Don't leave a voicemail, seriously.

You can donate to send fans of color to Wiscon Click, click. I've been "encouraged" by a nameless person to attend this con for several years. I think this might be the year I do so. But regardless, I'm going to donate a couple memberships AND I will write if YOU will donate. I know times are rough, so I won't set a limit on how much you donate, any amount is fantastic. Hit me here in the comments if you toss some money their way and tell me your request and I'll write it. I am leaving this open to anything (oh god) in any fandom I've been in (oh god).

Also, please link to the fundraising post.

You know what I haven't posted in a while? A story about my mom.

So today while I'm sorting through approximately 87 years of knitting magazines and loose patterns for her, my aunt shows up to tell me all about my cousin's divorce. (This will eventually get to the batshit thing my mom's doing, trust me.) My cousin is one of those people who always makes the wrong choice about everything and anything. The latest dumb thing she did was to sign a debt consolidation loan AFTER she kicked her husband out of the house and decided to get divorced. Luckily, my one rational cousin (this would be David for those of you who have been reading this column for years) is going to butt into the situation and get this loan canceled and get a lawyer and so on and on. (I wish David would move here so I could relinquish ownership of the Mothers, but so far he is pretending he has his own life--HAHA, YEAH RIGHT!).

Anyway, so my aunt is just now getting around to taking care of my uncle's estate, so were were in the middle of wondering if getting my uncle to do the lawyering part would be worth the agony of dealing with his officiousness and stupid face or if she should just pay someone else to do it (seriously, free isn't a good enough reason to deal with my uncle sometimes) this dude from the county showed up.

My aunt: OH! I wonder if he's here about the baseball thing.

So behind my mom's house is a nature conservancy area. There's a flat patch that some enterprising dad has made into a baseball diamond for his kids. This makes my mother INSANE with RAGE and OUTRAGE. She claims this is because the land belongs to the county and people shouldn't make improvements to it or alter it in any way. I know it's because she hates children. This runs in my family--they all (I should say we) dislike children in a general kinda way. Don't hate on me, I'm not going on murder jags or anything, I just think kids are mostly loud, unruly, and covered in filth (I feel like if you're taking me seriously right now you should go ahead and defriend me since I probably wouldn't like you anyway).

Me: She called the COUNTY on the baseball dude?
My aunt; [makes a bitch, please face] ARE YOU SERIOUS?

I granted that my aunt's shock at me asking this was valid as my mother is the same woman who called the fire department to complain about water in her yard and demanded they come sandbag--they laughed at her but CAME. I have no idea how she convinces people to do things for her like this since you can't even see how cute she is over the phone (she is very cute, like a little elf person with a flippy haircut and clogs).

The guy was not here for the baseball diamond, but he gave us the number of the guy who could possibly handle the baseball diamond situation. What department does this other guy run, the evil old lady who keeps kids' balls that land in her yard department?

My mom came home and I was explaining about this guy and the water drainage issue behind the house and so on--

Mom: BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BASEBALL FIELD?
Me: I have someone's...
Mom: [scuttles to the glass backdoors on her clogs and starts tapping the glass vigorously] DID YOU SEE HIM OUT THERE MOWING?
Me: [le sigh]
Mom: THEY DISTURB THE DEER!
Me: [enlightenment dawns like the parting of clouds on a dim day] Oh, this is all about the shitty wildlife...
Mom: Not shitty!
Me: Oh god, you two are so dumb.

My aunt feeds the raccoons. The raccoons sit on the back porch and glare into the windows. My mom is one of those strange people called a bird watcher. I do not comprehend it. She used to claim to not let the cats out because they might get hit by a car, but I later determined they aren't allowed outside because they might scare off her precious biiiiiiiiiiiiiirds.

I pity the guy who works in the Department of Cranks at the county who is about to have to take my mom's daily phone calls about the deer disturbing baseball players.


[Why do people keep friending the twitter I made for Dean Winchester three years ago and never update? Is it not clear after three years I'm unlikely to update it? Maybe I should send out a twitter from that account that says "When I was in hell learned that demons invented social networking, twitter is for pussies anyway."]