The Days All End in Tears

Matt and I took the kids to Stone Mountain Park in GA last week and had a great time.

After we did the activities in the park, we took the cable car up to the main attraction at Stone Mountain Park, which is - wait for it - a mountain made of stone.

The kids were running around and Matt and I were talking when I spotted this guy not far from us. He had on athletic shorts (with a hand towel tucked into the waistband) and no shirt on. And he was holding a jump rope. He paced for awhile, holding the jump rope. I could tell he was fighting an internal battle whether to jump rope or not. Because who, on God's green Earth, exercises in such a spectacular location without someone else to record it to post on social media? What's the use of jumping rope on top of a mountain if Instagram will never see it?

So I was half listening to Matt while keeping an eye on this guy, ready to snap a picture when he did start jumping because it was just so funny to me.

*interrupts Matt's talking about financial stuff*

"Oh, wait! It's happening!"

Ok, you can't really see him. He only jumped for about 10 seconds, disheartened, I'm sure, by the fact that he was doing this really cool thing for no other reason than that it was good for him and enjoyable to do.

Had I thought of it, I would've offered to take a picture of him with his cell phone. Then he could post and add a bunch of hashtags: #jumprope #onamountain #sunshine #exercisepostoritdoesn'tcount

Because everyone knows that you have to post your workout for likes and comments or it's wasted. Poor guy.

On the way home with 2 3-year-olds who had missed naps, Matt and I again expressed our desire to one day buy a limo with a soundproof barrier behind the front seats as our family car.

Oh the crying and arguing.

Noah is especially potent when he's tired. He's so illogical it's hard not to laugh. I feel like I'm on a police jumper squad, trying to soothe a dangerous person.

(As I put him into his bed for a nap):

Noah, screaming, crying: "This is not my room! This is Katie's room! (Here he holds up his stuffed salmon). This is not my salmon!"

Me: "Of course not. You don't even like salmon."

Noah bursts into fresh tears, frustrated by the fact that I'm agreeing with him when he wants to argue.

Noah, screaming: "I'm going to turn into a giant and carry you out of the house!"

Me: "That's nice of you."

Noah: "It's not nice, it's mean!"

He turns away from me and cries for a minute.

Then he pulls the blanket over him and says softly "Mama, I want you to hold me."

Another crisis averted.

Jello Shots and Blogging Etiquette

It's been almost a month since my last post.

Bad blogger.

The first couple weeks after Hawaii I just didn't feel like writing anything. Perhaps it was the joy of being reunited with my children after our vacation...or not. Then I ran a 15k and wanted to write about that but it involved a Jello shot and so it didn't feel right to blog about that close to Easter.

Believe me, I've tried to write deep, soulful posts but it just doesn't seem to be my thing. Which is completely surprising for such a deep, soulful person such as myself.

But Easter is over so now I can freely write about Jello shots.

One recent Saturday I ran a local 15k race (which is 9.something miles for you uneducated Americans). It was absolutely beautiful weather. I saw some funny race signs along the way, including "Chuck Norris never ran a 15k" and "You think this is hard, you should try growing out bangs" and my new favorite, which is: Kanye thinks that Beyonce deserves your medal. 

                               

Lots of people cheering us on and handing out treats, including a guy making scrambled eggs and sausages and passing them out in little cups and on toothpicks. Then I saw a guy handing out little plastic condiment containers of Jello.

I love Jello. It's cool and delicious and fun. As I was running closer and contemplating whether or not I should grab one, the woman next to me exclaimed "Hell yeah!" and grabbed a container.

Finally, another adult who appreciates Jello as much as I do.

With that encouragement, I picked a blue one and slurped it as I ran.

It had that bitter, vodka-ish taste. Holy cow, was this a Jello shot? Soon after, I fervently hoped that my legs would continue to run for me because I cannot handle my alcohol. And especially vodka, which tastes the way rubbing alcohol smells.

So I had my first Jello shot was when I was 32 years old, at 9 am, while running. Despite the opportunity, I did not have any Jello shots during college. In fact, I was the designated driver when my friends and I would go to parties.

"What?" you say, "but you're so cool and hip."

Which is true but not in a frat party kind of way. Getting drunk wasn't my idea of a good time and neither was smoking pot, both of which seemed to turn perfectly fine people into morons.  I also didn't want my friends to be faced with drunk driving at the end of the night. I had seen those after-school public service commercials and they were chilling. Cars colliding, tires screeching, side ponytails all askew.

I remember one party in particular. I had climbed into a car with my roommate and another friend or two and we drove to a frat party.

Spoiler alert: Frat parties aren't nearly as fun as movies make them out to be. Since I wasn't having the supposedly wonderful activity of getting hammered inside, I sipped a cup of water out on the deck and watched a spider spin a web. After a while, a guy came up to me and we started talking about spiders and their webs.

With hindsight, I realize that he was flirting with me but I didn't know it then. Finally, I thought, another person who appreciates the majestic art of nature. You'll notice that me assuming people appreciate the same things as I do is a trait I've always had, whether it be spider webs or Jello or Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Anyway, after my friends were sufficiently tipsy, we drove home.

Along with assuming things, I am also not very observant. I had failed to notice that the car we drove there was a stick shift and now I was expected to drive home.

I had never driven a stick shift before. Or even had ever really thought about them.

It was a tiny car, a hatchback Geo Metro. The size of the postage stamp. We had also somehow acquired a few more people so there were like 5 people in the back and 3 in front, including me and some guy who was pretty much sitting on the stick shift.

There I sat, completely sober, in a clown car crammed with intoxicated teenagers, trying to figure out what to do. Nobody was of much help to me, what with them not really remembering who they were at the moment. It was also a very hilly college town, which made for some rather reckless shifting on my part.

I don't really know how we got home without stalling or getting into an accident or being pulled over. Me sober trying to drive a stick shift was really not much better than a trashed teen who has the knowledge base.

Long story, well, long, that was the story of my first Jello shot.

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