Well, that was a harrowing start to the new year

Only two days into 2011 and I almost didn't make it. I almost went down in flames - and I'm not talking figuratively, here, either - earlier this afternoon.

It all started when I decided to make a quick run to the grocery store.  While I was really quite content to stay all cozy on the couch in my comfy clothes, tucked under a blanket with the copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that I'd been waiting months and months for on the hold list at the library, but it seemed that no matter how powerful my lounging magic was, it wasn't powerful enough to conjure up a bag of tortilla chips, and tortilla chips, in case you didn't know, are a key ingredient to Sunday Night Nachos.  I'm fairly certain that had I attempted to make our Sunday Night Nachos out of the other snack food we had on hand - to wit, organic Cheez Doodles or sourdough pretzel nuggets - things wouldn't have gone well.  So, despite the almost irresistible draw of stay here and read a while longer that was being exerted upon me by the general conditions of the couch in the family room, I dragged myself away from the world of sloth and out into the snow to get some more Tostitos.

Just because I was going out in public didn't mean I'd have to, you know, get dressed for it or anything though, I reasoned to myself.  I mean, I did have a bra on (first time in '11 - woot) and was fully clothed, but I saw no reason to put on a pair of jeans when I was so cozily clad in a pair of these:

(Those, by the way, are not my legs, feet or abdomen.  Have I mentioned Sunday Night Nachos?  I don't think the model above has ever eaten Any Night Nachos.  Nor would I pair microfleece pants with bare feet in kicky ballet flats.  I don't own kicky ballet flats.  Kicky ballet flats make Heather's Hobbity Hooves look particularly ginormous.)

Anyhow, I threw on a fleece jacket, some wool socks and clogs and off I went.  I pulled on a pair of fleece gloves in the car because DANG it is cold again here in western NY.  What I'm trying to say here is, I was Primed for Major Static Happenings, had I paused to think about it for just a second.

This wasn't my first time wearing these delightfully comfy, microfleece yoga pants out in public, by the way.  Nope, I wore them all the way back from NJ to NY last weekend.  They've traveled, is what I'm saying.  Traveled with nary a hint of the horror that was to come my way as I trudged through the parking lot and into the store.

I noticed it first as I was briskly striding towards the entrance.  My pant legs felt a bit... snug.  I reached down and shook them out and kept going.  After all, one of the best features to a pair of yoga pants is their roominess.  Their embodiment of the exact antonymy of skintight.

By the time I'd gotten a cart and gone into the store proper, I realized that this was not just a momentary trouble.  My legs were wrapped in what appeared to be microfleece leggings, not yoga pants.  By the time I'd worked my way through the produce aisle and over to chips, my lower half was snap, crackle and popping as though my skin were made of Rice Krispies. Egads.  I caught another shopper's gaze traveling up and down me as she approached me near the crackers.  I was almost afraid to look down at myself, so I met her gaze with a jaunty "and???" look in response and kept on going.  Once safely past her Judgy McJudgerson glare, I risked a glance downward.  What had been comfy, microfleece yoga pants when I put them on at home were now Stage Five Clingers of highwater proportions.  I'm talking microfleece capris here, y'all.  It was not flattering.  (I'm not sure if I was drawing more ireful looks for the noise of the static electricity or the sight of my shrinkwrapped-in-microfleece legs and rear.  I'm pretty sure I was generating enough sparks to have a halo-effect of glow around me, though.)

There wasn't much I could do, besides shoplift a can of Static Guard from the shelves and make a break for the bathroom, but I was a bit worried that if I moved any more quickly, I'd actually burst into flames.  By this point, my hands were getting shocked every time I moved them the slightest bit on the cart handle.  I sounded as though I was hiding a popcorn popper in my undies.  I quite probably could've powered my neighborhood, if not the whole town, with the amount of electricity I was generating with each and every step.

Finally, I made it to the checkout, through the checkout and back outside.  Hoping that the falling snow would dampen the static, I walked as slowly as I dared back to the car.  I stopped a few times to tug the bottoms of my pantlegs down somewhere closer to my ankles (in retrospect, not having shaved probably didn't help matters - the stubble on my legs was standing straight up and likely contributing to the statickyness of it all).  I was so relieved to finally reach the safety of my vehicle where I could zap myself home in peace.

Can you imagine the headlines?  Stay at home mom dies in New Year's yoga pants conflagration....  Needless to say, I'm not wearing those pants, comfy as they may be, out in public again unless I douse them liberally with Static Guard first.

And how was your opening weekend of 2011?  Equally exciting but less combustible, I hope! 

 

One way to cure the blahs

So, I've been having a bit of a blah day.  It started out with not wanting to get out of my toasty, snuggly bed while it was still dark outside, but I had to get up and get Kiddo up and at 'em and off to school, so up I got, while Hubby rolled over and went back to sleep for a few more minutes.  *grumble*  While walking through the still-dark house to get to the living room light, I stepped in something cold, wet and oozy - cat hairball.  *grumble grumble*  Kiddo was spectacularly grouchy and griped about every.  Single.  Thing.  From her breakfast to her clothes to her hair, she moaned and dragged, requiring me to have to prod and cajole and, okay, nag to get her rear in gear and out to the bus.  *grumble grumble grumble*  Then, due to my Man Hands With Sausage Fingers, I apparently had entered the wrong time on my iPod Touch (darn that little scrolly-wheel thingy!) when I got the email with the shift assignments and thus, showed up an hour late for my volunteer shift at class pictures, missing Kiddo's class's turn in the process.  *grumble grumble grumble grumble*  Top that all off with the weather, which is gray and rainy, and by midafternoon I was ready to just crawl back into bed and try for a do-over on today, or just sleep through until tomorrow, whichever occurred first.  Seeing as how neither of those options were practical or possible, I went another route.

I did this:

and then, when Kiddo got home from school

I had this ready to go:

(Side note: Great Value brand marshmallows, which are Walmart's generic brand, are the only marshmallows I can find that do not contain artificial food coloring.  Isn't that nuts?  Seriously, every other white marshmallows, from store generic to fancy-pants brand, contain blue food dye.)

Once we had all the elements in place

we got to work -

and then partook of the deliciousness..........

And that?  Cures the blahs just about as well as anything else I could think of (short of crawling back into bed and/or having Hugh Jackman and George Clooney show up on my doorstep to engage in a serenade duel while bearing flowers and chocolate) today.  Plus, I've got a pot roast in the crock pot, so no fussing at the stove for dinner.  I have to go to a PTSA meeting over at Kiddo's school tonight, but I won't think about heading out into the cold and wet again just yet.  I think I'll toast myself just one more marshmallow first...

Should I cue up the Chicken Dance or hit publish?

So as I mentioned in my previous post, something bad did happen while we were on vacation last month.  I've been pondering whether I have the guts to post this, but now that I've actually been called out as a chicken by my friend Andy, who begged me to blog about this once she'd finished laughing her head off at me as I told her the story (really now, I share my deepest, darkest vacation horror story and she just flails about laughing.  Not a dollop of sympathy for my plight), I feel that I have no choice.

I'm warning you up front, any men who might read my blog regularly, occasionally or who accidentally stumble upon this whilst doing some creepo pervy Google search: this is NOT what you want to be reading.  Promise.  If you have never owned your own set of ovaries, do yourself a favor and move on.  Seriously.

Now that it's just us girls in here, I shall begin my Tale of Horror and Woe.

A few days before vacation, Kiddo, her grandma and I hit the outlet mall for some back to school shopping.  This was necessary because Kiddo decided to outgrow the sneakers we'd gotten for her in April, going through just one size in a year apparently not being good enough for her.  Annnnyhow, while we were there, I popped into the Jockey outlet, because I needed new undies and the outlet is my favorite (read: cheapest) place to get them.  I've worn plain, cotton, Jockey for Her undies for years now.  Decades, even.  So, we ducked into the shop, Kiddo on the verge of totally losing her shizzle, all of us low on shopping energy and motivation and hungry for lunch and I just wanted to grab what I needed and go.  I made my way back to the large display area where row after row of multipack Jockey for Hers can be found.  I paused briefly, trying to remember exactly which style it is I prefer.  (I once bought the wrong style and spent the next several months always feeling like the lower-riding-than-my-usual-kind-of-undies were falling down.  Way uncomfortable.)  My eye finally fell upon the kind I prefer, so I grabbed two boxes from the row with my size and headed to the register.  The next day, Hubby did all the pre-trip laundry (yes, I have that awesome a husband, y'all - he does the laundry all the time!) and when I went to pack, I found my new undies (including some colored ones for a change of pace - red!  Blue!  Red and blue paisley!) neatly folded and awaiting me.  I promptly packed those along with a couple other, older pairs out of my drawer and thought that was that.

Then I woke up that first morning of vacation in the hotel and grabbed a pair of my new undies out of the drawer.  "Hmmmmm," I thought to myself, "these seem a big bigger than usual."  I chalked it up to their being new and therefore not shrunken from being washed a thousand and ten times and hopped into the shower.  When it came time to get dressed, I stepped into them.  They were definitely...............roomier than I recalled.  Uh-oh.  I pulled on my shorts and discovered that once I'd fastened them, my new undies were showing above the waistband.  Well, not so much showing as billowing above the waistband of my shorts.  As in a few good inches of underwear material.  Ack.  I found myself tucking my underwear back into my shorts (because what is more comfortable in the heat of late summer Florida, not to mention more slimming, than having a few extra inches of fabric jammed about your midsection?) and trying to get on with my day.

Okay, menfolk, if you ignored me before and are still reading, seriously, you may want to check out for the rest of this.  It's not for you.  This is your last chance to bail out.

So, ladies, it turned out our trip coincided with that certain time of the month and as such, I had to utilize certain items in these voluminous drawers of mine.  Now, I prefer the external, winged variety of such items.  I had attempted to affix one of such items securely to the pertinent section of my, okay, I'm just gonna say it, my granny bloomers.  Off we went to the parks for a day of fun and excitement.  As we were walking from one thing to the next, I felt an odd sensation.  As though something had............. shifted.  Come unstuck, as it were.  And it had.  It had, I mean.  Unfortunately, it only came unstuck for the briefest of moments before resticking itself, backwards.

I'm going to give you a moment here to envision exactly to what the resticking occurred.  You with me?  Yep, I'm going to guess you are.

I shifted about as discreetly as possible, but no amount of shifting was going to help and in fact any and all movement was further complicating the situation.  I told Hubby I had to utilize the facilities, insisted on leaving Kiddo with him (as she normally accompanies me not only into the bathroom whenever we're out someplace in public, but also into the stall with me), and made my way as gingerly and speedily as I could to the nearest ladies' room. Yes, walking was trickier than usual in this situation.  In the stall, I discovered that what I had suspected was correct.  Egads.  I proceeded to cowboy up (no need to put on my big girl panties - already had that taken care of, now didn't I?) and rectify the situation as quickly and quietly as possible.

You know how painful it is to wax your eyebrows, or perhaps your upper lip?  This?  A thousand times worse.  If ever I had contemplated waxing anything below my chin (which I haven't, for the record), I am now soundly convinced not to, ever ever ever.  

When we got home, I pulled out a pair of the same style undies and checked the tags.  Turned out the granny bloomers I'd inadvertently bought were three sizes larger than my normal size.

(The black pair actually fit me.  The paisleys?  Not so much.)

Of course now that they'd been opened, washed and some worn, I can't exactly return them.  So now I know I'll be all set if I ever want to, say, go hang gliding or parasailing or if Kiddo wants a new swing for the backyard... and thus concludes my Tale of Vacation Woe, also known as How to Achieve a Partial Brazilian While Wearing a Ginormous Pair of Drawers. 

Call me Fred. Or Barry.

This afternoon, I went out to tackle the green beast that is also known as our lawn in late summer.  (This would be the second time this week I've had to mow, for those of you keeping score at home.)  I geared up appropriately for the chore with my iPod and headphones and got to cutting.  I did the front and side yards to the strains of my Leonard Cohen playlist, but by the time I got around to the back, I needed something a bit more.... peppy.  Now, Kiddo has recently become enamored of a certain tune on Mommy's iPod, and it is a tune that is near and dear to Mommy's heart.  I first heard it when I was her age or a little bit younger, and I loved it from the very first bongo thump.  It's one that she has been requesting repeatedly for the past few weeks, so it instantly sprang to mind as I scrolled through my playlists.  Perfect choice!

The song of which I speak, of course, is that 70s classic Copacabana by none other than Barry Manilow.  I adored the song as a kid and still do now.  As a child, I was instantly smitten by the drama of the song (not to mention those bongos) and choreographed a dance routine to go with it.  Now, I'm teaching Kiddo the dance moves (and she is embellishing them with lots of added jazz hands.  Kiddo is a big believer in jazz hands) and she and I belt it out when we're driving around town, sitting at the breakfast table, hanging out on the lanai... it's an all-occasion bit of groovy joy.

Anyhow, there I was in the back yard.  Hubby had taken Kiddo up to the playground to burn off some energy, so I had the yard to myself (well, except for the squirrels and bunnies and jays and cardinals, oh and the bees - lots of bees).  I dialed up the Copa and pulled the starter cord on the mower.  (Incidentally, I always feel so.......... macho when I'm pulling the starter cord on the mower.  Especially when it takes a couple of tries before the engine actually catches.  Is that just me?)  I began merrily cutting my way up and down the back .40 and when the disco violins soared above the bongos, I started singing too.  Singing *and* dancing, actually.  Air bongos are pretty much mandated with the Copa, and that dance routine I've been doing for over 30 years now lives in my very marrow (plus Kiddo's jazz hands - she really is right about how jazz hands make anything better).  I think by now it is physically impossible for me to remain silent and still when the Copa is playing.  I've sung and shimmied to it in any form, including Muzak.  (I'm killer in an elevator - the acoustics are fantabulous, you know.) 

So, there I was, just like Fred and his hat rack

See the whole routine right here!

except instead of a jaunty neckerchief with matching red belt and socks, I was wearing a paint-spattered, 10 year old t-shirt over a boob-squashing sports bra and grass-stained sneakers, and instead of a hat rack, I had an old and decrepit lawn mower.  And jazz hands - Fred may've been a great dancer, but he really underutilized the jazz hands.  But other than those tiny details, I was exactly like Fred Astaire.

Naturally, it wasn't until after the last refrain "Copa.....Copacabana" had faded into silence and I was left with naught but the sound of my mower that I happened to catch sight of one of our neighbors.  Specifically, the lovely, older lady whose property backs up to ours, and who had apparently decided to take advantage of the cooler temperatures and breeze today to do a bit of gardening in her back flower beds.  The ones that are right at the property line, which means she had a front row seat for Heather-Fred-Barry and my dance partner, the lawn mower.  Totally busted.  Yeek.  I did what any self-respecting Fanilow would do in such a situation.  I waited for the next song to cue up and then treated her to a little Bandstand Boogie.  With plenty of jazz hands, of course.

Ah, the tortured angst of youth

My brother-in-law has been reading the Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia with my six year old nephew.  Specifically, he's been reading the boxed set that belonged first to my older cousins, then to me.  I discovered them around age 9, on a shelf in my grandparents' house, and read the series through a few times over the next several years, leaving the books behind at my parents' house when I went off to college.  Well, that set found its way to my sister's house, and thus, a new generation has begun to enjoy the stories.

One night, while reading one of the Narnia books to my nephew, my brother-in-law turned the page and out fell two sheets of paper.  Technically, they're not paper paper, but computer punch cards for the NYSE, which came in books and which my grandparents had in abundant supply, as my grandfather was a vice president at the NYSE back in the day.  The one side has lots of different boxes for bid size, ask size, sold, cash, close quote, etc, and the reverse was blank, that side being the one my family used for note pads.

Well, two such sheets fell out, and my brother-in-law immediately called for my sister, as he had no idea what in the heck he'd found.  Turns out what he discovered was a poem that my sister quickly identified by the chicken-scratch handwriting as being a Heather original creation.  She called me the following morning, giggling like a fiend, and told me of the discovery.  She promised to send up the poem to me, but as life tends to get in the way of such things, she didn't have the chance to, until I saw her in person earlier this week while the kid and I were on our annual summer trek to New Jersey.  (More on that later.)  There we stood with our kids on a blindingly sunny, hot beach and she handed over to me this relic of my youth.

And what a tortured youth it was, apparently.  Now, bear in mind that I've always fancied myself something of a writer and poet (also a lyricist and composer - oh, to have properly transcribed the melody lines of the songs I wrote as a teenager... alas, I have naught but the occasional fragment of verse and chord notations from which to recreate my attempts at emo 80s pop).  Obviously, one is never more Angsty and Tormented than when one is going through the hell that is puberty and adolescence, and I was never one to suffer from a lack of an overactive imagination or delusions of grandeur.  It was the pitfall of being a kid whose nose, more often than not, was stuck in a book and whose ears were typically covered with headphones through which music, that food of love, played on and on and on.  What I'm trying to say, basically, is that I tended to the dramatic and the melodramatic.  In my mind, I was Catherine on the moors, Scarlett in Atlanta, Anne in Avonlea and the leading lady of every Shakespearian drama, Eva Peron and Grizabella and Sally Bowles and Cosette, Katie in The Way We Were, the Baroness in Out of Africa, Etta Place hanging out with Butch and Sundance and Sophie with her horrific choice......

This is all a means to attempt to explain - justify? - what I'm about to transcribe.  Yes, dear readers, I'm about to give a Lost Work of Staggering Genius its decades-belated, long overdue public debut.  I'd save myself the transcription effort and scan them in, but my handwriting has never been beautiful and was even less so as a Tortured Teenage Artiste.  Go ahead, laugh, I sure did.  I think, reflecting back on this piece of what surely can only be rightfully termed dreck of the greatest magnitude, that it is eminently clear why I never became the Next Great American Writer, the female Jay McInerny, the 80s Sylvia Plath that I once aspired to be............

*deep breath* Here goes.  The poem is untitled, and I honestly do not remember what traumatic event caused me to write this in response.  More likely than not, it was some fight with my parents.  Perhaps my mom had gone into my room (as she was wont to do) and gone through my belongings, finding something I didn't want her to find.  I'm transcribing this verbatim, mightily resisting the urge to edit as I do:

Walking down a winding path

of darkness patched with silver

sewn into the shadow-filled

billowing

darkness by the

far off

distant moon

High above this forest-topped hill

Bravely gleaming all alone

for the host of stars are very faint

The ground below my feet dips and swerves

it is foreign to me, and evil

I yearn for a friendlier path

One through a meadow I have walked before 

worn smooth over years of travel

But somehow

I have entered this

secluded wood

full of unknown dangers and challenges

I fear I am not

experienced enough a traveller

but now

I have no choice

Gone are the easy days, days

when the path was wide and clear

and home was waiting

at the end of the lane.

The wind blows

sharp and icy cold

The old door is barred.  It stands welcoming

ajar

no more for me.

It is no longer the end

no longer my destination.

This path

leads not to what once was my Home

Now I must press forward, through the black,

the unknown

I must safely make my way,

alone and unguided

to a clearing in this strange, new wood

And with no background, no past

Nothing of old to call my own

I must build myself

a new Home

in the shadows of these trees

Send down my own roots, create

my own history

build up new walls, as these old crumble down

And protect myself from the past, from the future and its 

unknown frights

Make my own hearth and lay my own fire

to warm myself by.

What I once thought was my own

is no more.

Now I am alone, to begin

here

in the darkness

When I do build my new Home

will you share it with me?

 
I'm suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to find a better example of my teenage writing, to prove I wasn't always as horrible a writer as this would lead you to think.......

Random Thoughts Tuesday (because it is still, barely, Tuesday)

Once Lost had finished blowing my mind and breaking my heart this evening, I'd intended to come in here to the office, shut off my computer, grab my book and head up to bed.  (I'm reading the latest Jodi Picoult, by the way, anyone else read it?  I'm about 3/4 of the way through right now, so please, no spoilers.  I'm still wondering Did He or Didn't He?  Or Did His Brother?...)

Well, one thing led to another - or more precisely, one click led to another, and here I still sit, almost two hours later.  Time Management and Decent Bedtime FAIL.  So, instead, I'm going to throw out a Random Thoughts Tuesday (now with rambly intro, woot!) like my bloggy friend Cristin does so well.  (I know it isn't Cristin's original idea, but she's the one I read regularly who does this the most, so I'm going to leave it with her.)

Here goes!
 
***
I've developed a new landscaping style in the past few weeks.  I call it the "Yard Mullet" and it is achieved by mowing the front and sides of one's yard, but leaving the back long.  I find it's easiest to create the Yard Mullet by attempting to mow when under impossible time constraints and if there's Weather coming.  You know, with a capital W, like last week's spring snow, or this morning's thunder, lightning and hail storm that blew in out of seemingly nowhere.  Yep, from the street, it's all business - neatly trimmed, nary a dandelion bobbing, but in back?  Jungle party!

(For the record, I *do* go back out and get the yard de-mulleted eventually.  It's not like my property is the equivalent of a 90's Billy Ray Cyrus or anything.)

Feel free to try it.  It's just retro enough to be cool, and I really think it will catch on.  I mean, have you seen some of what's considered fashionable these days?  I mean, for Pete's sake, jeggings?!?!

***

Speaking of cutting, Kiddo needed a trim, and when I took her in to the salon yesterday afternoon, she asked if she could have it cut even shorter than it had been when we had it bobbed back in March.  I said yes, and lo and behold, another two-two and a half inches hit the floor.  It still looks pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself, but it is reverting to its wavier self now that it is shorter, which is bugging Kiddo (who didn't listen to her mama, even though Mama always is right, heh).  She's going to lose her mind when we go to Florida this summer and her shorter 'do meets the southern, summer humidity!

But in the meantime, it looks like this:

If she continues to want it shorter at every consecutive haircut appointment, I figure she'll be channeling Demi's G.I. Jane look by the time she's eight.

***

Back to the topic of yards and specifically dandelions - do you want to know why I'm now convinced dandelions are EVIL?  Because last week, I pulled a handful out of a planting bed, all of them not-yet-silver-and-open, and tossed them in the yard debris pile at the curb.  Two days later when I was out getting the mail, I glanced over at the debris pile and discovered this:

Yes.  They'd continued maturing and had opened even after being picked.  Every single, last one of them.  WTH?!?!  That is just so not right!!

It would also help my yard out considerably if my beloved daughter didn't find blowing dandelions irresistible.  Grrrr.  I guess this is karmic payback for all the dandelions I blew in my youth, but still.  Oy.

***

I'm on the school carnival committee, and part of my job is to solicit businesses for donations for our raffle.  I haaaaaaaate soliciting.  Even for a good cause (which it is) and even for a nonprofit (ditto).  I've told myself I don't know how many times in the past week I'm going to get out there and get it over with, but each time something (something totally legitimate, like Kiddo coming down with strep and me coming down with a nasty but fairly brief stomach bug) has prevented me from going.  Now I've sworn to myself that I'm going to go tomorrow and do it.  Maybe typing the words and hitting the Publish Post button will help reinforce my resolve.  Why can't the donation fairy just turn up at my doorstep with some artfully packaged gift baskets and a fat stack of gift cards?  Sigh...

***

This afternoon was our monthly Daisy Scout Troop meeting.  This fact should not ever be a surprise to me, seeing as how I'm the troop leader.  Yet once again, I found myself looking down at Kiddo's Daisy tunic and at a baggie of patches that needed to be affixed, just so, to said tunic, just an hour before I had to leave to go to the meeting.  I don't know if this counts as Mom Fail, Daisy Troop Leader Fail, or both...

So, I was determined (as I always am in that final 60 minutes before I have to leave when I discover anew I haven't attached last month's acquisitions to the dang tunic yet) that I would get them on before I had to go.  I dragged out the ironing board and plugged in the iron.  Checked the contents of the baggie - only two patches, not too hard.  I began doing the larger one that needed affixing to the back of the tunic first.  I ironed and I ironed and I ironed, and the damn thing just *wasn't* sticking.  It took me over three minutes before it finally dawned on me - this was a sew-on patch, not an iron-on patch.  All the ironing in the world wasn't going to stick that bad boy on.  If only I hadn't burned my hands and fingers fourteen times while attempting the impossible.  Sheesh.  I abandoned it in favor of the more important Daisy petal that had to be stuck onto the front.  This one I *knew* is an iron-on, as I've already put eight of its brethren on the front in a rather haphazard, circular formation per Daisy Uniform Guidelines.  I lined it up and began ironing away.  It isn't adhering, either.  ?!?!?  Yes, I kept attempting to iron it on for another good minute before pausing, engaging the rusty wheels in my skull that pass for a brain, and flipping the petal over.  It still had the backing paper on.  Whoops.

I burned my fingertips mightily removing the now-nuclear-hot backing paper from the tiny petal, but I got that dang thing on before I left.  Of course we came home from the meeting with two more petals that need to be sewn on, so I purposely left the iron and ironing board set up and set Kiddo's tunic on it when we got home, because this time?  I'm not waiting until the afternoon of the meeting.  I might as well get them on before the scabs heal from the burns I incurred today!

***

Has anyone out there actually bought and tried those sneakers that are supposed to help your posture and tighten muscles and help you get in shape?  I will admit to being intrigued whenever I see an ad in Entertainment Weekly or a commercial on TV.  I'm more than halfway tempted to get a pair, but I'd love to know if they live up even vaguely to the hype.  (Sorry, Joe Montana, you don't cut it for me, endorsement-wise.  I'd like to hear from a real person, preferably a woman, whose opinion I could trust more readily.)

Whoops, now it's Wednesday.  I really need to get to bed.  I'm meeting (in my carnival committee persona) with the principal tomorrow, and I don't want to be either racoon-eyed and yawning or so jacked up on caffeine I can't sit still, and I fear at this point, it's going to be one of those options or the other...................... 

Mostly Wordless Wednesday... reaching for the jumbo-sized ibuprofen bottle

The object: to master our newly attained wallpaper steamer to strip this -

(Isn't it hideous?!?  It was the pattern on the living room, foyer, stairway and hallway walls!)

The implements of destruction tools culprits who conspired to take me down -

(Actually, not the palm leaf.  It was merely a witness to the atrocity.  I just couldn't be bothered to move it out of the shot.)
  
The height from which I fell, while holding the scraper thingy in my right hand and the steamer thingy (the white, rectangular bit attached to the hose) in my left -

The result -

(Also banged up: my left wrist, elbow and hip and my lower back which had already been sore from yard work done earlier in the week.  Sadly, I don't have that many ice packs with cool, hands-free wraps.)

Ow.  Hubby has now promised me he'll bring the stepladder inside for me when I try to tackle the wallpaper stripping in the living room again tomorrow.

Yes, I am the Queen of grace and dexterity.  How could you tell?

A little advice (also known as I am so smart)

Say you have an iPod Touch that your kind and thoughtful, wonderful husband gave you for your 15th wedding anniversary back in January.  (Thanks again, honey!)

And say that a kind and thoughtful, wonderful friend who also owns an iPod Touch gave you a super-cool, hot pink, silicone skin for your Touch.  (Thanks again, Kristin!)

And say that your six year old owns a little, red egg full of Silly Putty that she leaves on the end table in the family room right next to your favorite spot for curling up and watching TV at night.

Sure, go right ahead, play with that Silly Putty while you're watching TV.  It's fun, after all, I mean, it's Silly Putty - go crazy, stretch it out, roll it up, flatten it on the table to make it all smooth...

Just don't.  Do.  This.

You will not wind up with a cool, funky, line-y print from the back of your iPod skin on your flattened blob of Silly Putty.  You will wind up with some sort of chemical reaction that bonds the Silly Putty to the silicone skin with a vengeance and will not come off.

Oh, and if you do decide to stick the rolled out, flattened circle of Silly Putty onto your iPod Touch skin and then spend the next forty-five minutes scraping it off molecule by molecule?  Don't decide to try to get the last blob off by resticking the Silly Putty to the spot because then you've just wasted forty-five minutes, you complete and utter idiot.

Oh yes, I am so smart.  S-M-R-T.

I'm just glad I didn't try to, say, get a print of my eyeball with my contact lenses in or something equally clever.

UPDATE: I put the skin in the freezer overnight, then scraped off what I could with a butter knife and followed that up with some rubbing alcohol on a q-tip and a warm water bath with plenty of dish soap, and voila!  Good as new!  Or, at least as good as if it hadn't had Silly Putty stuck to its back, twice.....

(And in case you're wondering, no one yet has posted *anything* on the internet about "how to remove Silly Putty from a silicone iPod skin" - yes, I managed to stump Google!  I used various methods recommended for other things to which folks have stuck Silly Putty in the past to come up with what I finally did.  Now, I suppose, any future such Google searches will come to..............me!  Hee!)

Just one more reason I will never, ever be mistaken for Martha Stewart

Yesterday afternoon, I took Kiddo over to Target to scarf down some popcorn select presents for two upcoming birthday parties she was scheduled to attend (one of which was this afternoon).  Once we had finished agonizing over which thing to get for each friend and drooled over various Littlest Pet Shop items (her) and home decor items and new release books (me), we headed to the gift wrap and birthday card section.  I told Kiddo to pick out whatever gift wrap she wanted, within reason, as all I had located at home in any sufficient quantity was Christmas wrap.  She interpreted "within reason" to mean a roll of super-shiny, silver wrapping paper.  I was dubious but she was insistent and it was fairly cheap as well as being enough to wrap both of the presents chilling in our cart.  She was thrilled to have her shiny, silver paper and brandished the roll aloft the entire way out to the car.

Well, time was drawing nigh this afternoon for us to leave for the party.  While I had been secretly hoping Hubby would notice the birthday present, roll of wrapping paper and fancy, tri-color bow Kiddo had also picked out sitting up on the table and wrap it for me (as is customary in our house - I am *not* a good gift wrapper.  Sadly, I'm not even a good gift bagger; I lack the creative dexterity required to make tissue paper look pretty inside a gift bag.  This is why Hubby, who is able to neatly and precisely wrap anything, no matter its size or shape, is the Head Gift Wrapper in our family), it was about 20 minutes before we had to leave and Hubby was showing no signs of getting his wrap on.  He and Kiddo were firmly planted on the couch in front of the Syracuse basketball game, so I trudged upstairs to wrap it myself.  (Okay, so I said "Well, guess I'm going to go get the present wrapped now....................................." and waited a bit more, looking hopefully in the couch's direction.  Nothing but a "Let's go, Orange!"  Humph.)  I removed the shrink wrap from the roll and began to unroll it.  This is when I discovered a tiny, little problem..............

Turns out the "silver" paper?

Was not quite silver when unrolled........

Gift wrap FAIL.


I managed to save the day by locating a shiny, holographic, silver gift bag in the bin in the basement along with all the Christmas wrap.  Perfect for a 7 year old girl's birthday party, at least in Kiddo's expert opinion.  I even found some tri-color tissue paper that matched the bow exactly.  Whew.


Now I just need to come up with a project that needs lots of clear, cellophane wrap as I can't return it now that it's been open and manhandled.  How much do you want to bet I still have this roll in the basement ten years from now?


Just one more reason why I will never, ever be mistaken for Martha Stewart!


(On a tangential but sorta-kinda related note, how sweet was it that the birthday girl specifically asked her mom not to use any food dye in the frosting for the birthday cupcakes today, so that Kiddo would be able to have one?  This is the second time in the past two months that one of her classmates has made a point of requesting no food dye in party-related goodies just so that Kiddo could partake.  With Kiddo's life being so full of Sorry, you can't eat thats and Nope, we'll have to scrape all the yummy frosting off of this firsts, little things like this really touch me.  Yay for the kind hearts and compassionate natures of Kiddo's friends!!)

In which I utterly blow any last remnants of my ladylike reputation clear to Heck

I've been debating whether or not I should relate the following anecdote. I mean, I do have a reputation to uphold, that of a dainty, delicate, utterly ladylike and genteel chick, of course...

At first, I was going to keep this to myself. Then, my dear friend Givinya de Elba posted something on her blog which spurred me into replying, via comment, about what had transpired despite my decision to keep this one in the vault and uphold my rep and all.

Furthermore, I was not, not, not going to share this with Hubby. I was firm on that one. I mean, it is true that over the past 16 and a half years we've been together, the bloom has somewhat come off the rose. The air of mystery surrounding All Things Feminine has long since whooshed out the window opened in the House Where Chicks Outnumber Dude. But, despite my resolve to not tell him, of course I did. Last night. Well, mostly - I was having a hard time getting to the crux of the matter given that I was giggling like a fool with tears streaming down my face. But he got the gist of my tale and then provided me with the perfect ending line, so now I am feeling compelled to blog it after all.

Here goes.... and if, by some slim chance, you're still subscribing to my Cheerful Delusion that I am a Dainty-n-Delicate Gal, you might want to stop reading now and go about your business.

So, I'm nearsighted. Really, really, reaaaaaally nearsighted. This is an accurate representation of Heather Without Her Corrective Lenses:



Seriously, I'm Squinty McWhatisthat without my specs. As one who has required glasses for more than one score and ten years (NB to Creative Junkie - I double checked and a score is twenty years. Apparently the brain cells aren't all pudding!) I have grown used to having to guesstimate what it is in front of my face at certain crucial times over the course of my day. The clock with extra-large, illuminated numbers that is over on Hubby's side of the bed (as he is the one who requires Control of the Alarm)? Perfectly used to squinting as hard as I can to determine if the number before the colon is one or two digits, and completely comfortable with the fact that unless it is 11:11, I'm not going to be able to tell what any of the numbers are beyond a glowing, green fuzz.

The tasks associated with showering are another set of things with which I am generally comfortable doing without being able to see them. (Goodness knows, the amorphous, jiggly, white mass that exists below my eyeballs is better left viewed in Extremely Soft Focus, anyhow.) Scrubbing, rinsing and that trickiest of all shower-related jobs: shaving, all are second nature to Magoo Me. Now, in order to shave my lower legs (and my big toes, if I am telling the complete truth, but what woman is going to admit to shaving her big toes? Let's just say it was a horrible mistake I first made back in my foolhardy teenage years that now requires regular maintenance, lest Sasquatch think I've robbed him of some digits in a weird, inter-species transplant situation) I have long since perfected a maneuver in which I prop my leg up against the side of the shower wall, kind of like this:



only slightly less dressed and graceful and also always solo. Oh, and I don't shave my armpits and legs simultaneously, so without the arm extension, too. Yes, for a big girl, I'm surprisingly flexible, and am able to effect the above position for better squinting proximity to shave.

Now, I must digress for a moment. It's actually relevant to the story, as you will see. I love prunes. Oh, I'm sorry, "dried plums" - thanks, Marketing Gurus! I love dried plums. Every once in a while, I'll be overcome while grocery shopping and buy a container of dried plums. (It does sound classier, I'll grant you that.) A few weeks ago, I was overcome in such a manner and thus, a large container of dried plums has recently been residing in our fridge. Dried plums that no one else in my family ever, ever eats, besides me. We've been frantically trying to eat down all the contents of our pantry, fridge, freezer and chest freezer with some decent amount of success, but it's taken effort. (We're down to about 1/3 of a case of frozen pizza dough balls, a Sam's Club sized box of Italian ices, and several bags of frozen veggies. Oh, and a large container of old-fashioned oatmeal. And Cheez-its, for Kiddo's lunches.) As I said, no one else in my family eats prunes dried plums, so it's been me giving a dedicated yet solo effort to finish off the container before Thursday, when we move. As I *big, red, puffy heart* them, this hasn't been a hardship. (And I should further note for the record that while I adore Jamie Lee Curtis - A Fish Called Wanda and True Lies were both performances of comedic perfection - I do not have a need for her in her new guise as the Activia Lady. Regularity has never been an issue for me, is what I'm saying.) I've been popping them down by the handful (as in four or five at a time) a few times a day, like when I'm making Kiddo's lunch for school or emptying the dishwasher or cooking dinner or walking by the fridge. They're so, so delicious. Mmmmm, prunetastic.

So, back to my original story. The other morning, I was in the shower and up to the deforestation portion of events. I was taking care of business in my usual Big Girl Ballet pose, and when I was through, I turned around to put the razor back up on the top shelf of the shower caddy that dangles from the showerhead. It was at this point that I noticed something on the floor of the tub.

That something, to be specific, was two somethings. Two small, dark brown, blobular somethings there behind me on the tub floor. Now, I suppose I must confess that while regularity isn't a problem for me in any event, my present Extra-Prunetastic diet has led to the occasional gaseous emission. And, while I was Leg Up on the Wall and shaving, I had a few such emissions. Whatever, I was home alone (well, besides the cat and frankly there is nothing I could bodily emit that could touch her post-bologna-consumption farts.) (NB to Crazy Sister - I amend my comment on your post earlier today. My cat's post-bologna-consumption gas might be the Worst Smell, Ever.) So, I froze at the sight of these two, small, dark brown, blobular somethings fuzzily peering up at me through the steam and myopia.

I will confess that I pondered for a moment or two if any of my recent gaseous emissions might've been a bit more... strenuous than I'd thought at the time. I mean, I was distracted by my Shaving By Braille method and the whole Trying Not to Slice My Legs or Feet Open business. But could I have been that distracted? Paraphrasing what Givinya said in her related blog post, getting up close and personal to such a potential biohazard in order to see it clearly is not something one wants to do. I bent over and squinted for all I was worth, but didn't dare actually get down onto the floor of the tub and poke my nose into it to see for sure. I hopped out of the shower and grabbed for my glasses and then turned back around to face the music.

This is what I found:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

*


That's Don Diego and Brownie, aka two of Kiddo's Teeny Tiny Guys, Dog Pack Division. (She has a multitude of TTGs, from dogs and cats to farm and zoo animals to two Teeny Tiny T. Rexes. Hubby and I have stepped on every single one of them over the years, too.) She's taken to bringing the TTG Dog Pack into the tub with her, as the dinosaurs in there were apparently getting dull. (They are getting rather icky from dwelling permanently on the ledge of the tub and may stay behind when we move...) I guess I didn't hear the clatter of Don Diego and Brownie as they slipped from their ledgeside perch to the floor of the tub, singing heartily as I was as per usual while going about my Showery Business.

Whew.

So, in conclusion, I told Hubby about this last night. He rolled his eyes at me, rolled over and began drifting off to sleep (a sleep that was full of dreams of loading U-Hauls and hoping that everything would fit, apparently). A few moments later, he rolled back over towards me, opened one eye and said "You know, the moral of that story is that you should never, ever eat anything without your glasses on."

He's probably right, too.





* Don Diego and Brownie's actual size is less than one inch, each. They come from that vending machine in the row of nasty gumballs and You're Never Going to Be Allowed to Get That candy in the front of the supermarket. So, they are in fact quite small.

Hakuna Matata!

Well, that was quite a weekend we just had here in the Smith family. One of those "I need a weekend to get over my weekend" type deals. It all started bright and early Friday morning, when we loaded up Ye Olde Minivan and headed west to Lansing, Michigan. Why'd we do that, you ask? Because Lansing is where the national tour of The Lion King happens to be playing right now.

You see, Kiddo is a bit of a musical theater nerd, just like her mama. Kiddo also is completely obsessed with The Lion King. She claimed my OBC soundtrack for her own years ago, and has since memorized every word, note, grunt, roar and snort therein. We own the movie, which she has watched at least a million times. We have the storybook version of The Lion King, which she has read at least two million times. She has not one, but two Simba stuffed animals. Every year when we go to Walt Disney World, we see the Festival of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom, and Kiddo is rapt throughout. So, a few months ago, Hubby and I were talking about how much we thought Kiddo would enjoy seeing the actual stage production. Our first thought was, of course, Broadway, where we had seen TLK many, many moons ago ourselves. Hubby hopped online and quickly discovered that these days, a ticket to TLK costs approximately four arms and three legs, especially multiplied by three. On to the next thought - perhaps the national tour would be coming back to our fair city sometime soon? Hubby looked into it and discovered that sadly, no, it isn't going to be stopping back here in the near future. That was when he discovered that the tour would be playing in Lansing in April. Some further research led him to the conclusion that we could get three awesome seats and a hotel room overnight for less than what it would cost us to see the show on Broadway (which would include free lodging at Chez Grandparents in Jersey). Furthermore, Google Maps informed him that driving from our house to Lansing takes almost exactly the same amount of time as driving from our house to Chez Grandparents. Seemed like a no-brainer to us, so we ordered the tickets, made the hotel reservation and put a big star on the calendar.

So there we were, setting out Friday morning, Kiddo watching the first of her vast Veggietales DVD collection, Hubby and I overcaffeinating with Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew Code Red, respectively. Now, the thing about driving mostly due west from our home is that it takes us a bit out of the country:



And it turns out that this is the more direct route than staying in the US and going the long way around the eastern Great Lakes. We had renewed our passports and gotten Kiddo her very first passport a few months ago in anticipation of this trip, so we weren't sweating it. We made good time over the border into Canada, stopping for a quick bathroom break during which Kiddo had to go sit next to "the really shiny guy" on the bench inside the Duty Free shop...



We continued on our way through what must surely be one of the most boring stretches of eastern Canada (no offense intended to the lovely inhabitants of this section of the country; I know anyone would have the same impression should they be driving along the NYS Thruway in our neck of the woods as well). It was so boring that I promptly fell asleep, as I am wont to do whenever I'm in a car anyhow. I was awakened from my midmorning nap a short while later by the energetic and loud serenade of a bunch of singing vegetables - Kiddo had decided to remove the headphones connecting her ears to the portable DVD player (and seriously, was there ever a better invention for the sanity of all adults on long car rides than the portable DVD player? I know that as a child, we made several long car trips - I'm talking NJ to Florida and back length trips - and I know that I certainly would've appreciated the opportunity to gorge myself on repeated viewings of Dirty Dancing or Pretty in Pink or A Chorus Line, the Movie instead of playing endless rounds of Herbie Car - what my family called Punch Buggy - or "Mom, she's touching me! She's on my side!" and praying that my Walkman batteries wouldn't run out before lunch....). The Veggietales crew might provide wholesome and often humorous entertainment, but they certainly do not provide good lullaby-esque music by which one can nap, especially when the portable DVD player is strapped to the headrest directly behind one's head.

We zipped along through Canada, feeling like we were driving much faster than we actually were thanks to the cute, metric speed limits (100 KPH? Wow, we must be flying!) and in no time, we were circling 'round Lake Huron and approaching the US Border once more. We were getting hungry, but Hubby refused to stop at any of the Fifth Wheel Truck Stops we'd passed for lunch despite my begging (come on now - they had HUGE signs proclaiming BREAKFAST ALL DAY, and we were in Canada, where they surely have maple syrup instead of Aunt Jemima or Mrs. Butterworth, right?). We pulled up to the bridge back into the US and promptly came to a

dead

stop.

It turns out that many, many Canadians really wanted to head into Port Huron for Good Friday. Who knew? We sat on the scary, heart-stoppingly high bridge over the lake for a good ninety minutes. Plenty of time for me to get this shot of the beautiful view of the sparkling, clear blue waters of Lake Huron out my window:



When we were finally back in the US of A, we stopped at the first Golden Arches we came across that we could see from the highway. That is one of Hubby's Road Trip Rules: it isn't enough to see a sign telling you there is a Mickey D's or Wendy's or gas station at the next exit, the actual building itself must be visible from the highway or you do not pull off the main road. This rule came about after one too many frantic attempts to get gas or change a blow-out diaper where we found ourselves traipsing about the dark, back woods of Nowhere, PA, driving further and further from the main road and in some cases, unable to get right back on to the highway where we exited. So, after a later-than-we'd-planned-for lunch, we trekked onwards, finally arriving at our hotel in West Lansing.

We stayed at a Residence Inn, which meant we had a suite with kitchenette instead of just a room. Kiddo was extremely excited to learn that she was sleeping on the magical sofa that would transform into a bed just for her. We didn't disabuse her of the idea that it was a special treat to sleep on the pull-out bed, either. Kiddo and I changed into swimsuits and headed down to the pool (excellent sensory input for her, as well as a way to stretch and burn off some energy after spending almost 8 hours strapped into a booster seat watching animated veggies frolicking about). Unfortunately, we were not the only people enjoying a late afternoon dip. It seemed that the West Lansing Residence Inn was the gathering point for someone's large family function. Could've been a wedding or maybe a large family reunion, but there were fifteen adults and at least two dozen children who all were related/knew each other well already occupying the relatively small pool and hot tub area when Kiddo and I arrived.

Now, when I say "large family reunion" I am not emphasizing it quite the way you'd expect. What I mean to say is, it was a LARGE family. As in "Biggest Loser" large. Now, I am not a small woman. The words "slender" or "svelte" do not ever apply to my person, especially when my person is squeezed into any sort of swimming gear. I freely and openly acknowledge this. However, I was the smallest adult woman in the pool area by at least half. The men were even bigger, and most of the children were equally rotund. Oh, and they were all REALLY, REALLY loud, too. It was insane. Despite the fact that the deepest part of the pool was only 4ft 2in and there were impressive NO DIVING signs on every available surface, the Large Family was diving with abandon. Come to think of it, the amount of water that was being displaced by cellulite and cannonballs probably brought the water down to closer to the two feet deep level, and made a "lazy river rapids" sort of effect all the way around the pool, as well. Consequently, Kiddo and I didn't stay in the pool area for more than 20 or 25 minutes before heading back up to our room, where Hubby had set up the computer (yay, hotel with free WiFi!) and located a nearby Domino's with coupons online and ordered us some pizza for dinner.

Soon enough, we were all bathed/showered and fed and tucking ourselves in to sleep in our respective beds.



Now, remember how I said our suite came with a kitchenette? That kitchenette included a fridge/freezer that had an ice maker as well as a cute, miniature dishwasher. We'd started up the dishwasher after dinner, thinking it would provide a bit of white noise for Kiddo as she was in the front part of the suite, closest to the hallway, and the Large Family were no quieter moving about the rest of the hotel than they were in the pool. Turns out that the teeny-tiny dishwasher operated via a very loud engine. A loud, slow engine that clanked and roared for a good hour after we'd turned it on and tucked her in some eight feet away. Whoops. Eventually, though, the dishwasher wheezed to a halt, the Large Family stopped thundering past our door in the hall, and peace and quiet settled over our suite. Everyone drifted off to sleep, and then the ice maker in the freezer began to work.

This was a Very Special ice maker. When we'd first arrived at the room and were investigating all the features therein, I peered into the freezer and noted the lack of any cubes in the tray below the ice maker. Hubby subsequently jiggled a few bits in the freezer and proclaimed it broken. Not quite. In the wee, small hours of the night, the ice maker decided the time was nigh to produce a cube. One cube. But not just any little cube. The effort required by this machine to produce one cube started off with a noise akin to the Space Shuttle gearing up for blast-off from the launching pad. After ten minutes of this machinery grinding away, building to an ever-crescendoing roar, it popped out its cube with a resounding BANG that sounded like a shotgun being fired, again from mere feet away from my sleeping child. Needless to say, the noise woke me up. The ice maker continued to "work" in this manner irregularly throughout the night, the Space Shuttle crescendoing roar leading up to the shotgun blast of the cube shooting out into the tray. If I didn't know how quietly water actually does freeze, I'd completely believe that this level of ferocity and sound was totally required to fuse those Hs and Os into a solid, cold mass. I do know better, though, so I was not impressed or amused.

At any rate, despite the Thundering Herd of Larges and the World's Loudest Ice Maker, we all managed to get some sleep, if not of the highest quality. (I forgot to mention the West Lansing Residence Inn also featured the World's Worst Pillows. They seemed promising enough, all fluffy and big, but they were of the Insidiously Evil Feather variety, whereupon you rest your head waaaay up on top of a pillow or three, and in mere seconds, your head is down on the mattress with pillow puffed up around your face in a most suffocating-esque way.) Morning arrived, and Hubby took his turn taking Kiddo to the pool. Luckily for him, the Large Family had bypassed the early-morning exercise option in favor of the free, full breakfast offered by the hotel, and he and Kiddo were the only people in the pool area. I opted to surf the 'net and take a super-long shower (yay for endless hotel hot water!). Hubby checked out the breakfast scene on the way back from the pool, and reported upon their return that there was no room at the inn, or at least in the restaurant area. Yep, he'd met the Large Family. He made a few trips from the restaurant to our room instead, bringing us some very tasty breakfast (though I bet not as tasty as breakfast-for-lunch would've been at the Fifth Wheel). We had some time to kill before heading out to the show (remember the show? I know I've spent paragraphs here on the hotel, but really, we were there for the show) so Kiddo watched some TV (including more Veggietales, which are in the Saturday morning cartoon line-up apparently), Hubby "worked" on his computer and I watched vintage Law and Order (oh Jerry Orbach, how I miss you) and napped a bit in the other room, then we nuked some leftover pizza for lunch before packing up our stuff when it was time to head out.

We bid the Large Family and the Residence Inn a fond farewell (Kiddo, in the parking lot, blowing kisses to the building: "Goodbye, Michigan hotel. I'll miss you. I'll come back soon! *mwah*") and made our way to Michigan State University, where TLK was playing, while Kiddo watched our Lion King DVD in the back seat. We drove around campus for a bit and then did some parking garage strategizing to optimize our chances of a quick exit after the show. We paused in front of the theater to get this shot (after Hubby graciously offered to take the same picture for a family that had thought of the idea first)



and then it was showtime! Well, not quite. We couldn't even get into the lobby yet, and stood in the entrance way as Kiddo looked longingly through the doors at the lady setting up the Official Lion King Souvenirs Stand a few yards into the lobby. Finally we could enter the lobby, and we made our way past several OLKS Stands (as well as a few Roasted Nut stands, oddly enough) and up to the balcony level. We found the right set of doors and were told that we'd need to wait a bit more before we could go in, so wait we did. When the doors opened, we discovered that the front row of the balcony at the Wharton Center is not only very high up (I know I've mentioned my utterly incredible fear of heights before) but had a long, sloping ledge off the front down which one could easily slide before plummeting to the orchestra level below. My palms are sweating as I type this just from thinking of it, I kid you not. We settled in for the show, which began after at least a dozen more announcements reminding us in no uncertain terms that photographic or other recording devices were most definitely prohibited.

Finally, finally, finally it was showtime. The lights dimmed, the curtain rose, the music swelled and The Lion King began. We had great seats despite the sickening height, as it turns out. Kiddo was transfixed, and Hubby and I were as captivated by this production as we'd been when we saw the original on Broadway. I briefly regretted not choosing an aisle seat in the orchestra section when the actors made their entrance at the beginning of the show, but at the beginning of the second act, one of the bird actors stood not ten feet away from us, swooping and soaring his bird in circles directly over our head. It was awesome. Kiddo did not like the strobe light/exploding bursts of steam and smoke effects that accompanied some of Scar's "villian" scenes, but was not the least bit upset by the wildebeest stampede (which we'd thought she might find scary). At the intermission, Hubby went off to find some snacks and Kiddo announced she had to use the bathroom, level "emergency" so we joined the line at the ladies' room.

Now, it appeared the balcony seated maybe 800 people or so. It was a near-capacity crowd. There was exactly ONE ladies' room for the entire balcony section. We were maybe 40 or 50 people back in line when Kiddo, who was growing increasingly frantic, told me that she "could feel the pee starting to come out" and I had to make a snap decision. I hoisted her up by the armpits, and bearing her aloft in front of me like a shield, I cut to the front of the line. The woman who was at that point next (along with her maybe 10 or 11 year old daughter) most graciously allowed us to go ahead of them, and I got Kiddo into the stall and on the seat with not even a millisecond to spare. I didn't even bother closing the stall door - I was peeling her tights down as we hustled into the stall. Whew, that was a close one. Since we had cut the line, I didn't feel right using the facilities myself, so I opted to rely upon my Bladder of Steel and we exited the stall as quickly as we could when Kiddo was done. She was apologizing and thanking everyone in line behind us as we washed our hands and made our way back out of the bathroom (and I would like to extend my own apologies and thanks to all the women and girls we cut in front of as well; I know you all had to go, too, and I appreciate your allowing us to avoid a pants-wetting incident that doubtless would not have been pleasant), where we rejoined Hubby who had managed to acquire a small bottle of water, 2 mediocre and very dry chocolate chip cookies and a small bag of chocolate-covered peanuts for approximately $15. That boost of sugar was enough to get Kiddo bouncing, and before we knew it, the show was over and the actors were taking their third (well-deserved) curtain call.

Back out to the garage, where Kiddo changed into her jammies and strapped in to watch yet more Veggietales DVDs (I swear to you, we brought many, many NON-VT DVDs with us as well, but Kiddo was on a veggie kick) and Hubby's pre-show parking strategy worked like a charm, getting us out of the garage and on our way back to Canada in less than three minutes flat. With a few quick stops for bathroom breaks, food and gas, we were back in New York and approaching our town by a little after 11:00 Saturday night. Oh, and for the last hour and a half or so of the ride, we were wowed by the sight of the moon rising low on the horizon. It was so darkly orange that it resembled the setting sun more than the rising moon, and I spent a good twenty minutes trying to take a decent picture of it through the windshield. Sadly, this is the best I could do:



and it doesn't nearly capture the orangey-ness or largeness of what we saw. The higher the moon rose, the less colorful it became, but trust me, it was an amazing sight.

Once we arrived back at the homestead, Hubby carried Kiddo up to bed and I began assisting the Easter Bunny in basket prep and hiding. (Yeah, I know, I should've done that before we left. Idiot.) Thankfully, the late night and excitement of the trip meant Kiddo slept in until 7:40 yesterday morning, instead of being up and in search of baskets at the crack of dawn, as is customary. She found her basket and promptly surveyed the loot brought by Mommy and Daddy the Easter Bunny.


While I was salivating at the sight of Cadbury mini-creme eggs and the giant Gertrude Hawk Chocolate Dinosaur Egg, Kiddo was most excited by the arrival of Pico, the Chihuahua (or Chewawa who is "so cyoot" according to the various odes Kiddo penned later on, during church and afterwards). Kiddo took Pico up to her room to meet the rest of her Stuffed Animal Entourage and I decided the time was right to hide to have the Easter Bunny hide our eggs in the back yard. Hubby was watching golf on TV at this point, so I left him in charge of making sure I the Easter Bunny was not discovered. Imagine my surprise when I came in from the deck to find Kiddo standing in the living room! Shooting Glares of Death at Hubby (who returned them with the Shrug and Raised Eyebrows of "What did you want me to do?"), I quickly explained to Kiddo that I had noticed the empty egg carton in the fridge when I went to start breakfast, so I'd gone outside to see where the Easter Bunny had hidden her eggs this year - in the front or back yard. Kiddo bought the line and insisted upon immediately going out to find the eggs, so we did. Well, by "we" I mean Kiddo and I, as Hubby wisely opted to stay inside where it wasn't a wind chill of 29 degrees. I wound up giving Kiddo "you're getting warmer/colder" type hints just to hurry things along (and because she was really not doing that spectacular a job of finding not-very-concealed, brightly colored eggs) before any of our extremities blackened from frostbite and fell clear off.



Once that was done, we returned inside to thaw and enjoyed some Easter omelets cooked by Hubby, then it was time to get ready for church. (Yay for church that doesn't start until 10:45!) After church, Kiddo played with Pico and the rest of her SAE, Hubby watched golf and I took an Easter nap. But, not before I got a few shots of Kiddo (and Pico) in her Easter ensemble....



Any girl knows that dresses - especially ones with crinolines! - were made for twirling...



In conclusion, Hakuna Matata and He is Risen, hallelujah! Hope you and yours had a wonderful weekend, and a happy Easter or Passover or whatever you may celebrate. Now, stay out of my way as I hit the post-Easter candy clearance bins, okay? At least, stay away from the Cadbury Creme Eggs, as they are MINE!