I’ve had it.  Now my brother, FavoriteChild, has gone and stepped over the line.

Where there was hope I might someday be my Mother’s favorite, now there is only despair.  You see, my brother has gone and done the ultimate Make Mom Proud moment.

He was a guest on Oprah.  And, not because he is the victim of tragedy, or a drug addict, or the secret father of John Edwards’ love child.  Noooo, he’s above thaaaat.

He was on there as a medical professional wanting to help people.  Yes, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, and now Dr. FavoriteChild.  Gag.

I’m sure our Mother is gushing with pride.  Who can blame her.  But, I’m not proud.  I’m so not proud that I spent the entire evening last night trying to get a clip of FavoriteChild’s appearance off of our DVR so that I could put it on here and show my friends.  I couldn’t get it off the DVR so I resorted to just video taping it, thus the quality is poor, but you can still see him here:  HTTP://WWW.VIMEO.COM/6826540.  It’s only a few minutes, and definitely worth checking out.

I’m so not proud that I sent emails out to all my friends about him.  And, I’m definitely not proud that he appeared on Oprah, but am even more so not proud, really not proud, that he is actually there to help those people who cannot help themselves, and CHANGE THEIR LIVES. 

Not proud at all.  And, Mom shouldn’t be either.  Mom, Oprah, this guy?  Really?

I give up.

.

Emmy went to the Homecoming dance this past weekend.  She looked stunning, as always.

But, with a little twist on the norm.

She wore a dress of my Mom’s from 1959.  Nanni had worn it originally for her best friend’s wedding.

Em wore a 50 year old dress and looked like a million bucks.

I really admire her style and desire to not just follow the status quo.  It’s clear her friends admire it too.

There’s something else I admire.  One year ago, Emmy was the new kid in school.  We all know how hard that can be, ESPECIALLY as a junior in high school.  But, look how much trouble she’s had making friends, good friends:

In just this year, she’s made so many friends and gotten so involved in making a difference in their lives that she is busy 7 days a week.  She has been a lead in the musical and gone to Prom with the prom king.  She’s gotten a job, and tutored, and worked with the inner city youth.  She has made schoolwork a priority and is excelling there too. 

I’d say she has transitioned quite nicely.  And knows how to WORK an outfit that is even older than me.

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Here’s a tree in our front yard this morning.  He’s something of a party pooper.  Dude, it’s September 16th.  Fall has not EVEN BEGUN and you have already shed all your leaves?  Come on, live a little!

I have to admit it does feel like Fall.

And nothing says Fall like football, fantasy football that is.  FFL, that is.

FFL is a game played by those who can’t play THE game.   The idea is you create a football team made up of players from all thh different NFL teams.  Participants join a league and play against other people who have assembled teams.  Just like the real league, no two teams can have the same player, thus team “owners” hold a league draft and take turns picking players.

This is our third or fourth year participating in fantasy football.  It’s all done online and there are public and private leagues.  Public means you join with strangers, and private means you form a league of your own.  LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN.  There’s no crying in baseball.

We have a private league and up to this year, we’ve always let the computer conduct our draft for us.  But this year we tried to do it live in realtime, or sort of.  Participating in our infamous Switzilltexas League this year are SweetGuy, Bud – who cares not about football but loves the competition, Magoo – who only participates because I beg her to, me, Rob – SweetGuy’s brother and our Swiss connection, Unc in TX – who is of course our Texas connection and was obnoxiously good at FFL last year, Kevin – a football fanatic, ridiculously AVID Eagles fan, and all around witty and charming guy, John – Kevin’s brother in law who is actually good at FFL thus I don’t like him, Da Kaff – who teamed with Magoo last year and totally carried her, and Mardi – who probably knows less about football than Magoo, but boy is she intense!

Does anyone think that was a run on sentence?  Good, I didn’t think so either.  (Grace – no comment from you, miss perfect grammar person!)

Let me set the scene for our live draft.  Everyone drafting actually has to login online to do so.  Being the typical great planner aheaders that we are, with our draft taking place at 4:15 on Saturday, most of us gathered at our house and frantically set up laptops with 17 seconds to spare before the draft kicked off.  People, we set up six laptops in our kitchen and it was complete havoc.  Rob was online near Midnight his time in Switzerland and was SO confused when no one else was online just a few minutes before the draft began.  Kevin, who was inexplicably attending his parent’s 50th anniversary celebration and IGNORING our draft, was surreptitiously calling in to us in hopes we could draft on his behalf.  DustMeister arrived to watch the bedlam.  Mardi couldn’t remember her password.  And, there was noise, noise, noise.  Here’s the thing, when each of us was on the clock to pick our player, we only had 90 seconds.

Pressure, let me tell you. The real NFL draft couldn’t be this crazy.

Mardi HAD to draft a Manning brother.  She got them both.  Da Kaff was obsessed with Michael Turner and didn’t get him, so he chose some unknown with his same last name.  Bud, whose team name is Best Team Ever, delighted in saying multiple jokes about his being the best team ever.  Repetition is funny.  Repetition is funny.  I somehow ended up drafting the three best Eagles players and feared for my life because I was supposed to draft them FOR Kevin, not INSTEAD of Kevin.  Hey, Kev, life’s not fair.  Magoo,  Oh Magoo,  She was so nervous about every pick.  Yet, she didn’t even know WHO she was picking.  Does anyone get that?  And, SweetGuy, he sat over there in a corner smack-talking online with his brother during the draft, and picking off every good player available.  Jerk.

I felt pretty good about my team after the draft.  And, my friend Mardi, who had to have a Manning brother, and wanted to draft a kicker in the third round… silly girl… was my first foe.  Hehehe… Come here my pretty…

Yeah, well she slaughtered me in the first game of the year.  I don’t like her either.

I just wish I were Bud, who, don’t you know, has the BEST TEAM EVER.

My older brother is, by default, Mom’s FavoriteChild.  However, from time to time, each of us siblings can make a short run on number one.

(Click to enlarge)

We have little hope of holding the coveted position for long, but hey, we still strive for favorite child status.

As a matter of fact, did anyone notice Mom’s comment on THIS POST the other day?   Score one for me and my geekiness!!

But, my oldest sister, you know – TheOldest – isn’t playing fair.  She knows our mother has a soft spot for illness.  My gosh, I think Mom likes to believe we are sick so she can love us even more.  I’ve great memories of Mom saying to me “You look tired” or “Are you feeling OK”… wait a minute.  I was just going to say that I loved when she said those things to me because I always felt uplifted and loved even a little more when she thought I was sick.

But, just now I realized she was always telling me I looked bad.  Why did this make me feel warm and fuzzy?  I forget.  I’m fine, Mom.  FINE.

So, where was I?  Oh yeah, TheOldest is a cheater.  She had major back surgery today.  A spinal fusion.  Mom is staying with TheOldest in the hospital, rehab, and later as needed.  And, Mom is transfixed on her.  Get this, it’s like all she thinks about.  I’m sure TheOldest is totally the FAVORITE right now. I bet I could stay up for 64 hours, fail to attend to my personal hygiene, sneeze uncontrollably, and Mom would only want to talk about the one who got rods and bolts inserted into her spine.

It’s very disappointing.

Dear TheOldest – please get well soon – so we can all compete on a level playing field.  Well, at least all of us besides TheFavorite.  He never plays fair.