Mother of the Year in the Humiliation Category

It doesn't happen often, but today I laughed till I cried.

First I will introduce Earl, father of my 7 children. As my oldest (blond) daughter pointed out awhile back, we are married longer than she's been alive. Hey, in our time it was done that way. I guess she was okay with the idea because she got hitched, too, before presenting us with our granddaughter last year. And no, we don't tease her that much anymore about that brilliant insight, but only because she's made funnier bloopers since then, hence the hair color comment.

But I digress. (Get used to it. I free associate, can't help it, things pop into my head and I know that unless I say it right then I'll forget. Intellectual interlude, senior moment, whatever, in my ADD household this organized control freak has pretty much given up and is getting mellowed and impulsive.) So back to today. Hubby and I are invited to a 'earl'y (groan) Purim party tonight at friends and I decided to get dressed up. For those of you unfamiliar with the Jewish holiday mantra which is "they tried to kill us, we beat them, let's eat", Purim is slightly different but only because of the additional emphasis on drinking, revelry and dressing up in addition to the more serious and meaningful rituals which are not the subject of today's post so we'll do remedial Judaism 101 another day. Think Halloween crossed with St. Patrick's Day with a jib jab look and you'll have some idea of what goes on.

I bought a curly dark wig (my own tresses being Miss Clairol dark blond but I remain with a brunette brain, best of both worlds I think) and tried it on today. Na'ama, who is (too) rapidly approaching 16 was helping me with the 'do' when I realized that Nili needed to be taken to her art class. I grabbed the car keys and Nili and headed out, figuring that I wouldn't see anyone on the way so I could go out like Betty Boop and no one would notice or care if they did.

Wrong. On the way back I spied our other car off on the side of the road. I remembered that our 18 year old son, Amiad, had asked for the car and realized that he must be with his new girlfriend, whose identity he has adamantly refused to reveal. (You'd think he was ashamed of us or something....) And not being one to miss an opportunity to thoroughly embarrass one of my kids (remind me to tell you about chasing Marnina down on the schoolbus with her antibiotics in hand 15 years ago, I think it was the fact that I was wearing pajamas that mortified her but possibly not) I pulled over and tooted my horn. All I could see were 4 sock clad feet up on the windshield, but soon 2 heads joined them. Oh, where is a camera when you need one? (Actually, there was one on my lap because my cellphone has a camera but I forgot.) Amiad's face was absolutely priceless, and more shades of red than a crayola crayon box, the jumbo size. It was so great. I waved sprightly at the girl (adorable and I now know who it is, hah) while he, well, fortunately we have 6 other kids so someone may still take care of me when I get old. But you know, it was worth it. He tore out of there while I gave myself a high 5 while dissolving into hysterics. (Okay, you're thinking that I should get a life. Point taken, but we have to have some fun while waiting for Ahmedinajad to blow. Oh, did I mention that the Purim story happened in Persia? The more things change...)

Even better was coming into the house and telling Earl solemnly that I had caught Amiad having socks with his girlfriend. (They were just talking. Really. Do you think I would write about this otherwise, although there's no doubt I'm more sanguine with my boys than girls. Not fair but true all the same.) He was still chuckling over the story a few minutes later when Amiad came home to major ribbing. He's talking to me - okay, fine, it's because he was hungry and wanted dinner - but I'm not sure he'll be bringing you know who around any time soon.

Too bad. She has a cute instep. And her parents are very nice, too. Wonder if they know.

It's a cold and quiet evening in Judea. Wow, it's nice to laugh. Hope Amiad doesn't read blogs, though.