THE DAM ROAD

My son’s engagement to his girlfriend was a joyful announcement.  We celebrated with food, phone calls to family, and gifts.   I wanted my soon to be daughter-in-law to have a keepsake so I gave her a necklace my husband had given to me on our first Christmas together.  The gift was intended to be a gesture of welcome and appreciation to her for joining our family.

Several weeks later at her birthday party I noticed she was wearing the necklace.  I commented on it and she replied, “I have worn it every day and I plan to wear it as my something old on the wedding day.”  It brought me to tears as I shared with her mother how touched I was by her daughter’s thoughtfulness.

A few months before the wedding my son’s fiancée asked me to go with her to the mall.  She and my son had already picked out their wedding rings and she was going to purchase his that evening.  We planned to go to dinner and then do our shopping.  I called her from the car telling her I was on the dam road and almost there.  Now I have been calling the road across the lake the dam road for several years.  I don’t curse so my junior highish humor gets the best of me at times.  I call my husband every evening when driving home on the “dam road” and tell him about the dam birds, the dam cyclists, or that I’m stopped at the dam light.  I think I’m hilarious!

I say to this sweet, young girl that will soon be my son’s wife that I am on the dam road and should be at her house in a few minutes.  I catch a slight hesitancy in her response which makes me realize what I just said and I ask her if she knew that I meant I was on the road that crosses the lake.  She responded by saying she thought I was just having a really bad day!

I guess some misunderstandings are inevitable when joining a man and wife (and their entire extended families!) in holy matrimony.  Hopefully, we will be able to keep the communication lines open with a lot of sensitivity to each other’s feelings.  I love my son and BDIL (beautiful daughter-in-law), and she did wear the necklace on their wedding day.  It’s such a nice memory that I think I will give her a call on my way home today – right about the time I get to the dam road.

SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE

I’m trying to stay motivated.  My current diet plan allows me to eat anything, anytime, and as much as I want to eat; as long as I count the calories, exercise and stick with the plan!  The numbers are moving VERY SLOWLY down the scale every week. Yikes!  Stop the madness and get a grip.  I show up to my weekly weigh-ins with hopeful expectations and my dreams of slimness are dashed to smithereens.

I like watching those beauty remake shows.  You know the gig; they take a homely woman with good bone structure, unkempt hair, and turn her into a beauty?   I told my BDIL (beautiful daughter-in-law) that I wish I would be picked for a make-over.  She shook her head no and said, “Charlotte, they wouldn’t pick you. They look for people that need a make-over.”  Aww…she’s precious, even if she thinks I can’t find 5,000 people to be friends with me on Facebook.

When it comes to motivating people to lose weight I may need to join one of those organizations that have more of a boot camp mentality.  With a leader that is a wannabe Marine type that shouts “If you want to lose weight then shut your pie hole and put on your big girl panties!”  Put on my big girl panties? Now that is something I can do – I have a drawer full of those!

VAMPIRE FANGS – REALLY?

FANG FAD – Okay, I have lived long enough to see a few fads come and go.  I remember when Dark Shadows was a popular soap opera.  The show had a vampire and love interests, but we never had the urge to identify with the blood-thirsty character!  What’s up with the vampire fangs?   Sixteen year old girls think it is sexy to have them and to make things weirder, their moms seem to think it looks good, too.

The news article I read said the girl loves the vampire movies but that she wasn’t a huge obsessive person but definitely influenced by them.   Really, not obsessive?  Just rearranged her entire lifestyle to look like a bat out of hell.

Flash forward twenty years when the daughter is looking at pictures of herself flashing the pointy teeth smile.

“Mom, what were you thinking?!” the horrified daughter asks. 

“Well, honey, you thought it was cool to have teeth that looked like you wanted to suck the blood out of someone’s neck”, replies the mother.

“And you let me do it?  And you paid $1600, too?” says the astonished daughter.

I don’t know about this trend.  As if there aren’t enough things that our kids can hold against us for their supposedly deprived childhoods!  My husband and I had a traditional, rather conservative approach to teeth – spend money on practical upgrades such as dental hygiene and braces.  And I guess it paid off in the long run. Our son has a beautiful smile and so does our BDIL (beautiful daughter-in-law).  Their pearly whites shine in the wedding pictures!  I guess my son will have to find something else to hold against me – but at least he doesn’t look like Barnabus Collins!