life and other complications

magic (and not of the awesome Olivia Newton-John sort)

i'll bet your in-laws' weekend bbq* did not feature a slight sleight of hand artist:

(the sweat just means he's working hard).

this is where i tell you that i kinda, sorta hate magicians. (enough so that the photo-cake with a picture that *i* took and no credit thrown to me didn't even get my hackles up a bit**). maybe that's fairly unoriginal, as is my distaste for clowns, mimes and jugglers. basically anything even tangentially related to the circus makes my "why, God, WHY!??!" list. (especially that unicorn, but don't even get me started on that again).

this may all spring from the "traumatic" experience i endured when my dad (literally) ran off and joined the circus. i think i may have blocked this memory until my grandma--also an attendee of said "bbq"--reminded me of the incident. when we were younger, my dad used to take us to the Big Apple Circus, which is basically a lower-key, more old-timey (read: less goats with horns stapled to their heads) kind of circus.  and my dad, in his generosity, would buy us all first row seats. funny thing about the Big Apple Circus--they endorse audience participation. long story short, a clown recruited my dad to participate. and boy did he ever! he went onstage in the ring and then--unprompted--made as if he were going to try to escape and run back to his seat. he did high-stepping funny running and everything. much to my mortification. can you imagine the trauma this would inflict upon a young Lovey, trying to believe that, despite being at a circus with her whole family, she was even a little bit cool? can you? my dad *pretended that he too was a clown*!! words cannot express the horror.

ok. this has brought back too many of the memories. i may suffer some repressed PTSD.

fin.

---

* there was not any barbeque food, to be sure, but i didn't really know what you call an outdoor, non-occasion gathering. bbq seemed to work best. for the record, the food was 6-foot long heroes.

** really. i'm not even thinking of calling EvilA re: any type of infringement suit. unless of course any money was made off that cake, in which case i demand 70%!!

don't step to Wilford Brimley

does this look like a guy you want to mess with? no way.
and when you get between me and my oats, i am not a girl you want to mess with either.

this morning, i went to my local gocery in an attempt to procure some Quaker oatmeal for my heart breakfast when i spied the following blocking the *entire* Gristede's cereal aisle:

look, i understand that having two babies to schlep around the city can be burdensome, and you need a stroller to do it.

but wouldn't this narrower (and less likely to block my access to my Quaker) option serve the purpose just as well?

seriously!

Skee Blue Balls

well, this weekend qualified as more socially eventful than most weekends of late. T and i went out both weekend nights. which is even more remarkable when you factor in our two day weekend gym attendance. we are just so awesome, no?

Friday night was the Yankees/Sox game at some NYU-esque sports bar.

chosen by me, actually, so i oughtn't to complain, but since complain is what i do second best (after my #1 skill, napping), complain i will. truthfully, the bar wasn't so bad. but the music sure was. it was like 1998-era club jamz played at a deafening volume. this made no sense at all, since every person in the bar appeared not to be grinding to drums-n-bass but rather watching the all-important baseball game. with multiple large screen tvs i thought the bar could figure out its purpose but it got confused. i had seasoned waffle fries (i got flex points, yo) and was, thus, happy overall.

Saturday afternoon we showed incredible restraint and hit the gym instead of the penultimate street fair of the season outside our building (the last one is November 12th, in case any of you were planning on going, by the way).
post-gym my fabulously amazing hairdresser cut Thurston's hair in a style befitting a would-be-shipwrecked-millionaire.

much later that night, we met up with the California Sister, my brother, the Bean, Targs, T's brother + gf, and sundry others at Ace Bar.

i was informed that Ace Bar now has skee-ball machines. i was, appropriately, psychotically excited about this, as was the Bean.

well, it was all for naught.
let me be the first to tellyou that Ace's skee-ball machines suck. a) they cost $1 per game. which is a rip off; b) the machines are right next to a bench where people sit, thereby limiting one's ability to wind up; and c) NO TICKETS. that's right, you can have a kickass game and walk away with nothing to show for it. i call shenanigans.