Nothing Much Happened Today

I had gone to a friend’s house last night where a small group of us played some games. It was my “guy” night.

My friend Jason: “How does it feel to be around adults?”

Ben: “We barely qualify…”

And that’s when we broke out a game called Munchkin.

I’ve got cool friends.

And we drank Kool-Aid all night long. Seriously. And Diet Cherry 7-Up. I polished off a box of Triscuits. I got home at 1:00 am.

PART-EY!

I got up with Stephanie because I like to make her lunch. After all, it is always my fault if she’s lunchless and needs to buy it from Fast N’ Greasy. But then I went straight back to bed thinking, “The kids will wake me up. 7:30. 8:00 at the latest.”

9:30.

They slept until 9:30.

I have no idea how late they stayed up last night. But 9:30. Sheesh.

We went to the pool today. Nothing fancy. I did make a picnic lunch so we could hang out there for a while.

It’s garbage day in our neighborhood. The funniest thing I saw all day was a garbage man. Guy is hanging off the back of the truck cruising down the street. He’s of course covered head to toe. You’d think he’d be cooking covered like that, but for you folks not from Texas, people that work all day in the sun wear protection. And yeah, he’s cookin’. The funny thing is that he’s wearing a sombrero.

“That’s funny?” you ask snidely as though you’d expect all Texas garbage men to be straight outta Mexico where everybody wears a sombrero.

Well, in reality, not so much. Yes, a great number of undesirable working class jobs are manned by migrant workers, this guy was exceptional in that he was wearing a sombrero. Not a hat. Not a cap. A Mexican Hat Dance Sombrero. It had to have been 5 feet in diameter. It was covered in decorations, red lace, and sparkled. It didn’t have the dangling cat toys, but he might have taken those off because they can be distracting.

We stayed not quite 4 hours. We used a lot of sunblock. Compared to the other folks there, we are extremely white. Nordic white. Alabaster. White like a polar bear in a snow storm.

Funny thing here is that we’re getting quite tan with us going outside almost every day during this summer vacation. But we live in a multi-cultural neighborhood. “Multi-cultural” as in for about half of Mission Bend English is a second language. Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Hindi, Pakistani, African…ese, West Indies, Pacific Islander, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, and Canadian all spoken here. And at our pool, we were the white kids.

We get home and I tell the girls to get in the bathroom and get out of their swimsuits, leave their towels and suits on the floor for me to wash. I told Zoey to get in the shower.

“Why do I hafta to go first all the time?!”

“I’d tell you, but you wouldn’t care. So let’s just say because I told you to and because you love and respect me without condition you’ll just do it. OK?”

“Fine.”

Two seconds later both kids are running through the house.

“Daddy, we have a surprise for you!”

I already know they are streaking through the house.

In stereo they say, “WHITE BOOTIES!”

“GET BACK IN THE BATHROOM AND TAKE YOUR SHOWER! Sara, why are you naked?” And then I see it. They have really white booties. They look like the Coppertone kid.

I caught myself checking out my booty in the bathroom later.

My ass is WHITE.

And then we went to the Katy Mills Mall because I hadn’t been tortured in a while. Stephanie wanted to buy pants from Old Navy. There was a deal that coincided with her need for pants. Then we went to Children’s Place. The girls weren’t even trying to be good. Here I am trying to catch pics of our outing and those two couldn’t pause long enough for a picture. All I got were blurs of boredom.

The only one of them capable of standing still. 

Then SWMBO dragged my unhappy white ass to J. C. Penny’s to return some pants she bought from the internet 6 months ago. It was two pair of pants for $17. She bought them because it was a great deal. But when they came in, with my exact size clearly marked on the tag, they were made for people 6 inches taller than me.

I’m thinking we are wasting our time. She takes them to the desk and the guy is like, “I’ll need a manager’s approval… meh. Whatever.” So he reimburses our credit card.

Stephanie: “Do you wanna go pick out some pants?”

Me: “I don’t need pants.”

Stephanie: “But it’s a great deal.”

Me: “Do you not see these two gremlins terrorizing the other customers? The yellow haired one just ate a catalog.”

Stephanie: “But it’s TWO pair of pants for $17.”

Me: “I didn’t need pants when you bought them six months ago.”

Stephanie: “But it’s a REALLY good deal.”

Me: “I REALLY don’t need pants.”

Stephanie: “Ok. If you REALLY don’t need them…”

Me: “I don’t.”

Stephanie: *sigh*

Then we went to La Madeleine. It happened to share the parking area with J.C. Penny’s which is why we went to Penny’s in the first place. Stephanie has a co-worker that is in sales. In appreciation for doing whatever it is that she does, he gives her La Madeleine gift cards. Plural. She’s got three. It was as good a time as any to use them and I didn’t have to make dinner tonight.

The place was trés chic. Like a cafeteria, you stand in line with a tray. But you order from a menu. You hold a giant wooden spoon with a number (or letter) on it so they can find you once you’ve sat down with your tray. The tray, apparently, is for your side items that they build for you in the cafeteria line. Stephanie ordered soup.

La M: “Oh crap. You wanted soup? At dinner time?”

Stephanie: “Sorry!”

La M: “No Prob. I’ll just grab some from the back.”

From the back.

We stood there and waited. We were the only ones in the line. By the time they came out with Stephanie’s soup the line was out the door and our orders that needed to be cooked were ready. Two ladies were standing there at the end of the line with dishes of food in each hand waiting for us.

It’s not like the next person in line was just being over extra-uber patient either. He ordered the soup too. Apparently they had an unexpected run on soup. It happens. Apparently.

For what it’s worth, the food was really good. And for a counter service/table service restaurant it was interesting. Portion size was perfect. The place was carved up into rooms so that you didn’t feel like you were eating in convention hall. Once the girls got to eating their behavior began to “operate within established working parameters”. I like that quote. It’s an inside joke that only I get. So… I’m laughing at you!

On the drive home Zoey says, “I don’t like ducks.”

?

Out of the blue.

Her brain functions on two different levels. Her non sequiturs are always unexpected and hilarious. I’m keeping track of them now, so stay tuned for more “Zoey-isms”.

So, in brief, nothing much happened today.