Today we went to a trampoline arena. It was far and away better than anything in my locality. There were slides with tubes, dodge ball arenas, and lots and lots of really cool trampolines. My mother in law asked me if I was jumping. It’s like she just met me.

I jumped.

Like a fiend.

Like a middle aged woman should not jump.

I was feeling okay about myself and my decisions. It was going pretty well. About 3/4 of the way into our 2-hour stint, I lugged a tube up the ramp for my 5 year old daughter and then ran back down the ramp to the bottom. As I was jogging back down that ramp, an odd little boy–maybe 8 years old–looked straight at me and said, “You run faster than my grandma.”

Huh.

Many responses went through my head in that moment.

Thank you? Where’s your grandma, sonny, I can take her… Can your grandma do THIS??

I wonder if his grandma falls off of treadmills…

 

Well, I’ve had another pass through Louisiana. I shook my fist at the state. I double dog dared it.

And then….nothing.
Well, nothing in Lousiana anyway. My trip through Louisiana was almost pleasant. The weather was good. The roads were typical and somewhat bumpy, but in a Toyota Sienna I wasn’t half as annoyed as in the tank I drove last year. There wasn’t any fake construction or ‘merging’ (apply finger quotes in a VERY demonstrative fashion if you want to do justice to my statement) into one lane from, like, 8 lanes. There weren’t any storms or accidents or alligator spottings on the 17-mile bridge.

Huh.

After I got all the way through it, I mulled it over. How could it be? How could I have stopped and stayed the night there and traveled all the way through it over the course of two days and had NO trouble?

And then it hit me.
Then I got it.

It went in through the back door. It knew I was looking for all the normal fake construction, ‘merging’, and alligator-bridge-related problems.

Lousiana made a phone call to Florida before we left and had Florida pose as Bad Cop. Florida was Bad Cop. Lousiana was Good Cop.

I don’t even want to talk about Florida. All you really need to know is that it took me like 9 hours to get out of the state (and I did not start off in Miami…) and stopped at a rest stop and an Arby’s where I’m certain we changed a couple of lives for the worse. It was a kid. There were digestive issues.

It was bad.

Anyway, with all of that behind us (no pun intended, but it IS a good one), we had a great Day 2.

All was well until I fell off a treadmill 2 days ago. Since then, I’ve been seeing small monkeys in front of my right eye.

No. Nobody sees small monkeys.

But I did fall off the treadmill and discovered that I am unable to walk or jog to live versions of awesome U2 songs. I got WAAAAAY too into the gospel version of “Still haven’t found what I’m looking for,” I planted my right foot on a non-moving part of the treadmill while my left foot was airborn and the belt was still moving at top speed. Then, my left foot came down and everything went wonky after that. I tried to grab my poor ipod as it flew past me matrix-style (first things first people. Save the ipod!), but I missed it. It hit the belt and flew off backwards. (This might be an upsetting part of the story except for the fact that I had already dropped and stepped on the ipod in the hotel parking lot, shattering the screen.) With my right hand, I grabbed the arm of the treadmill and tried to save myself. This partially worked, as I did not break or sprain or sever anything. All I incurred were a few belt burns on my left leg.

I was able to show my children the leg and say, “There now! THIS is why we don’t mess around on treadmills.”

Indeed.

What the world really needs more of is George Zimmerman. I was hoping to watch a dude gain weight on a daily basis as I heard more about racial slurs. If his trial was shot with stop action photography, you’d be able to watch him get fatter as the trial progressed. I’m guessing jail food is not as bad as they say…

As tired as I am of George Zimmerman, I’m even more weary of racial slurs and the media blitz about them. I would go as far as to say that most of them people whining right now use the words they are whining over. I mean, the news this morning is all about Trayvon Martin calling Zimmerman a cracker before he got shot. Cracker is horrible? When did that become horrible? The answer is, yesterday. No one knows the real meaning of it or the origin. But if you use it, you’re a racist. Better go get yourself a real lawyer and start eating twinkies.

Moment of silence for the twinkie, please. Miss those things.

Call me a cracker and I’ll call you a sandwich. See how stupid this is?  I’m fine with cracker. I like to eat them. They are salty. And crunchy.

I don’t even like Paula Deen and I think what has been done to her is deplorable. We are a sick society looking to crucify the very people we idolized 5 minutes before. And the ones slaying her in the media are probably vile, vile people. More vile than Paula will ever be. Her main mistake was being too honest. I think that’s sad.

I just made my kids tacos for lunch. Fresh. It’s the only time this summer I’ll feel proud of our lunch, so I decided to post it. Of course, Squishy Knickers stuck with chicken nuggets. She is missing a few connections in her brain that link her to refined eating.

My upstairs sounds like the kids are running a saw mill from 1922. Don’t worry, they aren’t. I don’t even let them read books about sharp machinery. It’s the sound of three kids skating on very old wood floors. We inherited 3 pairs of skates and it just happened to fit the three youngest kids PERFECTLY. As I listen to the skating, watch the skating, worry over the skating, and protect my flip-flopped feet, I have waffled between “send thank you note” and “infest her house with live crickets” to the person who gave us the skates. Mostly I’m grateful. And if there is anyone to blame, it is me. I said, “YES! We’ll take them!” to a Facebook post. That’s what I get for taking a short break from Edward Snowden and getting on Facebook.

Ha.

I bet the government already knew I was getting the skates…