She took it to the limit. She should have taken it easy.

Completely inconsistent with my last post, I cannot stop laughing at this headline:

Frankly, I thought there was no way the actual story could live up to the headline, but it turns out that it does. The woman – who clearly lost her Peaceful Easy Feeling – kept pleading with her roommate to turn off the Eagles, and when he refused, she took a serrated knife and stabbed him several times in the arm.

“It’s unclear which of the band’s songs drove Bader over the edge, but police have narrowed down the possible suspects to “Witchy Woman”, “Take It Easy”, “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, “Take It To The Limit”, “One of These Nights”, “Tequila Sunrise”, and “Hotel California” on repeat.”

My money’s on Hotel California.

It’s noted that the suspect and victim were intoxicated at the time. You don’t say? I just feel relieved that my roommate never stabbed me in the summer of 1998 when I played Aretha Franklin’s Greatest Hits on repeat, and sang along. Call me…call me…call me the moment you get there, baby baby baby.

I needed this laugh today because yesterday I very nearly had a nervous breakdown in Michael’s craft store, saved only by “Cake Decorating For Dummies” texts from my very patient friend Liv (HI LIV). It was my New Year’s resolution to learn how to decorate cupcakes not by merely piling on frosting with a butter knife. Yesterday I dropped the kids at karate and drove over to Michael’s, to pick up some decorating tools, only to become immediately frozen with panic the second I walked through the door. That place is overwhelming. I literally stood at the door staring like a deer in headlights for a solid five minutes while women – because the clientele was exclusively female – zipped around me with purpose and knowledge, grabbing scrapbooking supplies and fabric flowers. After five minutes of blank staring I located the cake decorating section and was frozen, again. Do you have any idea how many different varieties of decorating tips there are? I stood in an aisle with dozens of them in front of me, taunting me with their slight differences. Finally I texted Liv for help, and it’s lucky I did, because I’d probably still be there, crying in the cake decorating aisle while people stepped around me to grab fondant scissors and cake levellers.

My feeling of being completely out of my element was not unlike my teenage experiences of going to the fabric store with my mother. My poor, long-suffering mother. She probably wondered what she did to deserve such a daughter. My mother is one of those people who you might refer to as someone who “knows her way around a sewing machine” and she was cursed with a daughter who once, when attempting to sew a button on a pair of pants, cut a giant hole in the seat of the pants and then accidentally sewed the pants together. For a button. The best case scenario for me is to attach a button with a less than one inch wad of thread jammed behind the button, the worst case scenario is the one in which I am sobbing because I have destroyed a pair of pants. I am not gifted in the sewing arts, and yet there I was, taking Sewing in Home Economics for three straight years. My mother had to take me to Fanny’s Fabrics, armed with a t-shirt pattern and instructions on things to buy; she bustled around, finding the thread and material and ribbing, while I followed dutifully, feeling like I landed on a different planet, one where people had opinions on McCall’s versus Butterick. These people knew how to thread a serger, and meanwhile I spent my Home Ec classes pulling out the stitches I had made, the crooked seams and the stitches that sewed the neck or sleeves together, until my t-shirt was entirely full of little tiny holes and I had to borrow a friend’s extra ribbing just to cover it up somewhat. I’m sure I only passed the class because my teacher wanted me out of the Home Ec system as soon as possible.

Reminiscing is so fun, isn’t it? Allison, Hannah, and I enjoy it so much that we started a whole new blog based entirely on reminiscences from our youth. Visit us over at Throwing It Back – new posts every Thursday about our varied memories of our wayward (and not-so-wayward) youths. So far, Hannah is reminiscing about Harriet’s Magic Hats – which, to be honest, I have never heard of but it sounds kind of amazing in a 1980s way – and I have my first of three posts up about Deenie. Remember Deenie? The book that made us all secretly long for a back brace.

Today is Friday the 13th! Be sure to avoid all black cats/ walking under ladders/ smashing mirrors. I’m not normally very superstitious but our spring broke on our garage door today, which feels a bit ominous. Only a bit, though. Because, after all, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and I wish for every single one of you one of these:

Happy Valentine’s Day, lovelies. Remember, even if your loved one plays Witchy Woman over and over again, it’s best not to stab them, even if you are intoxicated.