Awkward

Curse of the Back To Schoolness.... we all have colds. Correction- I have a cold, the kids have a cold and my husband has a severe case of "someone please find Pampers in a size 36 because I'm the biggest baby that ever lived."

He called me today. I was in the living room, tooling around on my laptop, and the house phone rang. It was him. Calling from my cell phone. From the MASTER BEDROOM. He was calling to make sure I knew how miserable he felt. Because before the call- we had no idea. The incessant whining, dramatic collapses on the couch and three minute sniffle updates did not shed any clues.

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I bought my husband a suit for his birthday. At a very fine establishment- known for their refined good taste. He needed the pants tailored, and after picking them up and trying them on at home- there's a big problem.

The pants are not pants. They are pantaloons. They bunch up around his hips, and make him look much more at home on a pirate's ship than in an office. It is seriously ridiculous.

We took the pants back today, and after trying on his pantaloons for the assistant manager, she still didn't see a problem.

"I just don't understand the problem here." she said, shaking her head.

"There wouldn't be a problem if he was Napoleon," I replied. "Or if you had an argyle eye patch to match his socks."

They took the pantaloons back.

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In other news, my 4 year old played her first soccer game yesterday. Aside from my husband morphing into Gypsy Rose Lee's mother for a short time period, the whole event was as expected. They lost. A gazillion to three. The kids on the opposite team were already shaving, and stood a good 3 feet over our 4 year olds. Their star player had a good soccer name- Fernando, and he would celebrate each goal (and there were many) with a jubiliant cartwheel. (Who teaches their kid to do that?)

My heart stopped in my throat (or maybe it was the cold?) when my little one suddenly stepped up to play goalie. 20 minutes before the game, she didn't really understand the concept of soccer, and now she was responsible for warding off Fernando's blows? I suddenly hoped Fernando was up for some serious cartwheeling. She held her own, but we quickly realized we had to put the camera down. If she even caught a glimpse of a lens that "might" be focused on her- her concentration dropped and she would instinctively start posing.

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I got my hair cut yesterday. I tried this stylist when I first moved here, and I really liked her, so I thought I'd give it another shot. She's Parisian, and left France to try life in the United States and absolutely adores Texas. She's a lot of fun to chat with- but the people she works with are craaaaazy. Uncomfortably so.

Yesterday, I'm sitting in her chair, covered in a black tarp with a head of wet hair when a woman approaches us. She's well into her seventies, with a head of bright orange hair. Her figure is cute, but she's wearing a cropped polo (they should really be outlawed) and a sliver of her belly is visible (which grosses me out on Britney Spears- but on a seventy+ year old carrot top? Heinous). She gives my stylist a kiss, apologizes to me for interrupting, and then says, "Oh child. I hurt my neck last night. After dinner, Ralph and I were just playing around on my bed, and I don't know what happened, but I snapped my neck and couldn't move for a few moments. Ralph thought I died."

I honestly didn't know where to look. I wound up hiding an uncomfortable case of giggles behind my iphone. Awkward. This weekend was chock full of awkward, awkward moments.

Back to the Grind

In the hustle and bustle of the move, my scale never received its much needed new battery.
In the hustle and bustle of the move, yours truly ate her way out of stress and anxiety.

I got the new battery. And after weighing myself, I almost had a heart attack.
Not that bad, (I do tend to dramatize) but five pounds is a lot when you're already lightyears from a bikini.

So when the kids started school, I started to exercise again. I dragged my lab around the perimeter of Rice University- (3.2 miles). I started taking the whole-damn-fam to Family Yoga at our local YMCA. And this week?

I tried ZUMBA.

Holy schniekies, people. When I first started reading about Zumba- I read that you burn a kajillion calories in one hour. Picturing myself surrounded by Latina hardbodies in sports bras and teeny tiny shorts, I sucked up my pride, put on my capri yoga pants and free Orbit gum t-shirt (pilfered from my little bro) and convinced a girlfriend to hide with me in the back of the class.

The average age of my Zumba class? 65. I was cha-cha dancing with the Golden Girls. I think I burned more calories belly laughing my way through the ridiculousness of watching grey haired grannies in their polyester elastic stretch pants shake their boot-tays in a circle. At one point, I looked back to check on my girlfriend. My girlfriend who runs marathons, and does triathalons, and trains for 3 hours a day- she had an absolute look of disgust and amusement on her face as she was completing her jazz box and shaking her moneymaker. (Side note: the music is also hilarious. Picture Ricky Martin on steroids and each song has Uber Ricky loudly whispering "Zoooooommmmmba.")

So yeah, I'm going back this afternoon. And maybe I'll start watching "Murder She Wrote" reruns with my new friends.