Dear Dove,

This ad means the world to me. This is the picture of “growing old” that I want to hold onto. It is the picture I want to show my daughter. It is the picture I want to be for my daughter.

You continue to rock my socks.

Your loyal friend,
Zoot.

I was asking MrZ to set the DVR to record Ugly Betty last night. As usual he referred to the show as Ugly Douchebag. Now, MrZ actually likes the show. He doesn’t watch it every week with me, but when he does, he enjoys it. I whined to him, “Don’t say that! It’s my favorite show EVER in the history of TELEVISION.” He rolled his eyes at my obvious exaggeration. He knows me well enough to know that Golden Girls was my favorite show EVER.

He said, “It’s her eyebrows. They make me crazy.”

I have mentioned several times that MrZ has this thing. My eyebrows are as curly as my head hair, so they periodically go a little crazy. This makes MrZ a little crazy and he’ll chase after me licking his thumbs and smooshing down my eyebrows. He’s not one to be superficial, but he is the one who will subtlety point out if I’m due for a waxing.

“You are awfully vain, you know.” At which point he said, “I have no control over it! It’s like being gay. You’re just born that way. It’s not something you can turn off. It is inside here,” and he patted to his heart. Saying his aversion to crazy eyebrows is rooted in his HEART. It cracked. me. up. It’s those moments and that sense of humor that makes today, our seven-year Valiversary, feel just as fresh as the first time he made me laugh.

Happy Valiversary, baby. You are totally worth painful waxings once in awhile.

LilZ’s math class is studying ratios. On Monday there was some excercise where the teacher discussed a train going a distance (so cliché) in a certain amount of time and they had to decide the speed of the train. LilZ decided to pipe in and say, “My mom ran 18 miles this weekend in four hours.” At first I was like, “That’s right! I’m awesome! Way to brag on me, son.”

“That means you ran 4.5 miles per hour.”

I suddenly needed to explain myself, “I usually go five miles an hour!” Like that is some landspeed record I need to brag about. “But there was some downtime between races. And I walked miles 16-18! I’m not normally that slow! I ran the half-marathon in 2hrs and 35 minutes. That’s actually faster than 5 miles per hour. Did you tell them that? Did you tell them I’m not normally that slow?”

LilZ just looked at me like I was on crack. “It was just a math problem.”

He’s learning hard life lessons with me as his Mom. Namely? Sometimes some people are KRAZEE. Sometimes a grown woman cares a little too much about Junior High kids thinking she’s a slowpoke. Maybe she’s having flashbacks to shooting on the other team’s goal when she played basketball. Maybe she’s remembering tripping across the finish-line when she ran track. Maybe she has deep, dark insecurities about pre-teens judging her athletic abilities. But probably? She’s just KRAZEE.

NikkiZ’s class had a Valentine’s Day party yesterday. It was gobs of fun once we started stuffing food in their faces. They “skipped” snack since the party was supposed to start within an hour of normal snack time. However, I was there early and the kids were UNHAPPY and frantically doing the signs for “EAT” meaning, “WE KNOW WE MISSED SNACK. GIVE US FOOD.” We gave them goldfish to hold them over and when the parents all got there, we handed out the cupcakes and cookies and brownies and straight-jackets (for the parents).

The kids had a BALL. NikkiZ actually pulled the cake of one cupcake OFF OF the icing. She was holding it upside down, picking the cake pieces out of the icing. She’s like her mother, I’m not a big fan of the icing either. However, I bought (of course, like I’m going to bake) big cupcakes from The Fresh Market for the grown-ups and the icing on those things both (a) exceeded toxic levels in terms of quantity and (b) tasted like it was made by angels. The cupcake portion was moist and melted in my mouth. There is a rumor going around that I ate THREE of them. I think I am still denying that rumor.

All-in-all, it was loads of fun. It helped me cope with the fact that LilZ didn’t even need Valentines this year. He actually seemed mortified that I even asked him. “Mom. I’m in Junior High now. We don’t do that anymore.” They’re too busy smoking cigarettes and making out, I guess. It’s hard for me with every element of childhood we leave behind for him, it’s a good think I had the cupcakes to help me cope.

Holy Freakin’ Heck!

I’m not a superstar blogger, my free blog designs get me gobs of traffic, and some of those people stick around. Somehow though, the people who stick around here long enough to use my Blingo signup link at the bottom of my sidebar, are the LUCKIEST BUNCH OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. I’m always winning movie tickets that I just decline because I’m holding out for something like this.(Which, I’m claiming this one, I’m no dummy.) Because you people are way luckier than I am alone. Seriously. Are any of you going to Vegas anytime soon?

Anyway. Don’t hate me because my blog readers are the luckiest damn group of freaks on the planet.