One Liners

I read a facebook post last night by Jill about smashing her smoke alarm via a bat after a botched Christmas cookie debacle. She's also told me about pitching her coffee maker into the driveway and various other sordid aggressions towards small appliances. Hmmm... immediate childhood flashbacks ensue... such as the incident with Jill's mother hurling a lawn sprinkler through the yard. Or showing up to ask to play with my pal Jill only to be greeted by various pieces of appliances littering the porch steps that had met their demise. On these occasions I generally headed back home rather than make that knock on the door. It seemed safer.

Jill forced me in to using Twitter and has been generating enough one liners that she could start a t-shirt company to support the replacement of her appliances:

-so far today i've been projectile vomited on,lost the teacher xmas gift&had a chunk of hair ripped out by my psycho baby.Good times!

-here's a tidbit of helpful info. Smoking while pumping gas is not the best idea. I guess the idiot next to me is unaware.

-visiting the bachelorette section at the party paper place was just what i needed to cheer myself up!

-Costco is full of jackassery toinght.

-Leggings are not pants. I don't care how rockin your a** is, cover that shit up.

-Asked Alex to go get the Santa decoration out of the garage . 10 minutes later he comes back & says "I dont see a Llama decoration". Wtf?

I miss the comic relief that Jill exudes, even if its at her expense and my benefit!

-Sheryl

Going Home

I went back home to Michigan on business travel a few weeks back and stopped to see family and friends... including Jill and Gracie (and Jill's mother who was standing next to my mother as she took this picture!). And as Jill would like to have noted: We were standing on sloping sidewalk so she's not actually that much shorter than me.

It was a nice visit home but it was a continued reminder of things and people and places getting older. I still feel like I'm temporarily in Seattle which since I've been here 3 years something should say it isn't temporary. Not sure how to feel permanent...

What's Disturbing About Halloween...

I had thought about what I wanted Joshua to be for his first Halloween long before I realized it was not the most appropriate choice for my big giant boy. My favorite Winnie the Pooh character had always been Piglet. Except Joshua was more of a Hoglet. Jill's mom made the costume and it's still my all time Joshua-costume-favorite.

We are currently in our third straight year of Star Wars. And there are already plans for a 4th consecutive selection.

Halloween in suburban Detroit meant a few different things growing up. First off, the morning of Halloween my parents would sit there chattering over the newspaper to see what was burned up in Detroit. This caused me to believe that every major city was plagued with the hazing of Devil's Night leading up to Halloween. It turns out this is inaccurate. In fact, it may even be fairly limited to Detroit because I haven't heard it any where else.

But after that part, there was getting to wear your costume to school and we'd parade around for parents to wave at you and then go back inside and cram ourselves with candy before going home to get hollered at for snitching out of the candy bowl meant for trick or treaters.

And of course the Trick or Treating. My dad usually was the one taking us out. One of the benefits of WWII era homes is that just a driveway separates houses for blocks and blocks and blocks. This provided the opportunity for MASSIVE amounts of candy.

Which I would hoard afterwards and sell to my brothers months and months down the road. I forgot about that until just now as I was typing it.

I got to be something different every year but it was pretty much limited to what could be dug out from the junk around our house or whatever I could con my dad in to making. One year I was a present box. Another a cheerleader. A doctor. Little bo peep. Jill was a Carebear for about 17 years of our childhood when she wasn't a witch for the other 17 years. Man if I had a picture of that Carebear gettup I'd get a t-shirt made just to have people ask me WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT! It was well crafted- don't misunderstand- Jill's mom could sew like a Disney costume maker.

But with all the other creepy things to look at running past you on Halloween, a giant blue Carebear head attached to my friend's body was very disturbing.

Happy Halloween!

-Sheryl

Happy Birthday

August 2nd is Jill's birthday. She is sometimes squeamish about what birthday she is actually having but the catch to it is that it's an awesome, incredible signature on our friendship. With all the things that happen in life and all the people you meet along the way, I don't know how the universe works to give me my best friend when I was just two-years-old and to allow us to still be connected as much as we are after all this time.

Despite being in Target twice this weekend I failed to even grab Jill a card. If we'd grown up to live next door with pools in our back yards like we'd planned I would probably still not have a card ready to go. Hate that about me. But working on it.

I have always been a pretty good failure at the card thing. Not just for Jill... it's universal. But it didn't mean I wasn't thinking of her knowing the 2nd was rolling up soon. Jill has been too busy with children and bagel store grand openings and (Blazing Bagels in Waterford, MI!), summer and electronics problems to hardly even chat with me let alone, email, facebook or blog post or remember it's her birthday... but I remember... LOTS.

Thirty-three word and phrase associations with Jill:
1. Watermelon Hubba Bubba Gum
2. The book How to Eat Fried Worms (I read it in the back of her parents car on a road trip)
3. My Child Dolls
4. Catherine. Jill named every doll some variation of Catherine for a good long while.
5. Nasty Words. Jill was the kid that told me most of the dirty words I ever learned. That's right. The only child kid taught the middle child between two brother's all the dirty words she ever learned.
6. Driveway rollerskating
7. Dogs named Muffy
8. Curled pigtails
9. Worms- she had a worm obsession. She'll deny it. But it's true.
10. Lasagna- Jill's mom has the best. And the first I ever ate.
11. Playing monster. Don't ask.
12. Pretty in Pink Barbie
13. Twirly Curl's Barbie
14. Fake Care Bears
15. Fake Cabbage Patch Barbie
16. Trying to see our first movie... going in too early... realizing it's a rated R movie that we just sat ourselves in... and bolting from the theatre back into Oakland mall because we didn't know what else to do.
17. Bunkbeds at Girl Scout camp
18. Leaving me at Girl Scout camp
19. Bunkbeds at band camp
20. Band camp
21. Mr. Kantz's Third Grade Class
22. Picker bushes
23. Blue shag carpet
24. Hershey candy products
25. A white skirt with magent polka dots that she wore in 7th grade
26. Kleenex. I've never seen another human require so much Kleenex.
27. Snoopy Band-aids
28. Flip flops- namely the glitter encrusted ones that Noah slept with for weeks.
29. The pink, blue and yellow plaid blankey with the satin edging
30. Fisher Price toy sinks (I loved that thing!)
31. An endless giggle that has been the same forever
32. Anklet socks with white lace ruffles
33. Best friend- in every sense.

For the 31st time in our lives, Happy Birthday Jill.

With much love,
Sheryl

6:15a.m.

My phone rang at 6:15 a.m. this morning. You know how you sometimes have the pit of your stomach just swirl around when the phone rings at an off time because it MUST be something bad?

Not me.

Because I knew it was Jill. She called mat 4:45 on my birthday.

Jill was half calling to check on me and half calling to relay how entirely idiotic her day was going and it wasn't even completely daylight in all time zones of the continental U.S. .

She made me late getting out the door but it was totally worth it!

But her day taught me:

1. All grown women over the age of 15 should know how to pump gas without the dude calling to you over the loud speaker.
2. When pregnant women whack into your mom van with their own vehicles, forgive them quickly.
3. Keep money in your car for when it starts beeping relentlessly because you are running it out of fuel.
4. Be aware of the lockdown policies at your child's middle school to ensure you know the proper procedures for when you stroll in to pick your kid up and there are armed official looking people surrounding the place.
5. Call your best pal at any time of day. That's what they are there for.

Missing ya Jill.

-Sheryl