What an anchor!

Wow. If you listen to Mike I'm the biggest anchor on the planet! HE cleaned the office, *I* am the reason there are still boxes in the office. Piffle. Ok...so maybe that's true. It is still somehow Mike's fault. That's the rule in this house. When in doubt...blame Mike. When all is said and done...with this rule I'm probably lucky he hasn't strangled me by now. My dad must be plotting my downfall because he's always telling Mike things like, "You don't have to take that from her! You just reach over and smack the crap outta her." Yeah. Right. This from the man who thinks he could take my mom in a fight. Ha! Anybody who knows my mom knows the old man doesn't stand a chance. When that "no holds-barred" cage match goes down my money's on Linda.

My family has a weird sense of humor, though. My brother's now-former girlfriend said immediately after meeting the rest of his family that it was scary but she knew exactly where Jeff got his wit and humor from. The answer being my mother - and Robin could tell because she'd instilled the same sense of humor in all of her offspring. She jokingly claimed that it was "scary" how similar we are. I had to tell you that to tell you this story. Mike says I shouldn't blog about this but it's SO funny...I can't help it. Some of you know this story but not everyone - so here goes.

We live in a Hispanic neighborhood. Specifically, our area is mostly Puerto Rican. (Not that there's anything wrong with that) Anyways, Mike has picked up a few words of Spanish here and there from the neighbors. He loves to try it out on our cats. My favorite of the phrases he's learned is "Papi chulo." This is something the girls say when they see a hot guy. It means "fine daddy." Anyways, I'm getting off track. In Spanish when you add "-ito" to the end of an adjective it means "little" and makes the word an endearment. For example, "dulce" means sweet and "dulcito" means sweetie or little sweet one. Following so far? Ok, good. Anyways, we happen to have the handsomest boy cat EVER! E.V.E.R. He's a hottie. One of the words Mike picked up was "guapo" which means handsome. Soon enough 'guapo' became 'guapito.' Nothing unusual there. But in the tradition of true Americans, pretty soon he was shortening his endearments and started calling Furio - "Pito." For SEVERAL weeks Mike called the cat by this endearment. Then one day I was talking to my friend Roy who worked at the museum with me. Roy was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. when he was seven, so he's a Spanish speaker. We got into a discussion about the two kittens he had just gotten and I mentioned that Mike called our boy cat "Pito." His eyes got really big and he said, "Oh no! You need to tell him to stop!" Apparently in Spanish, "pito" is the word for specific....uh....male only anatomy, if you catch my drift. I was absolutely tickled pink! I laughed for, like, a half hour. I couldn't WAIT to get home and tell Mike that he'd been calling Furio "little -you know what." Every time I happened to think about it for the rest of the day I'd crack up laughing. I got home and told him and Mike was HORRIFIED. I'm sure he saw the humor in the situation and took the news pretty well but he got nowhere near as much pleasure out of his error as I did. But that night I called my mom and told her the story and I thought she was going to wet her pants. It's true - the whole family just has the same skewed sense of humor, I guess. In fact, I should call Jeff. I haven't told him that story and I know he'd get a kick out of it.

I'd like to take this moment here to say "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" to my mom, by the way. She's turning 29 today...again. Quite a feat considering that in two months I myself will be turning 29. When I spoke to her on the phone today she said something to the effect of "It's hell when you turn the same age as your second child." Yeah. Well, I suppose since Jeff is 35 now she might want to up herself to 39 maybe. While I'm telling funny stories at other people's expenses, ask my mom to tell you sometime about the time my dad thought he'd forgotten her birthday. (Or maybe I'll just tell you now) One year, several birthdays ago, my dad thought he'd forgotten her birthday. Sensing that if she got home from work and knew he'd forgotten he would probably be in trouble, he ran into town and picked up a cake and such to surprise her when she got home. It was DEFINITELY a surprise since it was January 11. He was a week early. I made sure I called her last week to let her know that I'd nearly forgotten her birthday.

The other day Mike and I went to the Brown Elephant resale shop on Halsted. The proceeds from their sales support a hospital specializing in AIDS study and research. With Mike/Hercules having cleaned out the office area and sorting through some of the boxes that we have sitting in the closet, we had some stuff to donate. Once there, I decided to take a look around at the books. I love thrift store books. Well...books period...but thrift store book sections are one of my favorite places to be. While we were looking, they played New Kids on the Block all around the store. I was ecstatic! Mike knows, of course, that as soon as Joey McIntyre's private detectives find me that it's over between he and I. You know...the private detectives he hired to find that cute girl (ME!) he saw in the audience at the NKOTB concert in Iowa City, IA about....oh....15-ish years ago. Apparently I haven't left as big of a trail as I thought I had since his PI's haven't managed to locate me in all this time. Yeah, I know that Joey Mac got married...but I'm betting that his wife looks just like me. You know...he couldn't fine me so he had to settle for marrying someone who looks astonishingly like me. Why are you laughing? How am I funny? Do I look like a clown to yous?

Wedding update to follow soon. It's getting late and I'm tired. G'night.