What IS that?

I guess I should've included a little more info than just the tattoo picture. But it was a teaser to get all of you to email me!! Ha, ha ha... worked pretty well :-)
Here's how it went:
The tatt is a Ginkgo leaf. They have a lot of good herbal benys and a neat evolution story and blah, blah, blah.... but I just like the way it looked and thought is would go well on my shoulder. Read more about it here.
So anyways, I was strolling through the streets of the community I write for when the lovely Ginkgo twirled down from the sky. This was in the fall and it was a bright toasty yellow. I thought it was pretty, so I picked it up and pressed it in my day planner, where it remained for the last couple of seasons.
And then - SPRING FEVER.
I was killing some time in Philly one fine Thursday this Spring when I passed a neat looking tatt shop. It was called Tikki Tattoo, and it was themed like a cabana with breezy murals and ALL female artists with pretty arm art and dainty facial piercings.
The music wasn't Death Metal, I swear they has some aromatherapy going on and there was even some tea and a back porch to relax on.
It all just felt right.
So I asked if they took walk ins, and they said yes.
My artist Andrew (the only guy in the place), with the help of some transparency paper, sketched the exact leaf I'd been carrying around for my shoulder.
"Perfect!" I thought.
"Lovely," I said.
"Whee!" I felt.
"I have to run down the street and plug my meter," I said. "Be right back."
"Okay. Meet me down there," Andrew said pointing to one of "those" tatt shops a couple of doors down.
I walked back toward "Body Graphics," heels dragging. The Death Metal blared, the bathroom was out-of-order and there were more examples of dragon, skull and serpent tattoos on the walls than I'd ever seen before.
Mistake, right? HUGE. MISTAKE.
But not so my friends, not so.
Andrew turned out to be an awesome jokester who said the Death Metal relaxed him even if it tensed me up - and I suppose he's the one I want relaxed, what with the needle wielding gun and all.
He told me what the howly-sinister metal words were as we went, such as "Zombies Rise!" and "Apocalypse to All!" and we laughed at how stupid it actually sounded in a sweet slowed down MN accent.
Finally, what relived me the most, was the bathroom was actually in-order, they just put the sign up so that every bum off the street wouldn't ask to use it(those Andrew's words.)
At the end, he let me do a little wheelin' and dealin' on the price and I tipped him So that's the story of the Ginkgo leaf on my shoulder- a story that was better on my way out of "Body Graphics" than it was going in.

Nice to meet you.

Went to put some fuel in the old Subi-Roo this weekend. It was a Friday around 3p.m. and the Easterners were gassin' up to go to The Shore.
These folks were lined up at the pump like the Iraq War was going out of style.
Motorhomes, motorcycles, motorcars and motorcades had all formed neat little lines according to which side their fuel-filler was on.
With the exception of one middle-to-maximum aged d-bag in a stupid yellow Mustang. You know the color, the one that should be reserved for those with eternally sunny/loony dispositions.
He had situated himself in such a way that which ever pump opened up next he would be able to dart into (I can only assume this is what he was doing in the middle of the lot.)
I unfortunately pulled in right behind him, my parents in tow by the way, (my Dad is ridding shotty and my Mom in the back.) His selfish maneuver made it so I looked like the a-hole with the big-butt of my Subaru hanging out in the middle of the entrance intersection.
I manage to squeak around Mr. Sunshine and pull into a "right-side" gas-tank line.
Evidently, this did not suit Sunny.
He zoomed up next to my window and started mouthing words.
I was so oblivious to doing anything wrong that I rolled down my window and politely said, "Excuse me?"
"I'm Chopped Liver, nice to meet you," he said, his toupee sliding slightly over his right eye.
"Uhhh...." I said, still not understanding that I had foiled his fuel plan.
He continued to rant as I rolled up my window, his insults muffled by the pane and giggles from my mom and I.
"Nice to meet you Chop," my mom sweetly delivered in that Midwest way of hers.

We. lost. it.
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In other Midwest Mom news:

"I'm in a perpetual state of hotness," claimed my mother (in response to the humidity of course.)