Washed Up Jellyfish or Breast Implants?

Never dress your kids in long sleeves and jeans for an April day at the beach in San Diego. They'll look like a trio of displaced city folk whose mom was up all night smoking crack. What was I thinking?

We ventured an hour and a half south with the kids this weekend to take part in a luau/outrigging competition/charity event that my husband's company sponsored. While my smoker Hubster huffed, puffed and rowed his way to second place (the buff U.S. Coast Guard eye candy team snagged first-place, no brainer), I miserably failed at being in three places at once (chasing my trio of unruly children). Frankly, it was embarrassing to wield so little control over my chitlins at the somewhat high-profile, fancy-schmancy function.

Pigtails trailblazed alone, sandblown and completely out of sight toward the teriaki glazed luau food tent scrounging for a third serving of the "sticky blue stuff" (super dense factory prefab cotton candy) while her barely beginner swimming brothers flirted with an ambulance ride to the emergency room (or being peed on by the hot Coast Guard guys) while poking dead jellyfish with unidentifiable washed up sea trash and driftwood.


I wondered later if the "jellyfish" the mischief brothers maniacally impaled were the missing silicone (or was it saline?) halves of a decent C-cup rack. After all, we were at a Southern California beach and the boys' orb torture targets were round, squishy, transluscent and lacked tentacles as far as I could see from the top of the sandy beach, where I feebly schmoozed with the other corporate wives.

My schmoozing topics left much to be desired (Is there a corporate wife schmoozing 101 course I don't know about? Sign me up pronto so I can get an easy F!):

"Did you know the New Hampshire State motto is 'Live Free or Die' and one of the outrigging teams is named 'Live Free or Die ... Rowing'? What a coincidence! How clever!" Or not.

"Yeah. I love baking cupcakes with the kids too. What a joy!" What a bunch of bullshit. I hate baking with the kids because it gets too messy too fast. And I don't savor the taste nor texture of bitten off plastic spatula accidentally baked into my Jiffy popovers.

"I agree." I said these two words a ton but had no idea what I agreed to because my eyes were too busy darting willy nilly around the beach in the three directions of my children like I'd just eaten two hits of Purple Jesus in a strobe flickering rave room. I really hope I didn't unknowingly agree that the Coast Guard rowing studs would have looked more appetizing if they hadn't shave their ripped chests. (Hey, do raves even happen anymore? I'm dating myself, me thinks.)

Well, that's it for now. It's time to unpack our sandy duds and unearth the seventeen craps my cat took in the cat box while we were away. At least Trixie cat didn't eat her young (kittens) in our absence. Now that we're back, I'll leave that to my crazy curious kids.

Tomorrow brings Cheeks' second Itsy Bitsy Sports class. Basketball is the reason because it's in-season. Shee-a, not funny. There will be plenty of local yocal moms to smchmooze with there. Let's just hope I don't blow it a la San Diego. Who cares? They'll be too busy snapping proud-parent digital pics of their kids to notice my social drivel. Last week all in attendance, except yours truly, hailed the motherly merits of scrapbooking for a good ten minutes. Gag me with a 3D, acid-free photo corner.

By the way, Cheeks didn't errupt into a single tantrum in San Diego. No complaints were filed on the part of our fellow hotel guests, and he slept through the night (on the very edge of the hotel bed ... We found him dangling upside down crying on Saturday night, with the lower half of his newly tanned body anchored to the mattress. Wisps of sun-bleached hair on the top of his upside down head brushed the carpet. I couldn't stop chuckling, which really pissed him off ... He didn't like me calling him a "fruit bat boy" either. Hey don't sloths also hang upside down from trees when they sleep ... ).

What child wouldn't crash through the night after two days in the San Diego sun, poking salt water filled breast implants/jellyfish that washed up on the salty shore? Seems as if evolution has come full circle.