THBBM - Winterdoo

Winterdoo
scenes from the middle of the mall...
12-20

I never learn.

I've had so many chances to commit this little fact to memory, so many opportunities to burn some sort of reminder or warning flag into my synapses so that I will do the right thing whenever this situation comes along...

But I still fall for it.

Last night Kim had an appointment to get her hair done at a salon. This is big hoodoo because getting Kim's hair done usually involves going to a hair store for a wig, some yakky or whatever. This is usually followed by going home to watch Kim and Ebony braid all night.

There was a point long ago that I attempted to learn this skill so that I could help out - but apparently I braid "too slowly" and just get in the way.

This was different. This was someone else doing something to her hair.

Scissors. Shampoo...

Product.

We head to the mall so Kim can get her new do' while I kept the kid entertained.

Kim says to me, "This will probably only take half an hour."

I fall for it again.

Luckily for me, there's a kid playground in this mall. Curren spends the first hour and a half running around and screaming like a nut. It's fun to watch him play, even if he does occasionally push other kids off of the equipment so that he can play on it.

I could be wrong, but I think one of the moms was checking me out.

After what seems like ages of running at full speed, Curren runs out of gas. He comes over to me rubbing at his eyelids; I put him in the stroller and we do a bunch of laps of the mall. He's out like a light before we finish the first circuit. I continue to stroll, shop, and peoplewatch.

I'd just like to say for the record that even though I loved the show, I can't really get with the "Fat Albert" clothing thing.

Along the way I run into two of my former students from ACT - which was nice; but whenever I meet old students the conversation eventually tunrs to what a ripoff the school itself was, and it's hard not to feel like I was a part of that ripoff, even though I like to think I had their best interests in mind.

Seems like such a long time ago now...

A little while later Curren wakes up recharged. I swing by the salon to check on Kim. There are three people working on her head; a scene out of a NASCAR pit stop. It's pretty clear that she won't be done for a while.

Back to the playground.

Curren dives into the equipment with such abandon that you'd think he'd never seen it before in his life. It's one of the odd things about kids.. the way everything is new, even if they were just doing the same thing an hour earlier.

I chase him around, play some hide and seek with him. At one point I'm crouched down on the ground hiding behind this foam rubber mock up of one of the skyscrapers here in town (curren's on the other side, laughing) when I suddenly feel a small head leaning against my shoulder.

It's a little girl.. a little girl I've never seen before.

Four, maybe five years old (it's so hard to tell), olive-ish skin, black bushy hair secured into place by elastic straps with large pink plastic balls on the ends.

She pats my shoulder with her hand. I pat her hand with my hand. She hugs my back, and then runs off laughing.

I scan around, fully expecting to see some parent glaring at me or something, but there is none. Before I can search further, Curren comes around the side of the fake building, trips hard, and starts to cry a little. I pick him up to calm him down.

: A moment passes, he wants back down.

As soon as his shoes meet the floor he's off, chirping at the top of his lungs.

Kim shows up later (her haircut has lasted three hours plus, but the results are definitley worth it). When we get home she and the kid go immediatley to bed.

I futz around the house for a while, do mostly nothing.

An hour or so later I go to pick Eb up from work. She's not done in the restaraunt when I get there, so I spend a half hour listening to "Love Line" on the radio. A guy in phoenix wants to know if he can increase his size if he ties an 8 pound weight to his penis for a month. Dr Drew wonders why people take this sort of thing seriously, and Adam Corolla says that everything evil comes from the state of Florida.

I guess you had to be there.

Eb comes out of the place with a smile. We stop on the way home for burgers. How was your day, laughter, small talk. She has to work the next day, so when we get home she's straight to bed.

I'm not sleepy. Not at all. It's not been a bad night. I'm not really in a mood one way or another. My mind is full of things, but focus doesn't seem to be one of them. My ISP is doing somethign weird and I can't get online.

Late night SCTV reruns, playstation football.

I don't know - I still have a lot to work on and deal with... I still have this "off" feeling, this sense of frustration that I can't seem to figure through -- but it's getting to a point where I have a ton of things to do, and perhaps not focusing on all this sturm and drang for a while will do me some good.

Around 2:30 I call it a night.