Nebulous Mooch

One of the best things about having a life as incredibly interesting as mine is knowing that one day it will be immortalized in a motion picture–a comedy of course. I’ve always known that I would be involved in movie making. I’m not interested in the acting side of things. Halle Berry would probably do a much better job of pretending to be me than I ever could. I know she’s like a million years older than me, but I don’t mind.

I’ll write the screenplay which will be a breeze to do. I think it should feature a lot of slapstick comedy–falling down and pies in the face. Who doesn’t think a good banana cream pie in the face is funny?

Does the lead singer of Coldplay act? I was thinking that he could play my husband. My stepson would play himself, of course. He can really ham it up. I haven’t figured out who would play any of the other characters though. As the screen writer that isn’t my place anyway. I’m sure that once I finally convince Martin Scorsese to direct it, he’ll take care of the casting. I picture the movie being a nice family comedy. That’s right up his alley, right?

Note: I just told my husband about my movie plans and he said that Kevin Bacon would definitely play him. “People tell me I look like Kevin Bacon all the time,” he said. I wonder which people tell him this. I don’t see the resemblance, but who am I?

Photo by M4D GROUP

This is the conversation we had last night while watching the news. So it makes some sense to you I should let you know that the news stories were about the Boy Scouts discrimination against gays, an asteroid nearly hitting Earth, and the blackout during the Super Bowl.

Me: Don’t you think it’s odd that the Boy Scouts have banned gays yet they have an activity called a jamboree?

My dad: If a gay asteroid wants to join the football team they should let him.

Me: If a gay asteroid wants to be queen of the jamboree I think they should let him do that too.

Okay, maybe knowing what the stories were about didn’t help that make sense. Since when do conversations have to make sense? With me and my dad it’s more like I say something, then he says something totally unrelated, then I say something else, then he says a whole lot of stuff.

If you throw my stepson into the mix then you really have an interesting conversation. My dad says something that is the completion of a thought going on in his head that none of us are aware of. I say something. My dad explains himself. My stepson says something very loosely related that involves mentioning a dictator or political figure’s name. And so it goes in a round of confusion. We do still manage to communicate though.

Note: I have no idea what a jamboree is, but it sounds like a big party where people dance and wear clothing that sparkles. Maybe it’s kind of like a rave with less ecstasy and more neckerchiefs.

Another note: In case you didn’t know, we are still trying to buy a house. That’s why we’re still living with my parents. You can find out about our latest adventures in house buying on my guest post at Aiming Low.

Me: I just want to lay on my back and have a potato chip fountain drop potato chips into my mouth.

My stepson: I’d be afraid of choking.

Me: This is a fantasy. There’s no choking in fantasies.

My stepson: I’d still be afraid of choking.

Me: I don’t understand how you could be afraid of my perfect potato chip fantasy.

The American returned to his native country yesterday. It was a cloudy day that he began by loudly singing the Star Spangled Banner in the bath. Then he put on his suit complete with American flag pin, and we headed to the airport. In the car he talked about the beauty of his homeland and sang a few patriot songs.

He’s staying there with his mother to complete the final years of teenagehood. Here are some pictures I took at the airport.

Here’s a song too. Just for the fun of it.

My stepson: Are you going to cut the pineapple? If not, I’m going to cut it.

My husband: That’s enough pineapple for one night. We’ll have that one tomorrow.

My stepson: This place is just like a dictorship.

My husband: Yeah. A dictatorship where you can’t eat too whole pineapples in one night.

My husband who is a professional musician and really should have promotional photograph thing taken care of by now needed a picture for a gig he’s doing next month. So we hung a sheet up in the living room and started taking pictures. Of course, we couldn’t let him be the star of the show. We had to get in on the act too.

My stepson has been having problems reading at school. He’s been complaining of headaches and eye strain, so it was time to take him to the eye doctor. Of course, he needed glasses. Jealous of all the glasses wearing going on in the family, my husband got his eyes checked too. We all knew that my husband needed glasses. He used to have some that he never wore. When we moved we found them under the computer desk with the lenses so scratched no one would ever be able to see out of them. So, he threw them away.

We all have very different approaches to wearing glasses.

Wearing glasses is old hat for me. I’ve done it since I was in 4th grade. My lenses are constantly smeared and smudged and I just ignore it. I’ve learned to see around the smudges. I only clean my glasses about once a week. I figure why even bother, they just get smudged again in a few minutes.

Since my husband’s gotten his new glasses, he spends more time looking at himself in the mirror saying things like, “I really look good in glasses.” He keeps his glasses very clean. He’s always cleaning them. If even the tiniest smudge appears on them, he cleans it off immediately. “How can you see out of those things,” he often says to me while closely examining my glasses.

My stepson’s method for dealing with his glasses is the most unusual. When he does wear them–which is almost never–he puts them up to his eyes while holding the arms. He rarely ever lets them rest on his face. Instead, he holds them up off of his nose takes a quick look at something then quickly removes them, returns them to their case and shoves the case in his pocket. He treats them like some kind of disease.

The reason he was having problems reading is because his bad vision is straining his eyes. If he wore his glasses all the time, he wouldn’t have this problem reading, but of course he won’t wear them. Instead, he’s gotten some reading glasses somehow, from somewhere–the kind of reading glasses  old people buy from the drugstore. He insists on wearing those to read because his eyes are bothering him. His eyes wouldn’t bother him if he wore his glasses, but you can’t tell him anything.

Now that we’re all bespectacled we can go out together as one big, happy nerdy chic family. Some of us are nerdier than others. And some of us are chicer than others. But we can still all get along.

Yesterday was my stepson’s 16th birthday (sweet 16) so we went into London to celebrate. After getting him loaded on tequila and buying him a hooker, we took him to London Eye. When it was built in 1999, it was the world’s tallest Ferris wheel. Since then the Chinese and Singaporeans have built Ferris wheels that are larger. (Hey, leave it to me to keep informed in Ferris wheel trivia.) It’s not the largest anymore, but I’m sure it’s the most expensive. It cost £17.50 per person.

Even though the London Eye is only the third largest Ferris wheel in the world and undoubtedly the most expensive the masses of camera toting, backpack wearing tourists flock to it even in the middle of the day on a Thursday. Don’t these people have jobs.
We stood in that line for more than 45 minutes. The ride–I should say flight because that’s how they refer to it in the brochure–on the Ferris wheel lasted maybe 20 minutes. My stepson was happy with the ride flight though. That’s what was important. Here are some pictures he took.

He doesn’t look very happy in this picture, but I swear he was.