Once I got Elsa down for her nap, my mom and I took off and met Kate and her mother-in-law at a local spa for pedicures. This was my mom's first pedicure experience -- and only my second -- so we had a lot of fun basking in the indulgence. My mom said it was the first time she had even had her toes painted, so it was definitely something new for her. And, like myself, she was sold by the time we walked back out (in our crazy courtesy foam flipflops because I wasn't thinking and we both showed up in socks and shoes). With painted toes and smooth feet, we then made our way to Sun in my Belly for a lovely lunch and nice cry-and-whine-free conversation. In the meantime, Jarrett and my dad were having much fun taking care of Elsa.
No worries, the bottle was empty and rinsed out (I was quite impressed). And notice Elsa's "touchdown" moves. My dad has had a fun time teaching her this -- it started out as her mimicking my morning stretch at the breakfast table, and my dad took it as the perfect opportunity to mold his little companion football fan. Despite my general lack of interest in football (aside from the commercials during the Super Bowl), I have to admit that she is really quite cute when she does this.
Later Saturday afternoon, we painted and zipped Elsa back into her lion costume. Being the third time she was subjected to this, she was much less than pleased.
Even teaming up with her little friend, Olivia, who was so cutely dressed as a bumblebee, did not seem to help the situation. Despite Elsa's protests, however, we decided to brave the dreary weather and walked down to Palate for a supposed kid's Halloween celebration. I was quite excited when I heard they were going to have a two-hour period dedicated solely to the kids in the neighborhood, complete with a costume contest and kid's meals (which they typically do not serve). When we arrived, though, it was complete chaos, and it became quickly clear that not more than a couple minutes of planning went into the event -- and those couple of minutes were dedicated to putting a bottle each of ketchup and mustard on a table, along with a couple of piles of paper napkins. Despite the bummer of a Halloween bash, we made the most of it, and Elsa enjoyed a number of bites of her first hot dog. I cringed my way through it, but she seemed to actually enjoy the taste, though she enjoyed the tater-tots even more.
By the time we made our way out of the restaurant, though, Elsa was clearly done with Halloween.
So no trick-or-treating for us this year. We actually didn't even get many trick-or-treaters at the house. We got a couple of groups before Jarrett and I headed out on our date to Leon's and the Brick, and then I guess my parents answered the door a couple of more times, but soon blew out the candles and turned off the porch light because Merckx was barking and they were afraid he would wake Elsa. It was so nice of them to let us get out. It had been awhile since we had gone out alone, and it was really nice to just sit and chat over a shared entree and a few drinks.
I made a pumpkin pancake breakfast for my parents Sunday morning, and they left to head back home before Elsa's nap. Jarrett and I spent some time working in the front yard, and I think we finally got almost all of the weeds up, which is fabulous. I really probably should have spent the time attempting a nap, as it was clear by Sunday afternoon that I had come down with a cold, but it was nice to get outside and soak up some sunshine too.
Sunday evening, Jarrett and I had another date planned -- another concert, this time Ray LaMontagne at the Fox Theatre. Despite feeling quite ill by the time the evening rolled around, there was no way I was going to miss the show (this time the twins' brother babysat because it was a school night, and he had a day off from school on Monday, but we made sure Elsa was asleep before we left this time!). As to be expected, Ray was great -- it was just him and his guitar on stage, and he sang several of our favorite tunes -- but the general Fox experience was definitely subpar. First of all, it was freezing. I don't know what they were thinking. And it wasn't just me and my sickness -- Jarrett was really cold too. Secondly, something was wonky with the sound. Jarrett could explain it better, but when Ray went from singing/playing softly to really belting it out, it sounded pretty bad. And -- worst of all -- we had the most obnoxious, rude couple sitting directly in front of us. I won't get into details, as I would make this blog entry much longer than it already is, but they were being inappropriately loud, talking to each other during songs, checking their phones every ten seconds (and thus shining their glowing screens our direction), and basically just being belligerently drunk. Several people, including Jarrett, asked them to be quiet, but that just made them louder. Finally I realized -- and I don't know why I didn't realize sooner -- that there were two empty seats to my right and that we should move down. We didn't do this until the tailend of the concert (and then they ended up leaving a song or two later anyway before the encore), but it did help to at least not have them directly in front of us. After the show, everyone around us was talking about how horrible they were acting. It is really sad to me that people have to think that much of themselves that they taint what could have been a really great musical experience for everyone around them. Too bad you can't reason with drunks.
No comments:
Post a Comment