Bro Code, revisited.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:  watching teenaged boys interact just cracks me up.  Especially my boys.  Though Thomas is no longer a teenager, those two just slay me.  Like the day that Seth was having a casual talk with me, whilst hanging off the trim of the kitchen door.  (Because, of course, every boy who's tall enough will hang off the kitchen door.  Frequently.)  So there he is, chatting away with me, when suddenly, I see a arm quickly come in from the right and punch Seth right in the ribcage.  BOOM.  And then it was gone.  Never saw the kid attached to it, just the punch.

Seth kinda doubled over to the right, looked that way and said "that hurt."  Of ourse, I immediately said "Thomas, why in the world would you punch your brother like that.  My God, you could've cracked a rib!"  I mean, the boy is working out, big time.  Thomas, of course, responded by saying "I had to."  "Why?"
To which the Heir to the Throne responded:  "when life presents you with a choice of either punching your brother or not punching your brother, you punch him."

::sigh::

And so it was that today, this text exchange happened.

Thomas:  Do you have a saw?
Me:  I think I have a cheap one.  What do you need it for?
Thomas:  A magic trick involving Seth.

Of course, I posted something to this effect on Facebook this afternoon, to which Seth responded "Don't worry, it'll be fun."

Oye vay.

More Musical Musings

Say THAT three times fast.  Yeah.

This driving to town in the early mornings this week has sure brought some interesting memories to light:  I heard the song that was on the radio when I lost my virginity (sorry, Ma), some Gaga (rocked out), and a little mix of everything.  Of course, 107.9 plays everything, or so they report, so I've heard some of my boo's beloved Stones and AC/DC too.  Funny how not long after we met, I told him I've always wanted to make the opening riff of Hell's Bells the ringtone for my phone, but never have.  He just stopped and stared with his mouth open, and informed me that HE had had it as HIS ringtone for some time, back before he sold his two stores.  Whoa.

So, this morning, I heard Billy Idol's White Wedding, which always cracks me up, for the following reasons:  1.  I always wanted to walk down the aisle to it.  It just seemed to suit me.  2.  My brother said that Billy Idol had a "three sleaze" rule.  As in, his videos always had three sleazes in it, usually in leather and/or a cage.      White Wedding always makes me think of my brother and laugh.  Maybe I'll convince Jillie to incorporate it into her wedding, or reception.

What should come on next but Snow Patrol.  Wow.  I guess I'm supposed to think of my bro today, because he turned me on to Snow Patrol before they got big, when he burned me a CD during the ex's and my trip to Seattle.  Big bro thought I'd love them.  He was, as usual, right.  Big brothers usually are, right?  (Don't tell mine, cause I have two big brothers.  I'd never live it down.)  When we got home, we listened to them for a good long time.  As in, until I lost the CD.  We were kind of mildly obsessed with this one:



So this morning, Snow Patrol came on the radio, and here it was.  The follow up to Final Straw, and a sweet song about love that is so deep-and-meaningful-and-I'll-love-you-forever.  The ex bought me the CD and we loved it too.  Heck, we almost went to the Snow Patrol concert downtown that summer, but I don't do crowds and he was doing someone else.  Oye vay.  Glad I didn't waste the money.



That song was part of the great iPod purge of 2011.  It's never made it back on cause I'm too lazy to add it back in, but oh well, it's still a good one to make me smile and think of my bro when I hear it in the grocery store, or like this morning, when I'm driving to work.

So I guess the drive was All About Jeff day, cause the next one must've been played in honor of his recent marriage.  Add to it that  it's part of one of my favorite videos ever:  the most epic proposal that will ever grace the planet.  Except maybe Michael's to Jillie.    ::reminds self to post it on youtube for posterity, before my phone fries it::



I grinned the whole way to work.

Music Evokes the Strangest Memories

Hey, the memory may come and go, but music is the great equalizer.  I grew up in a household full of music -- of all types -- and took a turn at lessons in organ (hated it), violin (meh), viola (loved it), and piano (loved it more and still have one).  Some people say that people's memories are stimulated in a completely different way by music, and that people in comas may not remember much, but they remember the music you play for them while they are sleeping.

Sometimes I have to turn the music off in the car, if I'm having a really busy day and my head is already spinning, because bringing in a bevy of memories can just plain be distracting.  More often, I'm afraid I'm going to miss a call from work because I'm rockin out.  Heck, I was sitting at a red light yesterday, in front of an unmarked car, watching my rear view mirror while the cop behind me rocked out.  Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

And so it was that I found myself driving into town this morning, and what should come on but this:



A song that invokes STRONG memories for me of my mother in law (may she rest in peace).  The song is from the movie "White Nights," which the ex and I saw with his parents when we lived in Florida.  We had had a lovely sunset dinner with them at The Sandbar.  I have no idea what I ate, but I do know that my mother in law ate shrimp.  It was the last time she ate it in my presence.  What she didn't tell me was that she was allergic to shrimp.  Violently allergic.  She could, by her report, eat it, but only until she got an odd metallic taste in her mouth.  At that point, she had to stop, or she'd react.  Of course, I went into dinner knowing none of this, and this happened to be a night where she decided to push the envelope.  God love her, she loved shrimp.

So we left and went to the movie.  I really can't tell you much about it except Gregory Hines was in it, and so was Isabella Rosselini, and there was something about Russia.  Partway into the movie, my mother in law excused herself and made for the door like a road runner, looking rather green.  I decided it was best for me to check on her, and walked into the hallway just in time to watch her vomit straight into the trash can in the hallway.  Got her to the bathroom, where she continued to hurl.  And hurl.  And hurl.

I don't remember how we got home.  I don't know if the men watched the end of the movie.  I don't remember how we got home.  What I do remember is that she laid down in our apartment and went to sleep, and a couple of hours later, she got up, hurling like no one I've ever seen in my life.

Keep in mind that on May 20th, I will have been a nurse for 30 years.  And I have NEVER in my life seen someone vomit like she did.  It was like a disgusting Fountain of Trevi, but trust me, I never, ever wanted to return to that fountain.  Poor thing.  We were up most of the night before it finally settled down.  And if she even so much as mentioned shrimp to me after that, we'd exchange a look that put the ix-nay on it immediately.

What a memory to evoke at 7am,  Fortunately, 107.9 plays such a wild mix of music that I went on to a completely different memory with the next song.    Against all odds............

The dog gets it all

So, Thomas went backpacking this week.  It was his first overnight journey, after months of taking Penny The Stalker Dog out on lots of day hikes. He's been chomping at the bit for warm weather since Christmas, when I got him a lightweight backpacking tent and warm socks (hey, I'm the mom.  Gotta keep those tootsies warm).  We finally got some nice warmer temperatures, so off to the trail he went.  There was rain in the forecast, but he carefully planned to outrun the rain.

He was thoughtful enough to file an itinerary with me, but I still asked when I should be concerned, if he didn't get back.  He said he was planning to be on the road by 2pm, but if I didn't see him by evening, get worried.  And for the record, I wasn't worried.  The Heir to the Throne is a planner.  He had researched everything, and he went prepared.

He texted me about 5pm and told me he had broken camp for the night, that Penny was having a blast, and everything was fine.  It was nice to know that it was going as well as he had hoped.

Then, about 10pm, Seth comes into my room and asked where Thomas was.  I reminded him that he was backpacking.  He thought about it for a minute, then said "you know what I just realized?  At this very minute, my brother could be getting eaten by a bear."  "SETH!  How could you even think such a thing?"  "Well, it's possible," he says.

I threw him out of my room, saying "geez, boy, right about the time I was thinking of putting you back into the will, you go and say something like that!"  He replied "well, Mom, if I'm cut out of the will and Thomas is dead, then that means Jill gets everything, and she wants you dead."

At which point, I told him the dog gets everything.

Say WHAT?

Seth went out with some friends tonight.  He came home and said "Hey Mom, guess what I had tonight?"  Now, when the boy is 18, and out with four similarly aged friends, maybe the mother doesn't want to know. But I bit.  "What?"

"Milk.  From a cow."

I was confused.  "Milk, Mom.  From a cow.  Not a bottle."

"So, you milked a cow??"

"No, Mom.  It was milk from a cow.  Like, not from Kroger."

Proving, once again, that my kids are way, way too city if they think that milk from Kroger is not from a cow.  Or a wild cow.

Cap-less

One of my Facebook friends posted her LPN school graduation photo, so I challenged all my nursey friends to post theirs.  I've heard several comments -- that I look like I'm in middle school, that my hair hasn't changed, and the like.  I, of course, notice immediately that this is pre-braces.  And that I only got to wear my pin a time or two after graduation before it went down the laundry shoot at the hospital, still attached to my scrubs.  I never saw it again.  I remember that I loved this top, and wore it all the time, but never after graduation.  I spent the next twenty years in scrubs.  And I never wore my cap again, though I do still have it.

One of my younger Facebook friends said that her class voted not to have caps, then another chimed in with a similar comment.  I think that's sad.  Granted, mine is put away, and I never wore it again, but still, those caps were a HUGE thing for us while we were in school.  First, student nurses looked forward to the capping ceremony, where they recited Florence Nightingale, and lit candles.  That was after the first year of clinicals.  I was so sad that ours was the first class that didn't get a capping ceremony.  We felt really cheated.  As I recall, they just handed out our caps in class.

Nonetheless, we had arrived.   Once you had a cap, you were looked upon with some respect by the other student nurses.  Caps set you apart, because each school had a different cap.  Mine had a circle with an IC in it -- for Indiana Central (since renamed, rendering the IC obsolete).  You could recognize alumni by their caps.  And when we went to clinicals, we felt just a little closer to being a Real Nurse.

So, I don't know why the schools don't give out caps anymore, but then again, I do.  No one wears them.  Their time has passed, just like the white hose and the starched whites.  It's more than a little sad to us Old Nurses, so I hope that my Facebook friends keep putting up their graduation pictures, to remind us of the time past.