Saturday morning, Darian and I got up and had a lovely breakfast. I had a scramble with Artichoke hearts, squash, and a smokey flavored cheese. Darian picked a yogurt Parfait that came out looking more like a dessert! We were missing Jon big time. He is off in Scotland playing a Big Star show this weekend. I always hate it when he has to be gone for three day weekends, but that is how he makes the money, so you got to do what you got to do.
From there we went to get our brows waxed at the local salon. Darian inherited my very thick, dark eyebrows. In a way it is a good thing, because with this type of brow you can get them waxed into pretty much any shape you like! It is easier to start with too much and make it less that it is to start with none and make it more! She also wore her new contact lenses out for the first time, so she looked much more mature than I am used to. All day people were asking us if we were sisters, or if she was my niece. When I would thank them and explain that she is, in fact, my baby they would double take and ask me somewhat rude questions like, "How old
ARE you?"
I would just say, "I am old enough to have a daughter that is her age!"
After we finished at our salon we decided to walk downtown to finish up her school shopping. We could have drove, but yesterday was such a beautiful day out, we wanted to take full advantage of one of the remaining summer days.
We went to several stores, purchased new shoes, new jeans, and a few sweatshirts. We have pretty much covered everything she is going to need to look fashionable and fun in the coming year. The last item we still need to buy is a nice winter coat, but most stores don't have those out just yet, so we will be waiting on that one.
After shopping we went to the cinema to catch a movie. We finally got to see
The Simpsons Movie! It was really good. Both Darian and I are huge fans of The Simpsons, so it was everything we expected and more. I'm glad I didn't talk to anyone about it before I saw it, or didn't read anything, because the gags were all a surprise and that made it really fun.
After that was over, we decided to pop over to the next theatre and see
Superbad. We had been hearing good stuff about it, and figured since we had such a hard day of school shopping, we deserved a double feature!
Suberbad was OK. I predict it will be hugely popular with men, stoners, and 12-18 year olds everywhere. It was a lot of penis jokes. Kind of American Pie meets Porky's without the nudity. I thought the two main actors were very good and I look forward to seeing them in other roles.
In fact, earlier this week, Darian and I went to a free sneak preview of another lowbrow comedy called
Balls of Fury. It starred
a guy who we saw perform in a musical we went to earlier this year! If it were between seeing Balls of Fury or Superbad again, It would probably be Balls of Fury. It was more of a silly knee slap comedy and I just totally adore Christopher Watkins so much, I'd rather go down that road again if I
had to. But really,
I don't want to. They both fall under the
"I'm glad I saw them for free" umbrella.
We had a somewhat creepy encounter on the bus ride home. When you catch busses after 7PM, the mix of people on the bus changes dramatically. During the day you just get a lot of commuters and business people buzzing around town. Maybe some nannies and stay at home moms using the busses to go to the park or get from here to there. Well, after 7PM you end up with a few shoppers (like us) carrying loads of bags from the downtown stores, a few obvious tourists, and a lot of Who's who in Mental Health.
Generally the rule is "Don't speak, and Don't make eye contact"
This guy got on the crowded bus who seemed to have a godawful case of pinkeye. He had one huge inflamed eye that was tearing up. He sat right across from us. I whispered to Darian to not touch ANYTHING and make sure we REALLY scrubbed our hands the second we got in. The guy was just going to town on his dripping eye. He would not stop touching it. It was really giving me the willies. THEN he noticed Darian and I sitting across from him and pulled out his cell phone. I noted right away that it was a camera phone.
(Now, THIS is a trend that I've noticed recently that really gives me the creeps. Random men take pictures of random women with their cell phone cameras a lot in the city these days. It's happened to me a few times while walking down the street.)
Creepy guy lifts up his phone and I notice he is pointing it right at my daughter. So, I lift up my GIANT Hot Topic bag and very obviously hold it in front of her obscuring his view. Then I give him the hard,
"What in the hell do you think you are doing you freak!" mom glare.
I don't break the silence, but my glare and gesture of holding the bag up was really loud, it was pretty obvious what I was doing and everyone on the crowded bus figured it out really quick. He made eye contact with me for a second and looked at the floor all embarrassed, put his phone away and scurried off the bus at the very next stop. As soon as he stepped off the bus, the people around me started talking about how creepy it was that he was trying to take a photo of my kid, and how they thought it was smart how I handled it by holding the bag in his way.
This age of technology is so great and makes life so convenient in so many ways, but it also scares the crap out of me from the perspective of trying to raise a child in it. Parents are faced with so many more challenges these days than ever before. Creeps have so many more avenues to get away with things. You really have to stay alert!
This remided me of the guy who worked at the Cinerama in downtown who was caught with a tiny camera installed in the ladies room just about a month ago. It sucks that I can't use a public restroom until I completely look over every inch of the place for hidden cameras and what not. I know it sounds paranoid, but it is the people who do look for them, that find the cameras and bust these creeps.
I had a friend who was in the changing room of an Urban Outfitters a few years back who found a tiny camera wire in her dressing room. She pulled it out and followed it to a small camcorder shoved behind a display. She just threw the camera in her purse and waited around. A little while later a guy showed up frantically looking for something. He didn't work there, he had just been in there "trying on clothes" and he said he lost something. (This is another reason I hate stores with unisex changing rooms as well. I will buy stuff try it on at home and return it if I need to. I won't even shop at a store if they don't have a full refund policy and they only offer unisex changing rooms.)
She watched him look everywhere the camera was supposed to be. She said she enjoyed his panic. She left and tossed the camera in the bin after destroying it. She would have turned it in and turned him in, but she knew that it had video of her changing as well, and she didn't want her nudity going in as evidence. She already felt violated enough. She figured it would take that creep a long time to get another one since it looked pretty expensive. I would have handled it differently, but she was the one who was violated, and that was her reaction to it.
Today, I'm taking on the lazy Sunday slowly. Seems my girl came down with some kind of stomach flu late last eve. She crawled into bed with me about 3AM and we were up late getting her sorted. Poor baby. She is resting now and I am just getting my first cup of coffee. Luckily, Netflix sent her three of her favorite movies this week (I use Netflix for her because they tend to stock more of the Anime than our local video stores do) so she can just rest and watch movies all day while sipping Ginger ale until she feels better!
Maybe I will get some laundry done? Probably not.
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