In ten years you can pass from single to married, with children. You can move from being a parent to being a grandparent or a great grandparent.

Ten years seems so small and goes by in the blink of an eye and, at the same time, you can see your whole life change in that short time. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately this month. Two decades ago, on February 4th, I lost a son. Ten years ago today, we lost my mom.

In some ways, it seems impossible that so much time could have passed already. My mom has been gone for 10 years?? How did that happen? (That was a rhetorical question. Don’t be giving me any wise ass comments. )

Like I said, apparently I’m so old now that it’s not the years that fly by; they fly by in decades.

The fact that I forgot the keys at home didn’t come into my brain until I was exiting the highway, 25 minutes too late. I pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine and thought for a moment. I could try climbing in a window but that’s assuming there is a window that isn’t locked and that I can climb in without breaking a limb. One would also have to hope none of the neighbors saw me and decided I was breaking in to rob my sister. Can’t you just picture the police pulling up, sirens blaring?

I took out my cell phone and looked through the numbers. There was only one mobile phone entry in there and I wasn’t sure if it was my sister’s or my brother in-law’s. I tried calling. I heard my sister cheerfully say she wasn’t available. I had to wonder what the point was in having a cell phone if it wasn’t turned on. (Turns out it wasn’t even her phone. Don’t you think her voice being on there was just a bit misleading?)

Next option: call my sister in-law who lives 10 minutes away. Luckily she also had a house key. Unfortunately, it was for a lock that had long ago been changed. (Another little tip – your nearest relative should have a spare key that actually will open the door.)

After some discussion, my sister in-law told me when my nephew arrived home, we should drive over to her house. It seemed like a good solution so she went off and I sat in my car, waiting for my nephew. It’s a good thing my car is comfortable because I could have had an hour wait.

Of course there was the problem that my sister would come home and think someone had kidnapped her son and her sister. I decided to go with the ‘note on the door’ concept.

My nephew arrived, we went to my sister in-law’s house and things worked out well.

Then came the ultimate irony: a day later, my sister called me to tell me her son had a key to the house.

Playing him when he’s not home is one thing and usually he’s not home. He’s only here once a week and during that time, he’s busy so there is no time for games. Last night, however, things were a bit different. He had some free time so he made his move. Then he came into the office and sat next to me. He was laughing, and not in a good way. I’ve never watched any of those horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street or the Halloween movies but I imagine, if the villain in those movies did laugh, it would sound a lot like Steve’s laughter that evening.

I ignored him. He sat there staring at his iPhone, looking for what would be his next move. “Hurry up and make your move. I know what I’m going to do next.”

“What if I block you so you can’t do whatever you have planned?”

That didn’t deter him. His evil chuckle echoed throughout the house. “Oh, you can’t block me. I have a great move.” He showed his father what he had planned. Then he started harassing me to take my turn so he could put down his word.

“I don’t work well under pressure. Go away.“ He pestered me a bit longer but finally wandered off, although not before telling me how he was beating one of his friends by 300 points.

I couldn’t even complain to Theresa. All she had to say was, “I don’t want to hear a word. I told you not to play him.”

Well at least he’s not beating me by 300 points, although I’m still not sure what his next move is and I haven’t gone yet…

His reply was, “Do you know you asked me that already?”

“If I did, I don’t remember the answer.”

The boy sighs and answers me again, as though it is a great burden to do so.

“You know – if I get senile or develop Alzheimer’s when I get old, you’re going to have to deal with a lot worse.”

“I won’t come visit you.”

“You’ll have to. You’ll be a priest and priests are supposed to visit the sick and infirm. It’s in the rule book.” I figured I had him with that one.

“With my luck, you won’t get senile. You like doing puzzles and playing games. They say that prevents plaque from building up on the brain and stops you from getting senile.” I didn’t have a reply for that one so I just shot him a dirty look. I’m good at that. I’ve had lots of practice. He just laughed at me. Then he says, “Come to think of it, if you do get senile, it might be fun. I’ll come to visit you and tell you I’m the pope. Then you’ll probably try to kick me out.”

“Nah, I’d believe you were the pope and I’d be all, ‘Oh, can I kiss your ring?’”

Then I shared with him my theory about old people. I don’t think most people change drastically when they get old. Old age just accentuates what was already there. I think it’s a combination of them losing their internal censor as they age and them thinking, “What the heck. I can say whatever I want. I’m old now!”

Get someone drunk and I think you’ll have a pretty good idea of how they’ll be when they’re old. If they’re an angry drunk, they will probably be cranky when they get old. They will yell at children playing. They will complain that dinner is 5 minutes late.

If they flirt with anyone passing by, they’ll end up being a dirty old man (or woman).

Me? I’ll probably just be funnier when I get old. Or, if not, at least in my own mind, I will be.

A few years into his Little League career, my son hit in the winning run for a championship game. One of the coaches still likes telling that story whenever he sees my son. I, on the other hand, find his retelling of it insulting. In my mind, what he is really saying is, “We had all our little superstars on our team and the most unlikely kid won the game.” Yeah. Maybe if you treated my son fairly and he got the same amount of playing time as everyone else, you would have seen what a good player he was.

Fast forward to today. Our family is having dinner. Somehow the topic of Little League came up for the second day in a row. I don’t recall the exact words that came out of my mouth but they were something like my son wasn’t that good of a player. What I meant is he wasn’t a superstar. If he had been a superstar, he’d be playing ball for the Yankees right now. But no. The entire family took my words as they came out of my mouth, rather than as my brain intended. “What? Did you just say your son stunk at baseball?”

Yeah. I’m never going to live that one down.

In my world, that’s the equivalent of a Mother of the Year award. It meant, “Thank you for not being a complete control freak and trying to run your adult children’s lives. Thank you for trusting your children to make the right choices.” I think it even may have meant, “Thank you for letting me tease you and not getting upset over it. Thank you for recognizing it as a sign of affection.”

On the morning of the actual day, we spent it the way we usually do, what with it being a Sunday & all – we went to Mass. I didn’t have either of my kids sitting with me at Mass. Stephen was at his own parish where he is doing a pastoral year. Theresa was sitting with her 2nd grade religious education students, who were receiving their First Communion. We were, however, not alone. Frank & I had a couple of stand-ins: my friend’s daughter & the young man who I’m pretty sure will eventually be my son in-law. My friend’s daughter even had a Mother’s Day card for me that she had made.

Later that day, the 5 of us went out to dinner. Our chosen place was a gamble because it was a new Japanese restaurant that we had never tried before. The gamble paid off because, not only was it great, but we got 30% of the bill because of the whole grand opening thing.

Pretty great way to spend Mother’s Day. Pretty great way to spend just about any day – just enjoying the company of those you love.

Paul: “What’s your mom doing?”
Theresa: “She’s at a party.”
Paul: “No she’s not. She doesn’t go out to parties.”
Theresa: “It’s with people from Church.”
Paul: “Oh! Okay, now that makes sense!”

Is he trying to imply that I am not the partying sort? Or that I don’t hang out with fun people? Let me tell ya something, my Church friends are a heck of a lot of fun. I also found out that Archbishops from Australia have a real good sense of humor.

Earlier that week, my nephew/godson ‘graduated’ from pre-K. When they were all here yesterday for Father’s Day, we were filled in on that graduation. It seems that Christopher almost had his parents convinced that he was not supposed to wear the cap & gown like the rest of the children. No. He was going to dress up like a clown. He would then throw pies at the other kids and spray them with water.

Yes, my nephew thinks he is a comedian. I don’t know where on earth he gets that from. It couldn’t be his father. Or me. Or his godfather, Stephen.

That being said, it is time to move on to my son and our conversation today. (Luckily, he does not read my blog.) He said he was woken up early yesterday morning when the bed shook. His bed is lofted. He had no idea what was going on so he decided to sleep on the couch after that, not being too anxious to be on the bed if it collapsed.

He went all through the day with whatever it is seminarians do when they are off from school and planning a trip. It wasn’t until today that he found out it was an earthquake.

Me: “How could you have no clue it was an earthquake?”
Him: “It’s not like I have a TV in my room.”
Me: “It was all over the Internet.”

Apparently he doesn’t read the news online. Nor in the Italian newspapers, for that matter.

We spoke a bit about his upcoming trip to Ireland, where he will spend Easter & stay for a little over a week. Then he signed off and went to have dinner. A few hours later, he signed back on and IMed me again.

“We were at dinner, talking about the earthquake. Suddenly the table started shaking. I thought it was one of the guys screwing around until I looked up and saw the lights shaking.”

Those must be some powerful aftershocks if they can feel them 70 miles away in Rome. He is quite glad to be leaving tomorrow and hoping the earth will have settled down by the time he gets home.

Then he tells me how there’s a fault line that runs throughout Italy. That way I can have something to be concerned about for the next 4 years…

Speaking of drinking, I think this is an appropriate place to get to another of Lanny’s comment about adult drinks.

On New Year’s Eve, 2 years ago that “Anonymous in a Hick Town” poster was visiting with her almost fiancée. We decided we wanted to make Chocolate Martinis but we didn’t have all the ingredients. We did find a drink called a Chocolate Monk but I decided to change it around a bit. The resulting drink was renamed.

I felt it appropriate for it to have Frangelico in it, don’t you think?

There you have it – my very own drink.

While away at school, she was watching TV episodes on her laptop through Netflix. They have an thing where you can watch instantly; they stream the show or movie to your computer. Anyhow, Theresa decided she wanted to watch the shows on the TV. The project to enable her to do so took a couple of hours.

First it required her to go out to buy a cable so she could hook her laptop to the TV. Then she had to find a wireless mouse so she could control the computer from the couch. Then there seemed to be a problem getting the sound to work and how could you watch the show on a nice big TV, yet listen to crappy laptop speakers. Her first idea was to rig something up with a regular, stereo speaker. That didn’t work. I said she should just take my computer speakers which are pretty good ones. This required crawling under my computer desk, unplugging things, looking for an extension cord and getting them set up in the living room.

8 hours later, she is watching The Office through her laptop on the TV. Hopefully Frank won’t kill himself tripping over wires when he gets home from work.

Now for one of the great blog comments. First we will hit Dave’s question: “What website do you visit on a regular basis that we would never expect the Monkster to be interested in?”

I’m afraid the answer is boring. That’s why it’s buried here. There is not one single bookmarked website that anyone would be surprised to find on my computer. Not one. Seriously.

Anyhow, so getting back to the restaurant, Frank & I are ordering beers. Theresa is just getting water. I made some comment about how, in a few months, she’d be able to order a drink. After the waitress walks away, she says, “Gee, Mom, thanks for embarrassing me.”

“Huh?”

“You had to say that in front of the waitress?”

Well alrighty. I had no clue talking about how she’s going to be 21 soon was a topic of embarrassment. I can see if maybe the topic was about sex or discussions about graphic surgical procedures but that? Never saw that one coming.

Besides, she should be used to me making wise cracks and shooting my mouth off. That’s okay. I don’t care if she thinks I’m strange. Her friends think I’m cool. Now isn’t that all that really matters?