Potpouri

Have I mentioned that this weather SUCKS? Perhaps you fellow Texans have noticed as well. You just can't do anything outside but swim. (Angie and Jon, you can expect us to invite ourselves over sometime this week.) And there's still all of August to go.

I guess as a parent, I shouldn't use the word "sucks". I promise I don't use it around the kids. I had a funny conversation with MommaLlama a few months ago, where we agreed that the word "sucks" is really terrible and disgusting when you think about it (stop thinking about it, pervs). But we agreed that it was darn near impossible to come up with a good substitute. I mean, what else are you going to say when something just... sucks?

We also heard a comic on TV recently that said, "I know I'm not supposed to say 'gay' any more, but how else am I supposed to describe a fanny pack?"

Oh, here's a funny story from the weekend. We were at a retreat for adoptive parents Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning (I'm sure MommaLlama will write more about that later) and the first evening was dedicated to strengthening your marriage. We were shown a powerpoint presentation on the meaning of commitment, and told to write sappy love letters and invited to read them aloud to the whole group. So, of course, we did NOT get up in front of the group, despite the facilitator's not-so-subtle prompting! I don't know if we just feel that we really do work on our marriage a lot and didn't need the practice right them. We were really there to learn about adoption issues. Of course we tried to learn something from it and appreciate the experience. But, we ended up sitting at the giggly table. Three other couples along with us could not stop laughing for about 45 minutes while all these other folks got up and shared their lovey-doveyness with the whole room. We felt terrible, but we just couldn't stop. One guy wrote a poem. Two or three sang to their wives. One lady who had arrived in a wheel chair decided to stand up to read her recommitment letter, and we bad kids in the back of the class were just cracking up because it was, for some reason, so funny that she could walk all of a sudden. I mean, she probably could stand for short periods and she just wanted to be closer to him. But we were all, "Oh look, a miracle, their love has cured her!" What is wrong with us? I don't know, but the more we looked around the table and saw other people trying to contain their laughter, the harder it became to not laugh. One lady said we were all going to hell, but she was practically in tears herself. I guess you had to be there. We had a great time. I'd say we actually did bond with each other, even if it wasn't the "right" way.