Oh, gee, thank you!

I just watched Sam sleep for about 20 minutes, which is what I do every night for about 20 minutes (sometimes 50 minutes, when insomnia kicks in). Matt came in and we held hands in a little Sam-cradle. Awww, we're good parents. : )

I received a thank-you note today from my step-grandmother (my awesome step-mom's mom) for showing up at her house with my family for Easter, and eating all of her food. I'm ready now. Bring it, Louise. Next time I see you, no matter what the reason, I'm sending you a thank-you note. Sam and I stop by to play pool in your basement: you're getting a thank-you.

I love the thank-you note generation. I'm the last of the thank-you note generations, I'm afraid. Although I may not thank someone for coming over and eating, I certainly send thank you's, and I'm teaching Sam, with his little S. A. M. handwriting, to send them, too. For a little boy, he has beautiful manners.

Sam got his hair trimmed the other day, and I noticed another little boy doing the same. His mom allowed him to play on his DS the entire time. The stylist worked away, and the child (older than Sam, maybe age 8), never looked up. I was appalled. I told my dad the story and he said, "God forbid the little boy learn anything from that lady." So true. He continued, "Someone will ask him someday who cut his hair, and he'll say, "What? Someone cut my hair?""

I got my hair cut last weekend by a guy, and when I told him that my son has beautiful manners, he asked, "You say that to him?" I said, "I sure do, because I'm raising a sensitive, wonderful child who happens to love guns, swords, daggers and Spiderman."

My "stylist" seemed affronted. Sorry, dude.

Wine Wonderful Wine

I felt self-conscious returning the 23-wine bottle stand to the store, explaining that we needed more wine space in the dining room, and that my husband had found a lovely 47-bottle, iron stand online.

A lady standing near me chimed in: Can we come over to your house?

Our next house--and the way Matt likes moving, that'll be in a year--will have a wonderful little nook in our basement for proper wine storage. Falling short of my friend's that has a 9,000-bottle wine cellar.

I chime in: please don't forget me in your will.

Future Memoirs

I found a fork on the kitchen floor while I was sweeping today, and I vaguely remembered Sam dropping it about three days ago. I shuddered at the new me. When I was dating one of those other guys, we once visited one of our few friend-couples with kids, and I noticed a piece of hotdog on their floor. I couldn't believe that a mom would allow a hotdog to linger like that, and I most certainly judged her.

It's no secret that I clean constantly. We have two spiders--big fat-bellied things--living on opposite sides of our front French doors. I vacuum there at least once a week, and I always clean up their piles of other dead, weaker spiders and bugs, but leave the two motherships in peace.

I've always had this soft spot for bugs and animals, although I eat animals, crave eating animals, and don't hesitate to feast upon them regularly. When I was a child, my parents tried, in a vain attempt, to save baby possums (these were regular possums, not opossums) whose mommy had been run over by a car (probably my great-grandfather's). I bawled every time one died, and they all eventually died.

So now, I love when Sam yells, "Mom, get a cup...there's a spider in my room!" I just hope that none of his friends end up mentioning us in a memoir.

Wow, I'm easy to please

Matt handed me $400 from the sale of his 1971 Mercedes that was rusting in our driveway, from the money I gave him to buy the 1971 Mercedes that was rusting in our driveway, and I bought a new lawn mower. Nothing runs like a Deere.

Richard Russo Lecture

I'm impressed with Butler University's Visiting Writers Series. It had been quite a while since I'd stepped foot in the Atherton Union, but my mom and I saw Richard Russo "speak," which is to say "read" last night. He mixed his non-fiction essays with his fiction—-my favorite, Empire Falls—-for which he's so well known, and it gave the audience an in-depth look into his childhood hometown of Gloversville, NY. The town is Empire Falls, from the Pulitzer Prize winning Empire Falls, and Bath from the book-made-movie Nobody's Fool (Paul Newman). His essays were amazing, and I came home and regurgitated them verbatim for my husband, the biology-major-turned-attorney, who has a flare for the creative, or at least for creative people. : )

But here were the weird points of the evening:

1. When Richard (Rick) finished reading, and said we'd all "be done" after a session of Q&A, I heard a cacophony of car keys being pulled from women's purses. Women are weird, and there were plenty of them there. When women hear "the end," or even "it's almost the end," they get those damned car keys ready. I, so sensitive to sound, took notice.

2. My mother was appalled by the attire worn by the bookish women in attendance. She could barely get the word "clog" out of her mouth when she was trying to describe the outfit of the quote, unquote freebird sitting next to me. Mom and I went for a glass (or two) of wine after the lecture, and she admitted that she'd been shaking her foot the entire time, trying to get the poorly-dressed women to notice her leopard-print shoes. Oh, how this woman makes me laugh.

This is why I'm earthy. This is why I read great books and don't give one hot damn about whether or not I'm wearing make-up. I'm at home with fellow English majors in Atherton's Reilly Room, even though I'm a Hoosier through and through.

Showtime

Ken Bethea and me before the show.

Bowling for general realization of the world

Matt took Sam bowling today, and text-messaged me this: I now know where to come when I'm having a low self-esteem day. That's how I feel about West Lafayette. Hooray Bulldogs. Matt doesn't realize it, but we're getting a damned bulldog soon.

U.S. Mail

We've been getting our neighbors' mail all week, as they are sunning themselves in Florida while we rot in the snow and rain. They get home tomorrow, so I have to re-seal all of their letters, and make sure to smooth out the creases of their Details magazine. I'm writing like crazy and this job is piling on the hours, but I love it. So happy to be creative.