The crazy and random of our lives

The pace of the crazy isn't like it was when we lived in NYC. When we lived there, I always had a good story to tell......everything from the old Asian woman who started beating me with her purse after trying to help her pick up her scattered coins, to the afternoon Asher and I went for a walk along the East River and ran into Mayor Bloomberg filming a campaign commercial. He was very nice and very short. Trust me, it's not just me. I have friends with blogs who still live in New York to prove it. Everyone who moves to New York should automatically be given a book deal.

But we still occasionally have some of the crazy and random happen to us. A couple of things recently...

There is a group of black kids who live nearby that like to hang out at our neighborhood playground after school. They are always really nice to the boys, but they got it stuck in their heads that Asher's name is Usher. "Usher, do you want to play hide and seek with us?" "Usher, do you want some of our licorice?" The other day I heard one of the kids say as we were leaving, "Usher is such a cool name...I wish my mom named me that."

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Did you know that some caterpillars sting? Well, I guess they do in VA. I have no shame in outrunning my boys in order to be first to hold random furry critters. So luckily, I made that discovery instead of them.

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I recently bought an alley cat to attach to my bike so I can haul Asher around town. A couple days ago I was riding my bike with the empty alley cat attached to go pick up Asher from preschool. An elderly man pulled up to me looking very concerned....Are you aware that your child is not behind you? he said. Oh...that's weird... he was back there a couple miles ago. Thanks, sir. The rest of the day i had this ridiculous image of Asher falling over on the road while I kept riding....like you would see on an SNL sketch.

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I got caught in the men's restroom. I had taken Noe to speech therapy early one morning and in order to make sure we weren't late for his session, I skipped my morning bathroom run. By the time I got Noe settled in therapy, I really had to go and started running through the office building looking for a restroom. It was early and the office was mostly empty. The women's restrooms were all locked. On all 4 floors. I was in crisis mode at that point, so I ran into an unlocked men's restroom and, of course, a man walks in to use the urinal while I was still in a stall. I put my feet up and waited. When he left I made a fast exit, but he was waiting for me. I just rushed by him and didn't even look at him. Of course, I could have avoided the whole scene if I would have said something when he walked into the bathroom, but I always have to make things way more complicated and embarassing.