MARBLES

Yep, I have lost my marbles. I feel sure they have been scattered all over the place and rolled into dark recesses everywhere I have been, never to be found again. Years and years of losing them here and there.

That thought crossed my mind yet again today as I was once again playing "gotcha last" with my daughter. This is an ongoing game we play. Need I tell you that my daughter is 20? We play this game at the oddest times. And both of us are relentless in our desire to win. I swear, I will be on my death bed unable to lift my eyelids, let alone a hand, and my daughter will be proclaiming victory after she touches me. The final words I will probably hear before dying are, "Gotcha last!"

Then there was the day I decided I would not pronounce any "L's" or "R's" correctly. It began out of nowhere when the hubster and I were running errands. All of a sudden I began to say things such as, "Wooks wike we awe gonna have wain today." The hubby turned to "wook" ::grin:: at me with a priceless face. I, in my newly developed mode of speech, told him I now planned to go the entire day talking like that. He thinks I am weird. He is right.

One of my sisters and I talk on the telephone regularly. And we talk for way too long. It drives me nuts, and it shoots a hefty chunk of my day (two hours seems to be about the average length the conversations last, and we only live several miles from each other). But I love it anyway. My thing with her is that when I hear our phone announce the caller~we have those computerized phones that talk and tell you who is calling~is to answer the phone but not speak. I will sit there in total silence until she finally says something. Usually she calls me a word that starts with a "B." Ha! Like that is going to hurt my feelings!

I sing campy versions of Happy Birthday to friends and family.

I moon my kids...and my mother.

I sometimes stuff a portion of a Kleenex in a nostril and leave it hanging from there while asking my children to give me a kiss.

During my father's illness, my marbles really started to disappear. I did many things in an attempt to keep him smiling. One of which was to enlarge a photo of myself and write "Daddy's favorite daughter" across the bottom of it, and then tape it to the ceiling above his bed...right next to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit centerfold that I superimposed Mom's face onto.

I whisper things into my children's ears while we are in church. Things to make them laugh when they should not be. I do not laugh, but they do. Hubby glares at me.

When I am in the mood to discuss politics with this fascinating male family friend who is more than three decades older than I am, I tell him I will nibble on his ear if we can change our current topic of conversation to politics. (He, by the way, is currently in the process of having a book published. I will be pimping it here big time when all is finalized!)

There are countless other marble-less things I do on a frequent basis. Enough so to say that it has been a long time since I had any marbles at all. But, yanno what? I like being this way. So, if you happen to locate my marbles, just keep them. ::smile::

"I've lost my marbles." ~Toodles, from the movie Hook