• Sinus Infection: Manufactured enough snot to feed an entire colony of bone-eating snot flowers. I realize that for this sentence to work, it should be: snot-eating bone flowers. But I’m not a scientist. (Or a marine biologist?) If I were, I’d opt for a totally different naming convention for weird things, like “Weird Thing with Mucous Predilection” and “Weird Thing with Long Snout That Eats Ants.”
• Stayed in Bed All Day Sunday: The Rock let me sleep in and I didn’t even care that it was because my lungs needed suctioning. I got breakfast in bed AND a book, which I didn’t read because it dragged and too much energy had to be expended for me to draw another one from the teetering column on my nightstand.
• Attended Cool Party Saturday Night: To be chronological, I really should post this before Sunday’s overview above, but I’m cutting edge and non-conventional, as should be obvious from my eccentric blog name, “San Diego Momma.” Have you ever heard a name so quirky and original? As for the party, The Rock informed me the 2000-mile-wide-and-long courtyard of this residence probably cost the owners $200,000K in hardscape. I meanwhile, talked to a friend about premium denim and how much! is too much! to pay. After a lengthy debate, the men at the party decided the hardscape more likely cost $300,000 and the outdoor pizza oven alone must’ve been a pretty penny. Then, the deck! The deck. Wow. Nestled in a canyon, it felt like we were held aloft in a tree house, with a lovely view of San Diego’s Spruce St. suspension bridge. I sucked down Jack Daniels (with lemon) because the bartendress assured me it helps diminish snot. What she meant was it stores up in your nostrils for a mass expulsion the next day.
• Friends in Town/Two Visits to Target: My friend from high school and her family are visiting through the weekend. This required a couple of last-minute frantic trips to Target, where trash cans and plants needed to be purchased for domicile harmony and good impressions. I also cooked a hearty welcome meal of slow-cooked carne asada and homemade guacomole. Until, twenty minutes to their arrival, when I discovered I never turned on my crock pot.
• People I Don’t Want to Talk to Calling Me: There are several. Two software salesmen, someone else(s), and the Vons Pharmacy. One lady even called from another line, hoping I wouldn’t recognize her number and thus pick up. But I had a premonition. And I was right. I bet she’s jumping up and down right now, cursing my telepathy.
• I Don’t Have All The Answers: My daughter stumped me this morning with her question, “When saber-toothed tigers eat deer, are they from Asia?” I know she applied some four-year-old logic to the formation of this query, but my infected snot invaded my brain and prevented me from fully exploring the origins of the question, or to consider the ramifications of my answer (yes) to her long-term intellectual development.
• My Husband is A Good Person: In addition to the Mother’s Day sleep-in and breakfast in bed, he helped me clean the house, did laundry, washed the dishes after last night’s dinner and hired someone to do all the crap we never do (clean decks, windows, garages). I liked him quite a bit after this weekend. Also, he lays and designs awesome tile and stone patterns. See:

   

  

   

  And look at the view from the patio of the house where he worked:

   

  

   

  I’ve held many imaginary cocktail parties up here. Parties on a deck with two pizza ovens and a Jack Daniels-fueled mucous vaporizer.

   

• If My Daughter Were a Real Teapot, I Would Not Drink From It:

   

  

   

  I often look at this and wonder: Will I fondly show this at Toot’s first book signing to remind us all of her free and creative soul or at her trial for mental competence? It could go either way.

• My Dad Is A Marketing Genius: From an e-mail he sent us kids updating on a skateboard he’s repping: “We will discuss a younger more Skateboard Quality informed misfit to assist in marketing, attend shows, and meet the other misfits to not lose momentum in potentials due to the Old Fart Establishment image.”
• And On A Serious Note: I recently read Absolutely Bananas’ primer of Blogging Safely, and her tip to “have a picture policy” for your blog hit me hardest. She writes, “Try to avoid posting anything that’s remotely suggestive. I’m a big believer in no naked pictures. Ever. No matter how cute.” And I thought back to a photo I posted recently of Toots clad only in a balloon and knee pads. I’d actually posted it once before, then removed it in a fit of caution, then re-posted because I’d convinced myself it was no big deal. Well, I decided to delete the photo once and for all after reading the above. And when I checked my Flickr views, I saw that the knee pad photo had been viewed 18 times. Aghast, I couldn’t hit delete fast enough. This is because my Flickr photo stream tends to get 0 views (and deservedly so), which got me wondering, “who the hell is viewing this picture?” And then I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
  

Here’s my PROMPTuesday submission:

I shuffled through the milk crates stuffed with LPs. My knickers chafed uncomfortably, spurred by the hot sweatiness of the St. Mary’s gymnasium. Wet slicked down my back as I pulled out Supertramp’s album. The one with “Goodbye Stranger.”

I planned my outfit with him in mind. We had the same last name and sat next to each other in most classes, sandwiched between Bill Andre and someone else whose name I’ve since forgotten.

One day in the 6th grade, he told me how he’d “almost asked me out,” then didn’t continue, and I wondered why.

Now, we were in 7th grade. I’d come to the dance with my best friend and I could barely see her outline in the humidity hovering in the air. I squinted uncomfortably at Supertramp. I didn’t like them so much as I liked the song title. I’d be content to sit here in the dark and read the titles all night. Finding my beauty in the shadows. I handed the album to the DJ and he promised to get to it soon.

I stood in the corner and watched my namesake’s blue courdorouys sway to the beat. A tortoiseshell comb poked out of his back pocket and his Docksiders slapped in time to the music. His eyes caught some stray light and twinkled, then darkened again.

He looked at me briefly, and I quickly looked down, shoving my glasses back up my sweaty nose.

Then: “Do you want to dance?” He stood right in front of me.

I stared for a minute, not quite convinced he was talking to me. His longtime girlfriend (her last name started with a “B”) lurked nearby.

“Sure,” I quietly hyperventilated. Then, I didn’t know what to do next.

“Goodbye, Stranger” began to play and I couldn’t look him in the eye. I put my hands on both his shoulders and tried to move to the music. He put his head down, looking at me below my bangs, trying to catch my attention, but I kept my eyes trained downward, too embarrassed to look up.

“Goodbye, stranger, it’s been nice

Hope your dreams will all come true,”

The music stopped, and I breathed, “hope your dreams all come truuuuue.”

He paused a moment, then chuffed me on the shoulder and said, “You’re a nut.”

He never did ask me out.