I could not agree more

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So far, I've loved all the blogs I've perused on the Cheezburger Network, but Engrish Funny is my absolute favorite.  I seriously cannot eat a snack and read this blog simultaneously because I almost throw up from the laughter.

Anna's Last Hurrah, or Steve and Cheryl Meet the Principal

Anna started Kindergarten today.  We made a big deal out of this weekend and planned extra family fun to commemorate her last weekend of summer before she started school "for reals." We called the weekend "Anna's Last Hurrah."  Our weekends start on Thursday (so there!), so we spent Thursday night dining out and dancing in Seville Square--enjoying our local wedding band's hit parade of cover songs. 

I will pretend that Anna did not spend the evening crying and throwing fits about how every other kid in the entire place was getting to ride on the swings before her.  Instead, I will tell you of the five minutes of crazy fun she and I had getting down to "Dancing Queen." We had to sprint to the front and hurdle a few trannies to get to the free tiaras though.

(Yes, I AM very sweaty in this picture. It was 8 p.m. and still 80 degrees with 80 percent humidity. Go take your judgy pants to someone else's blog.)

Friday night's itinerary was supposed to include an outdoor showing of Monsters vs. Aliens, but we decided to take a night off due to the aforementioned crying and fit throwing.  Saturday took us down to the beach for a dinner at Peg Leg Pete's where the kids meals come in a sand pail with eye patches all around.

Then we went to the boardwalk for the Smart Brothers concert, but it was apparently cancelled due to thunderstorms earlier in the day. So, we played in the water till sunset instead.  Not a bad alternative, really.

You can see from the picture that things are overcast, but not actually rainy (what up Smart Brothers?).

So that brings us to this morning.  The big day.  She was fantastic.  So sparkly and shiny and ready for the big leagues.

And only a tiny bit apprehensive...

We live directly behind the school, so Steve took the morning off and we walked Anna to school as a family.  The school seems wonderful, as is Anna's teacher (I loooove her).  You can see Anna in her classsroom below, though she's dwarfed by her gigantic Tinkerbell backpack :-) After we left Anna in class, the school served breakfast for the parents in the cafeteria, so that was cool.  I did not cry, but we did have to see the principal soon after...

See, even though we live directly behind the school (the buses unload 30 feet from our bedroom window and all last school year we awoke to a lady teacher yelling herself hoarse: "Waaaalk!  Waaaalk!), we can't just hop our 7 ft. fence to take Anna to school.  We can, however, walk 7 minutes down a side street to go in through a back gate.  But if that gate is closed, we have to shlep the baby into the car, drive over 3 miles around the neighborhood, out onto the main highway, and turn onto the long road to the school lined with cars for drop-off. Naturally, I'd rather walk as long as it's not raining.

So, as we were leaving the school, feeling like we had this parenting thing down, we came to a locked back gate.  Our backyard was right there!  We could see our cars! But, unless we wanted to climb a 7 ft. fence in our business attire and hoist the baby over between us, we were looking at a 3 mile walk in 80 degrees. Carrying a baby. Steve wanted to hoof it. I told him we were going to the office. But neither one of us wanted to be the idiots that got locked in the first day. We started walking the perimeter of the school grounds looking for weak spots in the chain link but failed to find any.  Into the office we went, smirking, to ask for help. A nice lady said she would let us out with her key, so we followed her and tried to chit-chat politely.  Things got downright embarrassing when she introduced herself as the principal.  Nice one, Samahas.  

Thankfully, though, there was another couple stranded at the gate when we all got back out there.  They joked about climbing it too, until the principal smilingly mentioned that perhaps they needed a security camera at this entrance.  We all laughed, ha ha ha ha, but it wasn't so funny when we told them later she was the principal. Now we're all busted.  

Bragging Rights

My cousin Nathaniel and his friends put this together. The footage is fantastic.

I have never been this cool, nor will I ever be. My cousin is the one that is playing the guitar in the beginning and rockin' the plaid shorts. I could never rock the plaid shorts. I was hoping that by having this on my blog, some of his awesomeocity would rub off on me. Geez, I certainly hope it doesn't backfire and my old-person-ocity rubs off on him by association. But I did ask his permission to post it, and he knew the risks. (Maybe I should have had him sign a waiver too, poor guy.)

The Smart Brothers

We're going to see these guys at the beach this weekend.  Have a listen. This is great stuff.

Fragile

I was re-reading an old yoga book the other day and the yogi, Rodney Yee, was conversing with the writer, Nina Zolotow, about why she practices yoga. You can see the conversation here on page 4. Essentially, the writer wanted to feel more confident and less fragile, and the yogi asks, Why? So I've been thinking about that.

Why don't I like feeling fragile? Babies don't mind being fragile. Strip 'em down to their nakey, and they glee up like it's Christmas. But of course, they don't know they're fragile. Can I go back to not knowing I'm fragile? In the conversation, Yee says that yoga isn't to keep you from feeling fragile, but to let you be fully mindful of your fragility but okay with it. I haven't practiced yoga long enough to say whether he's right or not, but I have been a Christian for a while, and I think I can see how faith in God would make me okay with fragility. Maybe eventually. Not today obviously.

Two things recently have increased my awareness of my fragility (and of course it's my own fragility that really bothers me, not any one else's, sadly): I re-watched Louis Giglio's talk about the size of the universe and the complexity of creation, and my papa died. Now, Giglio's talk you're just going to have to see for yourself. A-stound-ing. I usually love when God explodes out of the box I keep trying to cram him in, but this time it was uncomfortable. I wanted to get out the super glue and try to piece together the shattered box again. Just watch it. You'll see.

But the Papa thing didn't shatter the box, it shattered me.

I am one of the very few people my age who, up until a few months ago, still had all four grandparents. My parents are still married, as were all the grandparents. Crazy, eh? I grew up in a ridiculously loving and supportive home and family, and though people hate me for it and say I'm a loser because I didn't suffer enough as a child, I'm not sorry one bit. But a few months ago, my dad's dad got sick enough to tell the doctors and nurses he was going to head home to heaven. He's was getting a new body --his had just broke-on-down. Now, I love that this guy was my heritage, and I fully intend to get my sassy pants on in the same way when I'm old, but I wasn't ready to say good-bye. So I spent a while stuck in a black hole of self comforting and self medicating. I over-slept, over-ate, procrastinated, made excuses, and drank a few extra. It was pitiful and disgusting, and I just kept it up, watching myself be pitiful and disgusting.

It doesn't really make sense either. I certainly know better. In the Christian tradition, you don't really lose anyone unless they reject God's love completely. The gospels even allude to a "great cloud of witnesses" around us -- those who turned in the earth suit -- so the whole dying thing has really become more of a re-arranging of dimensions for me. Whether I see him in the earth suit again doesn't matter; I will see him again, regardless. But I was fighting that fragile notion.

So here are the real questions. Am I not fragile and just get convinced that I am? Should I be ending this post with this declaration? The truth is, I am not fragile. Not at all. I'm created in the image of God for crying out loud. Or is that declaration just an effort not to feel fragile?

At least the porch gets watered

Inch by inch, row by row

Gonna make this garden grow

All it takes is a rake and a hoe

And a piece of fertile ground

Inch by inch, row by row

Someone bless these seeds I sow

Someone warm them from below

Till the rain comes tumbling down