Turning two

Saturday kicked off my busy fall social season, also known as the toddler birthday party circuit. Nephew Bone and I attended the first fall informal of the year, a birthday gala for the godson at Kywana's house. It was boys night out. Or, boys morning out, as he tends to get sleepy around 2 in the afternoon. And to be quite honest, so does his uncle.

The godson officially turned two yesterday, and Nephew Bone hits the big dos mañana. The cool thing about turning two is it's the only time in your life that your age doubles in a day. I've tried explaining this to Nephew Bone, but instead of blowing his mind he seems instead to take it all in stride. I'm like, "OK, but don't act all confused next year when your age only increases by fifty percent."

The other cool thing about being two-years-old is that you have no idea who your friends are, so your parents just invite whoever and tell you, "These are your friends." The red-headed kid down the street? That's your friend. The son of your mother's college roommate? Another friend. That frees you up to concentrate on more important things, like eating cake icing and... pointing at things.

Overall, it was a decent party with delicious cake and a pinata, which I didn't get to hit. And like any happening party, there were girls there, including Setup Girl and her daughter, formerly known as "the kid who was almost mine." Setup Girl is expecting another child, which we'll call "the kid who is definitely not mine," and also engaged. So Nephew Bone and I steered clear and headed for open waters.

At one point, I started playing with this super cool bubble blower and began to lure some of the younger kids away from the pinata. In my plaid shorts, I was beginning to feel a bit like the Pied Piper. But I thought it best not to march out of town. You never know how parents these days are going to react to something like that.

The party started to fizzle out around the break of 12:15, and I decided to take Nephew Bone to see his grandma. On the way over, "Lovefool" came on and of course I turned it up a bit and was singing along. In the middle of the song, I glanced in the back seat to see Nephew Bone "dancing" to the music. "You like this song, buddy?" I asked. He smiled and nodded.

While we were at grandma's, I caught myself still singing the chorus because, well once that song is in your head, it's there for awhile, and let's face it, I'm always singing something. Right after I sang, "Love me, love me," Nephew Bone hummed, in tune, "Ha huh, ha huh."

Sigh. I must have done something right.

And how about one more Nephew Bone story for the road? Alright, you talked me into it. My sister was telling me that while cleaning recently, she had moved Nephew Bone's piggy bank from one end of his dresser to the other. So a couple days ago, he was standing by his dresser and pointing up. When she picked him up, he grabbed the piggy bank and moved it to the other end of the dresser, where it usually sits.

"I think my kid might be a little OCD," she said. "And I'm the complete opposite of OCD, so I don't know where he gets it from."

"Hmm, I have no idea," I replied, reaching to straighten the ever-so-slightly-crooked mouse pad on my desk.

"Love me, love me, say that you love me. Fool me, fool me, go on and fool me..."

Ten fingers none the poorer

As Blogtober passes the halfway mark, I've managed to write every day except one. I didn't get home from the Bama game until after 1:30 this morning and was just too worn out to try and write. Maybe I can write an hour or more tomorrow to make up for it. You know, double up on my prescription. That's always worked really well for me with pain medication.

Parking is always an issue at the Bama games. The place we'd parked the past two years was turned into an RV lot a few weeks ago. So at the last game, we paid ten bucks to park over a mile away from the stadium. Thing is, I have a little issue with paying for parking, more specifically, paying to park over a mile away from the event. I adhere to the George Costanza theory, which is loosely translated (or exactly as he said it word-for-word): "It's like going to a prostitute. Why should I pay, when if I apply myself, maybe I could get it for free?"

So through talking to a few people and Google-mapping the area, we found a new place to park yesterday, for free. And mostly legal.

Last night was also the first cold-weather Bama game. The low temperature was in the upper 30's, which was a problem for me because I couldn't remember how 38 degrees feels. It's been so long since last winter, plus how often am I out in the cold for four or five hours? Two, three times a year, max? Thus, I wasn't sure what to wear.

What we need is a program where you enter the expected temperature and wind speed along with how long you're going to be outside, and it would tell you what to wear.

For example, I'd input 38 degrees at 10 mph for 4 hours, and it would spit out: "ear muffs or a toboggan, gloves, wool socks (preferably Argyle), thermal underwear, long pants, and a long-sleeved shirt under either a sweatshirt or a stylish cardigan." (Speaking of, whatever happened to The Cardigans? Love me, love me, saaaay that you love me...)

My device could be called the Outfit Forecaster. Maybe I could somehow combine it with my Outfit Flow Chart of a couple years back. That would seriously cut down on the amount of mental energy I expend each day trying to figure out what to wear. Then I would have more time and energy to spend pondering important issues such as, well, whatever happened to the Cardigans.

In the end, I think the ensemble I chose for the game worked out OK, except that I didn't bring any gloves. Also, the band of my thermal underwear got a little itchy. Sometime during second quarter, one of my fingers started going numb. (This had to do with the gloves, not the underwear.) I looked down and all my other fingers were flesh-colored, but this one was a scary yellowish-white.

I might have had a brief, mostly internal panic attack. I'm too young to have circulation problems! How will I blog?! I showed it to my sister and she said, and I quote, "You're probably gonna get gangrene and your finger will fall off. You should have put plastic bags on your hands. Didn't Dad ever teach you anything?"

Fortunately, I returned home with all my digits. And now I remember quite well how 38 degrees feels. In mid-October, nonetheless.

Welcome to Alabama: The new North Dakota.

"This evening has been, been hoping that you'd drop in, so very nice. I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice..."

Love me, love me, say that you love me

Remember that song? Lovefool. Cardigans. 1996. It's been stuck in my head. All. Weekend. Long. I've been walking around singing it in my well-polished falsetto, which I first honed while imitating the inimitable Jordan Knight on "I'll Be Loving You Forever" in 1989.

The ability to get a song stuck in someone else's head is one of my little known talents. Some might even say an annoyance. Still, for some reason I was having a bit of trouble getting anybody to pick up on this one.

Saturday night, we went ice skating at the local ice complex, tween hangout & Brian Boitano training facility. (Actually, I just made the Brian Boitano part up.) There were six in our group--Kywana, myself, Little Joe, and two minors. That's down forty-five percent from last year's Valentine Date Skate. I blame the decrease largely on the threat of Winter Storm '09, which would leave us buried beneath half an inch of snow by Sunday morning.

Skating was fairly uneventful. I fell three times, which as I stated last year is actually pretty fun. Honestly, I think I could start calling it body sledding and have all the kids doing it. I've always wanted to be the person who started something. Like the Macarena. Or the wave. Or the guy in that Michael Jackson song, Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'.

There was an entertaining little guy dressed in a toboggan who kept trying to teach us tricks. I assume he worked there, but he could have just been a poser. Anyway, he was kinda corny. He made me think of somebody who would've been on Mister Rogers Neighborhood. Say if Mister Rogers took his neighbors to an ice rink during an episode, this would be the guy at the ice rink showing Mister Rogers around.

As we were getting ready to leave, the female fragment of Kywana looked over at all our shoes sitting underneath a bench.

"Who's shoes are those?" she asked.

"Those are Little Joe's," I responded, shielding my eyes. I already knew which pair she was referring to. That would be the blindingly bright brand new solid white Reeboks. LJ has been wearing solid white Reeboks since the 80's and hasn't looked back. I honestly don't know how he keeps finding places that sell them. They looked like something you'd see on display in a shoe museum.

After skating, I headed over to LJ's and wound up shooting pool with him and Wolfgang for a bit. LJ had gone to the bathroom or something and it was his turn, so we were just standing around waiting. Without warning and probably without thinking, Wolfgang busted out in song.

"Love me, love me, say that you love me."

Yessss! Still got it.

"Leave me, leave me, just say that you need me. I don't care about anything but you..."