I Am Lame

A couple people requested a picture of the fine gift I gave my mother on Mother’s Day. Shockingly enough, I hadn’t remembered to take a picture of this gift. I think I didn’t really want any proof of such a horrible present.

But here it is.


It really is horrible. I mean, it’s even more horrible than I expected it would be. Can I just tell you people who have kids that maybe perhaps your kids aren’t terrible artists, maybe perhaps the materials they are left to create with are subpar. Cause, I’m not saying that I’m Jackson Pollock here (wrong analogy, frankly, because we are all Jackson Pollock, because we all have the ability to splatter paint on a wall) but I am literally supported financially in this life by my creativity and artistic abilities and this is all I could come up with.

That is sad. So sad, in fact, that I actually painted over the whole thing and started over at one point, because I couldn’t bear how horrible this completely ridiculous joke of a gift was looking. That’s how bad it was.

Now granted, most of my work is done on the computer, and therefore this whole cement thing is a bit of a new medium for me. But still. This looks like a blind 2 year old made it (a blind two year old with abnormally large hands). It wasn’t till after I was done that I realized that I picked Christmas colors. But it was also at that point that I realized I had just spent 30 minutes painting cement. So it came to be at that point that I gave up on this looking even sorta good.

I really feel like I should defend my artistic abilities by posting some of the non-cement work I’ve done over the years.

See, I am able to use artistic things to make things look at least halfway decent.

And another thing.

Since we are talking about my incompetence, I need to admit something here. It has taken me a long time to admit this, but I feel it is finally the moment to own up to my faults.

I can’t Sudoku.

I just can’t. Anything more than the easy Sudoku and I’m out. It’s frustrating in a way that I can’t really explain to you people. I’m really good with numbers and strategy and figuring out how things are done and then getting really good at them. Like cards for instance. Give me a card game and a little time and I’ll get really good at it. See, cause things like cards and puzzles and SUDOKU have things that you need to know, ways to master the game, strategies and shortcuts. And once you figure those things out then you can hone those tricks and skills and get really good.

Except I can’t with Sudoku. I just can’t. A friend of mine had a book of Sodoku puzzles on a trip we took a year ago. During one of our flights I got hooked on trying to figure them out. I knew that my mom is also puzzle-crazy, so I bought her a book and said, “Now, I’m giving you this because I think you’ll like it, but I am warning you, it could become an obsession. Don’t pick it up unless you are ready for the obsession.” She did one of those nose snort/eye roll things that you apparently do 1) when you are a teenager and 2) when your child is grown and you need to continually remind them that they are idiots.

Fast-forward a year. The woman has gone on her computer and made up little blank Sudoku spreadsheets and prints them up in bulk. Because the Sudoku puzzles in the book are too small and she needs a scratch paper to work out the puzzles as she is doing them. I don’t know if I’ve had a conversation in the living room with my mother the past year where I haven’t been looking at the top of her head while she Sudoku’s away during our conversation.

But good thing she didn’t get obsessed. (Insert nose-snort/eye roll.)

The reason the obsession bothers me so much is that I CAN’T DO THE DAMN PUZZLES MYSELF!!!!! I try. I do. My mother even took time the other day with me and tried to explain the keys to Sudoku victory. After each number placed in its blank square she would look at me with hope in her eyes. As if that one number might have triggered something in my brain and brought with it a flood of Sudoku understanding and knowledge. It would break my heart every time when I had to simply bow my head shake it back and forth.

So basically I can’t paint cement and I can’t do simple number puzzles. My mother is probably bowing her own head right now, shaking it back and forth. She doesn’t even need to nose snort/ eye roll on this one to convince me I’m an idiot.

Where did she go wrong?

Mother’s Day on the Cheap

Last year for Mother’s Day I took my mom and dad up to Reno for the weekend to see Bill Cosby perform. I had just decided to buy a condo and I knew that it might be a few years before I was able to afford to spend any kind of money on Mother’s Day. I was trying to leave her with some decent memories to hold on to once my mortgage started taking all my disposable income (making it considerably less disposable...).

Well then, it turns out my mortgage has got nothing on a 10 week book tour. So currently my bank account is ridiculously, dangerously slim. I knew that my mom knows I’m broke, so I knew she wouldn’t want me spending any money on a Mother’s Day present for her. So I had to get creative. My aunt recommended that I cook her a meal. I recommended that my aunt stop getting high.

Instead of a real gift I decided to go the ridiculous route. Why not really? It’s not my fault the woman only decided to have one kid and therefore only has one hope for a decent gift on Mother’s Day. Let this be a lesson to you people out there who are thinking about only have one child - you’re really taking a very big risk that your one kid will be a horrible gift-giver.

Today that risk backfired on my mom.

I went to the craft store in town yesterday (never one to wait until the last moment) and bought a do-it-yourself stepping stone thing. Do you know what I’m talking about? The things that people get and have their kids put their adorable hands in the cement so they can forever have an imprint of their child’s youth and innocence? Yeah. I got one.

I was going to make her an ashtray, but I couldn’t find any clay. And I’m not really sure if my oven is okay for firing ceramics.

So I opened the package up, read the directions and realized I might be screwed. The directions said I needed a bucket to mix the cement in. I don’t have a bucket. I thought for a second of using the mixing bowls someone gave me. But, to my credit, I decided against that. I think that marks a tremendous level of maturity on my part. Of course, I might be even more mature if I had actually ever used those mixing bowls for anything other than eating popcorn out of. Yet I digress. I went down to the garage to see if I could find anything to mix my Mother’s Day gift in. Miraculously there was a bucket down there. It is not my bucket and I have no idea where it came from, but someone that I let stay with me apparently left a bucket and my mixing bowls owe their life to that person.

I mixed the cement together, which I had just done in New Orleans a couple weeks ago, so I mixed quite well. Then I poured the mix into the little plastic mold thing and let it sit for however long cement needs to sit. Then I put my handprint in and remembered all the awesome gifts I’ve given my mom over the years. This would not be falling in the same category with those gifts. My advice to kids: don’t set yourself up for failure by giving great gifts when you are a kid. Give crappy gifts well into your 20's so that the expectations are low. In fact, that is pretty good advice for all aspects of your life. Keep other people’s expectations very low. Then you are bound to wow them quite a bit.

Anywho. Today I finished off The Best Mother’s Day Gift Ever by adding some lovely paint to the dried stepping stone with my handprint. I painted “I (heart) Mom” and then at the bottom I put “Dawn - Age 29". Ha! God I crack myself up.

Besides that exciting gift we spent the day eating food and watching Thelma and Louise and napping. I have a feeling mom might be looking into adopting some more kids. She obviously can’t count on me to come through for the major gift-giving days anymore.

But, if she’s lucky someday soon she’ll have a whole stepping stone path with my handprints in the backyard. And if that ain’t something to be proud of, I just don’t know what is.

Holiday Recap

Well y’all, it’s officially over. We have all survived the holidays. Some of us are a little heavier than when we began this great season, but that is what Jesus would want. He always enjoyed chocolate, I’ve heard.

I had a lovely holiday weekend with my family. On Christmas Eve I made my parents dinner to celebrate the season, it was the best food ever. And, yes, by “made” I mean “we went to a restaurant and someone else made it”. But really that is the close as I come to preparing a meal, and I think we all know it is better that way. These are the holidays people, there is no need to risk food poisoning on Jesus’ birthday.

Then on Christmas we ate some more and proceeded to play about 18 hours straight of Family Cranium. By “family” they mean “kinda remedial” because it is meant to be easy enough for kids to play. There was only one kid playing with us. By the end of the evening all the adults said, “Lord, don’t get the adult version, we’d never get anything right.” The kid and I were on a team against my mom and her sister. My mom and her sister are what you would call the analytical type. Me and the kid are a little more on the creative side. My mom and her sister spent roughly 30 minutes trying to find a “Creative Cat” card that they could successfully complete. They did not appreciate the fact that me and the kid only took about 2 seconds to complete one. These grown women resorted to name-calling and physical violence many times. Which makes the whole thing just like most holiday celebrations.

Now I must tell you about the greatest holiday celebration of all. Everyone gather ‘round as I tell the tale.

Every year my mom’s side of the family gets together before Christmas for a holiday gathering. This year my aunt said, “Hey, you know there is a great buffet down at the Indian casino...we could just go there instead of cooking a huge meal, then we could come back to the house for presents.” We put it to a family vote (at which I proclaimed “Hell Yeah!”) and it was unanimously decided that eating-all-we-can was a great way for us to celebrate the Christ’s birth.

So we went to a casino for Christmas.

Awesome.

Even more awesome was that fact that I had three quarters in my pocket and I put them into a slot machine and won $30 while I was waiting for the family celebration to begin. God bless us everyone.