Zen and the Art of Piracy

According to my calender today is Talk Like a Pirate Day so for all of you mateys out there, "arrrrrr, avast and shiver me timbers! Redistribute the ballast, ye dogs! Hide the rum!" A few years ago my family had a reunion down at Disneyland and we had a great time. Attending were my parents (who also footed the bill for this extravaganza), my brothers and their families and Blair and I with ours. That came out to 9 adults and 7 children. Of course Pirates of the Caribbean was a major priority for the day so when the time came, all 16 of us piled onto the same boat. Now, before you think, so what, you need to know that the shortest person in my family is 5'9" (not including sis-in-laws who are all normal heights.) With the exception of the sis-in-laws and the small children we're, ahem, not small. So here we are climbing into this unfortunate boat, thunk! and situating ourselves when I hear from the back "oops! Better shift the ballast!" That was one of my brother's kind way of saying " we're listing heavily to the port side-redistribute!" Of course that sort of became the theme for the reunion. Dang, I almost felt normal being around my brothers again. I married a man who's shorter than I so for the last 14 years or so I've been the Jolly Pink Giant around his very normal to short sized family. I suppose the enormous weight problem doesn't help my case, either. I prefer to think of it as "Post Childbirth Disaster Figure" which, coincidentally, I am remedying. 12 lbs. down, 56 million to go. Woohoo! Maybe the next time we visit the Magic Kingdom with the entire tribe (now up to 19) we can save the ballast jokes for Mr. Toad's wild ride, savvy?

Frustration Foam

I had a craft show this weekend and still ended up sunburnt even though I was under an awning the entire time. My feet even ended up with flip flop tan lines. It never ceases to amaze me some of the things people will buy. It never ceases to amaze me what people will make thinking that people will buy. Here, buy a lump of log featuring some kind of perched weed arrangement. No, no! Come over here and buy our "gently used" quilted-hand-me-down-cigarette-smoke-infested LaZboy arm covers. Goes with any decor! One young lady made strange origami cranes out of used notebook paper and was actually surprised when no one bought any. Ummm, hello? I guess you gotta give her points for effort. I think the part I enjoyed the most was watching the people that attended the fair. There was one particular lady that had a stroller containing 2 of her 6 "babies." (That's part chihuahua part yorkie dog- breath yapper dogs to you and me.) This person had chosen to immortalize her "children" in tat form on her back and wheeled around the dogs in their very own pimped out stroller featuring some blingin' 22s. Please allow me to roll my eyes a second time. The worst part of the entire event was the country music played over the loudspeaker. I wouldn't have minded so much if other music was played as well but after 25 renditions of "That's What You Get When You Play a Country Song Backwards" I was startin' to foam at the mouth. Man, I'm glad that's over. I need a break.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

Several months ago my oldest son Karch and I went to the eye doctor together. Just us two, no one else. It was nice to have some one-on-one time together even if it was a trip to the eye doc. Earlier in the day Karch had won a small prize for something at school which turned out to be one of those 5-color-in-one ball point pens. You click the little lever for whichever color you want to use. So there we were sitting in the waiting room when Karch took out the pen to show me and he proceeded to do what all red-blooded American kids do when they have something new...take it apart. This pen was bright yellow and sort of squatty looking so after he unscrewed the top he stuck it on his finger. He turned to me with a maniacal look in his eye and calling upon his inner lounge lizard burst out into song: "Goldfingerrrrrr!" in front of the entire waiting room. Well, this caught me completely off guard as we hadn't seen the movie recently. I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time and I'm afraid the other patients may not have been as amused. Luckily, they called our name right about then so we could at least confine our laughter to the exam room. The moment had been utterly perfect and I am still laughing.

Pink Presents

My sweet baby girl started preschool today and was so excited to use her backpack. (Hello Kitty) She had a great time but decided that she didn't want to tell me what they did. Oooo, such the secret! She turns 4 on Friday. Her birthday gifts are hiding in our crawlspace, waiting for me to wrap them. She is getting one of those play kitchens with a barrel o' plastic food and play cookware. I think as long as she gets something pink, she'll be happy. Last year when we asked her what she wanted for her birthday she said "pink presents." This year she's extended that to purple as well. Ahhh, to be 4 again...