SAA Ep. #65: The Birfday Adventure

My birfday was almost a week ago, but my internet was down for most of the week.  This is the first chance I've had to blog about my wonderful, exciting, adventurous, and (of course) slightly awkward birfday.

My birfday started out early because of church.  After church, several of my friends and I ended up at Applebees.  My Sunday School Bible Study teacher, his wife, and four kids came, too.  That was awesome for me, because those kids are awesome. The best quote from my entire birthday came from the six year old who was seated next to me.  I was eating my free birthday ice cream, but most of it had melted by the time I got to the bottom.  That didn't stop me from continuing to eat it.  The six year old asked, "Why are you eating your ice cream juice?"

Because it's my birfday, kid.  That's why.

After lunch, my roommate and I went to the science museum.  She wasn't all that excited about the science museum, but pretty soon she started getting interested in the whale skeletons (I was interested in those, but mainly just because I firmly believe that in 1986, Admiral James T. Kirk and the crew of the former U.S.S. Enterprise came back in time on a Klingon vessel with the sole purpose of capturing two Humpback whales to bring back to the 23rd century, in an attempt to repopulate the species--as well as get rid of a silly probe that was going to destroy the earth).  Me?  I was far more fascinated by the inch worm that had discovered my hand.  Inch worms are adorable.  Or at least they used to be.

Inch worms love me.  I usually pick up about twenty of them when I go running in the springtime.  Apparently they think I'm a giant shuttle bus or something.  It's probably because I just run back and forth up and down their sidewalk.  A few of them forget to get off at their stop (not that I stop for them anyway), so when I get done from my run, there are still a good dozen of them clinging for dear life to my shirt, pants, or shoes.  And really, by the time I've had to pull the seventh inch worm out of my hair, they aren't that adorable anymore.  But the one at the museum, which wasn't part of any of the exhibts, still captured my attention more than the stuff I was supposed to be looking at.

It wasn't that I wasn't interested in the museum exhibits.  It's just that I have the attention span of a three year old.

Well, my attention span grew up a little bit when we reached the small gem exhibit.  I don't like jewels as much as my sister or mom, but I'm still a girl, and I can appreciate a shiny object or two. 

...and then my attention span rapidly deteriorated again when we reached the dinosaurs...

...I pretty much became a three year old again.



This guy needs a 900 lb. cheeseburger.



Aww.  He's cute.  I think I want one.



It's a Pachycephalosaurus!  This is one of my favorite dinosaurs (probably because it has a hard head)!  I got so excited about seeing him (I call him Pachie) that I almost caused a scene. 

 So, I was not eaten by any dinosaurs...but...

...in a completely unexpected turn of events, I was eaten by a giant praying mantis.

THE END.

Wait...

...no it isn't.

After the museum, my roommate dropped me off to pick up my car from Applebees.  I needed to go by Walmart on the way home because my mom had given me a gift card so that I could purchase a running/hydration belt.  If you don't know what that is, think of a fanny pack.  Then erase the fanny pack stigma from your mind, add on holsters for water bottles, and you have a vague idea of what a running belt is.  It's a useful belt for holding water and other stuff while you're running.  I think that the fact that I wanted a running belt for my birthday qualifies me as one of those crazy running people. 

Anyway, I was starting to turn to get on one road, when I remembered there was a newer, much more better Walmart right next to the Applebees.  So I changed lanes quickly and started to go across a busy intersection.  I was kinda sorta already in the middle of the intersection when I realized that I had a red light.  I slammed on my brakes and just generally freaked out.  I would like to be able to say that I almost died on my birthday (because that sounds exciting and tragic).  Really, I just made myself look like an idiot and ticked a bunch of much more cautious drivers off.  But hey--traffic signals don't matter on your birthday...right?  ...

After all this birthday excitement, you'd think I'd have had enough, right?  Yeah, me too.  Well, I went to Walmart.  I found my running belt (which, by the way, I LOVE.  I took it out on a nine mile run the other day, and it was pretty much the coolest fanny pack running accessory ever).

Well, my mom had given me a card for a certain amount, and after the running belt, I still had a little $$ left over.  I thought to myself, "Self, you should get a birthday cake."  I mean, it all balances out, right?  A running belt in one hand, a cake in the other.  Yeah.

I meant to just get one of those little individual slices of cake, but they were so expensive compared to the reduced price full cakes.  I looked over all that the bakery had to offer, and my eyes kept going back to this one particular cake.  It was white with pink trim.  Now, pink is no longer my favorite color, but when I was a kid--everything was pink.  If it wasn't pink, it wasn't right.  And somewhere in my psyche, I connected the color pink to birthdays.  So I wanted this pink and white cake.  Also, the cake was two layer: one chocolate, one vanilla--two of my favorite cake flavors.  And it was only a few dollars more than the little individual cake slices. 

Still, I wasn't sure. 

So I stared at the cakes.

As I was staring at the cakes, I heard someone talking to me.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but you're so pretty.  Where are you from?"

I looked up to see a man smiling at me.  He was maybe 5-10 years older than me, and not all that creepy-looking.  I was taken aback by his direct approach.  I'm pretty clueless when it comes to guys being interested in me, but this was obvious enough for even ME to get.  I am never interested in making any kind of love connection with a stranger, but I've really been convicted lately about being rude to people--so I decided to be cautiously pleasant, which went completely against my gut instinct to run away like a little girl.

I think he figured I was from another country (I guess I'm too pale to be American), because after he found out I was from the U.S., he asked about my heritage.  Then he asked if I was single.  Then he asked if I was a lesbian.  He said he just wanted to make sure.  Then he asked me a few more questions.  For a moment, I wondered if he wasn't really hitting on me, but was actually trying to figure out information so he could try to steal my identity--but since he never asked me about my mother's maiden name or anything like that, I guess he was just really interested in me.  I was starting to wonder how I was going to let this guy down easy, when he sighed and said, "I should go before I get in trouble."  He reluctantly pointed to a gold ring on his left finger and said, "I am married, you see, and I should go find my wife before she finds me here with you."

Umm, yeah...

Then he paused before leaving, smiled awkwardly and said, "But, really, you're just so beautiful."

And he went away. 

I paused for a moment, silently freaking out over the whole situation, 1) because I never get hit on by anyone, let alone strangers, let alone married strangers, and I have no idea how to cope with that sort of thing, and 2) because what kind of married guy just goes around hitting on women as they look at cakes in Walmart?

Then I came to my senses and grabbed the pink and white cake, because obviously that cake made me more attractive. 

And even if it wasn't the cake, I figure it couldn't hurt.

Because even if it was a creepy married dude, it's always nice to have someone think you're pretty.  Especially on your birthday.  And it never hurts to have a pink and white cake.

And it never hurts to look like Santa Claus, unless you're a hobo.  ...but that's an entirely different story.

The cake? I definitely ate three slices that night.  I don't know if it made me more attractive, but it did give me a killer cake hangover--or a "cakeover," if you will.

...and the next day at work, just as I was telling my friend Kara about my massive cakeover, she presented me with a birthday cake pop.

Hmm.

It's the thought that counts.

(Actually, the cake pop was awesome, as was the latte she bought me!  My birthday was excellent and adventurous!  I'm really liking 32 so far!)

Embarablast From the Past Episode #4: The Rejection

So usually my embarablasts are about things that I've done to embarass myself. Today's episode is about someone else's embarassment. Well, actually, I can't say whether the other individual was embarassed or not, but he should have been. In fact, he should have been downright ashamed.

Let me start out by saying that I'm pretty slow when it comes to guys "hitting on" me. Blame it on the fact that I was wearing coke bottle glasses from the age of six all the way up into my teenage years, or it could have been that even in childhood my hair was known to be unruly enough to eat small children (poor Timmy), or that I liked Star Trek instead of Beverly Hills 90210. Until I got contacts and learned the mystical secrets of hair gel (never did stop watching Star Trek--I'm awesome!), I was pretty much shunned by all members of the male species.

I had no concept of what it was like to be "hit on." In fact, even in college, one of my guy friends eventually had to clue me into the fact that someone was expressing interest in me. It wasn't someone I was interested in, so it didn't really matter. I just thought it was interesting that I was that oblivious. I just have little experience with getting "hit on," and it takes something BIG for me to "get it."

So a couple of years ago, the little girl I nannied for was still in preschool. I had to go pick her up in the afternoons. The preschool teacher was the sort who would keep her door closed and not open it until she was ready to let the kids out. So all the parents (and the socially awkward nanny) would stand outside the door waiting for the class to end.

I'd developed a routine of arriving a few minutes before the class was over. Some of the parents would stand around in the hallway and chat. Others, like me, were antisocial. We'd stand around staring at the random kid art on the walls. I must have looked at that same piece of macaroni art 200 times. I'm still not sure what it was supposed to be...

But for those of us who did not want to talk, we'd established an unspoken rule that we would continue not to speak to each other. We would not make eye contact. We would stay three to five feet away from each other's personal bubbles. That was the way things were.

Then came the day when I met Lack of Personal Boundaries Man. He came into the preschool hallway unobtrusively. In fact, I didn't even notice LoPB Man until I got the vibe that he was "checking me out." As I noted before, I'm really pretty oblivious to guys paying attention to me, so it had to be fairly overt for me to pick up on it.

Still, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, so I continued to stare at the macaroni art. It was then that LoPB Man proceeded to enter my personal bubble. He took one of those awkward side steps towards me and pretended to look at the macaroni art, as well.

According to the Unwritten Rules of Socially Awkward Ettiquette, when a person gets too close to my personal bubble, the correct procedure is to casually take a step away from the offender. I did this. I stepped casually away from LoPB Man and turned my attention to a kid drawing that looked like one of those aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I think it was supposed to be a cat.

Almost as soon as I had moved away from LoPB Man, LoPB Man decided to follow my lead. He stepped closer. I thought this must have been some kind of coincidence. LoPB Man was not following me. He just had a burning curiosity about cats that look like aliens. So, I decided I needed to take ANOTHER casual step away.

LoPB Man followed again.

I considered taking another causual step away, but I feared it would lead to a bizarre "casual step dance" around the preschool hallway. I'm a bad dancer. It would not have been pretty.

So I stood my ground, focusing my attention on a flyer that had been taped to the wall. I can't tell you what it said, because I wasn't really reading it. I was looking out of the corner of my eye towards LoPB Man. He was still standing way too close to me.

Then, inevitably, LoPB Man tapped me on the shoulder. I forced a smile and looked at him. "Excuse me," he said nervously. "I can't seem to remember the names of the preschool teachers in this class. Do you know what they are?"

I have a couple of reasons to believe that he was just trying to make conversation with me. He was making bad, incredibly awkward conversation, but it was conversation nonetheless. The first reason I believe he just wanted to talk to me was that there were SEVERAL other people standing around in that hallway he could have asked, if indeed he was actually trying to find out the names of the preschool teachers.

But the other reason I believe he was just trying to talk to me was because in BIG bold "Helen Keller could see them blindfolded" letters on the preschool door were the words, "Welcome to Miss Sue and Miss Jane's 4 Yr. Old Class."

"Their names are on the door," I pointed out. "Miss Sue and Miss Jane." I used a tone that indicated I really didn't want to talk to him...because I really DIDN'T want to talk to him.

"Oh," he said. "Sorry." He didn't look/sound embarassed. He looked/sounded dejected. He looked/sounded as though I'd just shot him down. And it had to be pretty clear for me to pick up on it, because I usually just don't get it when guys are interested.

Anyway, about that time, the door to the classroom opened and a little girl ran into LoPB Man's arms exclaiming, "DADDY!" And I just happened to look down at that point and notice that LoPB Man AKA DADDY! was definitely wearing a wedding band.

It amazes me that people like this can find other people who are willing to breed with them. He must have attracted MOMMY! with his wily awkward casual step dances and witty remarks. Hmm.

Note to potential suitors: If you DON'T want me to reject you, here's some helpful hints:

1. Don't follow me around hallways.
2. Come up with better pick up lines than "Can you tell me the names of my kid's preschool teachers?" or other things that make you sound like a lame parent/complete moron.
3. Don't be married.
4. Make sure I understand that you're actually interested, because chances are, I won't get it.
5. Be Scottish. It's not a requirement, but it definitely wouldn't hurt.