super analytic - SQUIRREL

Oh, GOD, y'all, how I love sour candy. 

Also, my iTunes, out of commission since MAY is BACK IN THE GAME.  BOOM.

Also, I've decided my second favorite animal of ever is going to be the manatee (bengal tigers were, of course, a close third.)

Because, look:

That's just ridiculous right there.

Have you seen the auction shows?  Any of them?  How come I have never been to an auction?  Particularly one for a storage unit?

MANGO.

I gotta go.

PTA Mom?

My baby is a Kindergartener.

I know.  I KNOW. I totally, 100% recognize that everyone else in the universe that has a child has either put said child into Kindergarten or will do so soon enough.  I am NOT SPECIAL.  I get that.  However...

He's just so little and sweet.

He is fine, he likes it, it's weird and different to him, but he is doing just fine.

I'm about to panic because today he has to get on the bus/van thingee to get him to afterschool.  AND EVEN IF HE DOES get on said van/bus thingee, WHO WILL GUARANTEE THAT THE BUS/VAN THINGEE WON'T WRECK?  HMMM???

See.

He didn't like being a car rider yesterday.  He wanted to ride the bus.  Note his pissed off wittle face:

He's very proud of himself.  Did his homework without any grief last night.  Seems to be behaving, in that he came home with a sticker (boom, yo.)  He's very pleased with his backpack:

Also, this is my last child.  My baby.  Forever my littlest one.  And this is the last time I will see this:

Lloyd Dobler

I'm wearing a size 16 skirt, and it's not falling off my fat ass.

That hurts, even to just type it.

What's worse is, I'm in pretty much the best shape I've been in since I was about 22.

F M E.

Anyway...

So I sing with this band, from my church?  Originally it was me and five dudes but now it is me, four dudes and a girl who is like 13 and precious.  Awesome.  We are pulling together this "gig" for September 11, and they keep incorporating secular music that I pretty much Super Heart, but then they shuck it into some key that is impossible for me to harmonize with and I have been kind of sucking it up lately.  That part's not my favorite.

But you know what IS my favorite?

I get to sing Peter Gabriel:




Maybe I will either take off my shirt while I sing it, like Peter.

Or maybe, I will get some rangly teenager to hold up a GIGANTIC boom box and just stand there. 

Since this is happening at the church, it is sort of unlikely that either of these things will happen, but it's a nice thought.

Big Fish

I used to be a really good swimmer.

This weekend, we spent, like, five hours at a pool, my brother and his wife, their kid, my little kid.  It was so much fun, just sitting around and kind of cooling off and bs'ing.  I say kind of because the water was about 95 degrees and hardly refreshing.  More than once, we daydreamed about how nice it would be if they brought in a great big block of ice and threw it in there.  Why don't they do that, actually?  That would be the highlight of every neighborhood pool's summer.

Anyway, in the spirit of the neighborhood pool, my brother and I started goofing off with contests.  Which one of us can make a bigger splash?  (my brother.  I'm afraid to run before I jump off the diving board, and also, I don't know how to do a cannonball.)  Who is a better diver?  (me.  he looks like Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School.)  (that being said, I dive too shallowly, a result of an impact of my face and the bottom of a pool in 1987.  I'll show you the scar if you want.)

It was awesome and fun and childish, and I loved it.  And we did enough swimming that I actually felt it in my shoulders the next day. 

I also had a race on Saturday morning, but I was running and not walking on my hands, so I think the pool is definitely the culprit.  (I did not PR, but it was a good race and I was pleased with my 13 minute miles, what with the 118 degree "feels-like" temperatures and all.)

Anyway, all this is to say that I like to swim.

Also, I used to be awfully, awfully funny.

Also, the baby was evaluated for Kindergarten today, and I only got misty once, and he had fun.  The big one actually started school today.  SENIOR YEAR.

My life is about to be one big week of crying.  And crazy.

Want to go swimming?

Mary Tyler Moore (she cried a lot, too.)

It is entirely possible that, today, as I drove away from my baby boy's Kindergarten school, at which he is Now Fully Registered, and as I called my husband to alert him to the Full Registration, that I burst into big puppy tears of wet.

"He's so liiiiiiiiiiitttttttttle," I sobbed.

My husband, usually so pragmatic, "He IS so little."

"He can't even say his "L's" right," I wept.

"He can't.  It's awful.  I have to go."

So I called my Janie, who made me laugh and all that and also slid in there that she would let me babysit her kids except, you know, I live so far away.

which is to say, i'm totally psycho.  i know how she rolls.

Anyway, the baby is completely, 100% ready for the BIG K, even though I am not.  And it doesn't help that my only OTHER child will start his senior year of high school in like 48 hours or something.  Maybe a little longer than that but NOT MUCH.

This is a tough year for me.  I'm a sap.  I get it from my Aunt Sally, the one who will still cry (this minute, even) about a cat that died 40 years ago.  I understand that.  Cats are awesome. 

-----

Next.  It's effing absurdly hot, jungle hot, soupy air hot, and I've been trying to get my run on, but even I am not stupid enough to try to run when it is 96 degrees and the "feels like" is 118. 

118.

Just needed to re-say that, because, you know, I'm NOT EXAGGERATING THAT NUMBER AT ALL.

Anyway, so I can't run in that mess, so I've been working on identifying "cross training" fitness activities, and I've settled on Step Aerobics.

Back in the day, I was a kick-ass step aerobics person.  I could out step-aerobics everybody I knew.

Now I can't even make it through the GD "beginner" workout on the video.

WHAT IS THAT.

When did Step Aerobics get so freaking HARD?

All this being said, I have a race tomorrow! WORD.

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You know what we need around here?

More giraffes.

Yawny

I'm a yawn-y girl today.  I didn't get enough sleep.  I'm in a good mood, though. 

Also, owls are like kittens with feathers:

Me.  Owl.

Random Weirdo Posting Person (and Prompt Responder.)

In August, this lady posts prompts to get you to write for fifteen minutes at a time.  Sometimes, I play along.  When I do, I write my responses here.  Sometimes.  Not all the time.

Sometimes this freaks me out.

All the time, I think what I write is LAAAA-AAAMMMMEE (O).

Sometimes, I care about that.  Sometimes I don't.

Unrelated, if you let your little kid watch Beauty and the Beast for the first time ever, it's awesome fun to ask him who the good guys and bad guys are and to watch them worry about whether or not the Beast is going to get DEAD at the end:

Happy Monday, you belle-issima people!