COACH STEWART, I PRESUME? (*)

My mom can't come to the blog right now. Aunt Chrissy and I are trying to scrape up enough bail money to spring her out of the pokey. I'm not sure what the formal charges are exactly, but methinks this weekend's mishaps might have something to do with this:

In a normal household, that picture would mean that my mo-ther was upset about the Notre Dame vs. USC game and that she went out and did something completely stupid.

But this is MY mo-ther we're talking about.

I think that the following conversation between Mo-ther and Aunt Chrissy will explain everything nicely, but you should know that it immediately preceded my mo-ther running out of here with her hair on fire screaming something about making national TeeVee by running out onto the field so as to smack the coach in the face with her lace handkerchief and then hollering "Shame, sir! Have you no shame?":

(I haven't seen her since.)

MO-THER: WHAT THE &$#!!* IS THIS $@(#*%#()@!! DOING NOW???!!!

AUNT CHRISSY: Uh-huh. (She mentally tells herself that this is going to be a very long night.)

MO-THER: OK. LET'S FORGET ABOUT THE FACT THAT I SIMPLY CANNOT STAND THIS GUY. AND LET'S FORGET THE FACT THAT HE ALREADY HAS ABOUT A BILLION AND A HALF STRIKES AGAINST HIMSELF IN MY BOOK. AND LET'S ALSO FORGET THE FACT THAT I AM ASHAMED, I TELL YOU, ASHAMED !!!! THAT MY ALMA MATER COULD BE SO ABSOLUTELY FREAKING STUPIDLY DUMB AS TO HIRE THIS (BLEEPITY BLEEPITY BLEEPITY BLEEP) IN THE FIRST FREAKIN PLACE! BUT NOW HE CHANGES THE HELMETS?!!!!!!! THE HELMETS???!!!!!!!

(Aunt Chrissy thinks about trying to get a word in edgewise, but decides to just hang up and watch the game instead.) (My mo-ther doesn't even realize that she's screaming into a phone that is emitting a dial tone.)

(In the interest of not screaming at all of you, my very dear and faithful readers, can we just agree that the following rant was hollered in a very very loud voice and that my mo-ther's fat face was so red and sweaty as she was hollering all of it that I thought about calling the paramedics?)

MO-THER: The Notre Dame football helmets were iconic. As a matter of fact, part of that iconography was the fact that gold powder from the actual Dome was added to the paint every Friday night so that the players would run out onto the field with Our Lady's protection and support right there on their very heads.

(I think she made that last part up, but I'm pretty sure that you can indeed fact-check the powder part.)

MO-THER: To change the helmets is a direct offense against me, my fellow alumni, and all of the fans and family that have loved Notre Dame for years and years. To spit in the face of tradition is at once arrogant and and an egregious violation of the trust that is placed in the coach as a keeper of the history and lifeblood of a program so rich with collegiate athletic lore. And besides all of that....THEY LOOK LIKE THEY'RE WEARING LAST YEAR'S CHRISTMAS BALLS ON THEIR HEADS!!! WHAT'S NEXT? A STRIPPER POLE ON TOP OF THE DOME SO THAT THE BVM CAN TWIRL AROUND IN HER NEW G-STRING???!!!!! NO WONDER THE PLAYERS ARE FALLING DOWN AND ARE TURNING THE BALL OVER MORE THAN A NURSING HOME FULL OF RETIRED BALLERINAS!!!! THE SHINE FROM THEIR FREAKIN HELMETS IS BLINDING THEM AND RENDERING THEM COMPLETELY STUPID!!!!!

(OK. I admit. I've changed some of the words around because a) I can't even remember all of the cuss words that were flying out of the old lady's mouth, and b) you've come here to read about stitching and could probably give two hoots about football helmets. Apparently, though, this is about much more than football helmets, and I suspect that my mom will try to explain it all to you in a later post.) (Provided, of course that Aunt Chrissy and I cough up enough cash to get her out of that orange jumpsuit.)

Suffice it to say, though, that Saturday night was not at all pleasant here in Spinster's Corners, and I would imagine that the watching of anything remotely related to Notre Dame is hereby embargoed.


OK. Enough of that.

The Prairie Moon piece is now getting framed. Mom forgot to take a picture of it before she took off like a bat out of you-know-where, but I'll make sure that she shows y'all what it looks like once it's hung on the wall. (I just hope she didn't screw up the frame selection like she normally does.)

So we're on to a new project. This is Laura J. Perin's Turning Leaves and my Aunt Chrissy did a color conversion for it since Mom didn't have a lot of the called-for colors and we all know how patient she is when waiting for supplies to arrive. (Don't you just love the way Aunt Chrissy knows the absolutely perfect thing to buy for my mom to get her off the roof?) (Now if she could just figure out a way to get that damn megaphone out of her hands, we'd be all set.)

I hope that things in your neck of the woods are a lot....quieter. I'm going to enjoy some lovely Fall colors today and see if I can't absorb a little Vitamin D while I'm at it. I'll keep you posted on the whole bail money thing, but let's just say that if it took another...oh, I don't know...seven or eight days for us to come up with it, would that be so wrong?

Cheerio!

Your beloved pal,
Stewey

(*) As to the title of this post, it relates to Mom's question:

HOW MANY 50% OFF COUPONS FROM THE MICHAELS DO YOU THINK IT TOOK TO BUY ALL OF THE MARTHA STEWART CRAFT GLITTER THAT THIS JACKASS USED TO CHANGE THE COLOR OF THE NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL HELMETS?!!!