The Weather, According to Sethanese

So, here I am riding the exercise bike in my room, minding my own business, when The Spare walks in.  Mind you, I am watching my husband, Anderson Cooper, report from the areas affected by Hurricane Sandy.  The TV is showing a video of New Jersey which includes footage of a huge area of houses (do they call them housing additions in Jersey?) that are inundated with sand brought in by the storm.  Scary stuff, even if you are watching it from hundreds of miles away.

I said to Seth "can you believe all that sand?  That's just awful."  Seth replied "is that sand?  I thought it was snow."  "Nope, it is sand."  "What the heck?  Did the hurricane do that?"  "Yep."

We sit, silently watching the footage, and taking in the commentary.  Suddenly, Seth says "wait a minute.  What's the name of that hurricane again?"  "Sandy," say I.  "WHOA...........did they do that on purpose?"

Once it sunk in, I laughed for probably about twenty minutes.

Knock Knock

Seth told me yesterday, "hey Mom, some creepy guys came to the door and gave me this."  He handed me a card from the Mormons.  Oh heck, they found us.

19 years we lived in the other house, and we never once had a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness knock on the door.  I used to joke with my boss, because she was a JW.  She would leave on Thursdays and say "I'm off to Bible study, so I can learn to knock on your door."  I would always point out that no JW had ever once knocked on our door.  She would smile and then ask for my address and say she was sending them my way.  They never came.

So how is it that after mere seven months here and they found me?  Well, not JW, but Mormon, but same difference when you already have the Jesus you want in your life.  I need to buy one of these,

but in the meantime, I'm going with the theory that they will go away after the election.  And Seth has been given instructions that should those "creepy guys" show up again, he can dismiss them with something along the lines of  "Don't bother.  We're voting Obama."

Dinner Isn't Done............

I took out a package of meat out of the freezer over the weekend, fully intending to take advantage of the grill.  I wasn't sure what it was at first, but the label said ribeyes.  I had bought them some time back when my boo was over making dinner, but it turned out he showed up with New York Strip steaks, so the ones I bought went back into the freezer.  Well, I didn't get around to cooking this weekend, because of course, he cooked, so the steaks sat there for the past couple of days.

Not one to let a nice slab of meat go bad, I figured I'd make 'em into fajitas for the spare to the throne.  He's not a huge fan of steak, but he does love fajitas, so that was the plan.  Then I realized that Thomas was off work, and my boo had made chili for me out at his house.  What better way for the boys to bond than over steaks?  It's a guy thing, right?  So I texted Thomas and asked him over.  Sure, no problem.

Next thing you know, he showed up at my house with a backpack.  He laughed and said he was pulling a Jim, because Jim tends to show up here with his own spices and pans -- he's particular about his cooking, dontcha know.  Thomas pulled out a cast iron skillet and a bunch of spices from his backpack, and said he was gonna show Seth how to cook like a man.  When I went out the door, there were three fat ribeyes on the cutting board, with the heir to the throne hovering over them.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang.  It was Seth.  I picked it up, and heard a horrendous wailing noise and Seth.  Seth yelling, to be exact.  Yelling "WHY IS THE SMOKE DETECTOR DOING THIS?????"

Sometimes, a mother just doesn't want to know.

My Oppa

My boo is obsessed with Gangnam Style.  When he says he watches it several times a day at work, I believe him.  He said he watches it when he needs a lift, and frankly, I'm pretty sure that if you don't smile when you watch Psy, you probably aren't human.



So here's how we spent our evening:  Seth decided he wanted meat loaf for dinner, so I made meat loaf and amazing mashed potatoes (shout out to you, Thomas, but you're off carbs anyway), green beans, topped it off with Seth's gravy, and we were set.  Well, my boo had had an uber busy day at work and didn't get lunch, so he stuffed himself at dinner, and promptly thought he needed a nap.  He wanted to get home at a reasonable work night hour, so I started cruising youtube to find him something energetic.

He loves him some Gaga, so first I played the ever classic, ever amazing "Bad Romance," which is his favorite.


This, of course, led him into his Gangnam Style fixation, so we started cruising various versions of it.  There are parodies, live versions, and even a Dr Who version, which is now posted on Seth's Facebook wall.  (It takes a long time to load such a short video.)



Somehow, in the middle of this, there was quite the exercise in trying to make "Bad Romance" lyrics that would work for a choir anthem.  And then he broke out in "Gangnam Style," almost verbatim.  To say I was impressed would be an understatement, but I'm not sure how that will play out when we're both in hell for the whole "Bad Romance" thing.  Somehow we figured that mentioning the disciples and the Jerusalem in a Gaga song might give us a nonstop trip to The Bad Place, but we sure did laugh over how it turned out, and I was quite blown away by his ability to lyricize on the fly.

And what, one asks, does "Oppa Gangnam Style" mean?  Well, Oppa can mean anything from older brother to older male friend.  Gangnam is the ritzy part of Seoul.  And Style is, well, style.  So basically, it's Sugar Daddy Stylin.  Like my boo:  a stylin' sugar daddy.  Well, if that shoe doesn't fit, then I don't know what does.

Yep. It's catching.

Yes, Sethanese is definitely catching. Here's our conversation in the car today. Keep in mind that I was very deep in thought.

 Seth: "Mom, what time is it?"

Me:  "Today?"

Seth: ::speechless:: ::blank look::

 All hope is lost. It's catching.

23

I can hardly believe that I became a mother 23 years ago today.  It started as something on Oprah -- the ex and I watched some episode about older parents, and he decided that we needed to have a baby immediately, so that he wasn't too old to play with it.

We were 26.

And then we waited.  I finally became a bit suspicious, and stopped at the lab on my way out of work at Orlando Regional.  I talked the lab tech into drawing a pregnancy test on me, with promises to call me at home with the results, once the test was done.  Well, dontcha know, it was positive.  Now, way back when, I had asked the ex how he wanted me to go about telling him, should we ever actually have the stick turn pink.  He said he just wanted me to hand him something to do with a baby, and he would know.  So I ran to the store and bought a baby bib.  I think it said   I Heart Daddy. Ironically, on the way home, the radio was playing Danny's Song, by Anne Murray: "People smile and tell me I'm the lucky one, and we've just begun, Think I'm gonna have a son...."

We were living in an apartment at the time, so I went home, tied the baby bib to the door knocker, and then just waited.  After a while, in walks the ex, who says "what the heck is that thing hanging on the door?"  "What," I said, in my most innocent tone.  "I don't know," he said, while he opened the door and pointed.  "I don't know -- get it off of there and see."  "Oh, it's a baby thing.  What the heck is that doing there?"  I just looked at him.  Raised a brow even.  Waited.  And waited.  "What?""I'm pregnant."

It took a minute to register, and then the questions began.  Who did the test?  How reliable was it?  Was the person properly trained?  Was I sure?  And then the all time favorite --- "can I call my mom?"  All-righty then.  (This scene was replayed -- in its entirety -- about a year later when I found out I was pregnant with Jill.  And again it ended with "can I call my mom?"  It still cracks me up.)

That fall, I gave birth to the happiest, quietest baby ever to grace the planet.  He's still pretty quiet, and definitely happy.  He looks a lot more like Grizzly Adams now.  But one day, if I'm very, very lucky, he will find the right girl, and have a conversation that ends with "can I call my mom?"

Happy birthday, Thomas.  Your mama loves you.

Oh, Brother..........brothers.

It's interesting to watch the dynamic of brothers evolve, especially from the mom's side.  I never got to watch that with my own brothers, because I was the youngest, so it was already established by the time I came around.  And since I've never been a brother, I can't speak from first hand experience.

It's different with a brother and sister.  I remember when Jill was born.  She would sit there in her swing, with that bald head and huge blue eyes.  Swinging her would make her mad most of the time, so she just sat there, watching the world go round.  Thomas was 14 1/2 months old when she was born, and had just started to walk, so he would toddle up and watch her.  They were almost face to face when he did, and he watched her in rapt attention, silent, studying this new face.  Then suddenly, his arm would fly back and he would smack her BAM!  Right across the face.  And if you didn't get to him quick enough, he'd do it again, because usually she hadn't gotten a cry out yet.  I'm 100% convinced that he thought she was a doll that cried when he smacked her.  She was not amused.

It was different with Seth.  Thomas had just turned five when Seth was born, so there was a bit of maturity, or whatever you want to call it.  I'm sure he was interested, but I don't remember that much.  I do remember that by the time he was six or seven, Thomas would remark at how odd it was that they got along so well.  He attributes it to them having the same interests -- they do -- and Seth's demeanor, which is much the same as Thomas' -- chill.  Granted, they aren't exactly the same, mind you, but they do have a lot in common. 

Take this afternoon, for instance.  Thomas stopped by to say hi and to borrow my power adaptor for my car.  He got talking to Seth about a TV show that he is watching.  Now, Thomas has literally been trying to get the boy to watch this show for MONTHS.  He guaranteed him that he was going to love it, but somehow, his cajoling wasn't working.  He practically begged him to watch it at one point.  He finally resorted to telling him that every time he came over, he was going to punch him if he hadn't watched it yet. 

And he did.  Seth got punched in the arm more than a time or two.  To be fair, he was warned every time, he knew it was coming, and there was always laughter involved.  He even ducked a couple of times and got away, but it was always there when he came back:  a single punch to the right deltoid, as a reminder to do what the bro said.  Then one day, he gave up.  He said it was futile, so why bother.  The brother was not going to listen to his words of wisdom.  He sighed and looked melancholy.  The influence of the older brother seemed to have left the building. 

Well, somehow this weekend, he decided to watch it.  I'm still not sure what the trigger was, but he watched an entire season twice in the same weekend, between him and Chris doing nerd stuff, checking on the chickens, and of course, the two of them eating me out of house and home.  He's hooked.

So Thomas stopped by today, and was blown away.  "Mom, do you know what Seth did?  He watched the whole season in two days."  Seth said "twice."  Thomas looked amazed and said "you watched it twice?"  "Yeah.  It's really good.  You need to bring me season 2."  Thomas just shook his head.  He just hasn't realized, some things take time, while the idea germinates around in that head for a while.

Seth promptly went to Facebook and offered to loan the DVDs to a friend from school.  Said friend swore he will bring the DVDs back.  If not, Thomas may go back to plan one:  a punch every time he's here until the DVDs arrive.  Brothers.....