Today is my 32nd birthday! I demand presents and praise. I am waiting….

Ok we can skip the presents and praise part and go right into what my mom gave me for my birthday.

Saturday night the WunderClan headed over to Moms house to eat with my sister and her husband and my mom and step-dad. After dinner, Mom handed me my present. It was a book. But not just any book.

Behold:

First a little background. My mom has a habit art of saying words backwards. Like if she is trying to say one of my favorite phrases, “Is the Pope a Catholic?” she is prone to say, “Is the Cope a Patholic?”. Same for “Blue Ridge Mountains”, that comes out as, “Mue Blidge Rountains”. And on and on and on. The sad thing is, I have inherited this gene that causes you to transpose letters/sounds in word phrases. I know that some of you are saying, “Sure, we all do that.” But I have to tell you that you do not understand how often my mom and I do this. It happens so frequently that my friends and even acquaintances poke fun at both of us.

The crowing moment of embarrassment that has been enshrined in video happened at WunderWife and my wedding rehearsal. We were going through the steps of what we would do and who would say what when we came to the ring part. To get the timing right or something, the Pastor had me repeat the common phrase, “With this ring, I thee wed.” But unfortunately and to my continued embarrassment today, it came out as “With this wing, I be red.” I am not sure why the “be” got in there, but it did. We have it on video. The moment I said it, I whirled around to the people standing behind us, looked at my mom and told her that I blamed her. Oh man they laughed and laughed at me. They even put that phrase on my car window when they “doctored” up our car for the honeymoon.

Anyway. This book is the greatest thing for people like me and my mom. Here is the introduction:

Way down in the green woods
Where the animals all play,
They do things and they say things
In a different sort of way -
Instead of sayin’ “purple hat,”
They all say “hurple hat,”
Instead of sayin’ “feed the cat,”
They just say “ceed the fat.”
So if you say, “Let’s bead a rook
That’s billy as can se,”
You’re talkin’ Runny Babbit talk,
Just like mim and he.

Oh man we laughed so hard Saturday night as I read each one. Reading them aloud is hard to do, but fun.

Here are my two favorite ones:

Runny and Dungry

Runny’s Hind Keart

The office staff is taking me and my boss out to lunch today. His birthday is Saturday. Then tonight we are heading out to eat Mexican with my in-laws. Earlier today WunderWife and WunderKid3 stopped by for a cup of coffee.

It has been a nice day already.

Have you checked out Outside the Beltway today? Go! Now!