Mondo me.

I know I’m not supposed to write about boys anymore but I’m gonna have to break my own rule for the second time and be a two for two on this blog.

So there’s this guy named Brad Mondo. He has ten million followers because he is adorable. I am a fan.

I watch his videos because I also love hair and especially at home hair attempts. Brad loves them too so what he does is he watches you tube hair videos and he comments. Mostly he cheerleads, exclaims Nooooo!, and says “you go girl!”

He is gay enough to be fun but not so gay that after two or five or seven Negroni’s you don’t want to kiss him . Probably no tongues though because he really is gay. But he’ll tell you your tits look great in that dress and give you a little wink. Love me some Brad Mondo.

After some Mondo in which he created three ten minute hairdos and was judged from 1-10 by his best friend, I fell asleep. Next thing I knew, some guy was doing my hair. I had tons of volume unlike in real life and my dream hair was nappy and out of control plus my color needed fixing so I was about to get the full Brad Mondo.

Mondo is a bonafide hairdresser with a best-selling line of fabulous color so I was excited. Black hair can be challenging to work with and this hair care provider was mixed race so I let him get down with some bleach and some XMondo color.

While I was processing we made out. Right in front of the entire salon in the shampoo bowl chair we slogged. Then fast forward and there is some GQ hottie who’s into me at a party.

I know people who tell you their dreams deserve to be shot but this is my blog and you can leave if you don’t like it but don’t because it gets good.

So the hottie is into me and there’s s’more smooching and then I’m on vacation with some people I don’t know from Adam and the vacation is basically a series of big parties every night. It feels like an adult Isla Vista but with fancy drinks instead of drugs. But the maturity level is about the same.

The next night Mr. GQ is at the party where I’m at and he’s kind of sloppy and sweaty and avoiding me like the plague. Btw speaking of plague this dream was clearly a before covid type of situation where parties were not super spreader events….condoms please.

Even in my dream, I managed to not give one sh*t about this guy but my friends, none of whom I recognized, were giving me sympathy while agreeing he was kind of wasted and gross.

Then I’m on an airplane and the entire crew is geriatric and new to their job and there’s turbulence. I don’t know what to make of it but it was quite a scene.

It’s 7 am and I just woke up to tell you this dream and I’m kind of tired but overall it was a decent dream.

I’m tired because I babysat my two little favorite monsters last night and oooh boy…what a night.

Their parents were on a death watch. Lolo their grampa was in the process of letting go and crossing over. That morning I went over to return something Zobear (that’s what I call her but her name is Zoe) had left at my house the night before when we roasted giant marshmallows over my new propane firepit.

The thing I returned was extremely valuable and important, it being the witching season: a pencil case filled with kid-curated spooky things. The way you do it is you to close your eyes and pick something and you pretend to be horrified and grossed out as you pull out a fake eyeball or gooey fluorescent cockroach. You do it like a hundred times and each time you are just as freaked out.

Zoe always brings stuff over incase there’s a lull in the conversation.

So when I returned it I walked into their house and the dad side of the family all had red eyes from crying and I knew Lolo was in bad shape.

Jesse told me Lolo called from the hospital and he was ready to go. His cancer was drowning him in fluid and he didn’t want to be put on a vent.

I asked his wife how long they had been married….48 years….and in between my sadness I confessed that I hadn’t made it to ten so she was a rockstar and oh my god this was going to be a hard goodbye. We laughed and cried and usually when you hug people they give you a polite squeeze and that’s that but Lolo’s wife of nearly 50 years and Jesse’s brother both clung to me and sobbed when I embraced them, and it moved me deeply.

I said I’d take the kids after work because I knew they’d be deep in the dying part and turns out they did need me so I grabbed pizza fixins and some strawberry soda and pumpkin spice cookie straws from Trader Joe’s and scooped them up for a night of their dreams: pizza in the hot tub and a sleepover.

We played our favorite soundtrack (Moana) and ate pizza without sauce which is basically bread and cheese (because, kids) and our fingers turned to prunes and then I broached the elephant in the room.

I have learned to be very direct with children because they have a built in ability to completely ignore parts they don’t understand or can’t handle. So no need to mince words. They are auto-mincers.

I said that Lolo was dying and their mom and dad were going to stay with him until he died so they could sleep at my house. Kallie was stoked but Zoe’s eyes widened. Kallie decided that Lolo might get better and I told her that he had said he was ready to die, that he would love them in their hearts forever but it was his time to die.

Kallie and Zoe had a little argument over whether or not this would mean that their Daddy wouldn’t have a Daddy anymore then Kallie spilled her strawberry drink and fake cried until I got her another cupfull.

Bedtime went fine. We were in our jams by 8pm and we all piled into bed in Owen’s tiki bedroom-the most fun room in the house because there are big paper maché parrots and fishing nets hanging from the ceiling – and tiki lights.

Without going on forever, four books later everyone was wide awake. So we watched an episode of Curious George. Still, eyes wide open. Then we went insane because Garth jumped on the bed and we couldn’t decide if we were afraid of him or not and he insisted on licking the kids. He likes licking small children because he has discovered they usually have food remnants on their kisser, or an active runny nose to investigate.

It was now 9:30 and I was desperate to get some rest and quiet so I let them start the Tom and Jerry movie. I thought they’d be out in ten minutes but we made it to the end even though I passed out twice and dropped the phone (our TV) on on their foreheads. More laughter but my god was I tired.

Lolo died before midnight and Morgan came to get the kids because she promised Zoe she would and then she realized she was locked out so they all took the tiki room and I went to my room until I heard wailing coming from down the hall.

Kallie was somewhere between fake cry and an actual tantrum because Morgan had turned off the tiki lights. She wouldn’t stop trying to faux hyperventilate and we had talked about being well-behaved for mommy and daddy who needed our support.

Morgan is a softie and I am too but I wasn’t having it. I picked her up kicking and screaming and carried her into the hall for a tête-a-tête and she was both outraged and responsive. It was my house, my rules and I said the screaming was going to stop because we had had a nice night and there would be more tiki lights later and by the way did she want to take the last can of strawberry soda home with her?

Yes she did and then her dad came home with the keys and everyone left happy.

I passed out after some Brad Mondo and that was my evening.

I love my neighbors, I love my hot tub, I love my new firepit and I love Brad Mondo. The GQ guy at the party, not so much. He can suck it.

For the win!