A Duck!!!!

Ok, some of you have heard this over and over and over again...but it happened again so I'm telling it again because it is still funny.
Last night, one thirty am, I climb into bed, my knee hits something, and then I hear it...that laugh, that laugh which makes me laugh like nothing else can make me laugh, it sounds kind of like Boo in "Monsters Inc." It's my duck. My bright yellow, ubersoft, plush, laughing duck. If you press on his foot, he laughs, and that makes me laugh. He was banished to my bedroom a while back because some of my friends and relations were taking advantage of the fact that he was a weakness of mine. And when Mr. Bear got banished to the closet, Mr. Duck took his place sitting on my pillow...and now the random laughing has happened about 5 or so times...just randomly, in the middle of the night, early in the morning, it laughs at me...and I laugh back. Admittedly it is a good way to get me up in the morning, because once he laughs, there's no going back to sleep for me.
Now you may ask, why not unbanish Mr. Bear from the closet and then Mr. Duck doesn't need to be guardian of the pillow anymore. Well, that's simple...I don't want my bear to come out of the closet. He's perfectly fine in the closet. My cat came out of the closet once, and that caused lots of problems, so once something goes in the closet, I think it is much safer to just leave it there...

Today

That's a great title for a post, isn't it? :-)
Today I took Mom to her chemo treatment. It's a long treatment, so I was going to drop her off and then Dad was going to come and pick her up, but since it had been a while since Mom and I had just sat and talked, I decided to stay for a bit...so I was there for 4 hours. It was fun. We talked non-stop almost the whole time about everything from strawberries to Eastern Rite Liturgies...very cool. That's one thing that I love about my relationship with my mom...we can talk about pretty much anything. Granted, we don't always agree, but we can still talk. :-) I was taken aback a bit when we first got there...I don't know what I was expecting. They have a whole room for patients receiving chemo, and as we walked through that, I realized how much I take for granted. I almost felt embaressed walking through the room because I'm a perfectly healthy person and felt like I shouldn't be there. It was one of those moments that I will refer to from now on as a "manalive moment." (I think I'm liking the book more than I thought I would). It was a "holy smokes I'm alive and healthy and when was the last time I stopped and thanked God for it" moment. All I can say is, it was good. Anyway, after talking forever, we put on "Gross Point Blank"...very fun movie...I watched about a third of it before I headed out...Mom was almost done by that point, and Dad was going to be there soon. The long and short of it is, I'm really glad I went. I was just going to drop her off, but knew that it took a while for everything to get set up, so I figured I'd stay through that, and then there was always another reason to stay...even until I left...I felt like I should stay until Dad got there. But, I had some errands to run, so I left Mom to enjoy the movie.
I had to go to one of my least favorite places: the mall. It was the first time in goodness knows how long. It was fun though. I guess the trick for me is to go by myself, because usually I go to the mall with people, and I never enjoy it. I was in desperate need of shoes so of course I bought everything but. :-) After that I went out for coffee with Eric, went to Mass at St. Andrews, then over to "The Lap" for dinner with Alex, who then helped me buy the shoes that I couldn't find at the Mall. Thank goodness for online shopping. Buy shoes in the comfort of your own (or somebody elses) home. After that, it was home again for me! And that was my day.

Driving 101

So yesterday I took my sister Terri to music lessons...it was fun. We got there, she went in, and one crossword puzzle later, she came out. Then she asked if she could drive home...she gave me that look that only little sisters can give...so I gave her the keys. I remember being her age and nobody would let me drive, and I, of course, didn't want to be one of "those people."
So we hopped in the car
She adjusted the seat
Put the key in the ignition
Then I told her to re-adjust the seat because she slid it backwards but she's shorter than I am
Then she looked at me and said:
"I've never gone backwards before!"
"Well, first you put it into reverse...that's neutral"
"Oh! You're right!'
"Going backwards" proved to be a rather large success...as did the rest of the driving, which was good. After a bit, we swapped places. As she hopped in the passengers seat I gave her an approving pat...
Then she said:
"Now I can tell you what I couldn't tell you before...I've only driven once. That's it! And I didn't want to tell you because I knew you wouldn't let me drive if I did."
Well, she knows me all too well...

Here we go!

Well, here it is. I finally decided to go ahead and start a blog. I have no idea what will be posted here, how often it will be posted, or if it will be at all interesting, but something at sometime will show up...