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PaganMama - 01:23 p.m. Pacific Time - June 22, 2005 - #1630 of 1657
If you do after all become friends/passionate lovers (take your pick), somewhere down the line he might say, "You know, I was going through the damnedest thing when we met ..." and explain how his dying mother in Albania had called him that afternoon and begged him not to entirely reject the idea of marrying his cousin Ludmilla because, after all, she owned all those goats and soybean fields. He knew he'd never marry Ludmilla but the phone connection was bad and the old bat was crying and he ended up stammering out an old Albanian proverb about "never make a decision on a Friday in a month with X in its name" and then it was time to meet you and dear God, you were ravishing and fabulous and when it was time to take you home all he wanted to do was to sweep you into his arms and gaze deeply into your eyes and say "Let's go to that Diane Arbus exhibit on Sunday" but his mother's aged voice was in his ears, saying whatever aged Albanian mothers say in such situations, and it was just such an oh shit downer, and he clutched, and he could see that he'd blown it by not speaking his heart instantly, and he slunk away but could not for a moment forget you until he sent you that shy, tentative e-mail.
Or not. but you'll never know if you don't invite him over for dinner. (reposted with permission)
Families Who Think
Words to live by: The kid sound bite of the day
Lynn - 09:44 a.m. Pacific Time - June 19, 2005 - #2807 of 2835
More on the Lemonade Stand saga:
The kids decided to take matters into their own hands and start their own lemonade stand, no adults needed. Oh, except taking the lemonade out of the fridge and the cups out of the pantry.
So they set up at about 10 a.m., and shouted, "Lemonade! Lemonade for sale!" for about an hour, and still, no sales. We don't live in a high-traffic area and all the dads were out golfing or something.
So they decided to take their appeal door to door (direct marketing!) and sold a few glasses that way. They also, according to a neighbor, honed their message ("This isn't Country Time Lemonade! This is Minute Maid Lemonade! Home Made!"). Then a neighbor girl took pity on them and paid extra for a glass (subsidy or partnership? hard to tell) and proceeded to tell everyone who passed by about her largess (philanthropist?). Then they spread their gains (somehow, 88 cents) on the sidewalk to count it (accounting? financial statement?). And now they and the neighborhood kids are drinking the profits (office party).
Families Who Think
Aspidistra - 07:04 a.m. Pacific Time - June 20, 2005 - #7603 of 7637
I often start the car before putting on my seat belt, but won't even put it into gear before I am belted. See, if you enter the car with your keys in hand plus your purse and a briefcase and maybe a drink and your MP3 player, the easiest thing to do is to set your drink down, fling the other stuff onto the passenger seat, and then put the keys in the ignition so that your hands are free to pick up the stuff that spilled from your purse when you flung it and also to connect the cellphone to the charger and the MP3 player to the little connecty thing so you can play it on the way to work. And because your briefcase has now tipped over onto the floor, too, if you were belted it would be harder to lean over all the way to set it upright again especially when in the process you find the lip balm that fell out of your purse last week.
If you don't put the key in the ignition first, either your hands won't be free or the keys will be sitting on the passenger seat (or, in one ignoble incident, under your own damn butt) where they will inevitably go to hide under the nearest object, i.e., your purse or briefcase and you'll upset the whole apple cart again while looking for them. So as long you're going to put the key into the ignition and you're almost ready to go, why not start the car? Saves you from having to repeat the arduous hand-to-ignition switch motion later. So you start the car, put on your seat belt, untangle the gear selector from the cellphone and MP3 player cables, nudge your purse rudely so it won't fall over again. Then you're ready to back out of the parking space. Unless you left the mail you were going to drop off at the post office on the kitchen counter.
Efficiency. It's my middle name.
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