some hemp-based creamer, promptly gave a Kool-Aid Man worthy “Oh no!”, and went to inform L’s Mother that I would not be using that creamer again.

“Could you taste the hemp?” she asked.

“I could taste the rope,” I told her.