The things I miss

I’m a night owl and I come by it honestly, courtesy of my mother.

Tonight I watched the two hour finale of “Desperate Housewives”. I know my parents watch too and I wanted to talk about it, so despite the fact that it was 11 pm, I called my mother, knowing she’d still be up. It turned out that she was up, but she had just gotten out of the bath and into pajamas – she hadn’t see the show because my dad was watching the finale for Survivor, so they recorded the show to watch later this week. I obviously didn’t want to spoil the ending so I shut up other than telling my mother to PLEASE call me after she got to watch it since I wanted to ask her what she thought of something.

Still, we managed to talk on the phone for over 20 minutes. We talked about the weekend, the weather, the fact that her friend from work got me the autograph of the first Canadian astronaut in space, books, and other shows.

In the end we only got off the phone because my mom has to get up early for work on Monday, holiday aside (Victoria day) since she works for an American company. Otherwise, we would have kept going, because it’s only necessity that forces my mom to bed before midnight, not genetics.

When my grandmother was still alive and her house was still standing, my mother and I used to have epic late nights during the summer. With my sister being five years younger than me, she’d be in bed at a reasonable hour, but I remember that all summer when I was 14, 15, 16 years old, my mom and I would stay up late.

We would sit in the kitchen until at least 11 pm, and then we’d head upstairs (my dad would be in the city all week for work, coming up north on the weekends). I’d sprawl across the bed with a book or magazine and my mother would sit in a little wicker chair, reading too. We’d both read a bit but we’d also interrupt each other to chat. My mom and I could sit and talk to each other – easily – until 1 or so in the morning. More than once it was almost 2 am when we finally said good night and I’d finally head off to my own bed for some sleep.

I’ve always been able to talk to my mother. Sure, as a teenager there were a multitude of things I never shared with her, as will be the case when my own girls are teenagers, but overall, I never had a problem talking to my mom. I love to talk to her on the phone now, but sometimes I wish we could just go back to the house that no longer exists and just talk until the hours become ridiculous, until we’re both yawning and all but nodding off, and just relive those days.

(My mom hates that picture, taken at Christmas time, but that’s only because she has no idea how much it means to me.)

A bit of proof that I'm a total sap

I used to try, once upon a time, to hide the fact that deep down, I am a complete and utter sap. I’d try to put up the tough exterior as often as I possibly could. Sometimes it was a good thing. No one wants to break down in tears after a poor review at work or after getting yelled at by one of your high school teachers. And when you live most of your teen years through pathetically unrequited love, it was really handy to be able to pull on all those acting desires and hide the tears until you were alone at home.

But really, it’s good to be emotional, it’s good to feel things and for years now I have shrugged off most attempts to be tough and untouchable. There may still be times when it comes in handy to have a mask but overall I am who I am (“I yam who I yam”?) and who I am is a ball of emotion.

I cry at the drop of a hat. George likes to tease me about it because I will cry while watching movies – even if they’re not necessarily meant to be sad, they just need something really touching to set me off. I cry over children’s movies (yes, I’m looking at YOU Wall-E!).

I cry over television shows – “Criminal Minds” is my favorite show but it makes me cry from time to time because of the crimes and the victims. Same goes for “Law & Order SVU”. And don’t even get me started on “Grey’s Anatomy”. While I haven’t done any formal research, I’m quite sure that I have never ever gotten through a full episode without crying at least once. Sometimes that show has made me cry so hard I worry about having an aneurysm (shaking my fist at the writers behind Denny, damn you!).

I cry over books. I’m reading Slumdog Millionaire since I loved the movie so much and as recently as today I found myself in tears during one chapter. And let me just say that while A Thousand Splendid Suns is my favorite book ever, I am so glad I was not trying to read that book in public anywhere because I was a total mess throughout, oh, 85% of it at least.

So yeah. I cry. I cry easily and I get embarrassed when I’m caught all teary-eyed and blowing my nose, but that’s the way I am. So it didn’t surprise me when I caught this commercial on TV for the first time tonight and was immediately dissolved into a puddle of tears.

Seriously. COME ON. To make it worse, that commercial aired during Grey’s Anatomy and, well, see above for how I fare during THAT show.

Please tell me I’m not the only sap around and that you get all emotional too!

Shredding – Or why I am a lemming

It seemed like everywhere I turned on the internet, people were talking about some kind of hardcore workout and loving it. Or at least having a love-hate relationship with it. It seemed everyone was talking about the “30 Day Shred” with Jillian Michaels.

At first I paid no mind to it because I’m not an exercise fan. Fitness, sure, but if you can actually call it exercise I lose interest. About ten years ago I was in the best shape of my life. Every muscle in my body was rock hard, I had excellent balance and flexibility, and I was super fit. I was doing Kung Fu back then, going at least 5 days out of 7, and usually it was 6 days. On most of the days I was doing two back-to-back hour-long sessions. I was seriously into my martial arts. But it worked for me because it was fun. It made me strong and I felt like I could kick someone’s ass (though I was never stupid enough to put myself in dangerous situations to test that!), so to me it wasn’t exercise. It was just something I loved that happened to have the added benefit of turning me into a well-toned machine.

Now the gym, on the other hand, was one of the lamest ways I have ever wasted money because I signed up for a year, went about five or six times, and then decided I hated it, never to return. I’m just not a gym person. MAYBE if I worked in an office building with a gym downstairs, it might work. But I just hated the whole commitment of having to go TO the gym, work out for an hour or so, and then come BACK from the gym. I didn’t feel engaged or motivated.

On top of that, I have several workout videos that have been collecting dust for YEARS. I have both Cindy Crawford workouts, one that (god is this embarrassing) Jennie Garth put out in the height of the original 90210 years (that girl had great legs!), and two yoga videos. Yeah, like I said, collecting dust.

And yet something compelled me to try the 30 Day Shred. People were so enthused about it. Everyone said that they hated Jillian with a passion and yet they loved her too because it was working. So I got it and tried it out.

Today was day 3 of 30 so I’m being cautiously optimistic – I know myself and my boredom levels (plus laziness) well enough to realize I may just shrug and say “ehh” in a few days. Working out every damn day is not necessarily appealing.

However! The workout is only 20 minutes (a bit longer with the warm-up and cool-down). Even I can’t find a good reason to be unable to find 20 minutes during the day. I can easily spend 20 minutes poking around Flickr or watching bad TV, why not this?

The good thing is that even though I woke up today with incredible muscle pain in my calves, I was actually eager to do my workout. I could barely wait for Breanna’s nap time so I could get busy shredding, pain and all. And then when I came out to find George watching a movie, I simply shrugged, grabbed my laptop, put the DVD in, and did my workout in the other room. That’s motivation.

I like the way she circuits through the 3-minute strength, 2-minute cardio, and 1-minute abs workouts through the 20 minutes. It keeps me hopping enough that I’m not bored yet, and after ten days you jump up to the next level (there are three). Right now I’m doing the modified version because damn, I am not able to keep up with the advanced moves yet, but that means that after my 30 days, I can start over and try those.

I have already uttered threats against Jillian at times when I feel like I just might want to keel over and die – they don’t “allow” breaks at all, she even says that if you must, you can stop to catch your breath for “no more than five seconds” but that’s it. It’s HARD. It’s so hard it’s unbelievable.

It’s possibly killing me, but let me tell you something – after three days I can already see results. Not massively huge results, but *I* can see them. That’s something impressive after a short time frame.

I’m not doing it to lose weight. I know that some people who know me or who have seen pictures will tell me I don’t need to lose weight but that’s not my motivation. For one thing, I have an extremely sedentary job, sitting here at my desk. I always have, but working from home means that my daily commute is, you know, down the hall. It’s easy to not move for a long time every day, unless using your fingers to type counts (it doesn’t do much for my heart rate, so I’m guessing no). Doing this workout gets me doing something fitness-oriented for 20 minutes every day. It’s also making me alert. Sure, I’m EXHAUSTED when I’m done, but my brain wakes right up.

Also, while I may have good numbers on the scale, I just want to, er, *tone* some stuff up. I told George that I am challenging myself to buy a bikini this summer. Last year I bought a two-piece suit but it’s a tankini so not much is visible in the middle. I want to buy and wear an honest-to-God bikini (maybe this is my mid-life crisis?) and the only way I will do that is if I have some ab definition. Considering the fact that after today’s workout I saw that there was a faint line at the top and sides of my abs, I can tell you right now that this works. It will kick your ass and when you do the punching routine you just might aim towards the TV so that you can pretend you’re punching Jillian RIGHT IN THE FACE, but it works.

Here’s hoping I can keep it up for the full 30 days. I have shopping to do.

One on one time

On Saturday, life started out disappointing for Breanna. George had to leave fairly early in the morning for work and wasn’t expecting to be back until late afternoon. On top of that, Hayley had gone over to her grandparents’ house. Thus it was just the two of us. However, we made the best of it!

We played some Wii bowling, tennis, and golf together (she totally kicked my ass at golf, by the way, and I wasn’t even *trying* to let her win. She came in at 3 over par. I came in at 10 over par. I am ashamed.), then we ate some lunch together. I made tuna salad, turned it into a sandwich for her, and I ate the rest with crackers. What made it special for her was that I threw a sheet down on the floor and we had a picnic in the living room while she chattered my ears off.

When lunch was done, we were both restless and the weather was too beautiful to ignore. Those of you who are further south or perhaps out west may have found it chilly at 5 or 6C but it was positively balmy here. We got our coats and grabbed Pearl and went for a long walk – we were gone for about an hour and a half! Pearl certainly enjoyed that (and slept well that evening).

Lookout

We walked through a wooded area for awhile, found good “walking sticks” to help us on our way, and strolled along a few streets. We crossed through a church lot that she loves and she spent some time showing me that it’s a shame we’re Anglican/Protestant since she would make such an excellent Catholic girl, what with her massive love of the Virgin Mary.

Reverance

Of course there was one thing at the church that was even more fun that the statue – a puddle!

Simple joys

It amazes me that we have toys, really, because she was just so overjoyed with nothing more than a puddle full of muddy water, a stick to stir it with, and a few pebbles to occasionally throw into the mix. She spent a good 15 minutes just playing there – and she didn’t even get wet other than her hands, which is amazing.

After I finally pried her away from the puddle, she then moved on to the one thing that’s even more fun than the Virgin Mary statue AND a muddy puddle combined – jumping off the big rock in the church yard.

Day 79:  1, 2, 3, JUMP!

(Even better viewed larger!)

It was no wonder she fell asleep so quickly and painlessly that night, what with all the walking and then the jumping.

She wasn’t very interested in going back home but I had to get supper started and we were both hungry. Once we got back in, she was pretty happy to be handed a big cup of juice and some cheese and crackers while I got the oven going. She kept telling me the rest of the afternoon and evening that she had had so much fun, and it got even better when she got to clean off after supper with a big bubble bath and bath paints all by herself.

Before Breanna was born, I spent a ton of time with just Hayley – going for walks, letting her take a bath until the water turned cold, and just hanging out. Breanna didn’t get that as often. Now that Hayley’s in school, we do have mornings and the first two hours of the afternoon, but I’m also working at that time, so it’s not quite the same. Dropping all ideas of working on Saturday and spending the entire day just playing with her and seeing her enjoying herself was such a great thing to do and I’m glad Hayley and George were busy with their own fun (George WAS having fun, it was work, but it was music work, so at least he enjoyed it!) so that I could get some of that quiet alone time with Breanna.

11/52 - Spring has sprung!

We’ll have to make a date to do it again soon!

Remembering

This afternoon we got some bad news as we found out that a friend had passed away at the end of last week. His sister called because she was going through his phone to see who had called lately, not really knowing who she should contact, and George had just called last week.

Long time readers (really long time) probably remember that before I had kids I practically lived in local bars because George played guitar and sang in a band called “The T-Birds”. They did 50’s, 60’s and 70’s rock and roll with a bit of blues as well. Technically, the band was actually called “Billy Ray and the T-Birds”. Bill, the lead singer, is the one who passed away.

I can’t remember the last time I saw Bill in person, it’s been years, but I spoke to him on the phone a couple of months back. He was saying that he wanted to have the old group over to jam in his basement and that I was welcome to come along as I so often did. Unfortunately, it never happened and I never got to hear that one last night of live music with Bill at the helm.

Bill had a huge following of friends and fans on YouTube. He would play a music track on his computer and then record himself singing and people loved it. Tonight I was looking for some pictures and found this one, back in March of 2002 when they played at the legion, with Bill singing. That’s how I’ll always remember him, with a mic in front of him.

Billy Ray and the T-Birds

However, I couldn’t remember any of the gig dates, so I decided to type the band name into Google to see if any of the links led back to my own site and hopefully some photos. Instead, the first link I clicked was this one, which led me to a video he had done only two months ago. It struck me particularly because it was one of the songs that they always did in the band, and in the video he says some really nice things about George’s guitar talents – the track he uses is actually one that they did at practice one night.

I know that as I get older, it happens more and more often that you hear this kind of bad news about people that you knew, but it doesn’t make it any less of a shock or any less sad. Six months ago, he lost his wife, and I truly believe that he’s with her again. I hope that he’s at peace now, he deserves it.

Rain, pain, and something awesome

Day 69: Slippery when wet

It was pouring rain this morning, which is not necessarily the best way to get me to leap out of bed with joy at meeting the a.m. you know? Rainy weather is what usually makes me want to lie in bed with the covers pulled up high, a cup of coffee on the night table, and a good book (or my laptop) in my hands. Unfortunately, it was Wednesday, not Sunday, so there was no lounging to be had.

When we got outside, Hayley at least made me smile. The water was rushing down the streets and gushing loudly into the sewers. She heard the gurgling sound, stopped to listen for a second, umbrella clutched in her hands, and then she grinned and said, “Mommy! The sewers are singing a song with the water!”

I guess rain can’t be all bad if it’s musical, right?

*******
She was less cheery when she came home from school. At lunch recess she was running around and someone bumped into her, knocking her to the ground, and she sprained her ankle. We wrapped it up in a bandage to help her out, but she spent the rest of the afternoon and evening either crawling or sitting on a cushion and scooting herself around the floors. I pointed out that she can’t crawl all over the school tomorrow and eventually managed to get her to walk around by showing her how to put minimal weight on that foot, but good lord.

The DRAMA.

I don’t mean to sound like an uncaring mother, and I know a sprain hurts. But I guarantee, a greater drama queen has never existed. To listen to her moan about it you would think that she had actually shattered every bone in her body.

I think I’ll be sending a note into the school asking them not to make her go out for recess or lunch recess if she doesn’t feel up to it.

*******
Something awesome happened back in early February, but I was asked to keep it on the down low until everything was formalized. That was HARD because I was excited. However, everything is up and running now so I am free to spread the word.

Catherine of Her Bad Mother contacted me to let me know that the Silicon Valley Moms blog had expanded and was now adding a Canada Moms Blog to its impressive roster. That’s interesting enough, but they wanted me to be one of the writers for it.

I can’t tell you how flattered and honored I was to be asked. Seriously. When I saw the final list of contributing bloggers, there were so many names that I recognized because I read them all the time; the names I didn’t know were immediately added to my Google Reader list and let me tell you, I am in some EXCELLENT company over there.

We’ve been posting for a little while now but I wanted to wait until I had something to add as well. Today I finally got my first post up – please feel free to pop on over to read “All Aboard for Junk Food” and while you’re at it, throw a comment in if you could. Then when you’re done be sure to check out the other incredible bloggers with whom I am sharing the space.

Pretty damn cool!

56 hours of my life in photos

On Friday morning, Hayley’s last official day of March break, my alarm went off with a vengeance at 6:30 am. By 10 am I was sitting with George, Hayley, and Breanna on a train heading to Toronto.

Are we there yet?

The girls were remarkably good considering it’s five and a half hours sitting in seats. Breanna started to fuss about an hour out of Toronto but it was because she was tired; she finally fell asleep and got a half hour in which made a big difference for her. Overall they really enjoyed the train and we kept them busy with lots of coloring books, notepads, books, impromptu games (I taught Hayley to play Boxes, she did great!), and snacks.

We had gone to Toronto for George’s sister Elsa’s wedding, so we went to her condo first, where we were staying for the weekend, had a bite to eat since we were STARVING, and then we went to a hotel to visit with some family from out of town. It was tiring but fun to see everyone. We were all wiped out, but still hungry, so we stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken to pick up some food, ate a piece each, then we all crashed by 10 pm.

I don’t sleep well away from home the first couple of days so I was awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, and then we were all jolted awake by a blaring siren coming from the ceiling. George called his sister to ask what the hell it was and she said if there was any problem we’d hear a voice telling us what to do from the speakers in the ceiling, and that’s exactly what happened – like the voice of God or something. It was weird. A security guard from the lobby announced there was a fire in one of the parking levels and to stay tuned for further instruction. We immediately got everyone dressed and waited by the door; fire trucks came and then within five minutes they announced it was a false alarm. Alas, it was 7:15 am and we were all groggy but far too awake to go back to sleep then.

How to chill out

Luckily, the building has a big pool and spa room so after breakfast I took the girls downstairs and we alternated between swimming in the smaller pool and relaxing in the spa for an hour. It was really nice and I would have stayed longer if we hadn’t had things to do. We had to hurry to get ready because Hayley and Breanna were flower girls in the wedding, so we had to get them over to the wedding site to get them dressed and to have photos done.

Continue reading

Interview time

Awhile back I read an entry on my sister’s blog where she had been asked some interview questions courtesy of Laura. At the end, she offered to ask five interview questions to anyone who felt like participating. I couldn’t resist, I wanted to see what kind of questions I would get from the person who probably knows me better than anyone else in the world, so here’s my interview.

1) You’ve just won a ridiculous amount of money on the lottery. You and your family (including your sister!) will never have to worry about money ever again. You can live anywhere you want in the world. Where would you live and why?

This is practically a giveaway question, because even with all the money I could ever possibly need, I would still choose to move to Halifax. The only difference is that I would be able to buy a really awesome house. However, if I was truly ridiculously rich, I would probably also get a condo or small house that I could either own or rent in various other locations – I’d love a home in Prague and somewhere in Mexico.

2) Tell us the story about the time you caught George smelling your coat. Did he know at the time that he had been caught, and if so, how did he try to cover it up? Most importantly, what went through your mind when you saw this?

Hang on while I stop laughing! First the brief backstory for everyone else – shortly before George and I got together, I was sitting at my desk finishing up some work before lunch arrived. The studio guys were lurking around my desk and George was sitting directly across from me on the chair where we all threw our coats. He probably thought I couldn’t see him because of my monitor but when I glanced up I saw him smelling my coat.

So to answer the questions, he did indeed know he was caught because I leaned around my monitor, incredulous, and asked, “are you smelling my COAT?!” Our boss immediately picked up on that and started laughing. George didn’t try to cover it up, but I think he might have been a little flustered. He owned up though and said that it smelled good. At that time I was wearing vanilla essential oil a lot so I frequently smelled like a walking cake.

It’s so long ago that I can’t remember exactly what it was that went through my mind, but I remember being happy that he liked my perfume. It was only a couple of weeks before we finally started dating so it was well timed.

3) You really wanted to be an actor. Given the crazy lives actors lead and that you have children now, would you still pursue such a career if the opportunity presented itself?

If I had already been acting and then had kids, I would have figured out a way to balance it, but now that I have kids I can’t imagine deciding to pursue a career that frequently has long hours, late night hours, and requires a lot of traveling around. I am in awe of how Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie juggle their careers so that they are rarely, if ever, working at the same time and I admire them for almost always traveling as a family rather than having one parent leave for three or four months at a time.

But you know, now that I work as a celebrity blogger, I’m kind of glad that I’m not in the public eye like that. The things that I read about people, comments that people make, scrutiny they go through, I’m not entirely sure that it’s worth it. Especially the physical commentary. If Angelina is her normal weight, she’s torn apart for being “too skinny” and then if she starts to put a couple of pounds on, every tabloid says she’s pregnant. And don’t get me started on Jennifer Love Hewitt who, in my opinion, has one of the best bodies in show business (and the best rack EVER) and yet she was ripped to shreds over how “fat” she is. She is NOT FAT. So, you know, I’m just not sure that my self-confidence could stand up to the bloodbath of nasty commentary like that. I’m happier to just be me, writing about what celebrities are up to!

4) An all-powerful being has approached you and offered to grant you any super power of your choosing. What do you choose and why?

On the one hand, my knee-jerk reaction is to say being invisible but I think that could be more trouble than it’s worth. And flying could be a cool power, but I think that really, the best super power would be to be able to teleport AND to have the ability to teleport with other people as well (much like the way that Dumbledore was able to make Harry Potter Apparate by holding on to him). Then I could go anywhere at any moment.

5) What is your most guilty pleasure?

It really changes from time to time. Sometimes it’s a food – for awhile my guilty pleasure was getting those Lindt dark chocolate bars. Other times it might be reading something. I had a streak of reading books that centered around the Muslim world. Most recently I guess that my guilty pleasure was the Twilight series and movie.

That was fun!

Better visuals

Day 29:  Eyesight

Much to my shock today, I walked out of my eye exam with my crappy glasses in my purse and brand new (one would hope) disposable contact lenses pressed firmly against my eyeballs. I was fully expecting to wait a week, what a surprise that they would have my insane prescription available right there in the office!

I ended up waiting almost ten minutes in the doctor’s office while he finished up with another person and I realized how I have changed. A long time ago I would have been annoyed at sitting around waiting. Today I just thought, “wow. I’m all alone and it’s quiet. This is frickin’ awesome!” And then I snapped a few pictures of the eye equipment. When you become a parent sometimes you’ll take your peace and quiet anywhere you can get it. If the exam didn’t cost $70 I’d book one every second day.

Anyway, we went through the exam and the questions, and he ended up giving me a trial pair of contact lenses that are meant to be tossed away after a month. I’m supposed to wear them for about a week and if there are no problems then I go back in to order a supply for either six months or a year. I can likely make each pair last longer than one month if I don’t use them every single day.

I’ve gotten new contacts several times since the first time when I was 17 but I always forget what it’s like to first put in a brand new pair. I’ve been looking through glasses that are so old the anti-reflect coating is wearing off (he said that and the overall age of the lenses are likely what was causing my dizziness and nausea and not the prescription itself since it didn’t change that much; he said my eyes were overworking themselves trying to see through deteriorated lenses), so when I stuck those lenses in my eyes, everything was so bright and so crisp. The doctor was amazed at how quickly I ran through his eye charts and how much better I could see immediately considering most people need a bit of time to adapt.

My very first eye doctor as a child (I was three when I got glasses) told my parents to try contacts for me when I got to be about 15 or so, and said that my vision would be even better because of a lack of space between my eyes and the correctional lens. I guess he was right!

All the way home I marveled at how well I could see the definition in the branches of the trees, how I had peripheral vision again, and when I looked at Breanna up close (she wanted to try to see my lenses in my eyes), I was amazed at how her eyelashes – they stood out so much now.

I’m not anticipating any trouble, I’ve never had an issue with any contacts before, so hopefully I’ll be placing an order before a month passes by and I won’t have to wear my glasses at all anymore other than first thing in the morning and shortly before bed. I’m wearing the glasses now because I’m going to sleep as soon as I post this, but I can already see the difference between typing here with the glasses and the contacts. My head is starting to hurt a bit – I don’t think I’ll be without contacts very often.

I am so happy I can see properly again!

Posted in Me

Friday Flashback # 20 – She's In Love With the Boy

I mentioned this in an older entry, but to recap, when I was 16 years old my parents and sister had gone to Vermont for a week-long vacation as we did every summer. The difference was that I had stayed because I “had a job” except really I just didn’t want to be away from my boyfriend for a whole week. I mean, gasp! A week! Seven days! I would have died!

So I stayed. They left. The very first day that they were gone? He dumped me over the phone. So that was, you know, a lot of fun.

When I called my parents, 2.5 hours away, and cried, my dad hopped in his car and drove all the way back home, spent the night and then drove me to Vermont so I wouldn’t be alone. I was utterly miserable, convinced no one would ever date me again and that at 16 years of age I was destined to be a spinster who would die surrounded by my 15 cats. I didn’t know if I could manage a smile, so it was something of a shock that a song made me laugh.

Whenever we got within about a half hour of our vacation spot (a recreational trailer park in Alburg right on Lake Champlain), we’d be able to pick up a local country music station. My parents loved country music. At the time I was a closet country fan (now I shout it from the rooftops). Two songs in, they played a new song from a mostly-unknown at that time singer – Trisha Yearwood. The song was “She’s In Love With the Boy”.

You’d think a broken-hearted girl would rather hear songs about people who have “been done wrong” and mope with a bottle of whiskey with their hound dogs or something, anything other than a song about how much a boy and girl love each other.

However, when the chorus hit the line “her Daddy says that he ain’t worth a lick, when it came to brains he got the short end of the stick” I just started giggling and couldn’t stop.

I was sad most of that vacation but at least I wasn’t alone at home. And that station played that song at least twice per day so I heard it a lot and it never once failed to make me laugh.

See? Not all country music is about sad things!