Feeling Sheepish

I consider myself and my daughter to be fairly intelligent people. But like all great thinkers, we have our own Achilles heel which humbles us, gives us a good laugh, and reinforces that we should not take ourselves too seriously. George Bush is a constant reminder of this, and when I see all the faux pas that the leader of our country makes, I don't feel so stupid.

For example. Last night while eating dinner, we heard a big BOOM and all the lights went out. We ran around finding kids, candles, and lighters. After a while we wandered outside to see how many houses were in the dark, and I gazed into the night sky. "Look Alanna, look how glowing and red the moon is, how strange!" Megan looks at me, and says: "what moon?". I think that they are blind for not seeing it, then Megan says, "Are you looking at the big red ball on the electric lines that are for the planes?". I look again, and feel like a sheepish fool, and check to see how much wine we drank.

Then this morning Megan and I are discussing what to make for today's eats. She says she wants to make Greek pasta salad, and asks me what my intentions are for the small red onion I bought. I state that I need a small piece for potato salad, and she says: "yeah, last time I made the recipe it had far too many onions in it. I am only going to use a half this time, can I use half of the red one?". I ask her how many she put in when she made it. She says: "four small green onions. I went to the store and found four onions that were greenish in color and used them". I laugh hysterically, explaining that green onions are the same as scallions. No wonder her guests thought the salad was a bit intense. Four onions in a pasta salad?!

The funniest story is one that Larry likes to tell people about the time we were in bed listening to music on a hot summer night. Crickets are chirping in the background, the fan humming, bringing in the cooler night air. Suddenly the radio announcer comes on and says:"winter weather advisory for tomorrow, 2-3" of snow expected". I sit bolt upright and yell: "WHAT THE -@#-- is the @#$%^@ weatherman talking about?!" A diatribe of expletives issues forth from my mouth, while Larry is laughing hysterically, rolling on the floor. Indignant, I ask him what his problem is. Choking, he states:"this is a pre-recorded tape from last winter". I suddenly feel very very silly, and have no choice but to laugh my ass off along with him.

IQs well over average, but still we are subject to the pitfalls of misinterpretations and plain old being subject to human error and foolishness.


Patti O Dunce

PS picture of Alanna and I at the playground the other day.