LoL#20: 260 Months Apart

Happy Wednesday everyone! Wednesday is happy (or at least I'm happy on Wednesday) cause for all partying purposes it's Friday!!

I'll come back to that thought in a minute but first, some things I've learned in the past week.

I have a neice. No, I didn't just learn this in the past week, but I've learned some things about her in the past week, which is what this e-mail is about. And I just realized that I have no clue how to spell niece. neice? niece. nice! Nice niece, (try saying that ten times fast...) but anyway to avoid any more spelling difficulties, her name is Ashley. She's my brother and sister-in-law's daughter and currently my parents only grandchild. And this amazing thing that I've learned is that she and I are a lot alike.

She's 8 months old. I'm 268 months old. (Hence the "260 months apart") I'm taking a clue from her though that it's kind of cool to count your age in months. It's sort of like the whole dog years thing, but better. Not only do you get to seem really cool by being in your two-hundreds (much cooler than your twenties) you get a birthday every month! You can throw a little "happy birthday to me party" every time your day comes around (sorry for those of you born on the 31st...) but I'm even thinking that this could work for restaurants that give free dessert on your birthday. Just walk in and say "It's my birthday I'm 230 months old!" and see if/when they figure out that it's not a multiple of twelve.

Another thing that Ashley and I have in common is that neither of us looks our age. She's fortunate enough to be off the charts for height (or rather length) at her age group so everyone thinks she's older than she is. I've never had this problem. I've always been short. At 5'6"ish - a not so tiny stature, mind you - I'm the shortest person in my family (tied with my mom). In fact, if it weren't for my can-you-palm-a-basketball?-giant handspan noone would guess that my entire family is over 6' tall! But anyhoo, I have the opposite problem of Ashley, I tend to look much younger than 268 months. It's a fact that I'm starting to take pride in but still find a little annoying at times. Here's me talking to some of the high school leaders with the jr. high group at church:

9th grade girl: So what grade are you in?
me: (laughing a little) Oh, I'm old. I graduated in May.
another 9th grader: Oh I was gonna guess you were a junior, or a senior at most.
me: (laughing even more) No, I just graduated from COLLEGE.

Their stunned expressions can't be put into words but it was a most hilarious exchange. So it's not so nice to be 22 and be mistaken for twelve, but I figure when I'm 32 and still getting carded I won't mind so much.

So the last thing Ashley and I have in common is that we're both teething. She's go the cute little baby teeth going on and I've got the pain in the...mouth wisdom teeth. In fact this is why today is like Friday. I'm taking tomorrow off because I'm going in for oral surgery to have all four removed. And since I don't know what kind of shape I'll be in afterwards, I'm taking Friday off as well. It's a yucky reason for a vacation, but it's a vacation nevertheless. (hee hee I said neeverthuless...hee hee)

It's rather annoying too, because as soon as I tell people that I'm having my wisdom teeth taken out, whoever I tell feels the need to chime in with their own horror stories of how awful it was for them or their friend or their second cousin's uncle's best friend's former roommate. Or there's just the usual quips of: "Get ready for a liguid diet!" "You're gonna look like a chipmonk for a couple days!" "Keep those ice packs handy!" "Make sure they give you some codeine to take home." "It's not so bad...after the first 48 hours." Now this wouldn't be quite so bad if I didn't already have a rather long-going fear of dentists (in the Seinfeld world, I'm an Anti-Dentite). [Flashback to my root canal at the age of 11; To quote my dentist: "That might've hurt a bit, I just drilled through a nerve"] But alas, as of noon tomorrow it will all be done. I'll have four less teeth, I'll get to pig out on yogurt, applesauce and ice cream (not all at once...eww)and even if it does hurt, it'll be better than the massive tooth infection I got last month that almost kept me from "LoTR: The Two Towers" (which is the only reason I scheduled the surgery at all).

You have to wonder too, why do they call them "wisdom" teeth? Yeah you could explain that they come in around the age of 18 traditionally considered an age when someone beomces "wise", but by having them removed am I somehow giving myself permission to be stupid again? Hee hee...this could be my new excuse for foolishness. But then again if someone says "Act your age" I can always retort "In years or months?".


Two Hundrend and Sixty-Eightfully Yours,

lisa :)


p.s. The one other thing that Ashley and I have in coomon is that we both like our naps. Hers in a car seat, mine on a train. We both wake up, rub our eyes and come to that startling realization "Hey, cool, I'm home." And finally a shoutout to Greg to say that if I'm ever rich and INfamous these e-mails will probably get published as a testimony to "Guilty, by reason of insanity". ;)