Chicken Relay

Alex took the kids to his co-worker's pretty house on the lake for dinner not long ago.  I didn't go with them because I had plans for dinner with my old friend, Cavanaugh.  My best meals tend to happen with Cavanaugh because he's a "foodie" and insists on the finest cuisine in existence.  I'm more of a "whateverie" and would happily eat cereal for dinner for the rest of my life.

I returned home from dinner at 11:00 p.m. to find my family wasn't home yet.  They finally straggled in, both kids wired with hair pointing in every which direction, at 11:30.

Coco's eyes were wild.  She grabbed my face and pushed my cheeks into fishy-face formation, put her face a millimeter from mine and yelled, "I ATE CANDY MOMMY."

To top it all off, Lucien was barefoot.  Alex had somehow lost Lucien's brand new shoes at a dinner with only five people present  We never saw those shoes again.  Alex suspects they were thrown in the lake but he doesn't really know.

This is why Alex is rarely in charge around here.

If you guys were worried my life would become boring once I returned home after a three-year stint in Paris, DON'T WORRY.  My life is heart-palpitatingly exciting here in Seattle.

Exhibit A:  Lucien may or may not have lost his shoes in a lake. (!!)

and

Exhibit B:  We recently took part in a Guinness World Record attempt for largest number of people playing hopscotch simultaneously. Dreams are coming true in the Central District, yo.

Organizers of "Hopscotch CD" painted a giant hopscotch game from one end of the Central District to another.  It wound through many streets and attracted a large chunk of the community to its ridiculousness.  There were attractions along the way such as lemonade stands and massage chairs and goofy stuff like buckets overturned into "drum sets" you had to play before crossing the street.

It's almost impossible to walk down a sidewalk with a hopscotch game imprinted upon it and not jump.  Young and old alike succumbed to the magic of those squares.  Teens walking with their friends jumped. Big burly men walking their dogs jumped.  Old ladies carrying grocery bags jumped, which they probably should not have done.

Our neighborhood was hopping.

In the most exciting part, a large group of us congregated in a parking lot for the official world record attempt.  The air was abuzz with excitement -- we were about to try a completely random and insignificant thing!  When the whistle blew, we hopped at our designated court while a man with a bullhorn urged us to KEEP HOPPING.  Hop hop hop hippity hop hop hop.

When it wasn't my turn to hop, I looked around and soaked in the absurdity.  What was it about the event that attracted so many people (over 400!)?  Are we, as grown adults, that starved for whimsy?  Are we desperate to be part of a world record, make our mark upon the world, no matter how dumb?  Are we just all incredibly bored and looking for something to do on a Saturday afternoon?  If so, we should consider cycling.

And why were the vast majority of hopping people caucasian when the Central District is the most racially diverse neighborhood in Seattle?  We've got all kinds of colors of people up in here!  My working theory is white people are the most ridiculous of the races.  I'm not sure.

After all the excitement! jumping! bullhorns! whistles! -- well, we didn't make the world record.  We were 50 people short.  Oh well.  In Lucien's words, "Second place is still pretty good."

Let's hop on home, son

If all that wasn't crazy exciting enough (!!), I recently chaperoned a field trip to the Lincoln Park tidepools.  We scoured the beaches and found lots of crabs and starfish plus a bunch of other animals whose names I'm never going to remember.  Some looked like gelatinous goo.  They were very loose interpretations of the word "animal."

There are about 50 "animals" down there

Maybe you don't think the field trip sounds very exciting so far.
Maybe this will change your mind...

BAM!  Butt plug in your face

One little girl leaned in to touch the butt plug sunning itself on the beach -- "What is it?" she asked all childlike. I karate chopped her hands and pushed her forcefully away while yelling, "NOOOOOOOO."  Those are the kinds of reflexes that develop only with extensive chaperoning experience.

If that wasn't enough shredded mayhem and bone-crushing carnage in Seattle for you,  I also helped at Lucien's school for Field Day.  Lucien wasn't present; he was sitting in the principal's office.  But that's neither here nor there.

Actually, I was here and he was there

Another similarly masochistically-inclined mom and I worked the Chicken Relay.  For over an hour, I demonstrated hopping (or waddling, depending on my mood) with a tennis ball between my knees five yards to a box, where I then "laid" the egg by dropping it in.

I don't know why I bothered.  Those kids didn't listen.  You would not believe how many Kindergarteners USED THEIR GODDAMN HANDS when I specifically told them not to.

It was a long hour of chasing errant tennis balls and picking children up off the ground.  It's mind-boggling how many feelings were hurt and how many tears were shed.  I mean come on kids, it's not like this is an event to be taken seriously.  It's not like this is a Guinness World Record attempt for hopscotching.

By the end of my shift, I was hoarse, exhausted, and dammit, I missed my son.  I waved in the general direction of the Principal's office, blew my boy a kiss, and waddled/hopped to my car.  Old habits die hard at the Chicken Relay.

We had some friends over for dinner Saturday night.  We roasted some motherf*cking marshmallows over a firepit.  IN YOUR FACE HELLRAISING that's what that is.

I'll take the Fruit Loops tartare,
MJ

Am I doing better this time?

I got radio silence on that last post, except for three of my most loyal commenters, Duchesse, Debbie, and Bec, who are quickly turning the comments section into social hour.  Ladies, comments sections are not for fun-having, gossiping, or bonding.  They're for MJ idolatry, of which there wasn't much last time, so... carry on with whatever you three are doing in there, I guess.

(They can't all be winners, folks.)

I dropped Coco off at her preschool the other day.  One of the other mothers told me that when her young son overheard her talking about Coco at their home, he looked up at her and said, "Coco?  What a delicious name!"

Coco's delicious, all right.  She's also still refusing to talk.  Or, more accurately, she thinks she's talking, but we can only stare at her with our heads cocked to the side, like, "What the.....is that German?"

What is it with these kids of mine, who have both refused to do anything the way they were supposed to, in the timeframe in which they were supposed to do it?  And while I'm asking rhetorical questions, is it a good thing when someone asks you, "Awww, did she dress herself today?" but you dressed her?

 All me

While I'm talking about the kids, I want to mention Lucien and his happiness.  Many people don't understand why I'm not depressed as hell to be done with Paris, but our boy is a huge reason.  Our Paris school was not a good fit for the loud Looshman.  What used to be a tight-lipped, sullen kid after school, a boy who used to regularly say things like, "I'm the bad kid," has turned into a smiling, happy kid who tells me about his day when he gets off the bus.  And now he says things like, "I'm not the bad kid anymore!  Jason is!" 

I recently met with his teacher to discuss his progress in the classroom.  He's behind the other kids in reading and math because they hadn't done that stuff yet in his Paris school.  His teacher says Lucien is learning quickly, but will catch up even faster if he "stops trying to entertain the class like a pint-sized Robin Williams all the time."

They have "self-manager" badges in Lucien's kindergarten class.  The kids who have their badges enjoy greater freedoms in the classroom and on the playground. The kids who lose their badges pretty much have to follow the teacher around like ducklings and ask permission to breathe.

We have fingers crossed that Lucien, just once, will hang onto his badge all week.  He's come pretty close a couple times -- one week he made it all the way to Friday morning.  We were fattening the calf and preparing the celebratory feast when he lost it in the eleventh hour -- to kung fu with Finn during story time. 

Every day when Lucien gets off the bus, I ask, "Hey, buddy, still got your badge?"  Many times I've received the reply, "Nope, I lost that thing in like five minutes."

I went out to dinner with Cavanaugh again last night, this time to Terra Plata on Capitol Hill.  I'm going to continue going out to eat with Cavanaugh because he really knows his food, and makes me try stuff I don't want to eat, such as crispy fried Brussels sprouts with maple and rosemary.  I hate Brussels sprouts but I'll be damned if Cavanaugh wasn't right again -- they were nasty veggie divine.

Cavanaugh takes pictures of all his food.  Downright embarrassing.

When friends know you have a blog, sometimes they get demanding.  Cavanaugh said something witty at dinner, then pointed his pointy finger at me and said, "write that down."  I said, "Oh no, Cavanaugh... you're not becoming one of those 'write that down' friends, are you?"  And he said, "Yes, I am, and you can quote me on that."

I got my hair cut over the weekend and it made me wonder why they offer you something to drink at salons.  You're only able to sip coffee for two seconds before they put the cape thing around your neck.  Then your arms are under the cape, so to take a drink you must first ask permission, then free your arms from underneath, which dusts up all the hair, which puts hair in your coffee, which is cold by then anyway. 

Every single time I've accepted a cup of salon coffee, I've initially thought, "mmm, sounds delicious," but that quickly turned to "this is ridiculous, I really didn't need anything to drink right now."  I'll never go down that dark path again.

So long, posse, hope this post was more agreeable to you.  If not, there's no hope, because I really did my best,
MJ

*Breaking News!  Tara has since commented on my last post, too.  Sure, it was just to join in on the social hour, but I'll take it.*