Day started out with me crawling around the house on all fours frantically looking for my keys which Sidney, our resident midget, takes great pleasure in hiding. Because she’s only inches off the floor, the best way to find them is to get down to her level. Not my finest hour, but I had to give it a shot. When I couldn’t find the keys our sitter offered to let me take her car, which I did. I felt a little embarrassed about the Jesus key chain, not because I have a problem with Jesus, but because I felt disingenuous: what if someone spotted it and mistook me for a good, kind, faithful human?  I therefore tried to be on my very best behavior while in possession of those keys. Perhaps I should carry them more often.
I am about to go running, but am becoming increasingly self conscious about the whole enterprise. Last night M said to me that he and the kids spotted my doppelganger running, while on their way to school. “She ran just like you!” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Was she wearing pearls? An old, pink Boston Red Sox hat?”
“You know, you have a very distinct way of running. I’d know your run anywhere.” While this didn’t top last summer’s elephant-shorts comment, I clearly did not like where this was going, and announced that I don’t run that way anymore. Thanks to my patient and wise running doctor, I have a whole new form.  (As I have mentioned many times before, it turns out I was running all wrong.)
“Yeah,” said M. “That thing you did with your hips was probably going to end up giving you problems.” So now my “distinct” run turned into that “thing you do with your hips.” I didn’t want to pry further and find out that by “distinct form,” M really meant, “You run like a limping cow.” So, I tried to remedy this by demonstrating my new form, forgetting that I am in a night-shirt and fluffy slippers. Note to self: Do not try to show your husband how awesome and hot your new run is by thumping around your bedroom in a nightshirt and fluffy slippers.
Speaking of footwear, someone sent me an email telling me that I’ve been remiss with pee stories as of late. I suppose this week’s peed-on-parsley comment just didn’t cut it, so here’s another doozy:
We were in the car last week on the way back from a day at the Great Wolf Lodge. It had been an all around delightful day, despite the unusually high number of ugly people by the pool. GWL is always something of a circus side show, but last week was unusually bad. Before the hate mails come about my fatt-ist tendencies, by “ugly,” I mean a high percentage of repulsive body art: tattoos. One woman looked perfectly normal and clean-cut from the front, even boring. She turned around to reveal an enormous dragon on her back, and not a cool Lisbeth Salander one. It looked like Fiona had drawn it. With her toes. Some women had full arm tattoos, on both arms. (There was one particularly offensive mesh bathing suit, but let’s forget about that.) Anyway, the day was a good one and we were driving home. It was raining and I felt like I was the only non-truck on the freeway, so I was doing my best to concentrate. The boys, however, were up to something in the back.
“We need a bottle!” Bennett yells up.
“Absolutely not,” I say. “Hold it in.” You see, they have become so enamored with the peeing-in-bottle experience that they now hold in their pee, refuse to go at rest stops, and insist on going in bottles. I only have one bottle and I’m drinking from it, and even if I weren’t I am not in the mood to humor them. Plus, my mother in law is bravely riding shotgun, so I don’t want to give them the chance to show me up.
Which they do anyway. In technicolor.
Turns out that instead of a bottle, one of them chose to pee in .. a Croc. That’s right a Croc, which, last I checked, was the colander of shoes. I won’t go into more details, but the Croc found its way to the trunk and when we got home heads rolled, several times over.