some people go to great lengths to get to tacoma faster

in the city, i often feel obliged to over-schedule in an effort to see our friends with any regularity, even though i know that the best days for us as a family are the sloooow ones. anne and i are both homebodies, but she is a total introvert, and i'm not. i get energy from being with people, so i'm the scheduler. anyway, today was busy, and three events were on the calendar-- all fun and seemingly important ones. and just for the sake of insanity, i also threw in the idea pot that if we had energy after the three events, we just might jump in the car and go see aunt liz in tacoma.

first: waffles with kristi and tyler. we don't get to see them very often, and had yet to visit the new house they bought.

second: clio's fifth birthday party. she is one of adah's favorite friends at school. it was an "in-leiu-of-a-gift-bring-a-book-to exchange" type of sweet event. it was sweet until clio realized what she had gotten herself into with the no-gift deal and pleaded with her mother to change the party to one that included presents that weren't up for trade.

third: the annual "everyone-is-italian-st. joseph's-day-parade-and-pasta-festival" at matt and kay's.

how could you say no to any one of those?

we got through event #1 smoothly. we tied a balloon to our bike for event #2, and adah faced some severe social difficulties that included yelling at some kids and sitting in my lap the whole time until it was time to eat cake. event #3 was incredibly entertaining and involved rehearsing some old italian favorites--"that's amore," "bambino," and "mambo italiano" before parading through alberta park with a huge st. joseph banner. we made quite the scene.

on the way back to matt and kay's to eat red food, adah told me she felt like she was going to throw up. i took her into the bathroom and she even did a little gaggy number towards the toilet. on the way out she asked for 5 plain noodles, which apparently is a cure for sudden barf syndrome, and we got on the bike to go home.

a few blocks later, she stopped whimpering and said to me, "now that we left early, i guess we can start packing up for tacoma sooner." so basically she pretended to be sick so we could leave for tacoma earlier. she loves that auntie liz. either that or she's developing a psychosomatic disorder.

too bad i forgot to mention to her that we weren't going since liz was still sick.

and that's why i'm eating red food from a tupperware container for dinner.