Girl Gone Missing

Yesterday morning I woke up to one of the best emails I’ve ever received in my life. It was from my mom and the subject title was “You Go Girl”.

I got so excited to see what I had done to make my mom A) so proud, and B) actually type the words “You Go Girl”.

The body of the email was the following:

"Did either of you happen to pick up the pillow on the upstairs bed ?
Little, white with pink letters
You go girl!
It vanished and Mildred is worried!!!"

Allow me to explain why this is so insanely awesome.

First of all, about 15 years ago someone gave me a pillow that said “You Go Girl!” on it. I tried to get rid of it because, well, it says “You Go Girl!” on it. But my mom was having none of it. She basically rescued it from a life of Goodwill and landfills. Ever since then it has been perched prominently in my parents’ guest room.

That is, until 2012 when it disappeared! Dun, dun, duuuuuun!

Second of all, you have to know Mildred to fully understand the hilarity of this scenario. If you have ever come over to my parents house on one of the last 3,000 Thursdays or Fridays, you should have met Mildred. She has been in the employ of my parents for almost 3 decades as a housekeeper. Just trust me when I say, “That’s a whole lotta Milly!” She has the approximate intelluctual equivalent of a box of rocks, with a heart of gold…And no permanent teeth.

But what she lacks in brains she more than makes up for in drama. When my mom’s mom died last year, Mildred went out of her way to make it as dramatic as possible so that, while showing that she cared, she could also remind my mom as often and as aggressively as possible that her mom had passed away. She also has a 6th sense that allows her to anticipate which room you are about to use, and then immediately start vacuuming there so that you can’t finish your phone call or hear yourself think. Anyway, back to the drama at hand…

Recently, further tragedy struck: The “You Go Girl!” pillow went missing and she freaked, according to my mom.

Yesterday, once I finally stopped laughing, I called my mom and mentioned it might be in the closet or under the bed. And I was soooo relieved to finally receive the following email later in the day:

“Found her in the back of the closet. My bed is complete again…..and Mildred will be so happy!!”

Crisis averted! I’m going to try to get my mom to send me a picture of the pillow. But it’d probably be too awkward for her to get a picture of Mildred. And until then, the epicness of the story might only be fully appreciated by the inner circle. ‘Tis a crying shame.

It's not every day you have a pseudo-family emergency that involves a girl power pillow and the world's dumbest housekeeper.

*Edited to include picture of actual pillow in question. Thanks mom!

World's Worst Mother

Well, this isn't nice. Article to this article, a mother in Australia tried to sell her 2 kids on eBay to the highest bidder.

I'm going to say this hurts worse than selling your children into child slavery, but at least that's kind of an established system. This is just one mother going rogue on the Internet. Very rookie move.

After some investigation, the mother said that it was all a joke. But I'll be damned if those kids aren't in for a lifetime of Mommy issues now that the whole world knows that A) their mother doesn't want them and B) they didn't get any high bids.

That is a way uncool joke as a mom and a human. Maybe she forgot to read that chapter in Parenting 101 that says, "Don't put the carseat facing forward, and Don't sell your kids on the Internet."

Too many everything

Holy Hell! I've hit the motherload.

This is the most decals I've ever seen on one car. And if this many humans/creatures actually live in one dwelling, they have got to be breaking all kinds of overcrowding laws!

In other news, just got back from London and will be posting more personal pics about my jaunt across the pond. This is the new dawn of Mamacita and real life pictures and happenings. Stay tuned!

Donde Estamos?

On my trip to MD last weekend my mom's GPS started to act erratically. As in, it told us it would take us 6 hours to go 230 miles. When in actually it took us 8 hours to go over 400 miles. It was way wrong on all fronts.

And as the picture above indicates, it also told us it would take us 0:00 minutes to go 26 miles. Now that's just silly.

All of the dramz with the GPS made me reflect on my family's extensive and absurd relationship with our GPS's (what is the plural of GPS??).

I think the first one of our family clan to get a car with a GPS was my sister. She bought a car from a dealership around DC that was called Radley Acura. This, coupled with what can only be called THE SUMMER OF MARIAH, served as the basis of a fairly lengthy biography that we created for the imaginary person giving us directions. We called him Gary Mariah Radley.

His background was dramatic to say the least, including a lifelong fight to prove his masculinity despite his parents insistence that his middle name be Mariah. He remains a bitter man with major mommy issues, and is now for sale with my sister's car. He will be missed for sure!

My director is a woman and I named her Laufaunda, a la Napolean Dynamite. By far the least interesting name of the GPS family.

My mom currently calls her car captain Lady Largo. I assume this is inspired by her 20+ drives to Key Largo over the life of her car.

But Lady Largo wasn't always Lady Largo. For a time my mom called her Rhonda, as in "Help me Rhonda, Help, Help Me Rhonda!"

That will always be my favorite.

Who knew that Global Positioning Devices could be such an important part of one's family history!? Thank you Lafaunda, Gary Mariah, Rhonda, and Lady Largo for a combined 15+ years of getting us places we might otherwise have had to use a map to get to!

No Name McGee

Last weekend I went to a family reunion.

Usually I am with my sister at these shindigs so if you say one of our names, the right one answers and it's clear who is who.

This time I was a lonesome dove, but I was also wearing a nametag that each person was given.

The first night of the reunion, a family member came up and said, "Which one are you...M____ or N_____?"

I have known this person for 27 years. I am related to this person. And I was wearing a nametag. And he still called me the wrong name.

I can take a hint...When someone calls you the wrong name when you're wearing a nametag, they really, really, really don't care who you are.

Sisterhood of the Travelling Funnies

I had a really great experience today. My first Skyping session with my sister in London.

The only problem was that neither one of us could hear each other. I really need to figure out my little computer! But that certainly did not stop us from continuing the session.

It was seriously hilarious. We were basically just reading each other's lips and laughing our butts off. It was like mime Skyping.

Sisterhood is officially the most amazing thing in the world I think. We gchat, text, call, silent-skype, Blackberry message, facebook post, post comments on my blog. I mean there is just no form of communication that is not fun for sissies...as long as they are both awesome!

I miss her a lot, but I like to know that just seeing each other's faces can set us off into fits of laughter. That's sisterhood at its finest!