...a little wave: fall trip

as i continue to get my breath back (blog-wise), i find lots of posts i uploaded and then didn't have the time to write up. while the idealist in me wants to do a thorough job and do a proper write-up for some of these (okay, all of these), the realist in me is saying 'no way.' and the realist is winning way more fights these days. some people might call that personal growth. my realist has gone up about three pant sizes in the past month, the bastard.

anyway, his largess is your gain, sort of. embarrassingly enough, i've got posts that go back to last summer, and as i tried to go through and prune some of them out i had a hard time getting rid of them, mostly on the basis that bebe looks pretty cute and i still want people to see these pics. so i decided to put them up with a little explanation, but nothing too in-depth. it's like blog lite. but knowing me, i'll still talk my ass off. whatevs.

today's blog classic comes from last fall, when we headed out west to attend a funeral and visit with family.

while the ceremonial part of the funeral was happening, bebe and i decided to go hang out somewhere else for a while. it turns out we went to our own version of a funeral. for the death of the human spirit. we ended up in the darkest of dark places, a place so desolate and devoid of love and hope that even inanimate objects wept and swayed in the currents of horror and sorrow. but before that, we had lunch in the parking lot:

beebs was excited because she got to sit in the front seat to eat, and not wear a seat buckle! since we were just cruising in the parking lot, and i was watching the road most of the time, i didn't see the harm. whenever i turned to take a picture of her she'd watch the road for me.

"gray sedan on your right."
thanks, bebe!

i think those are all better without any explanation. you try and guess what she's thinking...

after we fortified ourselves, bebe fortified her diaper. so, back to the trunk we went for a quick freshen-up. afterward, we pretended to be packing up while nervous families paced back and forth in their cars looking for any parking spot within walking distance. we would get in, put our belts on, start up the car, even throw it in reverse for a second- you should have seen all of the turn signals come on as people waited anxiously. then, when there was enough of a traffic jam, we'd go back to park, turn the car off, and get out. it was a hoot.

alright, on to the tenth circle of hell. i know dante only wrote about nine circles, but that was because Yankee Candle hadn't been invented yet.

Yankee Candle is easily one of the most desolate and crap-filled destinations on planet earth. it's crowded, it smells bad, and it's full of junk. and because they know how terrible it is, they fill it with all kinds of other stuff to get you to go there. there's an elaborate toy train that travels on tracks across the ceiling and down through a wintry mountain village, there are old hot rod cars on display- there's even a holiday room where every five minutes it snows! craptastic.

unfortunately, it's perfectly geared for the mind of a two year-old. ironically, or not, that's how old most of the grown-ups there behaved.

"i see fat people!"

it was like being at walmart, only trashier.

yeah. this about sums it up. she's supposed to be smiling, by the way.

we walked into the "snow"room just as it had stopped, and of course bebe wanted to know what was going on. since there's nothing else in this room, it was pretty empty and i asked her if she'd like to wait the five minutes to see it snow again. she did.

when the snow comes, it causes any one in the adjacent rooms to lose their effing minds. there's a little bell that chimes to signal the start of snowfall, and when people hear it they come scrambling into the room as if twenty dollar bills wrapped in bacon are falling from the sky. they hoot and holler and jostle for the best position to get snowed on and... well. it's just a disgusting display of humanity's worst characteristics. i've seen more civility in footage of mogadishu food drops. in an attempt to experience what amounts to almost nothing, grown men and women will trample a two year old to the floor if she isn't snatched up and taken from the room by her angry, angry father.

it's fucking corn-starch, people. get a grip.

there were lots of little rooms that led to big rooms, and in each room there was some new display to look at.

there was even a waterfall that emptied into a stream with fake fish and a draw bridge to cross over. it would have been a lot of fun for small kids to run around and check everything out, but most of the small kids were actually fat kids being pushed around in strollers they had outgrown three years ago. seven year-olds do not ride in strollers. if you have to smush your kid in, he/she needs to be walking a little more anyway. the cries of "push me closer to the fire engine!" and "i want to go over there to the toasted berry make your own candle station take me over there wahhhhh!" were really too much.

and i'll fight an old lady of she repeatedly knocks my child over in her attempt to get to the buy one, get one ten percent off santa shaped cocoa mugs (dishwasher safe). i'll break her hip like a dry twig. back off!

in the last room we went through on our way out the door (past the over-crowded, fully stocked "snack bar") was the holy grail of the experience for thomas the tank engine-obsessed beatrix marie. she has no idea what commerce is, so to her this was like walking into the thomas museum. she got to see toy versions of all of her favorite train guys.

finally we got the call from mommy to come and meet them for some food and family.

fresh air!

i get a lot of these looks from aunt marge when my camera comes out. why someone so pretty hates having her picture taken is beyond me.

as we were heading out, we saw these great piles of leaves all around, and bebe and her cousin kayala began throwing them around.

gratuitous action shots:

then it was back to mems' and teek's house.

love these pink one-stars.

digging for car toys, or throwing up because our clothes still reeked of cinammon toasted vanilla berry sunshine seashore apple blossom pine cone delight? eff yankee candle.