I'm No Miracle Worker.

Today is the 4-year anniversary of my mother's death. It doesn't seem possible, and cannot put it to words, and it has my heart breaking inside my chest. So instead, I will share a story that had me crying tears of laughter. Because sometimes, you just have to laugh at yourself. Especially if yourself is me, and I'm a giant tool.

The other day The Boy and I were at the grocery store, and he picked up this basket. He was looking at it like he didn't know what it was- like he'd never seen a basket before.

I, being overwhelmingly clever, grabbed his hand and wiped it down the side of the basket really hard while saying, "BA-SKET. BASKET. BA-SKET!" Then I pretended to sign B-A-S-K-E-T into his hand, while saying "BAAAH-SKET."

...And he had NO. FUCKING. CLUE what I was doing. I could have died. DIED. If you've never seen Miracle Worker, it looked like I was having a goddamned stroke. Apparently, The Boy is the one person on the face of the earth that hasn't seen that movie or read anything, ever, about Hellen Keller, because he was watching me with this sort of cautious, really amused, but also super cautious smirk. So I said, "You know, like Hellen Keller?" and he goes, "Who?" and I was like, "FUCK."Because I just humiliated myself in public again.

Then I told him this really lame Cliff Notes version of the movie that basically went like, "You know the movie from way-back with the lady in sunglasses, at least I think she was in sunglasses, that came, and then the girl was deaf and mute or wait, wasn't she blind? Yeah, maybe she was blind and deaf, but I don't think she could speak, either, so I don't know what that was about. But they were at the pump at the end and the teacher lady put Hellen Keller's hand in the water and she was like WAAA! WAAAAAH! WAAAH-TERRR! And suddenly, tada! She understood language?"

Turns out, that wasn't a helpful explination. Nor did it make me look LESS like I was going full-on retard in the grocery store. I know this because we had drawn a crowd, probably due to all of my waaaah-ing... So.

I think the moral of this story is that I have no clue how to explain movies and should never try to be clever again. Ever.

...Miss you, Mama. So much.