Apparently she's never noticed that I can sometimes be sarcastic

Earlier this evening, by telephone, on the first night of the baseball playoffs.

My mom: So are you going to watch the Red Sox game tonight?

Me: I don't know, probably not. It's not really that important.

My mom: Oh really? Wow, I would have thought...

Me: Mom, that was a joke.

My mom: Oh. Haha, right!

Not a good sign

When you decide to check the damage from a week and a half of restaurants, weddings, birthday parties, and your mom's cooking, and the scale answers you with "ERROR".

Science proves what I've always known

Older siblings are the smartest!

Never mind the actual evidence that my youngest brother read algebra books for fun as a child, or writes his own computer games, or placed in national and international math competitions. Never mind that he takes double the normal course load at one of the toughest colleges in the country, doesn't go to class, and still has a perfect GPA. None of that matters! Science clearly proves that I am smarter!

Your MOM

No, I am not trying to insult you. That was the subject line of an email sent by my aunt a few days ago, letting me know how my mom was doing after having surgery. My aunt is of those people who seem to have just discovered the interenet - she's a forwarder, she capitalizes inappropriately - but luckily for her, I find it endearing (but she's the only one - don't anyone else get any ideas).

A few weeks ago, the doctor discovered something growing where it ought not to grow, and (obviously) decided it had to come out. Unfortunately, it was so large that they thought it couldn't be done the easy way, and it was going to be major surgery with a six-week recovery time. Even worse, they wouldn't know till they took it out whether it was the bad kind of growth, or the not-bad kind. Most people with this sort of growth (sorry to be sort of vague - I'm trying to give my mom at least a little bit of privacy here) fall into one of two groups. For the people in the first group, it's almost always benign. For the people in the second, it's more often cancer. My mom was one of the few people who actually fit into both groups, so we didn't really know what to expect.

Anyway, so thankfully the news on my mom was good. As it turned out, when they went to do the surgery, the doctor decided he could do it laprscopically after all (so, a much easier recovery), and it was all benign. She was kind of funny about it afterwards - of course it was all good news, but she'd spent all this time mentally preparing to be an invalid, and now she actually had to get up and get on with her life. Heh.

One thing that sucks about being out here on the west coast is that I couldn't come home to help her out, so I don't feel so bad now that she doesn't really need it. She did have my aunt (her sister) come over right after she got home, but apparently my aunt was a little disappointed that my she didn't need more help - my aunt's one of those people who really likes to take care of people. And if you're wondering, yes, my dad was around the whole time, but the man can barely boil a pot of water. My mom said he offered to cook her scrambled eggs, and she wasn't sure she she should trust him. Gotta admire him for offering to try, though.

And hey, remember Little Bob? (Good news on him, too, by the way - so far the cancer has not returned.) When told that my mom had to have her tumor removed (granted, it wasn't actually a tumor in the strictest sense of the word, but he's four years old), he said, totally on his own, that he would call her up and tell her not to be scared. He did end up getting distracted and forgot to actually do it (again, he's four), but still, you know, awwwww. Cutest kid ever.

I love my Dad, but NPR is still boring, and other news

(ring)

Me: Hello?

My Mom: Hi, it's me...

Me: (cutting her off) Yes, I'm listening, don't worry. He's not on yet. There's some other guy on. It's pretty boring. I'm not really paying attention to what they're talking about.

My Mom: Heh. I've got my walkman on so I can walk around and I won't miss it.

And then she started talking about something else for ten minutes, and by the time I turned the radio back on, they were already talking to him. She calls to make sure I'm listening, then makes me miss the intro. Thanks, Mom.

I really don't know how people can listen to talk radio. I don't. I'm not talking about all the right-wing stuff, the only exposure to which I ever get is during an occasional cab ride. I'm talking about NPR.

I'm a good liberal. I'm supposed to like NPR right? Well, I don't. Seriously, it makes me want to claw out my own eyes. Call me uncultured or shallow or whatever, but they're just so damn serious and boring. And I know there's Air America out there somewhere, but I have no idea where (sure, I know it would be easy to figure out, but still), and as much as I adore Al Franken, I still don't think I could listen. It's just too distracting - as a non-driving person, I'm always somewhere doing something whenever I might have occasion to turn on the radio, and I don't have a good enough attention span to pay attention to someone talking and do something else at the same time. (What? Me, with a short attention span? I know.)

So anyway, my Dad was a guest on some NPR program the other day to talk about the recent massive layoffs and plant closings at Ford and the implications it would have for American manufacturing. And while I love my Dad, and it's cool to hear him on the radio, I'm sorry, it was still boring. I do think he had a pretty good radio voice, and he certainly had plenty to say and sounded like he knew what he was talking about, but once they got past the part where it was just him and the host, to the part where people called in to ask questions or make comments, I completely zoned out. Well, except for the first caller, who was a former auto worker and said something to the effect of, "I think all of you are lying out your assess," and then proceeded to rip Ford and mock the fact that my Dad said "uh" and "um" a lot. Which he did (probably the main thing that was not good about his performance, but come on, it's not like he's a professional radio guy), but still, shut up, dude. Lay off my Dad. And I don't know what the heck he was talking about with the "lying" comment. My Dad doesn't work for Ford or any of the other auto companies, he just talks about them.

It's kind of funny - the way the guy was going off, it made it sound like he thought my Dad was a corporate shill and probably a Republican. Which he is most definitely not. This isn't the first time something like that has happened. A few months ago, he was quoted in a newspaper article, and they included an offhand comment he made about Bush's economic policies, and the way it was couched made it sound like he viewed Bush positively. Which, again, he most definitely does not, so it was quite distressing for him. "Ugh, they made it sound like I'm a Republican!" Hee.

In other news, I spent the holidays up in Maine with my family, which was fun. Yes, I'm aware that it's the end of January, which is a little late to be still talking about the holidays. I don't care. I'm writing about it now, and you'll read it and like it. Actually, if you want to be technical about it, I didn't really spend any holidays up there at all, because I didn't go up till Dec. 27, and came back before New Year's. Although if you count the fact that Chanukah spans eight days, and the fact that my family is arguably Jewish, I guess I spent at least part of Chanukah up there. Not that anyone really takes it very seriously, other than the part where we give each other presents, which, in the case of the female members of my family, means a big stack of Ann Taylor boxes, because none of us has any creativity whatsoever. I don't even know why we bother - we should just all go to the store together and buy ourselves a bunch of sweaters and be done with it. I did get one small other present - a copy of this book, which is only interesting because, a few days before, I was on the phone with my Mom discussing what I had bought for my Dad, and I mentioned that I'd almost bought the same book for him, except I didn't, because the publisher had been so cheap that they hadn't bothered to cut the edges of the pages after binding the book, so they were all jagged and uneven, and it really offended my aesthetic sensibilities, and I refused to pay money for such shoddy presentation. Of course, I didn't know at the time I went off on this tirade that she'd bought it for me. And when I opened it later, it wasn't awkward, at all.

We did light the menorah each night, but no one quite knew the exact words to the prayers you're supposed to say, and no one really paid much attention to it. The fact is, I think we're probably better off without it altogether, given the potential for fire. This year, on the first night (I wasn't there, but heard about it after the fact, which is probably a good thing; I do no think I would have dealt with this well if I'd been there), my Mom decided that the menorah would look excellent sitting on top of the wood stove. Except she forgot about the fact that the wood stove is super-hot, and the fact that wax tends to drip, and put the menorah directly on top without anything to catch the melted wax. So, because no one was paying any attention, the wax dripped all over the top of the stove, where it proceeded to burn, filling the house with burned-wax stink. At least there was no apparent permanent damage, unlike the time a few years ago when my Mom left the menorah burning unattended, and it fell over and burned a hole in the kitchen table before anyone noticed.

Now, just to be clear, I am not criticizing my mother. I am far worse when it comes to the proper care and handling of fire (back when I worked in the lab, I set my bench paper on fire more times than I care to admit). But also, this is why I do not personally use candles. Like, ever, for any reason (it's really a good thing I'm not a romantic person - I know you're probably shocked at that revelation - because if you believe what you see on TV, candles are required for romance).

What else...I found out that the guy who was the main character in this book has now outed himself (in the book, his name and some personal details were changed), and it was someone I actually knew in college. Well, not knew personally, but I knew who he was quite well, because I knew some of the other guys at his frat house, and I had a huge crush on him. You know the kind - you never actually speak to the person, but you lust after them from afar, and you develop ridiculous code names like Red Sweatshirt Man and Plaid Shirt Guy and Freezer Man and Ted Achtung Baby so you can excitedly tell your friends how you saw them walking down the hall or buying a soda in the dining hall, without worrying that anyone might overhear you and know who you're talking about. Come on, don't tell me you never did that (really, don't tell me; let me pretend I was at least somewhat normal).

Anyway, the fact that the guy in the book turned out to be this guy has completely blown my mind. It's totally bizarre. I never even remotely guessed it was him. What's funny is that I did actually know a guy named Kevin Lewis (the pseudonym in the book), and even though it said the names had been changed, I wondered if maybe it was actually him. However, because there were certain details about him in the book that had to have been at least partly true (based on the importance to the plot), I knew it couldn't have been the actual Kevin Lewis I knew.

*****

And now the sad part.

Sometime around the middle of December, I went out to lunch with my aunt. After we were finished, she was going to give me a ride home, but she asked whether I minded if we stopped at a nearby toy store so she could buy something for her grandson Little Bob. Little Bob, so-named by me here because he is obsessed with Bob the Builder, is the three year-old son of her daughter, my cousin M. Little Bob is also one of the cutest, most sweet-natured children you'll ever meet. He's really a great kid, and I don't say that about all of them. If he can melt my cold, blackened heart, you know he's really one of the good ones.

As my aunt told me at the time, M had recently taken Little Bob to the doctor because his stomach seemed to be swollen, and all the poking and prodding and needle-sticking had been upsetting for him. The local doctor wasn't sure exactly what was wrong with him, and so Little Bob was being sent to the big city hospital for more tests, and my aunt wanted to be there after the appointment with a toy to, hopefully, calm him down and cheer him up.

According to my aunt, the local doctor had determined that Little Bob's spleen was enlarged, and his bloodwork looked a little abnormal, but the doctor didn't know why. Possibilities at the time included a viral infection, although he wasn't sick at all, or possibly even a form of a genetic blood disorder called thalassemia, which another cousin, M's brother, is apparently a carrier of.

Fortunately, Little Bob handled the big city hospital appointment just fine. Not so fortunately, Little Bob's spleen wasn't enlarged at all. Normally, that would be good news, but in this case, it was not. Because the real problem was that his spleen only appeared enlarged because there was a huge tumor growing behind it. Needless to say, it had to come out, and Little Bob spent a week over Christmas in the hospital in order to have surgery. Not the best way to spend the holidays.

After the surgery, the good news was that they appeared to have gotten all of the tumor out, and it had not visibly spread. The bad news was that the doctors were almost certain, based, presumably, on the type of cancer and how aggressive it was, that it would come back, possibly in another part of his body.

The latest news I heard was that my cousin and her husband are trying to decide whether to put him through chemotherapy now. Not that any chemo is easy, but apparently what they'd have to give him is particularly nasty, with side effects such as sterility and heart and hearing damage, and it doesn't even have that high of a survival rate. One of the doctors said she wouldn't put her own child through it. That's not a comforting thought. Without the chemo, they'll just have to watch him very carefully and hope that if the cancer returns, they'll be able to catch it before it's too late, and then at that point, they can give him the chemo. Some choice - give your child drugs that make him sick and could permanently damage his body and may not help anyway, or wait for what seems like an inevitable ticking time bomb to go off again.

*sigh* Sorry to end on a downer, but it is what it is, I guess. Get well, Little Bob.

In which I reveal a little bit about myself

As many of you know, Saturday night was Passover. As some of you also know, I am not the slightest bit religious, myself. But my family is, at least to the degree that we have a Passover seder every year. We don't necessarily take it very seriously, but we do have it, for what that's worth.

* * *

Because I don't have a car, my aunt L gave me a ride over to my parents' house. As I met her at my front door, she greeted me with, "I'm SO glad you're dressed like a slob too!" Nice. For the record, I was NOT dressed like a slob. Casual, maybe, but not a slob. I am fully willing to admit that I am a slob, but I was not dressed like one. Whatever. My aunt is one of those people you kind of just nod your head and agree with, because...she has issues.

L: Ugh. I hope this doesn't go too long. Sometimes I just hate these family things. They're soooo stressful, you know? Don't tell your mother I said that."

Of course not. There's no need. Because everyone in the family ALREADY KNOWS.

At the end of the ride, I am thankful my other aunt is driving me back, because L drives like an old person - at least ten miles below the speed limit, hitting the brakes every time she sees the tiniest crack in the road, drifting into the other lane every once in a while. She's one of those people who you wonder how they get through life without ever getting into an accident.

* * *

Upon arriving, I see that my Dad is engrossed in the NFL draft. He's even got list of all the college players, and is marking their names off as they get drafted. Looking at the clock, we come to the distressing realization that we will miss our team's top pick because of the seder, so my Dad sets up the computer near the dining room. My mother is not told about this. As people arrive, everyone oohs and aahs over the newish, gigantic, wall-consuming television (later, after dinner, there will be fights over whether we will watch baseball or basketball, and when we put up the split-screen, which game gets the sound; I wanted baseball, but I was voted down).

* * *

Prior to this year, my uncle was the leader, but he and my aunt moved to Florida, so the job fell to my dad. He reads the Hagaddah like he is giving a speech or teaching one of his classes.

When he gets to the part where he tells the story of why we eat matzah, he makes the same joke he makes EVERY SINGLE YEAR.

My dad:We eat matzah because our ancestors did not have time to allow the dough to rise before they had to flee...but they still had time to bake all sorts of Passover rolls and cakes and stuff. Har har har.

My mom: STOP editorializing. JUST READ! God.

My uncle: Come on, I'm sure our ancestors had a sense of humor.

Fortunately, my mom does not notice when we get to the part in our Haggadah that talks about Jews in the Soviet Union (not something I've ever seen in a Haggadah, but I guess these were a little non-traditional, so okay).

My dad: What's all this about Soviet jewelry?

Somewhere in there, we get to the point where everyone reads a little bit, usually about a paragraph. This year, my cousin's kid gets the section about why we eat maror, except he reads it as "why we eat manure" (not on purpose - he's just not old enough yet to have perfect reading skills). Sadly (for those of us who have the maturity of twelve-year-olds), our Haggadahs are different from the ones my aunt used to use, which had a passage that talked about "Moses's rod," and no one could ever read it without all the cousins stifling their laughter, and all the adults acting scandalized. "What's going on? What are you all laughing at?"

Later, my dad explains the Passover symbols (I'll note that I think I'm going through everything here a little out of order, as I believe explaining the matzah was part of this. Whatever).

He picks up the lamb shank bone.

My dad: This is the lamb shank. It symbolizes--

Someone: It says you're supposed to point at it.

My dad: Okay, I'm pointing at it.

My cousin B: Wow, that's a big bone!

Someone: What about the egg? What's the egg for?

Someone else: Life? Spring?

Someone else: No, I think the parsley is for spring.

Someone else: I'm hungry. Is it time to eat yet?

My cousin A quietly excuses himself to "go to the bathroom." When he comes back, several of us mouth the words, "Who'd they pick?"

When we get to the part with "Go Down Moses" (snicker), everyone argues about whether we're supposed to sing it or not. Several people think it's the song "Dayenu," which is actually on the next page.

We do try to sing "Dayenu," but half the people don't know the words, everyone is off key, and no one is singing in unison. No one knows more than one verse, and we're mostly sick of it anyway.

My mom: Okay, enough. We're not the Von Trapp family here.

And finally, we get to what everyone is really waiting for, the meal.

* * *

There's a lot of starch, a lot of turkey. Not a whole lot of green. My cousin C's girlfriend-of-the-month has brought a jello mold, which she claims is a Jewish tradition. I would dispute that. Especially since it has dairy in it, and we are eating turkey, and eating meat and dairy together is not kosher. Not that any of us actually keeps kosher (I don't think my parents throw out any of their bread; I don't even stop eating it), but we still at least try to pretend to do it at the Passover meal. We are all polite and try a little of the jello mold, but unsurprisingly, no one wanted to keep the leftovers that night.

God, I am just a big baby; plus, bonus paranoia

How do people deal with chronic back pain? No really, how? Because I done went tweaked something in my back this weekend, and I WANT TO DIE. And it's not even that bad - I'm pretty sure it's just a minor strain of some sort, probably the result of sleeping on a rickety sofabed Saturday night (either that or it's a kidney infection, and I'm only saying that because it's in the general vicinity of where I believe my kidney to be, and not based on any experience of ever actually having a kidney infection, or even having any idea what the actual symptoms are supposed to be, and how do you like THAT expert medical diagnosis?) - but seriously, I cannot stop thinking about how I want to just curl up in a ball and whimper right now, and it's times like this when I really wish I had a boyfriend who could do nice things for me while I whine like a baby. And wow, that was an excellently-crafted run-on sentence, don't you think?

In other news, I had a brief moment of terror this weekend when I overheard my mother having a conversation containing the following excerpt: "Blah blah blah put it in a blog blah blah blah."

WHAT?!?!

My mother is not suppopsed to know what a blog is. She just isn't. Here's the thing about my mom - she actually knows quite a bit about computers. She even makes a living as a freaking programmer, if you must know. But she's just not the type who's ever been into things like "surfing the internet" or "pop culture" or stuff like that. And definitely not blogs.

And definitely not THIS blog. I know this site isn't exactly the raunchiest place, but there have been at least a few scattered allusions to, you know...sex, and when it comes to my mom, that is not stuff I want her anywhere near. Seriously, my mom is the one everyone in both my immediate and extended families mocks mercilously because she is such a prude (I'm not kidding - we really do that - but it's in a "we kid because we love" kind of way, so don't go thinking I'm being mean to my mom or anything).

But I wasn't worried, because, well, she wouldn't even know what a blog is, right? RIGHT? Aaargh.

Granted, it's not likely she'd ever actually find my blog without being explicitly told about it, but it could happen. I did put code into the template that renders Google useless (go ahead, try to find my blog using Google - can't do it), but there's always the "Next Blog" button up there, and for all I know, my mom is sitting at her computer clicking away at it, and one day she could land here. I know I try to be anonymous, but still, there are stories I've told here about people, and if those people (including my mom) ever read them, they'd surely recognize themselves, and thus, me.

I think what I need to do, clearly, is swear more, because my mother HATES that. She'd probably flee at the first sign of "fuck," and then I'd be home free. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Ass. Fuck. Shit, shit, shit. Goddamn.

Yeah, I think that should do it.

If Dweeze says jump, jump I must

So I see here where we have this musical questionnaire I'm supposed to complete. Okay, then.

1. Last CD you bought

Probably was Autumn Thunder: 40 Years of NFL Films Music (10-disc box set) or the newest from Tears For Fears, both of which I bought a few weeks ago. At some point recently, I also bought a CD sight-unseen (or sound-unheard, I suppose) from some Andean musicians who often sell CDs in the shopping district near my office. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a pan flute.

2. Last song listened to before this message

"Live Until I Die" - Ass Ponys

3. 5 songs you listen to a lot or mean something to you

I'm not sure I like this question. "Songs I listen to a lot" and "songs that mean something to me" are two entirely different things. Also, songs could mean something to you in a good way or in a bad way, and "meaning something" could mean that the lyrics mean something to you, or maybe that the song as a whole is meaningful. Like, every time I hear "What's Up" by Four Non Blondes, it makes me think of this time in college when this guy I was going out with dumped my ass right before we were supposed to go to a movie premiere that he'd gotten free tickets to, and for some unknown reason, I still went with him, despite the fact that I was nearly boiling over with rage, and that song was playing in the car on the way there. Or there's "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum, which I always used to listen to in college when I was depressed. I don't think I want to make a list of songs that mean something bad, though, because that's no fun.

But leaving those out, the question still taunts me with its ambiguity. If I sort my iTunes by number of times played, the five that come up on top are, starting with most times played:

"Du Hast" - Rammstein (Interestingly, this song also came up here.)

"You Win Again" - The Bee Gees

"White Flag" - Dido

"Another Night" - Real McCoy

"Lambada" - Kaoma

Not all of those are recent, though. Lately, one song that I keep playing is "True Faith" by New Order. It is just a fucking brilliant song.

As for songs that mean something to me (in a good way; see above), this is harder, because I can't really look at iTunes to jog my memory, unless I want to scroll through nearly 3500 songs, which I don't.

Probably the oldest one I can think of is the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive", which, besides being an awesome disco song, reminds me of when my Dad used to play it for me when I was a little kid, and I'd dance to it in his study - that's where he kept the record player. Yes, people, I do remember record players. In fact, one day, I wanted to listen to it so much that I decided I'd try to play the record myself, and of course I ended up scratching it. When my Dad discovered this, he wondered aloud how it had happened, not appearing to have any idea I could have done it, and I certainly didn't volunteer the information. Even to this day, I have never told him, and man, suddenly I feel so ashamed. Maybe this isn't such a good memory after all. Anyway, moving on...

When I was about 14, a bunch of friends and I were at summer camp, and we made up a dance for some sort of talent show thing that was set to "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals. It was a pretty lame dance, but we had fun, and for years afterwards, it was all I could to keep myself from doing the dance every time I heard the song. I've since forgotten most of it, but I can still do part of the chorus.

When I was a freshman in college, my two roommates and I had this thing where, when we got really stressed out (which was quite often), we'd blast "Life is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane (yes, it's a cheesy song - I don't care) at two in the morning and dance around in our room. I'm sure our neighbors loved that.

And then there was grad school, where the song "Gangsta Trippin'" by Fatboy Slim will always remind me of this one party at the apartment of my friend the former Calvin Klein underwear model (I am not making that up - he really was - and now he has a Ph.D., so there), and our other friend got really drunk and put handprints on his own ass using fluorescent body paint.

Oh, and I just remembered this last one. "Lonely Planet" by The The will always have a special place in my heart, because I won a radio contest by knowing the lyrics. The contest was that they would read (not sing) a couple lines from a song, and you had to call in and say what the song was. I am usually terrible at this - whenever someone sends around one of those lists of 100 song lines, and you have to guess what the songs are, I can usually get about five of them - so I was amazed that I got the answer. I was actually the third person who got through, but the first two got it wrong. I won a Timberland backpack, which is probably the most random prize I've ever heard of, and which I still have.

Anyway, those are some songs that mean something to me, I guess, in the sense that they all have significant memories attached to them. I'm not sure if I properly followed the rules of the question, but hey, this is where I invoke the this-is-my-blog-and-I'll-do-whatever-I-damn-well-please provision of the blogging laws, so screw you all if you have a problem with it. Ha!

4. Who am I going to pass this stick to?

Well, ExI says he's looking for more ways to waste time.

Conversations with my parents

...or,

Who are you and what have you done with my mother, part the second

Last week:

My mom: (fangirl voice) Guess who I saw at the gym the other day!

Me: Uh, [D-list celeb who I went to high school with]?

My mom: Yes! How'd you know?

Me: Well, who else would it be? Do you know of any other celebrites likely to be hanging out around town?

My mom: Well, I think it was him, anyway. I only saw him from far away. Do you think I should have gone over and said 'hi'?

Me: I don't know. That probably would have been a little weird, seeing as how you don't actually know him.

My mom: Yeah.

*****

Yesterday:

My mom: So remember how I told you how I thought I saw [D-list celeb who you went to high school with] last week? It was definitely him!

Me: What, did you see him again or something?

My mom: No. I googled him. He was wearing this t-shirt with a slogan for [obscure organization] when I saw him, and the bios I read said he was involved with that organization.

Me: Haha! Mom, you're totally an internet stalker!

My mom: Hahahaha!

Me: Anyway, I'm sure it must have been him. He's pretty unmistakable.

My mom: Did you know there are all these websites devoted to him? Where people post pictures of him and talk about what he's doing and how cute he is?

Me: I'm not surprised. People do that on the internet.

My mom: Don't worry, I won't be posting on them or anything.

Me: Lord, I should hope not.

My mom: Maybe I'll take up knitting again and go join his mom's knitting group.

Me: Oh. My. God.

My mom: Kidding! Ha ha!

Me: Erm, can I talk to Dad?

*****

My dad: Yo yo yo, wassup? (Okay, he didn't actually say that, but I like imagining that he did.)

Me: Hey, guess what I'm doing when I go to Seattle over New Year's?

My dad: Going to a Sonics game?

Me: No. I hate basketball, remember?

My dad: Right. Um, going to a Seahawks game?

Me: Ding, ding, ding! I think we are in the last row of the upper deck. Hopefully we won't get blown over the edge.

My dad: (starting to get angry) Do you realize the Seahawks are are going make the playoffs????

My: Yeah, I knew that. I just hope they don't clinch the division next week, which I think may be possible, because I want the last game to matter, so it's more interesting.

My dad: But a .500 team making the playoffs??? THAT IS AN OUTRAGE!

Me: Well, that's the way it is. What are you gonna do?

My dad: But aren't you OUTRAGED???

Me: I don't know. I suppose. Actually, I think it's kind of amusing. Anyway, our team will make it, so who cares, right?

My dad: Yeah, I guess. Whatever.

Me: Whatever.

Who are you, and what have you done with my mother?

This week's sign of the apocalypse: I'm in the car with my mother this weekend, and we're arguing over who was responsible for putting the radio on the crap top 40 station (I think we ended up concluding that it was actually already set to it from when my brother was using the car the day before), when a new song starts, and it's Eminem's "Lose Yourself", and my mother actually turns the radio up and says, in response to my perplexed, probably horrified expression, "What? I like this song. I think he's very talented." Don't get me wrong - I don't hate Eminem (although I don't particularly like him, either), but this is the same mother who normally listens to what is generally referred to as "soft rock" or "adult contemporary" (or what I refer to as "pure unadulterated musical evil"). I don't know. I just don't know.