“Is this supposed to be sexy or am I broken?”

Last night after dropping our kids off at my mom’s Ralph and I took our sunny drive and met with Seattleite and awesome mama K. to share Vietnamese food in the International District (okay srsly: living in the city? A plethora of delicious and affordable cuisine from all corners of the world? Almost makes me want to live there. & yet an evening of traffic-ass and parking issues cured me of that wistful premise tout de suite). After hugs we headed down the sunshiney sidewalk to the Market Showbox for our show.

The live showing of Cinematic Titanic (a white nerd-fest if I ever saw one) was long-anticipated, long-saved up for (Ralph bought me tickets and set aside fundage over two pay periods as a Mother’s Day gift), and delivered the goods: supremely. I’ve been an avid MST3K squee-fan since the mid nineties and here were several beloved individuals right in the room with me (celebrityhood is a weird thing because love isn’t reciprocally personalized).  The show delivered laughs like crazy and Ralph delivered me gin and tonics which were delicious and soothing. Dave Allen’s warm-up bit was extremely fun and included a beatniky haiku – with snaps and walking bass – dedicated to Jason Voorhees;  he finalized with a rap over Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat”, clever and delightful.  The riffed film itself was a sword-and-sandals “epic” (but not really) set in Mongol China and complete with greased-beefcake “hero” in a tiny red skort. The jokes were so good I was doubled over a good portion of the time (careful not to spill the beverage). Ralph and I spent our evening next to a sweet-seeming Redmond IT drone named Matt (Matt is working on a master plan to quit the tech sector and live in Japan for a while) who laughed hysterically and incessantly on my left.

We almost didn’t make it home: our parking garage had shut down with no warning about a half hour before we got to it. A local resident saw our buzzing-about-in-distress bit and came over to direct us on a super-secret way to sneak in and activate the door out (Seriously: thank you so much Seattle resident!) and we drove right home.

In my husband I can’t ask for a better date. I feel fortunate he is someone I truly look forward to spending time with (although of course I did choo-choo-chooose him), and someone who knows how to treat me to a good time.

Meanwhile my mother with our kids had suffered a small series of minor catastrophes.  After taking the children out to Ocean Shores to see a film they went to restaurant after restaurant because no one would  serve children after 9 PM (they eventually ended up driving the half-hour back to Aberdeen for Denny’s to grandma’s gastronomical sadness). In putting our chickens away my mom lost the key to the car and had to leave the vehicle at our house and walk home with the children; part way home she realized our kitty Harris was following them and she worried and fretted and then escorted him home (not necessary; he can follow a long way and still find his way back, but she worries so). On this same walk her dog, necessarily off-leash as she’d not planned on having to walk with him, wandered into the road and had to be swerved from – by an ambulance!

I’m pretty sure she had a few stiff drinks and collapsed by the end of the evening (the kids fell asleep on a made-up bed in the living room watching their favorite dinosaur film). Hearing about her night earlier today served as a reminder of how many daily challenges I handle in, it must be said, relatively competent and good-humored fashion.

Our children were happy to see us. Nels had something on his face and I asked; my mom said, “He likes to go in the lilies and paint his cheeks with pollen.” Nels looked at me out the side of his eyes and from under his fall of blonde hair and nodded, sage and pleased.