BEH!

1. Someone at work just left what is possibly the most impressive skid mark I've ever seen in a toilet bowl. It was so impressive that I was inspired to report back to the internet (check!) but that's probably not what my cousin David had in mind when I saw him at the family holiday party on Saturday and he said that I was a good writer.

2. I got home last night just as my brother was leaving. We said a quick hello while I was still in the car and then he got into his car and drove away. I dilly-dallied a bit and then as I was walking up the stairs I noticed that my brother had turned around, come back and was parked across the street.

Hmm.

But then I saw two perhaps-not-so-upstanding citizens walking past the house and realized that he saw them as he drove away and had come back to supervise my safe entry back into the house. I texted him to thank him for making sure nobody got me and he replied that one of those dudes had a ponytail that indicated that he was a bad dude and that he was just making sure an even badder dude was around.

That's sort of the sweetest thing ever, no?

I can think of four or five similar "I have an armed bodyguard" scenarios (that I know about) and I'm sure there are others where I was an unsuspecting bodyguardeeeee. I prefer to believe that my brothers spend their days rescuing cats out of trees and helping old ladies cross the street, but I know that the reality is that while I'm busy trying to get red, yellow and green bubbles to line up correctly in this very important PowerPoint, they're in a world I've never even seen.

3. And for the record, I'm pretty sure my brother would be proud to have the skid mark story precede the my-brother-saved-me-from-the-bad-guys story.

4. Unrelated: I missed the family Christmas tree expedition yesterday but word on the street is that the Christmas tree farm people wanted to trade us five years of free Christmas trees in exchange for one perfect little 18-month-old baby. I'm shocked to hear that Grandma even considered it (dudes, Christmas trees are expensive!) but DON'T YOU WORRY BABY! AUNT ELIZABETH WOULD HAVE COME TO SAVE YOU FROM BEING A CHRISTMAS TREE FARMER!!

5. Also: Baby calls me "Beh." I didn't realize that was specific to me -- I thought it was just a yell for someone to come put him on whatever side of a door shouldn't be on...but my mom said that when I'm not home he'll go to the hallway outside my bedroom and yell "BEH! BEH! BEH!!!!!!!!" and that she's sure it's his version of Elizabeth.

My heart: WARMED!

When I was a baby I called my aunt and grandfather Ninny and Boppa and those names just stuck and here we are, 34 years later, and Ninny is still Ninny and Boppa was Boppa until the day he died. Or still is, actually. I'm interested to see what Beh turns into or if he'll eventually figure out the other syllables.