Well, a crazy weekend was had by all.
First off, I had a half-day on Friday, which is always nice. One more reason I love my job: we are given a ‘flex half day’ once a month because we’re always working more than our normal workweek.
So I spent my afternoon driving around looking at the pretty colors and then at Jonathon’s birthday party. Abby sang ‘God Bless America’. It was hilarious. She doesn’t know all the words, but she has a huge sense of showmanship. Houston, I think we have a little Ethel Merman in the works.
Friday night was spent in quiet autumnal retrospection with my husband. No, actually, I don’t remember what we did on Friday night. I just thought that sounded better than saying ‘Friday night is a misty haze.’ I think we watched television.
Saturday was a crazy day. I woke up bright and early and cleaned the majority of junk out of my car. It made me a little sad to remove my golf clubs and cart from my trunk. sniff
Then I went to the carwash and had them clean up the rest of the schmeng in my car. A cappuccino in had, I was ready to face that which brings fear to the hearts of even the stoutest men.
Mafia Grandma!!!
I picked her up to chauffeur her to various craft shows. I was a little pressed for time, since I was picking up the kids to go to Laser Tag at 1:00 pm, so I was trying to hustle her along. Trying to hurry Mafia Grandma is like trying to get a tight grip on a pound of loose Jell-o. The woman will not be rushed. First of all, she refused to be ready any earlier than 10:00 a.m. In the past, she had the excuse that she needed to feed Betty lunch, but now she just refuses to get up and rush around.
We did the craft show circuit in amazing speed. I bought a candle and some pressed pansy note cards. Martha Stewart would approve.
I think I’m getting old, though. I used to have utter disdain for that Kountry Kitsch type of decorating. I’m not a fake flower display kind of person. I think eucalyptus belongs in a cough drop, not on a wall.
But the strange thing was that I found myself standing in front of those countryesque silk flower and twig concoctions and thinking ‘Hey, that’s kind of pretty.’
Please put a bullet in my head if I ever put a cozy on my vacuum cleaner or decorate my kitchen in ‘Udderly Cute Cows’.
Finally, we finished the craftathalon. M.G. mentioned that she was hungry for a specific eatery, which was then my cue to ask if she wanted to go to lunch at that specific eatery, which of course she did, delighted that I had made the suggestion. She then made us sit in an incredibly uncomfortable booth in the smoking section and blew smoke in my face while she ate her bowl of chili.
Finally, I dropped her off at home and then went to fetch the chillun’s. I got to Mom’s house and got Jonathon and his friend Zach. Then we drove across town to pick up Skinny and Malnourished. On the way over, I gave Zach and Jon a warning: ‘Now, don’t tell Aunt Brunhilda that we’re going to eat anywhere.’
‘No, Weetabix, Aunt Brunhilda knows that we’re eating at the Machine Shed. She’s fine with it.’ Jon said, matter of factly. Apparently, Jon had already spilled the fact that we were going to eat. Danger! Danger! Proceed with caution! On the drive over, I devised a plan. In order to appear as though the goal was not to feed her children without her approval, I would come clean about going out to eat and act like it was no big deal. That way, Brunhilda wouldn’t be able to be schizophrenic about allowing her children to eat food.
Either I played it masterfully or Brunhilda was trying to prove a point, but she wasn’t acting upset about allowing me to feed her children. She cautioned me about letting them eat fried foods, she said, because Malnourished has a temperamental stomach, but other than that, she was fine.
Off we went to the Laser Tag place. It was outrageously expensive for a kid’s birthday excursion. $7 a person for 15 minutes of play. No group rates. No specials. I coughed up the $36 for our first round and then we entered the ‘Briefing Room’. I’ll hand it to the Laser place–they are all about the effects. In a black-lit smoke-filled room, we held our laser blasters aloft and shouted out the Rules Of Laser Engagement. Then we entered a huge black maze while above, white fog and scary music piped through hidden portals. There were ramps leading to a second floor and one could shoot through grates in the floor/ceiling. Our group of five was combined with a mom and her two little boys.
I was smart and wore a dark navy blue ensemble, but Skinny mistakenly wore a white shirt, making her a glowing blue target. I nailed her a whopping 10 times. I took out Malnourished, despite the alliance we made in the Briefing room. Yeah. I know. All is fair in Love and Laser Tag, baby.
We finished our first round and were beat. That’s a lot of running for 15 minutes, you know. They gave us our scores. The mom of the two boys was in third place, I took second place and the littlest of the two boys (he couldn’t have been three feet tall) managed the most kills without being killed. I think it was because he was below the line of site. Little bastard got me three times, too.
We decided to take a food break and headed over to The Machine Shed. There, Skinny and Malnourished quizzed me on whether they could have this and that item on the menu, despite repeatedly telling them they could have anything they wanted. When it came time to order beverages, the boys and I ordered chocolate milk, but they requested white milk and only if it was 2% or less. Everyone could almost hear Aunt Brunhilda’s influence. Once the appetizers came, however, it was an entirely different story. Malnourished almost peed her pants when she saw the breadbasket. Skinny loaded up her plate with cottage cheese and went to town. Our bowl of coleslaw was refilled three times: our bowl of cottage cheese needed to be refilled five times (that’s six cereal-sized bowls of cottage cheese people!). The boys weren’t eating the cottage cheese nor the coleslaw and I only had a serving of each. Skinny ate two bowls of cottage cheese on her own. I would estimate that she put down at least a pound and a half of cottage cheese and a loaf of bread. Malnourished matched her sister but opted for the coleslaw and bread. Then the meal came and Skinny was the first one done with her plate, requesting another bowl of cottage cheese. I asked everyone if they wanted dessert, but they guiltily said no. I could tell, though, that they wanted to.
Then we went to the Maul (Trademark KitchenLogic) and picked up the rest of Jonathon’s birthday present (two t-shirts at Abercrombie). When we were leaving to go back to the Laser place, it began to SNOW!!! I think October 6th is the earliest I’ve ever seen it snow. We got over the shock of seeing the white stuff and turboed back to the Laser place. This time, I was too full to play another round, so I sent them in on their own. They finished up and we went back home. When we were getting out of the car at Brunhilda’s place, Skinny whispers to me ‘Don’t tell my mom how much cottage cheese we ate, or she’ll never let us go with you again.’ I nodded, but I didn’t tell her that I knew full well what the score was with Brunhilda. Besides, I was sort of afraid that she’d make us all run around the block or something.
Saturday evening was rather uneventful. I got home and found Esteban sitting gingerly in the recliner. As it turns out, he took a tumble down Joe’s basement stairs. Ironically, he has tumbled down those same stairs twice before, back with it was Joel’s house. I broke the news to him ‘I don’t think you should put a foot on those stairs ever again. They’ve proven that not only do they not like you, they can also kick your ass.’ Esteban nodded and winced. I babied him for the rest of the night. His butt is still sore. Poor guy.
He ensconced himself on the recliner all night with his laptop. He quizzed me on 80’s television trivia via the wireless Internet connection while I watched ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ for the 108th time. It kept him occupied since he cannot stand my dopey girl movies.
‘How can you even tell the difference between this and ‘You’ve Got Mail’? They are the same movie!’ He said, exasperatingly.
‘Easy’ I said. ‘In this one, Meg Ryan’s friend is Rosie O’Donnell. In the other one, her friend is Edith Bunker. In ‘You’ve Got Mail’, Tom Hanks lives on a boat, in ‘Sleepless in Seattle’, Tom Hanks lives on a floating house. Also, in this one, Meg Ryan pursues Tom Hanks through the postal system. In the other one, Tom Hanks pursues Meg Ryan through electronic mail. Also, in one, they meet up in New York on the top of the Empire State Building, and in the other, they meet up in New York in a park.’
‘Oh, yeah, that’s totally different’
I didn’t explain that Meg Ryan makes a scrunched up face and starts to cry when she realizes that her true love was Tom Hanks, and when Meg Ryan meets up with Tom Hanks on the top of the Empire State Building, Tom Hanks just looks like he accidentally swallowed an earwig in a batch of butterscotch pudding.
Sheesh. Men. They are TOTALLY different movies. Sheesh.
Esteban suggested that they should have had Tom Hanks instead of Nic Cage in ‘City of Angels’, but I suggested that Tom Hanks would not be able to look nearly as tragic as Nic Cage. He would, instead, need to make snide remarks and move his head like one of those bobby head dogs that you see in the back of cars.
What a different world it would be if Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan could only do movies together. I have stated before that Castaway and
Sunday was pretty uneventful. Esteban had previously promised to make me breakfast but he woke up with a hankering for bar breakfast, so off we went to the local sports bar and ate hot wings. I had a frozen strawberry rum drink and then remembered that it was only 11:30 in the morning, and then I hung my head in alcoholic shame. Luckily, in Green Bay, drinking around the clock on a football day is completely acceptable.
I had scheduled the final senior picture session for that girl whose mom can’t afford senior pictures, but she piked on me for a fourth time. I was actually fine with that, since I sort of figured that she’d pike on my and half hoped that she would so I could go shopping. I went for a lovely drive and snapped a few fall foliage pictures and then scurried back to my local mass merchandiser to buy a laundry sorting bin. Yep. That was my excitement. It’s a laundry sorting madhouse at Chez Weetabix. Gotta keep them darks away from those crazy whites.
Gosh, I hope I don’t get KKK hits on Google off that last statement.
Have a great week!
