Not quite Hallmark

The friendship ball is in the mail. Finally. It's filled with what will probably be referred to as a "Hammer gift". As in "Damn, Sunshine is so cheap she made me another freaking Hammer gift?". But Baby K is so cute I think I can get away with it. Again. I care enough to send the very best...it just requires a trip to the store and I'm tired.

For those who don't have their very own shiny Friendship Ball: Baby K's Mama and I share a silver ornament that opens up to hold little gifts and such (just big enough for a travel size bottle of Pepto, as we discovered before a trip to Mexico). There's a dirty little secret about that poor old friendship ball. It's occasionally neglected by one of it's deadbeat owners, evidenced by the little denty ding on it and the months worth of dust that covered it's box until last week. And the fact that it sat for months.

The blogs first (but not last) grammatical correction comes from my eldest son and includes our first (but not last) Strongbad quote: "If you want it to be possessive, it's just 'i-t-s', but if you wanna make it a contraction, it's 'i-t-apostrophe-s'... Scalawag." Now if I could just figure out how to link you to Strongbad's emails...

I'm afraid the ball has come to symbolize our friendship...and I'm embarrassed to say that Shayne does all the hard work. She's organized and considerate; I'm sitting in the recliner. She sends thank you notes in the mail; I might remember to send an email. She always calls me; I have great conversations with her all the time...but they're usually in my head. By the time I think to call it's somewhere between 3 and 5 AM. She brings the sense; I bring the sarcasm. She cooks; I eat. I guess opposites really do attract.
I guess I'm feeling like a crappy friend. It's not that I don't love her. It's not that I don't think about her every single day (especially first thing in the morning when I'm brushing my teeth and holding the little silver angel she sent me. Most likely in the friendship ball). I'm just lazy.
And I'm positive that ding occurred while I had custody of the ball.

So Baby K, I hope you grow up to find a best friend just like your Mama. She's been my best friend since junior high (that's more than 20 years! Wow, we're old) and I couldn't dream up a better friend. Even with 922.22 miles between us, I always know she's there for me. And hey, that's only a 14 hour drive?!?! Auntie Sunshine has a hard time with 14 minutes in a car but I never realized we were that close.

Netflix partial review: Animal Farm
Orwell's novel about the Russian Revolution adapted for the screen using live animals voiced by actors. (Another reviewer says it better than me - 'Can "biting satire of totalitarianism" ever coexist in the same sentence as "brought to you by Hallmark"? Yes, if you're not a purist.') The movie was good although a little slow at parts and what the hell is with the snotty pig noses? Do pigs really have constant gallons of mucus spilling from their snouts? Yuck. One more reason not to eat bacon. I remember reading the book more than I remember the book. Worked 11 hours yesterday without a break for lunch so I was just too tired to watch the end. Which apparently was altered to achieve that aforementioned Hallmark moment. I'll let ya know.