The Funny Farm

Oops, I did it again! FORGOT a blog post! Well, I remembered but it was after midnight last night when I did and my eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each so I fell asleep instead of writing. Soooooooo, lucky you, I'm going to do TWO posts today! One now and one later. But don't worry, they'll be short.

Yesterday I had two funny happenings that reminded me a lot of my dad. My dad, Bill, was a really energetic, fun-loving, and funny person. He died just shy of his 42nd birthday but sometimes you would have thought he was 12 with his crazy antics. Finding the joy and humor in life was his forte and I am proud to say I think I've inherited quite a bit of that. Occasionally, like yesterday, I'll find myself doing something super silly and I'll think "Jeez, I'm so much like daddy." It's a good feeling. Being silly and laughing constantly just makes everything in life so much more joyful.

For lunch yesterday, Olivia had some goldfish crackers and I asked her if I could have one and she wanted to do "airplane" with me to feed it to me. I let her do it and acted like I was so excited to get a goldfish. Okay, who am I kidding? Those things are so dang delicious--I actually *was* excited to get a cracker! Anyway, I grabbed one and said "Watch this!" I stood up and started throwing the goldfish in the air and trying to catch it my mouth. It was just Oli and I and for about 10 minutes I did this and we both laughed so hard we could barely breathe. She thought it was utter hilarity! Every time I would throw the cracker in the air and miss she would start giggling uncontrollably. And when I finally caught it, she would excitedly say "Again! Again!" I remember my dad doing that when we were kids. He'd grab whatever food was nearby and start throwing it up and catching it. Only he was WAY better than I am and caught most of them. My sister and I would laugh and keep giving him more things to eat and he would indulge us for I don't even know how long with his trick. I thought he was so funny and entertaining and I was truly impressed by his skill of catching food in mid-air. I felt so happy yesterday afternoon that I could bring some of the joy my dad gave me into my daughter's life. Or at least into the lunch hour.

The other funny moment was at dinner with some very good friends. Mike and I met up with our friends Chris and Christina for dinner at a really nice and swanky restaurant for mine and Christina's birthdays (FYI: mine is in 7 days!). Our birthdays are about a month apart and for the past couple of years we've been meeting up somewhere in the middle of that month for a really nice dinner, no kids allowed. It's become our tradition instead of buying gifts and I look forward to it so much.

Just to give you a little background for this story: Mike and I are very frugal people. Very. One of the things we are especially frugal about is cars. We both drive older, okay just OLD, cars and they are a little jalopy-esque these days. Mike's is a '98 model and mine is an '02. They both have weird issues. Like to start mine, I sometimes have to bang on the dash and pray. I'm serious. On Mike's car, you have to bang on the right headlamp to get it to come on. It's gotten so bad that on Friday night when we were going out, Olivia was getting into my car and said "Just a second," walked to the front of my car, banged on the right headlamp a couple of times and said "I fix it for you, mommy!"

Why don't we buy new cars? Because our cars are paid off and the engines are good...I think...and we have worked in auto insurance for long enough to know that new cars become old cars and that they are one of the most expensive purchases and "assets" yet they DEPRECIATE in value. It's hard for our analytical brains to spend money on something that will not improve our financial state. Yes, we are weird. But our jalopies provide value in entertainment so we'll probably keep them around for a little while longer.

When we drove up in Mike's gem, I was laughing and saying to Mike how I love when we have to valet our cars because they probably aren't anything like most of the cars these valet guys see and I'm sure they are thinking, "Oh, great." We pull up, cracked windshield (I mean like a 3 foot long crack), janked up headlamp and all, and the valet guys were so sweet. They opened my car door, offered me a hand to get out of the car and acted like we were the king and queen of England.

I was telling Christina over dinner how funny it was to pull up to the restaurant in our Flintstone-mobile and Christina says something like "When they bring you your car, you should totally be like 'Our windshield wasn't like that before tonight!'" I thought this plan was genius and would be utterly hilarious.

After dinner, Mike handed the valet guy our ticket and off they went. We stood outside of the restaurant talking with Chris and  Christina and I see our one-eyed-Willie car coming down the street. The valet guy opens my door for me and the other opens Mike's door and Christina points at the windshield and loudly says, "Was that like that before??????" And I whip my head around to where she's pointing and in a horrified voice I yell "What did you DO!!!????!!!" Christina and I dissolved into giggles like a bunch of junior high kids as another couple who was looking on started laughing too. The poor valet guys just looked at me and Mike like they were about to cry...or punch us...I'm not sure actually. On our way home, Christina called me and we proceeded to laugh some more about our little joke like we were the funniest people on the whole planet.

This is one of my favorite things about my friendship with Christina--she brings out the silly in me. I mean there's a lot there anyway but I love that both of us are now in our 30's and act like kids sometimes. Okay, most of the time. I'm not sure if our husbands think we are as funny as we do but we are just gonna keep acting goofy anyway! I think my dad would be proud that I have a friend who encourages constant laughter.

It's easy to get caught up in all of the crazy in this life. I love days like yesterday because they remind me not to take things so seriously. I am reminded that life is about smiling and laughing just for the heck of it. Thanks to my amazing daddy for instilling a love of the silly in my heart. I miss his crazy antics every day.