Twisted Friends/A Bakery Called "Patricks"

Busy these days - the lists are never ending but it feels SOOOO good to get stuff done. Next big push is getting all my finances in order. Reconciling every online banking entry to QuickBooks, finding the items that slipped through the cracks like when you park at one of those pay boxes, or just stuff that got missed. One great project I'm embroiled in is family photos. Got a coupon for photobin.com to scan and put on CD 200 photos for $20ish. Ended up being more like $70 cuz I added stuff like rotation, higher resolution, and six home movies - but still a good deal, right? Got up bright and early and pulled out one of the old family albums with fading pictures that barely clung to decades-old paper and that crumbled when I handled it. Using my phone camera, I took a picture of each page and sent it to my e-mail so that, when I try and reconstruct the original album, I will remember what goes where. Felt good to pop all those photos out of their archaic little triangle sticky corners and throw the original, now decrepit book away. Fingers crossed the pictures are not lost in the mail on their way to or fro from being digitized.

I was surprised at the emotions that welled as I looked at some of the pictures. Some things (and people) are just best forgotten. I had to concentrate when I was e-mailing the pictures of Henry, my adoptive father. I found myself subconsciously trying to sabotage his pictures (oops, did I just erase you?). Thinking my little self was at work asking for a do-over, asking that the new albums not contain any images of him - rewrite the past. But the grown-up me, pushed through with the chore, and knows he should appear in the new digital photo albums. He is part of our family history, even if many of those chapters are very sad and scary.

Last night was writing group, and even though I'm a leader, I didn't go 'cuz it was my first Women's Club meeting. Not the Welfare Sewing committee which I signed up for, but an artistic night, pitching ideas for the benefit Cabaret review they do in the spring. Right up my alley, right? They couldn't have been more welcoming and delighted I was there. Felt special. The show is all about parodies - taking well known songs and changing the lyrics. And these regularly staid north-shore women can be a little naughty! One of the women sang a parody about mustaches with one very memorable lyric - "I want to ride your handlebars!"  Oh my and too funny! So today, thinking of songs that would lend themselves to parody. I regularly sing "Walk on By". Wouldn't it be funny to make that about dieting? While I sing that song with words slightly changed ("I just can't get over eating you."), there could be a parade of fast food walking in front of me - think people dressed as doughnuts, a huge slice of pizza, hamburgers, cake, etc. They could just keep on coming and coming, passing in front of me (exiting the stage and then running around the back to enter again from the other side). This could be so much fun!

Thoughts today are about being silly. If you know me, you know there are few people who can be as silly as me. If you don't know me, then you will be surprised by that statement because this blog is, on most days, very serious and determined. I AM a very serious, conscientious, determined person who takes responsibilities seriously. BUT, doesn't mean we can't have fun and be light hearted, right? That's why I love being with Liza. She can make a joke about anything (remember she and her mother laughing hilariously at Henry's deathbed?) Last night we went out after my Women's Club meeting and their Creative Writing. We schemed and chuckled over how she might infiltrate a family she is considering becoming a nanny for. Parents are control freaks (there will probably be nanny cams in every room). Dad is hot and successful. Liza plans on slowly poisoning the mother, becoming indispensable, making sure the kid loves her better than her own parents, and then, when the mother dies, being the crying shoulder for the sexy dad. End game - Liza moves in as the new mother, ditches her own husband and all her financial problems will be solved. We just got darker and darker with our sick senses of humor to the horror of James who looks on with worry when Liza and I get going - probably wondering how he ended up with such twisted friends. We laughed apo'plectically and unapologetically! And please know we really were just kidding - if Liza takes the job, she will be best of nannies and the mother need not fear for her life!

Over drinks (theirs - I had tea) I read them yesterday's blog about The Chicago Pastry School and Liza all but glowed. She blurted, "I knew it - I knew it was only a matter of time until we started our bakery together. We will call it Patrick's!!"  Remembering last summer - me, newly broken hearted, leaning on Liza hard for support, we walked along the lakefront and planned for the bakery and laughed ourselves silly with the thought of naming it after the person I needed most to forget. Went home and wrote a very funny piece about the bakery and the owner melting down each time a patron came in and uttered "the hateful name", unwittingly enraging the owner who cursed and pelted the insensitive offender with cupcakes. OK, you had to be there. Last night we relived that bittersweet memory of walking together last summer, me being so fragile, she being so funny and encouraging. Us laughing so hard we had to stop to catch our breath. A year has elapsed. Our lives are no easier and yet we still can laugh and laugh and laugh. So cathartic.

Challenge today is to think about silly. Pat wants me to go with her this weekend to see what sounds like a very silly movie - Magic Mike. Thinking it will be sophomoric and hysterical and that is just what I need. What about you? Are you getting enough hilarity in your life? How about an impromptu party with friends and dusting off the Twister? Or tickets to a comedy club? Or Great America? Or renting some Robin Williams? Thinking I'm going to plan a public "happening", something bizarre and really funny. More on this. Incubating. There will be press.

Peace,
Sarah