“I love you,” she said.
“More than you love kettle corn?” he asked.
“Of course!” she responded.
“More than you love garlic stuff olives?” he asked.
“That’s a close one,” she said… after a long pause.
“I love you too,” he said.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8675898@N03/2685188692/
It is no secret that I love to laugh… ESPECIALLY at my own jokes. That being said, I’m not sure that everyone else really thinks my jokes are that funny all of the time.
Especially my dearly beloved mother.
Let me set the scene up for you. My boyfriend and I live together. I’m Irish Catholic. Put two and two together…
So now that you get the situation, let me tell you about the funniest joke EVER.
Over July Fourth weekend, both Matt and my families were at our house celebrating together. Matt was cooking up a storm, my mom had brought some of my favorite snacks and Matt’s seven-month-old niece was entertaining us all with her newly learned laugh.
My mom and I were sitting together at the bar munching on some queso when she said, “I love spending time with our in-laws.”
My chip came to a screeching halt halfway to its intended destination and I replied, “Mom. I don’t have a ring. They aren’t in-laws yet!”
“You know what I mean!!” she replied.
We sat quietly for a few seconds and then… the best joke EVER hit me.
With an evil grin plastered to my face, I enjoyed my chip and said (with perfect comedic timing, I might add), “Well… I guess you could call them our Living-In-Sin-Laws if you really wanted to be accurate.”
My dear lovely mother looked at me a moment and then deadpan said “Yes. I actually prayed about that in church this morning. Thank you for reminding me,” before smiling sweetly and walking off to play with the baby some more.
Mom 1, Margaret 0
Speaking of hilarious MommyMac related things… We are totally scaling a sheer cliff together in this photo. Can you tell?
It has always amazed me how quickly and how cleanly heartbreak can cut a life in two.
One moment, you are one person… And a moment later, you are someone completely different. And because it is always during the mundane that things truly fall apart, you are probably doing something so ordinary that what happens next is even more shattering. You may be standing in a grocery store picking out the best grapefruit, sitting on the couch flipping through channels…
For me, that moment came when I was 16 and coming home from hostessing at the local pasta place. One moment, I was an ordinary little girl. I fell out of bed every morning joyful in the fact that it was a new day and that I was living it. I was doing well in school, I had crushes on boys, I reveled in the drama that defined being a teenager… Only because I didn’t know what real drama looked like. Until my dad committed suicide.
And the next moment, the moment my world fell apart and I believed nothing was ever again going to appear as it had before, I knew what it was to shatter. I knew what loss and real rage felt like and what people meant when they said their heart was broken. And I never knew if I would trust again or if my world would ever right itself. Nothing would ever be the same and the pieces all looked too small to ever pick up.
I have been thinking about that moment a lot in recent months. I love the life that I have and contradictory to what I believed at 16, the world began turning again… but sometimes I can’t help but peer through the looking glass and wonder what my life would look like if it had continued on unbroken. And lately I have been mourning what I left behind on the other side.
But while I mourn those things that were lost, I have also come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t have my life any other way. What makes us human and vulnerable is the fact that we live our lives constantly balanced on the edge of a razor blade. When we fall off, when we shatter… it is the moment that we find ourselves on our knees, picking up the pieces, that is the most important. Because when the pieces are all put back together, light shines through them in a different way than it ever has and what is left is more interesting and special than anything that came before.
And that is truly what makes all that is life so beautiful.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35660391@N08/4266283238/
“Each of us may think we know exactly what we need to make us happy, what will be good for us, what will ensure we have our happy ending, but life rarely works out in the way we expect, and our happy ending may have all sorts of unexpected twists and turns, be shaped in all sorts of unexpected ways”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30201239@N00/2984725015/
Today my little sister turns 24. Her name is Alice AND she is completely amazing.
Since she is in school out of town, I’m missing her a ton today and wishing I could wrap my arms around her on her birthday. Since I can’t do that… I thought I would compile a quick list of all of the reasons why she is the raddest little sister on the block.
Happy 24th little girl. You are the best little sister a girl could have.
