Aretha, could you say a little prayer for me too?

In my mind I am young. I worked in nursing homes for 10 years, for Heaven's sake, so I know old when I see old.

I am young. I'm still cool.

At least I believed that I was young until last night. In the van, the girls began singing their favorite music. I used to know all the top songs, but obviously I don't any more. I found myself thinking to myself What the crap are they singing? as the girls rattled off one set of lyrics after another.

"Miss Theia, do you know.....(such and such song)...?"

No.

"Uh...Gaaaahhh, Miss Theia. Then do you know....."

No.

And so on and so on.

I remember once when I was growing up, back in the day when we had 3 channels to choose from on the tv, one of the music awards shows was on television. I remember Madonna performing. My brother and I watched while my Dad glared at the tv, brows furrowed, eyes squinted, and mouth open. "Who is that?" he said. He doesn't know anybody. Who doesn't know Madonna? I remember thinking.

I have become my Dad.

So tonight, we are sitting at the dinner table. My good friend Sonia had come to visit and joined us for supper. The girls began to ask Sonia what her duties will be as an LPN as she will be graduating from nursing school August 5. "...giving medications, dressing incisions, inserting catheters..." she said.

Catheters, now that's a conversation piece for teenage girls.Talk breaks out about human anatomy and what do you call the tube that goes from your bladder to the outside of your body and they put a tube in it to drain the pee-pee when you have to have a catheter?

"Urethra." I said. "The tube from the bladder to the outside of the body is called the u-RE-thra."

Then my sweet little brunette-with-blonde-roots-Gal looked at me. Wide-eyed. Serious as can be. Proud to be so well-rounded in her taste of music and knowledge of human anatomy, she says "Oh, you mean like Urethra Franklin, right?"

I lost it. Just completely craked up!

But hey, at least she's heard of dear ole Urethra! That's why she's cool and I'm not!

True that!