The Twilight Special

 11 pm, Somewhere, WV, A minivan.

"Are we really DOIng this?!" I squealed.
"We so are! It! IS! ON!" my sister Holly yelled, pumping her freakish, baby-sized fist into the air.
Julie chimed in with "I'm SOOOO EXCITED!" and finished her exclaimation of joy with a cute lil happy dance butt-wiggle.

We were on our way! Let the adventure begin! It was  all giggles and smiles until we got to our destination. We hadn't realized what a serious occasion this would be.
"SINGLE-FILE LINES ONLY!! DO NOT PUSH OR SHOVE. NO FOUL LANGUAGE WILL BE TOLERATED. WHETER YOU ARE FIVE YEARS OLD OR EIGHTY-FIVE, YOU WILL BE ESCORTED FROM THE BUILDING IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THE RULES AND ACT ACCORDINGLY!"

Wow, who knew Walmart employees were so hardcore?

"IF YOU BREAK THESE SIMPLE RULES YOU WILL NOT GET A DVD. IS THAT CLEAR?" Some low mumbles arose from the crowd. "I CAN'T!!! HEAR YOU!!!!"
"YES!!!"
That's right. Holly, Julie and I were in line at Walmart for the MIDNIGHT release of "Breaking Dawn," the first of the two-part ending of the "Twilight" saga. <--- Did I REALLY even have to explain that?
Once in line, we were alerted to the fact that we NEEDED raffle tix. Well, that incited pure panic in the three of us.  We had heard no tale of tickets beforehand! If we needed tickets to buy the movie, we were surely and sorely out of luck. "Oh yeeeaaaah," the girl in line behind us stated. "Yeaaahhh, you kin ooooohhhnly gittem frum the Walmart's employees in them blayyy-yuck Twaaaahhh-laaaahhht tay-shirrrts. They's sellin em. You kin weee-yyun a pitcher (picture) of the kay-ust of the moooo-vaaeeeyy and a buncha other stuff."
Ok, *phew!* we didn't want anything all THAT extra, we just wanted a copy of the movie, thanks anyway. We all clapped and cheered for Larry the Cable Guy's  doppleganger when he waved his thick, tattooed, camo-clad arm in the air as HE won the raffle. "Some redneck woman is gonna make him a VERY happy man tonight." Holly mused. A visual image that made us ALL shudder.

 As time got closer, the crowd got antsier but thus far, everybody was obeying Da Rules. AND THEN a Twilight-eve Miracle happened. Just like Moses parted the water for His People, the gracious Walmart employees delgated our long, serpentine line into 2 parts: Blu Ray and DVD. There was no combo pack, no digital copy was to be had. The lines were clearly drawn and we chose BluRay. That made only about 10 or so people in front of us when just seconds before, we had been at the end of the line!! SCORE!!
The three of us chatted aimlessly, Holly still venting about her unfortunatle mishap in the Express Lane (seriously, who HASN'T had one of those?) and Julie and I lamenting  and dissecting the woes and joys of parenting an Aspie kid.  We bantered over Team Edward and Team Jacob (I still am torn, although for sure I would choose hella-hot Rob over cutie-pie Taylor!).We took silly, stupid TERRIBLE pictures of ourselves. The "Before and After" kind. "Before" we were beaming with unadulterated goofiness. Our eyes were all squinty and are noses were scrunched up and we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Esp. after we saw that delightfully awful pic! "After", of course, was a shot of us holding our coveted "SPAAAAAEEEE-shul" edition BLU RAYs in our hot lil old lady hands!
Becasue this was a night of indulgence (no kids, a late night and we were purchasing something we most ceratinly did NOT need but absoluuuutely HAD to have) we swung thru the McD drive thru, and like Ye Olde Dayes of College, scrounged together some cash (they weren't taking cards, apparently) and stuffed ourselves with a much needed snack.
I arrived home at just after 1 am and needed time to wind down after THAT epic adventure. So I chilled for an hour or so and crashed. Well, tried to. G had crawled into our bed at some point and would not budge. She flopped, tossed and talked in her sleep until 5 AM when she finally bounded out of bed, who knows why. She then discovered it had SNOWED and stayed awake till dawn's first light when I woke up to the front door slamming and cat pukey noises. No rest for this crazy late-night party mom, I guess.

I just hope I can stay up to watch Breaking Dawn tonght! I am sooo sleepy! I am just waaaayyyy too old for this..... stuff! Hmmmm, I wonder if Larry the Cable guy got any sleep last night...? *shudder*

Before:



After:

Musical Montage, Jr.

My every move is followed by a series of  flattering camera angles tracking every silly, fun, sometimes tragic, always riveting moment of my life.  But not in that all-up-in-yo-bidness-reality show kinda Jersey Shore way. No, my psychosis is waaayyy klassier than that. More like a series of epic, sweeping scenes filled with complex music and long, drawn out silioloqui, soliloq-..., monologues. More like musical numbers from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Or classic broadway.
Today is no exception, of course.  After hours of baby nephew wrestling,  calming my lil sister, arguing with my mean, funny, CRAZy crippled Mom, I then had to buckle down and start on THREE orders of cupcakes I have for this weekend. Let me set the scene for you:

Picture it: Barboursville 2012. In a lil house on a busy street a 30-something woman-who-still-feels-like-a-girl is lovingly whipping up a batch of homemade buttercream frosting.  The aroma of fresh baked-from-scratch chocolate cupcakes fills the noisy, cozy home. The woman huffs an exhausted-but-satisfied breath, floured hands on hips, strands of strawberry (ish?) curls catch on her dark-framed glasses. She is happy with the bounty before her.
Enter cute little girl, spitting image of her momma. "Need help cleaning up?" The lil one asks.
With a nod from her tired mom, the girl grabs cloth and gets to work. Side-by-side the mother and daughter work in quiet happiness until the girl pipes up with, "Hey Momma? If this were a movie or a dvd or a tv show or a play or a, well I don't know what else but ya know what? If this were any of those kinda things and people were watching us from their house or at the movies or at a friend's house like if they were having a party or their grandparents house Like I watch tv at Mammy's? There would be some fancy music playing in the background. Something like this" and then she hums a pretty, fast lil piece of music.

Ahhhhh, it's nice to know that my love for imagined musical montages have been passed along to my offspring(cue  ABBA's"Momma Mia").