From One Extreme to Another

What a fun day I had yesterday. Jenna, Ben, Sammy and I went to the bank to flip over some money in Ben's savings account to a CD and to open a savings account for Sammy. Ben was so big. He sat in the chair next to me holding his savings pass book. I told him to give it to Nora, the banker who was helping us and he did. After a few minutes, he looked at Jenna and said, "Mama, she's not giving my book back." Nora cracked up. A few minutes later, Nora asked him his name. Apparently Ben has been cautioned about giving out too much information, because he said, "Moe Moe, she wants to know my name, but she's a stranger." Nora cracked up. Then, Ben decided that he wanted to tell Nora his name, so he asked Jenna if he could tell her. Nora asked how old he was, and Ben responded, "I will be 4." Nora asked when his birthday was and Ben said, "soon." Nora said, "really, when???" Ben responded, "really soon." Nora cracked up. I finally convinced Ben that he could tell Nora when his birthday was even though she was a stranger. Nora completed the transaction of turning some of Ben's money into a long term CD and I gave Ben back his book and said, "Ben, this is your bank...you have money here." That impressed Ben a great deal. He said, "Mama, this is my bank...I work here." Nora cracked up. She told Ben at the end of the transaction that she was glad he was a customer of First Federal of Lakewood and that she hoped she saw him often. Ben said OK, waved and was on his way.

Sammy started out being a little afraid of the bank, but soon was running and jumping on the couch. He too is a customer now, but I think it will be awhile before he is handling his bank book like Ben did.

And then, after work, Jenna and I headed for West 25th street. Call me crazy, but West 25th street has always been a suspect area. An area to avoid. But, there we were heading to a tattoo place to get her Sammy tattoo--my birthday present to her. You couldn't go to Strongsville??? I asked?

Ah, it was an interesting place. The smell of lack of air conditioning, ink and sweat hit you as you walked in. Men were walking around in various stages of undress and ink and a young lovely came and went--apparently a girlfriend of one of the "tattoo-eese" with even less clothes on than he, even though he was only wearing shorts. What is that line from a movie about "something about napome in the morning???" Well this was like, "there's something about butt crack in the tattoo parlor."

The music was ..interesting. It was a combination of heavy metal, rap and good ole boy country. I had no idea that the word f**k applied to so many kinds of music. There was the country song...."I'm Layin Here Wasted While My Woman is Out Getting F**ked" Then there was our personal favorite...."I Can Polish Off A Bottle, But I Can't Polish A Turd." Oh...and then there was, "She Used to Be Pretty, But Now She's Just Pretty F**ked Up." The heavy metal songs were harder to identify as far as words were concerned....it was kind of like. "BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, AHHHHHH, EEEEEEE,,,,,and I told her you better get ready to f**k.....or I would BAM, BAM, BAM, OUU, OUUUUUUUUU, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. I'm sure the words are much more classy than that, but I just couldn't decipher. I thought of asking if they had any Barry Manilow or Air Supply, but Jenna didn't think that was a good idea.

But finally, she had two beautiful tattoos. One of a B17 with Sammy's name across the top (see her blog, I was only going to post the outline, but she has the whole thing there looking beautiful.) and her father's signature on her shoulder. That one made me cry. I hadn't seen that signature in 34 years, but I remembered it instantly.

I had fun. It was hard to watch Jenna be in pain, but I was there with her this time and I wouldn't have missed it or given the opportunity to anyone else for the world.

From bank to tattoo parlor--from one extreme to another, but what fun I had!