SHUT UPPP

Between the brewery tour and Cinco de Luau last weekend we stopped at Chick-Fil-A for some mid-afternoon beer munchies. Mark got a kid's meal, and the toys they're putting those things this year are...interesting. I'm not sure what it's supposed to do, but Katie picked it up and after studying it for a while said "Hmm, it's got a magnifying glass. For frying ants." WTF? But true!! Upon closer examination, we decided that the toy is kind of a murderer-in-training tool:


It's got the magnifying glass to roast ants on the sidewalk, then tweezers to move the hot little suckers to a secure location without leaving fingerprints or burning your hands, and a shovel with which to bury your evidence. WTF, Chick-Fil-A!? That's not right, not at all.

Yeah apparently I'm in my 20s but I act like I'm about 85, all "Ted Mosby and the Murtaugh List" style eating dinner at 4:00 pm and chasing kids off my porch and complaining about my bad hip. Ok so that's maybe a little bit of an exaggeration, but we've got this flipping crazy gang of neighbor kids who just run around right outside our front door and patio screaming at the top of their lungs (no words, just a high-pitched and sustained "AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!" for no reason other than their parents got sick of them doing it inside). Today they were in the breezeway between our front door and the front door of the apt across from us, which happens to be the lair of at least three of the banshees, and they were playing with these little stilts which were kind of awesome but caused frequent falling ("AAAAAHHHH!!!!") and regular smacking into our front door/door handle, which was driving the dog crazy. Finally, I looked at the dog and excitedly asked "Rygel, what was that?!" which automatically sends him into an excited barking fury.

An excited barking fit and an angry barking fit sound the same to kids outside your front door, though, which was what I was counting on, because the second Rygel started barking I heard the "AAAAAHHHHH!!!!" from outside the door. Rygel scared 'em but good. The "AAAAAHHHHH!!!!" started in the breezeway, migrated around the corner to the porch, and then faded off into the distance in the direction of the pool. That's right, you noisy whippersnappers, GET OFF MY LAWN!

Reason #134 that D and I are not parents yet: We think our dog is so much cooler than most people's kids.

No, but really, they're super sweet kids and even when they're at their loudest I suck up to them because I'm pretty sure they're starting a small army that is going to revolt with their Nerf darts and cap guns. And, like a real old person, I'm actually afraid of youths. And Rygel's cooler.

There are a lot of things I really love about our neighborhood grocery store. I'm usually there during the day, so it's mostly empty, the daytime employees are all "adults" and not high schoolers who are annoyed that they are spending the only free five hours of their day at a job where they have to deal with old people like me buying large amounts of wine and tabloid magazines to spend their Friday evenings with (suck on that, teenagers!), they have a lot of local products, and this particular HEB has the nicest freaking people you've ever met in your life (except the high schoolers). My beef with them, though, is the good two dozen or so prime parking spots they've got out front that are designated "CUSTOMER WITH CHILD PARKING". WTF?!

Now, I get that it's really not that big of a deal - I mean, walking an extra thirty yards or whatever isn't going to kill me - but c'mon, HEB, what the heck? Do you need that many parking places for your beloved yuppie-plus-spawn combos? I have zero problem with the pregnant-lady parking outside Babies R Us, or the "parent-with-sick-kid" parking outside the pharmacy. I honestly wouldn't even mind if there were maybe only eight or ten of these "customer with child parking" spots, but after you factor in the handicapped places and the cart return slots which are both completely valid and necessary, there's not a whole lot of room for the rest of us. The reason it bugs me so much, though, is for days like today, when I go to do my grocery shopping in the middle of the day and maybe only half the CWCP spots are taken but most of the parking places just beyond them are taken, because most people who are doing their grocery shopping at that hour don't have children with them. This way, I get to either stalk somebody through a partially-empty parking lot to their non-CWCP place and then wait for them to load up their car so I can take their spot, or I can park at the Starbucks down the shopping center and walk. At least that way I get to have tea.

I've considered just saying "screw it" and parking there anyway, especially if I'm there after 10:00 pm because then at least I can come back with a "Your kid should be at home in bed" response if anybody says anything, but I don't want to have a fight in a parking lot (not after the Little HEB Smackdown of '05, at least). Plus if I got banned from that HEB I'd have to go to the one by my parents' house, which increases the chance of seeing someone I knew in high school (RUN AWAY!) and that's not fun for anybody. This also makes a pretty obvious (and obnoxious) social statement, but that's another post for another day. Maybe next time I'll get brave and just take one of those spots. After all, it says "CUSTOMER WITH CHILD PARKING" but it doesn't say "ONLY."

So one of my favorite girls (Katie from Your Daily Dose of Awesome) recently posted a blog on yoga etiquette. I found this completely brilliant because now that every gym has yoga classes, tons of insensitive people are now regularly "doing yoga", although ask 80% of them why and they'll never mention the awesome emotional and spiritual benefits that actually practicing yoga will bring you. Since rejoining el Globo Gym Amanda and I have dropped in to a bunch of different classes, determined to get our money's worth (Ask me about our Saturday dance class! Hilarious.) and last night we went to a pretty freakin awesome yoga session. Of course, a great yoga class must be balanced with a huge amount of idiocy. So tonight we're in the middle of some floor poses a full thirty minutes into the one hour class and the door opens. WTF? Sure enough, this girl walks in pretty much in street clothes and kind of mills around by the door, stepping loudly until pretty much everyone in the room is looking at her, at which point her mom? Friend? Or someone waves at her from the middle of the front row. Really?? So Giggly Annoying Girl (heretofore known as "GAG") giggles and rushes to the prop wall, grabs a mat, runs to the middle of the room and plops the mat down between her mom and her neighbor, and then giggles some more. Really?? You suck! So whatever, everybody seems to recover from the distraction and eventually we're all back on track. UNTIL: Inversions!! One of my fave things to do (Thanks to a good friend of mine who is the most awesome yoga teacher I've EVER had!) and something I really want to get better at. Anyway, the instructor demonstrates how to do a shoulder stand, then moves on to how to do a headstand, stressing that you should only do this if you feel comfortable. So the instructor's in a headstand and she can see GAG from where she is and GAG is prepping for a headstand and this is what happened:
INSTRUCTOR: Ok, I'm really worried about this student (meaning GAG).
GAG: No response.
INSTRUCTOR: I don't think you're quite ready for this. I mean - I'm not trying to be mean or anything at all but I don't think you're ready.
GAG: No response, and now is trying to figure out how to position herself so she won't break her neck but she's totally about to break her neck.
INSTRUCTOR: I really really strongly advise against you doing this one, please don't try it, I'm not trying to be mean I'm just trying to look out for you.
GAG: Still no response, ignores Instructor, has to have the biggest headache by now because she's pretty much repeatedly slamming her head on the floor trying to kick up into a headstand gymnastics-style.
INSTRUCTOR: (Now appealing to GAG's mom/whatever) I don't want her to do this, I'm not trying to be mean but I don't think she's ready. I'm not saying this to hurt her feelings. She's just not ready for this one.
GAG'S MOM: (Looks at GAG, looks back at Instructor, finally kind of taps GAG and GAG kind of rolls her eyes and just sits there huffily)

Yeah, that just happened. I couldn't freaking believe that! It might be a class at a gym that YOU pay for but the poor instructor was just trying to keep this girl safe! Good Lord. AND the class was totally disrupted again because we were all a little distracted and worried about this chick who seemed determined to F her own stuff up. People, freakin please.

As you may have heard (because I haven't shut up about it) I recently cruised with four of the most awesome people in my life. You may have also heard that large quantities of alcohol were steadily consumed, some by dubious means, by all of us. One of our prouder moments, I have to say, was the effective use of unregulated free alcoholic beverages at the Captain's Cocktail Party. Those things are amazing; you wander in dressed all nice, find a comfy seat, and suddenly dozens of waiters with trays full of drinks and appetizers are swarming the place, randomly handing them to whomever asks for one. Because we've decided we're special, we attended both of the parties (the one for the early dinner seating and the one for our later dinner seating) because there's no sign that says you can't. Now, before you get all up in arms and start screaming at me about how it's people like us who ruin it for the rest of you, taking advantage of freebies and driving up costs for everyone, examine this nugget of truth: You're just mad that you didn't think of it first.

Anyway - this is a story about me screaming at a four year old, not about differing levels of awesome. So I arrived fashionably late to the first of the Captain's parties and I strolled in (BTW: I totally got shamelessly hit on in full view of my husband and my friends while walking to meet them at their table. Score!) and had to play catch up with everybody at the table. Those waiters sure are on top of things at all times because before I knew it I had a glass of wine and at least three whiskey sours sitting in front of me and they just kept coming. Service = good! After they dismissed everyone to dinner (early dinner) we went and wandered around, then showed up again about an hour later for round two. Once again the cocktails kept magically appearing and when you're sitting still it's really hard to judge exactly how strong those drinks are. Yep, whiskey, I blame YOU.

After the appetizers have been served and the "You Know Who You Are" crowd has had just enough alcohol, people tend to magically get up onstage and dance. White people dancing = usually entertaining. This is when it happened. This was a moment that I am not exactly proud of, and I claim no responsibility what so ever because it's clearly the alcohol's fault. But I admit it, I was blinded by...some feeling I'm sure, and it actually happened. I yelled "homewrecker" at a four-year-old.

It all started when the OWPs were dancing, all cute and bouncy and liquored up and then these two little girls from Mexico, probably 3 and 5, got up onstage. Adorable! Katie and Mark (who don't fit in the OWP category, but were definitely liquored up) danced with them for a little bit and it was the cutest thing, and then an even cuter thing happened: a little boy walked over and started dancing with the oldest girl. Immediately, everybody in the auditorium started cheering and clapping because that's just freaking precious. Of course, some people can't stand to see other people happy. From across the stage came pageant girl. Now, I don't know for sure that she does pageants, I'm just saying with the big blonde bouncy curls, the heinous poufy tulle monstrosity she was dressed up in, and the number of people from "rural America" on the boat, it's a safe bet. So right, girl dressed up as a fairy princess cupcake runs over and gets all up in my girl's Kool-Aid, trying to dance with Adorable Boy! WTF?! Nooooo, beeyotch, he's already with somebody! At least wait for the end of the song, jeez. Luckily, Adorable Boy is also Stand By Your Lady Boy so he's having none of it and just keeps dancing with the cute little girl that he was with in the first place. Fairy Cupcake turns and runs back to her stage mom (who is standing right by the stage so you know she's a stage mom), who is waving like mad at her daughter to get back over there and dance with that boy. I'm not kidding! She's actively rearing a future homewrecker so that her daughter will be the cutest one on the ship! Apparently I harbor some very deep unresolved feelings of wrath toward the That Girls of the world who think because they're adorable they have the right to cut in wherever they see something they like, or I had a high school flashback, or I just saw it as a metaphor for a lot of what goes on in the world, but it pissed me right off. And also I have a VERY strong distaste for stage moms, but that's not new.

So yeah, pretty much I felt protective of the happy little scene going on between the first two kids and didn't want Stage Mom and Fairy Cupcake to win, so I yelled "HOMEWRECKER!" at them. We were in the back of the auditorium and the room was pretty loud and there was a band playing and all that, but still. Did I yell "Homewrecker" at a four-year-old? Damn right I did.

I went to Target today to pick up a few things and I was carrying my little basket, meandering through the aisles, and I passed this mom and her three children. The mom was talking to the older two who were walking beside her but the youngest was maybe 2 or 3 and riding in the shopping cart. I'm not kidding, all he was doing was sitting there going "BAA! BAA! BAA! BAA! BAA! BAA! BAA! BAA! BAA! BAA!" and the awesome part was that the mom and other kids were just totally cool about it, chatting away about other things while this kid imitated a sheep for no apparent reason. Confused, I texted a few people asking what they thought was up with this kid and why he was acting like that. I got some great responses but by far the best one was from my friend Christina, who teaches a resource class in an elementary school.

ME: So I'm at Target and I just passed by this kid who is saying "BAA" like a sheep over and over. Diagnosis?
CHRISTINA: KAR - Kid Ain't Right - that's our diagnosis when we observe a kid and are like WTF!

I totally LOL'd in the middle of the picture frame aisle at Target. That's a diagnosis win if I've EVER seen one.