Weird Little Lists

No, I am not one of those people who makes a list on a calendar, complete with specific times and dates, synced with everyone I have ever met. Nor am I the one who makes lists on sticky notes, left everywhere for cryptic moments of what the heck was I thinking/doing/saying that made me write that down?

I'm the one who has a master bulleted list (organized daily, usually up to a week at a time, in the Notes app on my phone) of approximate dates and times for those things that must be completed. If I skip this daily list for more than about a day - and it doesn't have to be fancy and detailed to count as not-skipped, like next Thursday has two bullet points: "Supervise deviled eggs" and "Dinner @ Sis @ 3" - someone in my family (or my therapist) will usually point out that I need to do it, lest I get overwhelmed and panicky and ultimately crankypants AF.

That's the main list. I also have a nightly "write down what's worrying you before you go to bed so your subconscious knows you have a reminder and you can sleep" list (on paper), and naturally the occasional grocery list or wish list or what-have-you. Some of those - most of them, actually - are assisted by technology in the form of a grocery delivery app or a gift registry or my friend Alexa (shhhh! If we're polite to them, we may survive the advent of Skynet!) or whatever.

Then there are the other lists, the components of which I usually see in my Facebook memories or in rereading my personal blog. These can be hilarious or poignant (or both) and often come with no context (deliberately or accidentally) so they tend to function like the sticky notes I mentioned above - poorly and with little idea of where I got that idea. Given the name of my personal blog (Out of the Mouths of Gamers' Babes) and my own maternal personality, a disproportionate number of these are either kid quotes or self-deprecating and sarcastic remarks about domestic life.

I'd like to share some of them here.

• I just received a roll of bubble wrap I ordered. It was, um... well, bubble-wrapped for shipping.
• “Vanessa is ready to relive trauma for this kid and I’m totally here for it.” ~Liz, 14
• "I wasn't licking you! I was just making a path on your wrist with my tongue!"
• Wondering why there are no Jennifers on Stranger Things. These are teens in the 1980s after all.
• Tony: I'll never stop saying... mah-ree-ah Abby: apparently
• Oh yeah, who just worked the Vulcan IDIC into a school assignment? This girl, right here. Hence the incipient degree in *intercultural* communication, baybee.
• "Sing with you ALL mouf, mama, not just you lips!"
• "Oh," says 9yo Lizzy. "I thought R for the movies stood for revenge."
• “Shut up, Dukat; nobody likes you right now. You need to be stabbed in the spine. ALL the Cardassian spines! With a Bat’leth. And a SPORK.”
• Three-year-old Lizzy has started adding the phrase "dot com" to everything. "Can you go to heart.com?" or "Good night, mommy. I love you dot com." It's a little unsettling.
• We live north of the city (editor's note: Seattle), in an area known locally as "The Convergence Zone", which to me always sounds much more mystical or science-fictional than meteorological. Can't you just hear the disembodied feminine vaguely-British computer voice intoning, "You have entered the Convergence Zone. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. If you feel any ill effects while in the Convergence Zone, please contact an attendant immediately. Thank you."?
• The Kazon are evil Oompa Loompas IN SPACE.
• Unresolved daddy issues make TV go ‘round.

You see what I mean?