the sweetest thing

No, this isn't a post about a narcissistic blonde, her ample-bosomed stalker-friend and their unfortunate brunette buddy with an extra-large uvula. Although, as much fun as I make of that movie, I secretly love it (and secretly own it).

However, this is a super-sappy post about Boyfriend who is currently working on what might actually be the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. Here is a quick list of sweet things beaus have done in the past to win over my heart and affections (see: get in my pants):

- had a friend play acoustic guitar while he serenaded me under a bridge with a Beatles song (gay*)
- written poetry (gay)
- written postcards that featured hearts and pictures of tall buildings (creepy)
- brought me a small, furry, vibrating monkey with a pull-string from a NY trip (funny)
- had an entire (college) baseball stadium sing to me on my birthday (awkward)
- taken me to a "really nice, special occasion dinner"... at Outback Steakhouse (lie)
- procured tickets to a sold-out Radiohead show (awesome)

But none, I repeat NONE, have come close to what Boyfriend is doing for me this weekend. And, the tricky part is, it's not even technically for me. My dad's birthday is today and Boyfriend has spent the last two days creating a mix CD for him. Daddy-o's a bit of a car aficionado and is more than obsessed with his Mustang ride, so Boyfriend decided that the perfect present would be a CD he could leave in his car so he'd constantly feel like a bad ass. The title of the mix is "Bossman's Badass Car Mix" and the subtitle is "Put Some Stank on that 'Stang". Pops is going to lose his shit, especially when he sees the cover art with a huge, glistening Cobra emblem on the front.

A guy who cares about my family so much that he takes 5 hours out of his week to create a personalized gift for my dad? I'm sold. Not that I wasn't already...

Speaking of considerate... all songs were carefully selected by Boyfriend himself and some, despite being bad ass and quite stanky, just didn't make the cut. "I just don't think your dad would like to hear a song that would make him think 'that boy wants to put it in my daughter.'"

And that... is the sweetest thing.

*and not in a good gay way, which involves dancing with hot shirtless men and downing countless Jell-o shots

a stitch in time... is just plain good parenting

I just left the Director's office and am even more baffled by her parenting skills than ever before. I didn't mention this previously because, well, it's ridiculous. However, I feel the need to share the craziness with you, dear Internet void.

On Monday, Director called my cell in a panic to tell me that she would be unable to attend the day's photo shoot because her son ripped his knee open and she had to take him in to get stitches. No biggie, right? Minor emergency, kids get stitches all the time, I can handle it - go take care of your bleeding son.

The plot thickens when she mentions later in the morning (while she's explaining to me the reasoning behind her oversight to send our client directions to the shoot - "Oops! I was busy with my son's birthday party and didn't think it was important!") that her oldest son has an appointment at 10:30 a.m. to get stitches.

I immediately smell 3-day-old sushi. Aren't stitches usually unplanned? Aren't stitches usually a last-minute decision? I don't really hear of anyone booking stitches days (or even hours) in advance. "Should I book a massage, a mani/pedi, or should I just get some stitches?" No one does this. Not normal.

The truth unfolds throughout the day. Turns out, homeboy cut up his knee on SATURDAY. Director, being a "mid-Western mom" (her words, not mine), thought it would "be okay" (again, her words) and put a giant Band-Aid (not Penny Lane) on it. So the poor child sleeps two nights with his gaping wound, bleeding through the bandages, before Mom of the Year finally decides that he may need stitches. So she books the appointment for Monday morning, shirks her work responsibilities, and takes the kid to the doctor. Turns out, he did need stitches. He actually needed many a stitch within six hours of cutting himself. Oops!

Doctor Man grafted (yes, it's true) the skin back to where it began, sealed it off with some sort of magic potion, then placed some medical stick-um over the wound (it's all very technical). He told them not to remove the bandage for 10 days, otherwise the graft wouldn't take and he would be badly scarred.

How do I know all of this? Because Director just told me that before he broke his cell phone in her face and ran out the door, he ripped off the medical stick-um bandage and threw it in her face. Her response, after causing the kid's anger by neglecting the wound for three days? "He can scar for all I care."

I'm considering putting CPS on speed-dial.

The following IM conversation just took place between myself and Boyfriend:

Boyfriend: "This kid is going to be president someday."
NL: "Or write one hell of a book."
Boyfriend: "From prison."

the prodigal brat

So, Director's son has been found. He rode his bike five miles on Monday afternoon to his old house that the family lived in a year ago, broke into the empty house and spent the night playing video games with his friends and then sleeping on the floor of his old room. He then rode his bike to school the next day, only for first period, and then decided to spend the rest of the day doing as he damn well pleased. Meaning: playing video games.

First of all, let's all take a moment of silence to thank God that we're not parenting this child. Just the cost of all the electronic equipment would be devastating to my cocktail allowance.

Second of all, let's all take an hour of silence to thank God that Director is not our mother. Enough said.

Director decides that the best way to deal with the returned child is to take him out to dinner. He's not being punished for what he did. Instead, she's seeking professional help to determine how to better implement structure in his life.

Speaking of structure, the son woke up this morning and didn't want to get out of bed and go to school. Director let him stay at home today because she knew that his friends would ask him a lot of questions in between classes and she didn't want him to deal with the embarrassment.

I am not a parent and am therefore not allowed to make parenting judgment calls. However, I will say this: I am so glad I don't have kids. I'm going to spend two hours thanking God for that.

the devil wears talbots

My director is insane. Certifiably. I'm sure there will be many posts to come about her crazy antics, but none can compare to today's incident. Let's list the crazy in order, shall we? It'll make things a bit easier to follow because, trust me, you'll need all the help you can get.

9:07 a.m. - I receive an email from Director, saying that she's going to be in late today because she's waiting for a phone call. I think nothing of it, as her constant tardiness is nothing new.

10:14 a.m. - I receive a frantic phone call on my cell. Director is trying to communicate through bawling and sobbing and after three tries I decipher the following: "My oldest son (he's 13) broke his cell phone in front of me last night and stormed out of the house. I couldn't find him and his friend said he wasn't over there. I woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. I called the school this morning and he went to first period but he's skipping his other classes. The school wants to know if I want to involve the police, because he can't skip school. I have to make these decisions by myself and I... just... don't... know!!!" More sobbing ensues.

Because my job title is Account Supervisor and Family Counselor, I ask if she had contacted her son's father (her ex-husband) yet. Maybe he knows where he is? She bawls, "He doesn't get involved in things like this."

Let's pause for a minute in the story to sum up: her 13-year-old son runs away, she calls one friend who doesn't know where he is, and she goes to sleep. His father "doesn't get involved in things like this." Things like what, his missing children? Is this such a common occurrence that a precedent has been set? Geez Lewis.

1:07 p.m. - I return an alarmingly chipper voice mail from Director that was left during lunch. I call her back and she has to immediately drop because the police are arriving at her house.

1:47 p.m. - Director gives me a call back and tells me that the police just went through her entire house, looking for a hidden 13-year-old boy. They didn't find him. Turns out they have more information, though. They found out that his screenname for some online pirates game was used last night and apparently he was playing at the same time as another kid from school. They're contacting the game company to obtain the IP address that the screenname was on, then they're tracking down the physical house location of the IP address so they can run on over and bust his running-away-from-home ass. Two words: boo and yah. I was impressed with the high-tech sleuthing. Boyfriend's comment was "Wow. CSI: Crazytown."

So that's the last that I've heard. Guess I'll find out the conclusion tomorrow morning when I read the milk carton while I'm eating my Cheerios.

Oh, quit your judging. I'm not serious, I kid, I kid. I don't ever eat Cheerios.

"you can pee WHILE you drink!"

Yes, that's a quote from one of my dear friends in reference to our upcoming weekend plans. The very highly-anticipated river floating trip is this weekend and The Core is getting excited. We're even bringing along a few dudes for a little added entertainment. In case you're unfamiliar with a Texas river float, the details are pretty simple: You buy a lot of beer, rent two tubes (one for yourself and one for your cooler), and then you float down a river for two hours. Genius, I know.

I will definitely be drinking my party-bikini off. As a nod to the superlatively white trash trip that this is becoming, it will be decorated with stars and bars. I love embracing cliches. Here is a list of reasons why this trip is more WT than a normal float-the-river trip:

1) We’re renting a van for the 3-hour drive because

2) too many people have DWIs and can’t drive that far. Because of that,

3) 3 people had to call their probation officers to get permission to leave the county. We also have

4) 12 people going and the cabin only has beds for 11 so

5) one person has volunteered to sleep in the walk-in pantry because

6) that’s the room with the most privacy, should he get some random Gruene, Texas ass.

I heart my friends, I really do.

reunited and it feels so... blah.

If you should ever find yourself at a reunion that is not yours (or that is yours, and you're looking for an excuse to drink heavily), here's a very highly recommended game you should play:

Take a drink every time someone says the word "remember".

You. Are. Welcome.

i faked it.

Every week, someone from my group of girlfriends (aka "The Core") cooks dinner and everyone else shows up at her house armed with many a bottle of wine. Last night, it was my turn. I cleaned, I cooked, I entertained, I taught piano lessons... and then I was exhausted.

Boyfriend has had an especially rough week and really needed some couch time with his lady, so I had promised earlier in the day to come over to his house after dinner to comfortingly coddle and pet him on the head. When the ladies left me, I could see this was no longer an option. There were wine glasses all over the place, Butterfinger wrappers strewn about, and pans with coagulating cheese sitting in my kitchen. It was also 11:15 p.m.

I'm normally a late-night person, so the time wasn't really an issue. However, I am inherently selfish and really needed to clean my apartment and lay on my couch while I finished off the leftover wine.

So, like any good single gal desperate to make her man happy, I faked it.

I don't normally condone faking it. Unless, you know, you're really sleepy. But last night, I reached back into my bag of tricks and that's all I could come up with. The phone call to Boyfriend went something like this:

B: "Well, hello!"
NL: (very sadly and possibly in pain) "Hi."
B: "How was dinner with your ladies? You don't sound too good."
NL: "It was fun, but something is going on downstairs."
B: "I warned you about your cooking."
NL: "It really better not be my cooking. I think it was that Mexican food that I had for lunch."
B: "What was for dinner?"
NL: "Chicken enchilada casserole."
B: "With extra cheese?"
NL: (sheepishly and defeated) "Yes."
B: "What else?"
NL: "Salad."
B: "With cheese and ranch?"
NL: "You know there's no other way to eat a salad."
B: "Mmm hmm. How was your day?"
NL: "It was good. Work was a little crazy and... wait. Sorry, this sucks. I have to call you back."

I hung up, watched TV for exactly 6 minutes, then called him back.

B: "Are you okay?"
NL: "Yeah, sorry. This whole experience is really gross to narrate."
B: "It's okay. You stay home and feel better. Better yet, I'll come over and pet your head on the couch instead."

I immediately felt incredibly guilty, but relieved (no pun intended) at the same time. Men accuse women of being manipulative all the time, and I've probably fallen into this category once or twice, but never have I used Big Potty Problems as a means to an end.

Although I did fart at a bar one time to get a guy to stop hitting on me. That's entirely different, though. And normal... right?