I love it when we're cruisin together

The annual NorthStar cruise has come and gone another year, folks. And let me tell you, we are better people for it. So much fun! This year we had about 70 or so employees on it. And we ate so much and drank lemonade and made merry all the way from Florida to the Bahamas and back.

Spent our day in Nassau at the luxurious Atlantis resort. This place was insanely beautiful. Too bad towards the end of our dolphin swim, Beth got viciously attacked by one! Ok well she did get bit but it was more of a nip. It did draw a little blood on her foot though. Yes it is true! They are not all like Flipper! They were killer dolphins we were swimming with!

Luckily it was nothing too serious but the hotel staff was definitely on edge, shooting bulging beady eyes back and forth from one another. They ended up comping them a lot of money worth of stuff so that was good. (I started thinking that a little dolphin nibble may have been worth it, so when no one was looking I rubbed that sardine oil all over my feet and dangled them in the water. Nothing to show for it, but we did get pictures, too.) Sorry Beth!! Great story, you survived a dolphin attack!

I got a little creeped out though because afterwards I was told, "I've heard a few times you're not supposed to swim with dolphins when you're pregnant, because they can sense you are and it's dangerous." What?!? I'm gonna have to research that one, but maybe that rabid fetus tracking dolphin thought Beth was the pregnant one, and if that's the case I am truly sorry. Now, I have heard a million of the restrictions like, don't vaccuum while pregnant (I wish), don't go bowling (not a problem for me either), don't ski, but no swimming with dolphins? It's that regular of a thing to swim with dolphins that it made the "don't do while pregnant" list? Hmm.

Yes folks, our group SHOWED UP for the Halloween party. We had the best costumes by far. Made me so proud.

At the last minute Jason and I found some things lying around and decided to throw together these Anakin Skywalker and Princess Padme Amidala costumes. Lightsaber included. No big deal.

And creepy contact lenses. Luckily he only wore the lenses for a short time during pictures because children (and I) were starting to get really scared. I guess in episode 3 of the "prequel" series, Anakin is starting to surrender himself to the dark side. And thus, his eyes begin to glow yellow and his hair grows long and ragged. Is it sacrilegious that I haven't seen it?

I will say that I almost had to take matters into my own hands with the drunk women hooting and hollering at my Anakin. Almost had to pull the light saber on a few of them. They kept asking to take pictures with him and at the last second I would wedge myself in that photo and yell, "Don't forget Princess Amidala! High five!" Then they would look at me like they smelled something bad for ruining their one-on-one picture with Anakin or "Highlander," or "Sir Lancelot," or whatever else we heard called to him. And then I'd jab them an elbow and say, "Sorry." Something about a futuristic-outter-space warrior carrying a big glowing weapon that really got 'em going. And the Fabio-ish hair. I won't deny it, he did look rather ruggedly handsome and manly. (He's now decided to grow his hair out.)

*Highlight of trip with Kate here on the right. Have some extra time in Atlanta on our way back home so decide to leave the airport and catch a movie. Call a cab for a ride back to the airport. Jankiest cab I've EVER seen. So SO janky. WREAKS like smoke and whole vehicle is falling apart. African American cab driver polite, but barely says a word, mostly glares. I'm sitting in the middle in the back between hubby and Kate, while her husband Jeremy sits up front. For some reason, strangely quiet cab driver turns repeatedly and stares into my face while driving. For extended-second periods. Direct eye contact, looks at me like he wants to fight me. He's challenging me I think to myself. I have options. I can ask him what he's looking at and tell him if he doesn't stop my husband's going to seriously rough him up. I look at sweet husband next to me who gives me a little nervous smile. Or, I can back down to the challenge. I will not try to establish dominance, I will submit and break the eye contact. Look away. Avoid the eye contact. But he full body turns to look me in the face several times. Kate and I are uncomfortably peeing our pants trying not to laugh. Snorting. Big tears running down my face. In the middle of it all, I decide it's a good time to ask Kate if she's seen the movie, Taken. She had seen it. Try to take a drink of water. Choke on it. Almost spew it all over cab. Cough/fake-cough-snuffle-laugh for a long, long time. Can't look at Kate. I'd say we barely made it out of there alive. Phew.

Still ruggedly handsome without the leather and long hair.

What I don't tend to fancy about a cruise: belligerent drunkenness, all day, all night, everywhere. Some of it makes me embarrassed to share the commonality homo sapien with them. Like when I hear, "(Expletive)!! I'm gonna pee right here and right now!!" or see people passed out being carried away by friends. Glad that's not me.

What I do fancy: Endless ice cream cones; all day, all night, anytime, anywhere. Basking in the sun in the middle of the ocean, and the constant Caribbean breeze. The all-inclusiveness of the food. The SLEEP. (Never better). Being out and about all day and going back to a cool dark room, watching a flick and spooning with hubby before dinner. Karaoke. (But not the depressing country songs at midnight. What's wrong with people?) Seeing new exotic destinations. The people we were with. (Our people. Love them). Laughing together at the shows. (Two words: Purple rain.) And so much more.

October.

I've been unusually long-winded in my posts lately (let's be honest, not unusual at all) so for me this will be a post of relatively few words. Mostly faces. Mostly one face. We sure love Autumn. And the neighbor's kitties. I always know exactly when they (the neighbors) have skipped town because they (the kitties) are especially affectionate. *Random cat tangent: Yes, we are cat people. We are also dog people. You can indeed be both, equally, though we have neither and will have neither for a long, long time. We find no sense of true identity in either label. Kinda weird how it's totally the "vogue" thing to hate cats. Like people who really have no reason to resent them just say, "I hate cats," because they think it sounds cool. I had a guy (yes, an adult) in one of my classes last year yell in my face, "Cat people suck!" I stared at him vacantly without blinking for a long, long time.

Do you hate them because they don't lift their leg and urinate on you? Because they don't try to express romantic love to/on inanimate objects? Or to/on you? Because they don't drool on you and bark in the middle of the night? Like I said, I am a dog person as well. Just making a case for felines. So if you say you hate cats, give a good reason. Like one tried to gouge your eyes out or something. If not, I'll be forced to think you are one of those wannabe cool-clubbers.:)

Enough of that! I love this child. She is an unbelievably happy girl. She doesn't hate. She is a lover, just like her mother.

Guess I was still kinda long winded even when I thought I'd be short. That cat thing sorta took me over for a second. Oh well.

A history of Halloween. And me.

It's an interesting relationship I've always had with Halloween. To be truthful I had a love/hate relationship with it as a kid. I hated being scared. I have always hated scary movies. I was always the child at slumber parties when everyone was telling ghost stories who was either silently ugly-face crying in my sleeping bag or plugging my ears singing primary songs pretending to be asleep. TRUE STORY. I never liked being scared. You wanna see me raging mad, cursing like a sailor? Hide in my closet or something. (You might get punched in the face though.) Never liked amusement parks either. Still don't. I'm an adult now. I don't have to pretend. I used to pretend but now I don't care if you think I'm lame for it.

Of course I loved collecting the bag of loot each year and rotting my teeth out. I liked dressing up. In our house every year my mom would drag out the gray mouse ears and paint mouse faces on us. We'd all get in big baggy gray sweatsuits. My mom actually suggested just a few days ago that she could pull out the mouse ears again. I thought it was normal to dress as the same thing every year. I met Brandi. And when we were 12 we really started exploring the possibilities. We painted two huge cardboard boxes white and glued huge black dots on them. Yes, we were a pair of dice. Trick or treated with our stubby arms shooting out the sides. It was freezing. And cardboard isn't as warm as it looks.

I remember a particularly horrifying Halloween. When I was just a wee lass of 18 years, I sang in a band in Phoenix. I was the only girl. I mostly just sang songs but on occasion, when luck would have it, I would fake-play the keyboard. That's right, fake play. You didn't know there was such a talent, did you? The lead guy in the band would get pretty excited to tell me that he had his additional keyboard with him, and he liked the way I looked on it. But we didn't even bother to plug it in. I'd just stand up there, pounding away at the keys, Jerry Lee Lewis style. I did however get a $100 tip one night from a guy in the audience who told me, "You are really good on that keyboard." I knew at that moment I'd fake-play the keyboard anytime if that's what the people really wanted. It ceased being humiliating at that moment too, as I shoved the benji in my pocket. I started getting even more into it, throwing my foot up there on occasion and twirling around a time or two. Use your imagination. ANYWAY, back to Halloween. We played lots of cool venues but this particular night we were booked at a pretty ghetto club. I wasn't on the fake keyboard this night, only singing, but I was dressed up in a little cat-woman costume.

Big mistake. I should have been Tweedle Dee. There was one gentleman I remember very well, who followed me around all night yelling, "Here kitty kitty," in his nastiest most chester-molester voice. Did I happen to mention that his Halloween costume was not R-rated, but X-rated? Oh yes. I spent every break we had off stage quivering in the girls bathroom, asking women who would come in and out if he was lurking nearby. You can imagine the conversation when they'd ask, "Well, what does he look like?" Awful. (Little did I know then that he would be the father of my children. What? You've never heard that's how Jason and I met? Oh my gosh can you even imagine. No, no that's a lie, throw it out of your mind. I apologize for going there, sweet hubby. I do still have nightmares about that guy though. I cried when I got home that night.)

Then came Jason into my life, for real this time. Halloween has never been the same. A serious Halloween/costume enthusiast. He starts talking about it in like June. We talk about a million different ideas, throw a million out, and the week of Halloween scramble like crazy to figure it out.

We were Jamaicans 3 years ago. Lame, I know. But we were engaged and too seriously obsessed with each other to plan much ahead. Bought the hats on this cruise to Cozumel. In fact, I think everyone got their costumes in Cozumel, including Chip.

Grease lightning followed.

Then came Peter and Captain. And I must say, kissing him with a mustache and long curly black hair made me feel like I was kissing some handsome exotic stranger. And it was really quite invigorating! I had a hard time letting him return that wig to the costume shop. Kate, I know you must have felt the exact same thing for Kent in that Napoleon Dynamite get-up.

So I have come to like the holiday a bit more. It will undoubtedly get better as our babies get bigger. Of course, some things about it still baffle me a bit, you know the phenomenon mentioned in the movie Mean Girls. Women dressed in the very original, very classy playboy bunny thong-tard costume when they seldomly bare an ankle the rest of the year? Weirds me out that it still happens when we're married and moms. And maybe you thought I'd tell you what we are planning for this year?! You really think I'd spoil the secret?! Forget it! (We have no clue. Any ideas?)

House. is kicking. my trash.

I am reaching a breaking point. I had a doctor's appointment this morning. Didn't make it. Was running around the house looking for one PAIR of Lucy's shoes. I found plenty of shoes. Single shoes. With no mates. Everywhere I turn are single shoes, taunting me. Consider putting two different shoes on her. Jason is running around also, because he has a morning meeting conveniently at the same time as my doctor's appointment. So there is no helping each other. You gotta fend for yourself in these situations and shove each other out of the way in the process if needed. Ended up rescheduling the docs appt, and finding a way to blame it all on Jason, because I'm a blamer and I know he hid the matches to her shoes. I'm an evil woman. Good thing he thinks I'm pretty funny I guess.

I am overwhelmed. I really cannot handle how much effort it takes to organize and clean a house and how little it takes to trash it. 2 seconds. We have a tupperware cupboard. Right down on Lucia's level. Used to think it was just so cute when she'd gleefully drag out the unbreakable dishes:. Look at that face. Pure elation:

Except now the tupperware has completely taken over my life. All over our bedroom, all over the bathroom, in the bathtub, upstairs in her room, in the laundry. Everywhere I go there is a plastic container mocking me. And I'm not stupid, I know when I'm being mocked. I gather them up from the ends of the house and put them back at the end of every. single. day. And then we wake up and do it all over again!

She's also figured out how to open the chests of drawers in our bedroom and bathroom. "Just grab the little handle and yank mom, see? So easy." Drags the contents out. Every last item of every last drawer, every day of my life. And as I'm trying to put things away, singing ,"Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere, clean up, clean up, everybody do your share," to try to get her in on the action, she is following me, immediately taking out everything I have just put away. I look at her with glowing red eyes and tell her it's not such a good idea to do what she's doing, and she smiles back at me. "But what you don't know mom, it's just so easy! High five!"

Found a large towel completely submersed in the toilet as well. Jumped because I thought it was an animal that had drowned. I can't bring myself to blame Jason for that one. Don't know how it got there because she is NEVER out of my sight. But maybe she has accomplices that are hiding around the house. Maybe she has an entire crew of destructors waiting for me to turn around so they can come out and destroy. And maybe she is the queen destructor and they have ceremonies for her at night in her room around a fire and offer her sacrifices. I don't know, don't tell me it's not possible.

I have but one child, people. And one on the way who is not making messes yet except for my personality. How do mothers of litters stay on top of it all? Because frankly I've always thought of myself as a mother of a litter. Once I felt the sweetness of holding Lucy in my arms for the first time I didn't know if I'd ever be able to stop having babies actually. Do you honestly ever get to the point that you just, "have a system" that works? Or do you surrender yourself over to disaster and choose to be happy and piglike rather than obsess over keeping things tidy? I remember in a biology class I took not too long ago skimming over the concept of entropy, which basically is defined as the tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve towards a state of disorder and chaos, or "inert uniformity". So is this just inevitable? Is this just one of nature's laws? That anything worth obtaining is always the more difficult route and ALWAYS will require the exertion of effort on our parts? Like having an organized house over living in squaller? Like having a successful career? Like staying physically in shape? Like gaining knowledge and spiritual intelligence? Like the constant attempt to progress towards perfection? Blah blah blah, stop me. Too deep for this post. And I'm just chapping myself more.

I know we all like to pretend we are just naturally cleanly and orderly people, and our families just clean up after themselves and don't leave our stuff out. "We just don't really seem to make messes in the first place, and that's how we do it." Let's get real. Because I know with more children it will only get more difficult because they inevitably acquire more junk. And will, like Lucy behave like raccoons getting her mischievous little mitts into EVERYTHING. (She does like shiny things, too.:) I am fighting the urge so bad to just throw everything we own away and start over. Don't want to do the dishes. Just throw the dirty ones out, they're no good. And I'm regretting moving into a house. A rather large house according to some standards. I miss our 3 bedroom condo.

Just the six of us.

This weekend we gathered in from our various locations and spent two nights together in Park City. A much needed rendezvous. No husbands and no babies. Just shopping, eating, reminiscing and story telling. Latest I've stayed up since... before I was married I think. There is something about being around people who knew you when you were a little girl. Something about that history that bonds you in a unique way. And something about it that really makes me feel 15. Brandi, Remi and I have been BFs since we were 11. Courtney and Stacy since they were 3. Somehow we meshed together (threw Amber in the mix) in junior high and have been making each other pee-pants laugh since.

I'm sorry girls. I had to post it. This beaut was taken 10 years ago. At Sears. Because I was going away for a semester and it was the end of the world. So glad we didn't peak in high school, especially our hair. :) Who decided on turtle necks??

We speak English, Spanish, French and Albanian. We are Mormon, Episcopalian, and Christian. We are nurses, anchor women, hair stylists, underwriters, health educators, mothers and mothers-to-be. We are college graduates. We have slumber partied together and made up many a dance routine. We've snuck out of the house together, (and been caught together), have kissed the same boys a time or two over the years, and have worn out a dance floor over and over again together. We have argued and yelled at each other, have stolen each others cars and clothes, have drive-by-late-night stalked each other, and have drive-by-late-night stalked boys together. We've butted heads about politics and sports and have given each other a few dead arms over the years. We've introduced some of us to our husbands, we've married together, had babies together, adopted babies together, and faced terrible tragedy together. We have cried together (so oft), have laughed together (more oft) and have cried from laughing together many, many times over. I love these women. I'm so proud of the people we have become. We had so much fun.