There are always more than two sides to each story.

My sister sent me a jpeg of a painting recently completed for her client with a story I promptly forgot. Most of our conversations are spent outdoing each other — silliness and weird voices, funster stuff and imitations. Then you can't really remember details because it all blends together like jambalaya, and that it was pretty filling even though you can't recall one thing in particular.

All I remembered was that there was an older woman who cried when she saw the portrait. And that an older photograph served as a model for this piece. And that my sister tried to hurry the air drying with a hair dryer. Which you cannot do with oils, but she still tried. And something about the paint developing a yellow cast — or maybe it was the addition of a quick-dry coating that made the paint yellow, which is bad. And that my sister spent hours the day before retouching the yellowed painting to prep it for the presentation, the next day. And maybe that's what I heard, that the woman would cry if the painting wasn't done.

But here's what my sister sent to me when I asked her to retell the story:

"Here's the painting of the family I told you about. The girl in the center just turned 16 and her parents took her out on the town to teach her how to smoke and drink. They weren't aware she was pregnant and she didn't know they were filing for bankruptcy!

Just kidding, they were a happy family for a long time.

My friend will present her mother (girl in the center) with the portrait for Christmas."

Then she signs it "love, oil on canvas 11x14'"

Clock

It's a later night for me. I was just going over the day's events:

1) rode the bike to work and missed my daily team meeting. Again.
2) involved in new project that the designer and I don't really understand. It's due tomorrow.
3) and involved in new messaging project that involves charts that I don't really understand. It's due tomorrow.
4) got voice mail from Mikey. Our 11-year-old son was mugged walking home from school. He's OK. My son that is. Mikey, on the other hand, is quite upset.
5) left work early to get home. Ran to bus feeling all passive aggressive about inconvenience of f----ing mass transit. Left bike at work.
6) while I walked, made phone calls for volunteer projects I cannot say no to. Upon completing calls, walked 5 blocks muttering, "no ... no ... no ... no ... no ..."
7) met Ranger Rick in our dining room as he filled out police report for our son.
8) checked in with daughter as she worked on a project she doesn't really understand. It's due tomorrow.
9) sent Mikey and kids to district jazz concert as I went to rehearsal.
10) Mikey relayed story of how our daughter's good friend, and vocalist of band, displayed symptoms of narcolepsy on stage. Word is, she had had an accident in gym class earlier this week and suffered a concussion. During concert, she stopped singing mid-song and just stood there with her head down. Director simply walked her to the piano bench to sit down, finished the song, then announced concert was over and called 911.
11) it was quiet, and then Mikey asked our daughter if she knew the songs.

Life is stranger than fiction.