Not use crying over hamburger

Friday we needed some barbecue supplies. We decided to go to the grocery where Sean works, instead of our usual store. His car wasn't parked in its typical spot and I whined to Bill, "I wish Sean was here" as we started our shopping.

But as luck would have it, he was there, putting out fresh tomatoes in the produce department.

We talked to him while he worked for a bit and then left him to get our shopping done. I had to squint through the tears as I picked through the cucumbers.

All at once, the reality of Sean's leavetaking hit me like a ton of bricks.

I'm going to miss that kid.

While I'm very happy for him as he starts his adult life with the decisions he's made, I'm so sad for all of us who are going to be left behind.

I told Bill how sad I was all of a sudden and the tears started again. Bill paused and as we gazed over the frozen hamburger patties he said, "Don't start because I'll never be able to stop."

I knew what he meant.

As hard as this is for me, it's gotta a kajillionty times harder for Bill.

So now whenever I see Sean I have a hard time not throwing myself on him and sobbing about how I'm going to miss him and I know that it's the same for Bill.

Oh, we'll carry on, but we certainly won't be shopping at that grocery store anymore.

Wordless Wednesday

Bunny-head kisser

So I outed Sean as a bunny-head kisser. He says he doesn't remember kissing any bunny heads, but I do.

This originally ran as a column the Sunday editorial page and then I reprinted it over on the Haute Mamas blog, just so more people will learn that my stepson is a bunny-head kisser.

Click here to read the whole story.

But he still wears his pants all droopy

Click over here to read about Sean's recent cosmetic surgery.

Go on click, there's even a gory picture.

On cake and turning 18 years old

I've been waiting to write this post for a couple of reasons. Mostly because Bill has no sense of humor over that which I'm about to write while I find it hilarious.

I don't really want to piss him off. So in the interest of being fair, I'm asking for you to judge for yourself if I'm being overly picky or he's overly ... uh, ... I'm totally going to get myself into trouble with this post, so let's just get to it, shall we?

Last Friday was my stepson's 18th birthday. Yep Sean's 18.

We were planning to have him over for dinner and give him his gifts Friday after work.

Bill volunteered to go to the store and order a cake for Sean all by himself.

I was suspect, but because I'm so swamped these days, I restrained my OCD-self and let me do it. But not without discussing it first:

Bill: I'm going to order Sean's cake. What should I get on it?

Me: Get him an adult cake. No SpongeBob or anything. He's an adult now.

Bill: Yeah, I'll get him something cool.

Me: Get him something adult ... and normal. He's an adult now.

Bill: I know. I know.

When I got home Friday, I saw the massive cake box on the counter.

Bill had ordered an entire sheet cake. Not a quarter or even a half, an entire sheet.

Good thing I like cake.

Then I opened the box.

Oh man.

Do you see it?

Here's a closer look at the guy on the cake:

Does that look like an 18-year-old kid to you in any way?

Because to me that looks like a middle-aged, beer-bellied, balding guy lying on a couch drinking a beer and holding a remote control.

But I've been accused of picking apart the details of the figurine and that this balding, fat guy is totally appropriate for an 18-year-old kid.

I guess if you want the message on his 18th birthday to be: "It's all down hill from here." It totally works.

Really though, I do have to take some of the blame for the balding, fat man drinking a beer adorning my stepson's cake. I did say to Bill to get Sean an "adult cake" without providing any other specifics, like "appropriate for an 18 year old" or "not sad and defeating."

I mean what really did I expect Bill to get?

Sometimes, I'm really slow.

White on white: the latest fad?

I show this painting in my art appreciation class. It's a work by Russian artist Kasimir Malevich entitled Suprematist Painting: White on White.

Some people get all fussed up over such paintings.

But apparently white on white is the latest in teen non-fashion. Or something.

I'm still perplexed after going clothes shopping with Sean last week.

Click over here to see what I learned (oh, and for the record, koi ARE cool — I don't care what those teenagers think).

Forget Murphy, welcome to Sean's law

In January I wrote about Sean's run with some bad luck (and the results of bad decision making). It seems that Sean's bad luck (which is based on his bad decision making) is here to stay.

A couple of months ago Sean was in an accident with his POS car. Sean was initially cited for the accident and his mother finally had enough. She had the shitty car towed to the dump (in her defense, that car was well overdue for a date with the auto shredder, in my opinion).

After an investigation into the accident, the police reversed themselves and decided that nobody was at fault.

So Sean was in the clear ... but he had no car through no fault of his own.

Since then, he and his mom have been saving money for Sean to buy yet another car (this would be number three and the kid hadn't even turned 18 yet).

While we were on vacation, Sean called to see if we'd consider selling him our 1988 Pathfinder.

We bought this car a couple of years ago from our friends who walk every where. Their cars are more monuments than transportation, it seems. So the car had very few miles on it (I think the odometer read 87,000 — fer reals). Bill used it as his car until he inherited my mom's old car this spring.

I wanted to keep the car as a backup. Just in case something happened to Bill's car, we could just throw it away and he could go back to the Pathfinder (What? Cars are disposable, no?).

But Bill pressured me to consider selling it to Sean.

I said no and then thought about it some.

We didn't need a third car and Sean's been doing well lately and not getting into trouble so I decided that he could BUY the car from us.

We bought the car for $2,500. I told Bill that we'd sell it to Sean for $1,750 and not a penny less.

$1,750? That's an odd price, eh? I decided that I'd be happy with half the price we paid which is $1,750, right?

No, stupid rivetergirl. $1,250 is half.

Poor Sean, he had to pay $500 more because his stupid, evil stepmom can't do math. Plus I'm not one to admit my stupidity so I stuck with my $1,750 price to which he agreed.

Friday, he bought the Pathfinder for $1,750.

Monday the car started on fire while he was driving to work.

Really. On fire.

See, while our friends still had the car they had a gray squirrel stow away from a camping trip. The squirrel ate every single wire under the hood and made a nest in the air conditioning ducts.

Our friends had the all the wiring replaced, but they didn't notice the nest until they went to use the air conditioning and it started to smoke. By then they were over that car and just worked around the nest.

We could still use the heating and cooling only we had to turn it all the way on or all the way off. Any of the other settings would create a formidable campfire smell inside the car.

We told Sean about the nest and how to avoid starting the car on fire. But he's almost 18 and knows better than we do, so he drove to work with the a/c on low.

And it started on fire.

Luckily he was able to cut a hole in the plastic, put out the fire and remove the remaining squirrel's nest from his new-to-him car.

Lucky kid, huh?