daddy sure has a big...

mouth. sort of. i mean, i am having fun reading his account of the mis-adventures of the two man/boys, especially as it relates to their respective attempts to make romatic connections with betty and/or veronica. but did he have to go and blab about mommy's tattoos in the process?? that, i think, may have crossed the don't-let-the-world-know-about-you-darling-wife's-momentary-departure-from-sanity line. more on that in half a tick. first, tho', a few more worms on the boys and betty and/or veronica.

truth be told, today daddy summed up rather well mommy's feelings regarding boy #2 (who's with betty if anyone is keeping/trying to keep score) to a "t"... these two kids seem to be doing quite nicely, thank you very much... and let's just hope it stays that way! betty's a very sweet girl and is surprisingly grounded. she and the boy are well-suited for each other, and i actually think she's gonna be able to keep him in line. she'll also keep him occupied, which, around here, is a very good thing. (boy #2 can be a major pain in the ass when he's bored. which is something i might want to tell y'all about sometime in the future, as a sort of cautionary tale for those of you with young kids). anyway, if you're interested, you can read daddy's account of boy #2/betty/blahblahblah right here. go on. i'll wait. but do come back, m'kay? 'cuz once you've read that, i'd really like to explain the whole sordid mommy/marked woman/how long has she been on those crazy pills, anyway? business.

wow! you're fast! i barely had time to take care of "business" (if ya catch my drift, and i'm sure you do!). okay then... let's talk tattoos, shall we? first, i guess a little background is in order:

when mommy was in her youth, she decided to get a tattoo. now, mommy had this idea for quite a little while before she actually followed through with it (mommy's sister will tell you she had the idea first, but she didn't. altho', she did get a tattoo first, so i guess that's worth something... in the land of who gives a shit! ah, but those two will have to slug that little matter out later, and i have to finish this before i and/or you get bored) anyway, eventually mommy got a sweet little heart tattooed on her left breast (yes yes... mommy's sister did, too, and, yes, she got her's first. yeesh-ka-bob! can i get on with this now?) mind you, mommy (and her sister) became marked women when "nice" girls didn't do such things (i said mommy was in her youth, right? so you know that it was quite a little while ago). her's was a small tattoo. a tasteful tattoo. and it was, for all intents and purposes, a secret tattoo.

fast forward to a few years ago, when boy #2 was 16 and expressed a burning desire to get the chinese symbol for "year of the rat" (his birth sign) tattooed on his leg. since mommy had been thinking about getting another small tattoo, herself, she seized the opportunity to A) get another tattoo B) bond with her wayward-ish son (he was going thru a thing) 3) shock herself back into her own life (another story for yet, another day...).

after a proper amount of time was dedicated to researching gifted and/or tasteful tattoo artists, one fine summer day mommy & boy #2 drove from villanova (where they lived at the time) to kutztown, pennsylvania (4 hours away) in order to get aforementioned tattoos from aforementioned well-researched/gifted/tasteful tattoo artist.

since boy #2 was a little squeamish, mommy went first. only, instead of getting another, tasteful, and fairly discreet tattoo, she wound up making a statement. and what statement, you ask, did mommy decide to make? mommy decided her statement would be one of independence. joy. of re-connecting with her inner-self. mommy wanted something unique. and unique is exactly what she got. combining the elements of her ancestry (celtic and nordic), mommy wound up with a celtic knot tattooed around her ankle... with a nordic rune on either side; one representing "joy" the other, "the self". in her head, this seemed so perfect. so unique. so her. on her ankle, it seems so red. so green. and so...big.

still, mommy's not sorry she did this. nope. not at all. she actually likes it. and she's proud of herself for going through with it (because when i tell you there was a good amount of pain involved, it's because there was). oh, and for the record, the boy's tattoo turned out quite nicely, as well. all in all, mommy and the boy spent the better part of 14 hours together on that trip, and it was a bonding journey like no other. they had an excellent time, and mommy wouldn't trade it for anything. not even an unmarked ankle free of celtic-green-ink.

note: just because i'm telling you about mommy's tattoo doesn't mean you get to do what daddy did, and blab about it all over the net. you see, mommy never got around to telling her own parents about her little mother-son-tattoo-bonding road-trip with boy #2... 'cuz she's pretty dang sure she'd be in deep shit if they ever found out. not only that, they'd probably ground her for life.

"Tattoo. What a loaded word it is, rife with associations to goons, goofs, bikers, tribal warriors, carnival artists, drunken sailors and floozies." ~ Jon Anderson, "Epidermal Dalis," Chicago Tribune, 6 October 1994