Memories

You might be wondering why I have a picture of a soap dispenser in a post titled "Memories".  I walked in to the bathroom at my work to find this on the sink.  It looks like that nasty pink hand soap found in most public bathrooms was used to top off a bottle of dial-looking hand soap.  My mom does this exact thing.  It is the most infuriating thing too.  I don't have any weird disorder about mixing liquids that are different or anything like that.

Let me give you some background:

I'm 28.  Bath and Body Works and The Body Shop were all the rage when I was a tween.  I can remember spending hours inside one of these stores smelling all the different scents.  At this age, I did not have a job and did not have any money.  I relied on the cash my mom gave me whenever we went to the mall.  Obviously, this was not enough to indulge in these wonderful bath and body products.  So pre-"when Elaine had money", I had decided that pear was my absolute favorite scent.  Of course, when Elaine did have money, they had discontinued "Sparkling Pear" and replaced it with the inferior "Pearberry".  I still bought it and I used it all the time in my nightly showers until one day, mom struck!

I had gone through maybe 50% of the body and I came home from school one day to find my precious pearberry in the same state as the picture above, but with white milky body wash instead of the pink generic hand soap.  Oh, I was pissed.  I ranted and raved and yelled at my mom.  She, of course, had no idea what she had done wrong to deserve the wrath of her one and only daughter.  It took me a long time to get over this.

So this innocuous picture of hand soap brings back very painful and funny memories.  Of course, I overreacted, but at that age, body wash was important!

Moms are always right

I think we've all had one point in our life or maybe several where you remember something your mom said when you were younger and you thought "God, my mom is dumb.  How can she possible think this is the right thing to do?"  I've thought or said this on numerous occasions, and on numerous occasions thought "OMG, mom was right.  I was stupid when I was (fill in childhood age here)".

I had one of these moments the other day.  I played soccer when I was younger.  I only played because my best friend and next door neighbor played, and I wanted to do everything she did.  So we ended up playing soccer together for the next 5+ years.  Anyway, I lived in Bucks County, PA at the time and it was cold during soccer season.  On especially cold days, my mom would have me wear tights/hose under my shorts.  I'm not talking the spandex/under armour tights they have now.  I'm talking opaque dress tights.  I thought it was the dumbest thing ever.  You can see right through them!!  I would fight her on this every time she made me put them on.  I wanted sweatpants like all the other white kids.  Sure, they looked just as dumb in over sized sweatpants, but I wanted to fit in.

So tights have been getting more and more popular or so it seems to me.  But sometimes, I have to have a trend knock me over the head to "get it".  I bought some to wear with my new BR dress.  The tights/dress combination looks great and they keep me warm....  Hmmm... tights keep you warm.  Who used to tell me that?  That's right, M-O-M.  Dammit, she was right again.

I've already had several of these moments.  I wonder how many more I'll have.

Empty Nesters

I just called my older brother to wish him good luck and safe travels tomorrow.  He is moving to Oregon.  I caught him while out to dinner with the rest of my family.  I let him know that he'll have to do a better job of keeping in contact with my mom now that she's lost two of her three kids.  Even though the younger brother is still in San Diego, he's not likely to come home a lot.  He did just move out a few months ago.  Older bro will have to tell little bro to go home more often at least in the weeks to come.

Older bro told me that my mom has cried a few times as his departure nears.  I'm shocked that she cried more than when I left.  Really though, I'm sad that my mom is sad.  I'll have to call home more.  She says she'll be ok after a few days, but I still feel for her.  I think she needs some grandkids.  *looks around*  I wonder who will give her some...