Rocky Road

Thanks to all of you for your kind comments on my 100 Things List, and also for the anniversary wishes for Blaine and me. Just like I used to think the age of 40 was old (but now I know it’s NOT, ahem) I also used to think being married twenty years was a long time. I guess it still is, by today’s standards; it’s just amazing how quickly it goes by. Next thing I know, I’ll look up and I’ll be dead. Depressing, actually.

We celebrated last Friday night by hiring a sitter, going out to dinner, and then parking in the Comfort Inn parking lot for a few hours and ………… hey, get your mind out of the gutter! We’re such party-animals, we rented a movie from Blockbuster, went to an ice cream shop and bought blasts (boring Vanilla with Oreo for Blaine, and the vastly superior Chocolate with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for me … seriously, who gets *vanilla*??? I mean, who’s he kidding? “Vanilla” will never make the next 100 Things list, that’s for sure) and then we parked the van and watched the movie in our DVD player, stretched out across the bench seat in the back, enjoying our ice cream.

I know …. twentieth wedding anniversary and we spend it eating ice cream and watching "The Pursuit of Happyness" in the back seat of our van --- how pathetic are we??? Losers. (Us, not you.) Actually, it was kind of fun, and I imagine we’ll remember it much longer than if we’d gone to a regular ole’ theater, don’t you think?

Blaine liked the scrapbook, and since I couldn’t afford the gift he really wanted (a two-week trip to Canada to hunt upland game, complete with luxury lodge accommodations and private waterfowl guide) then he’s just going to have to be satisfied with the album until this summer. That’s when we’re doing the BIG celebration by taking a long-anticipated cruise to Alaska, sans children, with our good friends Keith and Renee’. I’m so excited for that trip I can hardly stand myself, but in the meantime, Blockbuster and ice cream works just fine for me. I’m very low maintenance, you know. (Blaine is snorting in the background as he reads over my shoulder; mocking, in particular, that very last sentence. He better watch it, or he won’t reach the next twenty.)

In the meantime, the rest of our week raced by in a blur of end-of-the-school-year activities, culminating in the class parties this afternoon. And by “activities”, I mean “me, making thirty-seven trips to the grocery store to buy all the juice and food and ice cream and crap for the end-of-the-year parties for all three kids”. Thank you Jesus for the very few parents who chipped in and actually helped; the rest of the parents can visit me in debtors prison considering how expensive it was. Not that I’m whining and complaining, because that would be negative.



I’m just amazed at the parents who haven’t shown up to a single thing all year, haven’t shown their faces or volunteered one damn minute out of one damn day out of the entire year; who can sit and watch one or two women pull out all the paper goods and food and snacks and drinks they’ve purchased, with their own money, not lift a finger to help set up or clean up; just sit there without offering to help or anything, where do they think the money to buy this stuff came from better yet did my friend Sonya pull four large pizzas OUT OF HER ASS??? --- yet they feel perfectly comfortable helping themselves to pizza and drinks and ice cream sundaes, and getting it for their other children, as well, without chipping in and without lifting a finger.

Obviously I’m tired and crabby and should perhaps delete this entry without posting it, because it perhaps give off the impression that I mind doing that sort of thing for my children. And I don't mind, I really don't. But a little more help from some of the other parents would have been nice. (Waaaah! I'm such a whiner!!!)

What matters is that the kids had a good time. We did our annual “Last Day of School” interviews here at the house this afternoon, and Kellen and Kendrie agree that the highlight of the year wasn’t the stellar education they received, or the friendships they cherished, or the wonderful teachers who nurtured their souls and fed their little minds intellectually --- nope, best part of the year was the unlimited ice cream on the last day.

Good ole’ Rocky Road.