My Mother and the Sticky Kick Ball

This weekend somehow became about sisterly-bonding. I am not sure how this happened…as the last I’d heard, one sister was flying solo for the evening and decided to risk her life come over and jeopardize her gastrointestional integrity eat dinner with me. A dinner that I was responsible for preparing and serving. The serving part I can handle…I felt she was more than a little daffy brave for agreeing to eat whatever I put before her.

I think she figured that she’d still have all day Sunday to recover if something went terribly, horribly wrong.

I made Jack’s famous penne a la vodka…which I’ve made so often I actually have it (mostly) memorized.

And, speaking of recipes…I have a question for my twinkly-eyed IV (known affectionately in my head as “C-man”) and self-proclaimed knower of everything worth knowing:

Kathryn: “Why no pasta?”

Clinton Kelly: “Why no what? Wait….what?”

K: “Why are there no pasta dishes in your new book? Don’t you like pasta? I mean, did your mom forget to stir it when you were a kid and it stuck together and thus forever changed the ‘pasta landscape’ of your palate, like, forever?? And mac & cheese doesn’t count.”

C: “Did you just use the word ‘thus’ and ‘mac and cheese’ in the same sentence? Color me impressed.”

K: “Noooo, that was your decorating chapter on page 215. Don’t change the subject. Where’s the pasta? Should I call your mother and ask her? And you call yourself an Italian….”

C: “Okay. Stop. My hair hurts. I eat pasta.. I eat pizza. I’ve also logged so much time in the air lately that I’ve got permanent white noise running nonstop in my head. It gives new meaning to the expression 'I can't hear myself think'. Would you prefer I’d mentioned that in my book as well?”

K: “Well…I guess you could have, but it’s not really very funny, ya know.”

C: “Yes…I’m well aware. Tell your sticky-ball story...everyone’s waiting.”

K: “With ‘breath that is bated’? I like that expression.”

C: (Rolls eyes.) “Sure. Whatever. Bated breath….whatever it takes to move this along…”

K: “I’m sensing annoyance. I hope I haven’t annoyed you, Clinton…’cause that would probably cause me irreparable pain and suffering that could ultimately result in some serious whining, causing you an even greater amount of annoyance…and you could wind up wishing with all your might for the simpler days when you’re biggest problem in life was living down acid-washed jeans and a temporary, probably insignificant case of tinnitus….”

C: (Holds hands over ears in utter frustration) “Bated breath…bated breath. Don’t want to see any of my body parts on the lawn….”

K: “FINE. I’ll accept that as an apology.”

C: (Smiles heart-stopping, crinkly-eyed smile)

K: “It’s funny that you should bring up the Halloween body parts….it sort of relates to this story.”

C: “Remarkably, I'm not surprised. Is this about ‘Jeffrey’ the kickball-headed-ghost?”

K: “HA! I’ll bet you’ve never said THAT in a sentence before!”

C: (Makes motion/sound like head is exploding.)

K: “FINE. I’ll make my point. After dinner and many one or two bottles glasses of wine and maybe several one or two grapefruit margaritas, we decided that a recent episode of ‘The Ghost Hunters’ was worth further investigation. Evidently, these ghost-guys got a spirit to roll a ball across a room and we figured if their spirit could do it, then our mother could probably drop-kick it down the hall and at least halfway down the stairs. Problem is, we couldn’t find a ball that my sister felt was lightweight enough for a spirit residing in the afterlife to drop-kick. (Evidently, there are specifics to this ability.) So, we called my other sister (who incidentally lives about an hour away) and demanded she drop everything, pack an overnight bag and head over to my place to complete our spiritual circle. Oh, and we told her she had to bring the BALL.

When she arrived an hour and a half later, we pounced on her backpack…shouting a war cry about rolling balls, spirits and something about reheating the penne a la vodka. Turns out, the only ball she could find was a Magic Eight ball. Amidst our wails of dismay were cries of inappropriate, too heavy and something about a round of martinis, to which the Magic Eight Ball replied 'you're hammered anyway....whatever.'

We then went back into the garage, deciding in our liquor-soaked haze that Jeffrey’s dented half-inflated head of a kickball maybe wasn’t so bad after all. Problem was, I’d evidently put quite a lot of duct tape around it, in my hopeful attempt to have it outlive my yet-unconceived, unborn grandchildren’s grandchildren's children. By the time we wrestled it loose, it was stickier than…(oh...many, many one-liners come to mind…but…well, you get the idea). It was very sticky.

Since we all agreed that the wall-to-wall carpet would undoubtedly hinder any ethereal ability to roll said ball, the consensus was that we’d need to place a protective (unsticky) layer of something around it to allow it to be freely drop-kicked to its full potential.

I wanted to use plastic wrap. My sister (who’d just polished off the last of the bottle of red wine she’d arrived with) insisted that foil was more spirit-friendly.


Guess who won?

After 10 minutes of chanting and swaying, we left the ball smushed up against the leg of the piano and told Mom if she wanted to push it, she should go for it. It was 2:30am by then and we were ready to call it a night. We promised we'd check it in the morning."

I believe it’s still there.