It's like Tuesdays with Morrie without all the wisdom
Posts tagged Mike
I Will Marry Michelle Obama
10August 26, 2008
by Abby
in I like politics?
Her husband will make it legal, and then we’ll get married. It will be teh awesome. Ok, maybe I’m not going to marry her, but I want to have her over for coffee and be friends. And I promise I won’t stalk her. Did you see her? Wasn’t she great? Did you cry? This:
The Barack Obama I know today is the same man I fell in love with 19 years ago. He’s the same man who drove me and our new baby daughter home from the hospital 10 years ago this summer, inching along at a snail’s pace, peering anxiously at us in the rearview mirror, feeling the whole weight of her future in his hands.
And especially this:
And as I tuck that little girl and her little sister into bed at night, I think about how one day, they’ll have families of their own. And one day, they — and your sons and daughters — will tell their own children about what we did together in this election. They’ll tell them how this time, we listened to our hopes instead of our fears. How this time, we decided to stop doubting and to start dreaming.
Oh, and I love her brother Craig as well. New plan: My official story will be that I’m an orphan on the streets of Chicago and if Craig and Michelle’s mom doesn’t adopt me, I’ll turn to drugs and stuff. That’ll do it. I’ll be their sweet baby sister who is way dumber than they are, but they’ll be nice to me anyway and we’ll have Christmas together in the White House and we’ll laugh and laugh together all through the holidays. Because that’s what families do. God bless us, every one. Sorry, Mike and Tracey, but I’m gonna go be somebody else’s baby sister. I bet Craig and Michelle wouldn’t ever have put horseradish in my mouth if I fell asleep on the couch when they were babysitting. Repeatedly. Also, they probably would never have chanted, “Abby wears bobby socks! Abby wears bobby socks!” over and over again to make me cry. Most importantly, Mike, I’m sure Craig wouldn’t have recorded some devil music crap over the darling tape of a 3-year-old me singing “Beth” and “Hot Blooded.” See ya, suckers. I’ll write. Maybe.
My Brother’s Nieces
4August 5, 2008
by Abby
in I have some daughters
ETA: I put the right video on this time; I don’t know how that other RATM vid got on there. FAIL!
My brother will be proud.
My children think they can tell me what songs to listen to when we’re in the car. This might be because I usually let them listen to what they want to listen to. These days, I generally only provide songs that I enjoy, but back when Lena and Liberty were babies and young toddlers, I let them listen to Barney and Raffi and Sesame Street. It couldn’t be helped. They were car cry-ers and I wanted them to shut it. Barney works so well because he makes little kids stop and go, “What the f*ck is this sh*t?” I wanted them to shut their traps, so I listened to what they wanted to hear over and over and over. Then they grew a bit and decided that car rides were just a touch more tolerable than a trip to the dentist, so the need to make them shut it was less. And they learned to fear me, so they shut it no matter what was on the radio. I’m kidding, gosh! These days, we generally listen to a rotation of CDs that are agreeable to everyone in the car.
Now to the part where my brother will be proud: The other day when we were driving home from the pool in Bryan’s car without our previously-agreed upon CDs, I was repeatedly hitting the seek button in order to find something, anything to listen to. Every time the radio stopped on a song, it was a light and poppy little diddy and I heard 2 light and poppy little voices yell, “NO!” from the backseat. This went on for song after song until the radio finally stopped and I heard no objections. Then one of the little voices said, “Leave it here!” What was the song? I’m glad you asked. It was “Renegades of Funk” by Rage Against the Machine. What happened to my timid little girls who were soothed by Barney’s voice? When I was a little girl, I thought the mixture of screaming and loud guitar and drums coming from my brother’s hi-fi was dangerous and scary. I preferred gentler music like Cyndi Lauper and Madonna and Debbie Gibson. Some people might argue that that was because those artists are who was marketed to me, but I think it’s because they weren’t screaming at me. My taste for grunge and heavier stuff only came later when I was a hard-livin’ young lady. My brother always tried to introduce me to new, better music, but it never stuck. Now his nieces are following in his footsteps musically. Of course, his joy may be short-lived because I will surely ruin Lena and Liberty’s love of this song by turning it into the Best History Lesson Ever! Lookie:
New Bedrooms, Old Memories
8July 8, 2008
We switched the bedrooms around so all 3 girls have their very own room for the first time ever. Lena and Liberty have always shared a room and when Maya started beginning the night in a bed other than mine, it was Liberty’s bed she wanted to be in. Recently, though, their accumulation of stuff and clothes has made me very annoyed with the closet/bookshelf/toybox situation so I broached the subject of splitting them all up into their own rooms with their very own closets. Everybody was on board, so we went for it.
Yesterday was the first full day of lone bedroomdom and Lena used most of the day to lounge on her bed listening to her mp3 player with headphones on, singing right out loud to all manner of tween songs, both local and foreign. It was just as adorable as you’d think, but it also brought back one of my most awful childhood memories: When my brother was a teenager, he would put on his headphones and sing RATT and W.A.S.P. and Black Sabbath very badly and very loudly. Constantly. He wasn’t adorable. And he wouldn’t shut up. I at least had to good sense to turn my portable tape player up really loud in order to try to drown out my own voice when I was singing in my room. Not my brother. And, though he can sing very well now, back then, with his headphones on, singing his devil music, it was just painful to hear. Also, my portable tape player didn’t have a very high volume, so sometimes his voice drowned out my Cyndi Lauper. Not cool. Even if I didn’t know what She Bop was talking about, I still thought it was a kick-ass song and I wanted to hear it without some dumb boy singing “Round and round, what comes around goes around, I’ll tell you whyyy!”
It makes me shudder and it occurs to me that I’ve never addressed this deeply repressed childhood memory in therapy. Excuse me while I make a phone call.
Don’t Break into My House
6June 4, 2008
I’ll be doing this today:
It’s true.
I’ll be gone for a week with very slow internets that make me feel like I might experience a brain bleed from the trauma of watching the hourglass spin while I try to force lots of thick and juicy information through the narrow inter-tubes. I’ll miss you. If you know where I live, don’t break into my house while I’m gone. I don’t have anything to steal because we’re taking all of our expensive stuff (like Lena and Liberty’s DS games) with us. Also, you’ll never find where we hide our p@rn, so don’t even try it. Ha, I’m kidding! It’s right where you’d expect it to be. Kidding! God, take a joke.
That reminds me, when I was around 8 or so, I broke into my neighbor’s house to steal blueberry p*p-tarts because we never, ever had those in our own house and I really, really wanted some. They were soooo yummy, but then the guilt made them taste bad. My brother and sister love to make fun of me for doing that, but they used to break into the other neighbor’s garage to steal pop on a regular basis. And they wouldn’t share with me. I don’t know why I never told on them. I’m going to have to remedy that when I get to Michigan tonight.
Anyway, we’re taking our junk food with us, too, so just don’t even bother.
We’re Back, Y’all!
7May 12, 2008
And I have to admit that the whole time we were in West Virginia, I’m the only one who walked around affecting a southern accent and saying things like “Let’s get us some grits, ya’ll!” Berkeley Springs is only about 8 miles into WV, so it’s pretty much Maryland. Not that you couldn’t get yourself some grits, but still.
As promised, my brother and sister-in-law took us to see the Weber Brothers and they were fabulous with their 2 drum sets and their stand-up bass and their way cool original music plus Johnny Cash and Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen and stuff. They even invited my brother to go up and sing Sympathy for the Devil with them, which was nice because Mike knows how to do that kind of thing. Plus he’s their #1 groupie. I love them, love them, love them and I’m pretending they’re moving to Columbus to play every night at Victorians’ Midnight Cafe. Let’s start a letter-writing campaign. You won’t be sorry. They had 2 drum sets! And the one brother plays a stand-up bass! And the other one reminds me of Rufus Wainwright only way cooler! And they rock! And stand-up bass! I even love them when they’re playing songs I don’t know, which for me is kind of a big deal. If I can’t sing along, then I’m all, “This is too loud. Can’t they turn it down?” but not with the Weber Brothers. They could play Enya and I’m pretty sure I would drool.
They played at a place called the Troubadour, which was waaaayy out there on some narrow, winding, hilly roads that really looked like what you think West Virginia should look like. It’s the kind of place that has a sweet 72-year-old owner (Joltin’ Jim McCoy) and a barbecue grill in the shape of a six shooter. And they raffled off 10 pounds of bacon. Twice. Yes, they did. I bet it was good bacon, too, because my brother ordered a steak there and it was the best tasting steak I have ever had in a restaurant. It tasted like the cow had been killed that morning after a breakfast of grass grown by angels. I’m not kidding. I’m a beef snob and that was some good beef. I imagine the pork would be nothing less than heavenly. Not Jewish or Muslim heaven, obviously, but definitely one of the other ones. One little piece of advice just in case you city folk are ever thinking of visiting the Troubadour: Don’t think that just because it’s way out in the country that they’re going to let you get away with fast and loose behavior. The rules are posted and it says right there that you may not sleep in the booths or your vehicle. Got it, y’all? They will cut you off before you reach that point. For real.
