The Top 10 Things I Learned in September...

10. Some girls will play in the dirt, but boys pick it up in handfuls and smear it all over their body. Or just lay on the ground and roll in it.

9. Spiderman must be getting old because last month he could only hop on one foot, and now his webs only come out of one hand.
8. One day, Kenny will be a "grown-nut" ( grownup...duh)

7.Donuts help people grow up to be big....which is actually pretty true...just out and not up :).

6. Trees are mad, specifically green trees.

5. If you hear a man snoring you have to get in a rocket ship.

4. If you see my son with his finger up his nose he's not digging for boogers....he's digging for beans.

3. The only proper way to eat anything with cream cheese on it is to rub it all over your face ( see below)

2. No matter what  word you're trying to sound out it always begins with B. As in Buh-buh-buh rhinoceros.

1. You forget about your crappy day when your son calls you pretty.

I Survived New York, Pt 2

There's nothing like an early morning brawl on a bus. While it was short, it was long enough and loud enough to wake up anyone still sleeping. We had apparently turned around sometime around 5 to go back to where another bus had broken down. It was a sad sight. There was what seemed to be a decent crowd all standing outside of the bus in the early morning light, holding onto their luggage and looking like death. I turned to the guy next to me who we had picked up somewhere in the middle of NC and we both had the same look on our faces. The one like " ooh hell no, I know they not about to stuff all them people on the bus" look. I looked around and saw two empty seats in the back. Being the only caucasian on the bus I knew it wasn't going to be long before the $h^t hit the fan. While the Chinese bus drivers were frantically speaking to each other, the other passengers from the broken down bus started to board. One driver started waving his hands saying " move to the back! Go to back!"  the two empty seats in the back went to two ladies while the rest of the passengers started shifting uneasily in the middle of the aisle. We were all thinking the same thing... what are they going to do with these people? I looked at the guy beside me and said " It's all a matter of time. Someone's about to crack." He laughed but I wasn't joking.

Finally, a guy crammed in the middle of the aisle started losing it, asking the drivers where they were going to go. I thought for sure this was it, HE was going to be the one that cracked. Meanwhile, the Chinese drivers were still babbling in Chinese and running from one bus to the other. All that stopped when one woman standing in the front went straight up ghetto on one of our passengers. Thinking back I don't know why I didn't pull out my cell phone and record it. The entire bus fell silent. I think we were all genuinely afraid to move at that point. Her conversation went something like this..

" BI*#H YOU BETTA SHUT THE F*%K UP!! I'LL CUT YOU B#$&H!! I'LL CUT CHU!! COME ON! LET'S TAKE IT OUTSIDE B*&%H! YOU NEED TO CALM DA F$%K DOWN!!

I thought we were all going to die. We were all staring wide eyed still unable to move or say anything. But things got REALLY entertaining when she turned her anger toward our little Chinese driver. All the color had drained from his face as he stood there and she began to berate him. 

" I WANT MY MONEY BACK B$%*H! YOU SAID YOU GET ME TO NEW YORK AND I AIN'T IN NEW YORK! SOMEBODY BETTA GET ME MY GOD DAMN MONEY BACK!"

The look of terror on that poor man's face was priceless. I don't think he said a word back to her...she quite literally rendered him speechless. Then the other bus driver came in and started flailing his arms and yelling " Yes! We give you money! Get off bus! Get off bus!" But that wasn't good enough. She stomped her feet and started flailing her arms back saying "  I'LL GET OFF THE BUS IF YOUGIMME MY MONEY." This went back and forth for at least a minute when finally the women gave up and stormed off the bus. The entire bus erupted with laughter the second her feet touched the ground. But I have to giver her some credit because we had found out later that the bus had broken down at 2 am. That means for 4 hours they were stranded there, waiting on our bus to come only to find out that only two of them were actually going to get a seat. I would like to think that if the same thing had happened to me there would be less arm flailing and curse words but when my ghetto comes out there's no telling.

Because we had turned around and stopped for at least 30 minutes in VA it meant we were off schedule. We were supposed to have gotten to NYC at 10:30 but didn't arrive till almost 12. As we approached the city I realized the magnitude of the situation. I had come here alone. I had NO idea where I was going once I got off the God forsaken, piss smelling bus. But as soon as we stopped I grabbed my backpack and took off, never looking back.

I Survived New York ( Pt 1)

So I had the bright idea this year to hop on a bus and go to NYC. I had been contemplating this trip for many months as I wanted to do some more traveling and work on my photography. I found cheap bus tickets, an affordable hotel which I thought was going to be relatively close to the city and was all set. I manged to fit my life somewhat comfortably in a backpack, asked a friend to drop me off so I could meet my bus and was ready for my 4 day adventure. In NYC. By myself. My first inclination as to how the trip was going to go should have been the bus, along with it's Chinese bus driver and the colorful group of people on board. First off, if you're going to travel by bus (which if you would like to experience what hell would be like then go right ahead) make sure you pick a bus company that has actual signs on the bus. Second, if you're meeting anywhere other then an actual bus stop ABORT. And third, never, under ANY circumstances sit in the back. I don't care if you are actually riding a reputable bus, you do not want to experience a 12-14 hr ride in the back. I'll get to why later.

So I see from the directions I printed out that I was supposed to meet this bus in a parking lot near a Waffle House. I found this to be really shady but the tickets were cheap so I didn't really care at the time. I boarded the bus without anyone actually checking my ticket. It all became clear to me though, why he didn't when we stopped near midnight in another parking lot somewhere in the middle of NC, so a van of Chinese men could get on board and demand our tickets. This was after we had already stopped two other times at closed gas stations to pick more people up. I was convinced by the time we had handed over our tickets that these men were doing more then just transporting people to and from cities. But it was the overwhelming smell of piss that really just made that ride a living nightmare. I didn't think about it when I boarded. I just wanted to find a seat that I could be by myself where no screaming babies were in arms length. And that just happened to be in the back of the bus. Which was obviously, and quite unfortunately near the bathroom. As the hours passed the smell only grew more potent, which again is pretty obvious since people kept using it. I would have rather had my bladder explode then to step foot into that bathroom. I prayed a genuine prayer that I would not have to pee on the bus. I think I even stopped drinking fluids. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I was still able to sleep though which I was thankful for.

I believe it was 6 am when the fight broke out. Which I'll save for another blog post because I'm tired :).

The Top 10 Things I learned In August...

10. Green bubbles only look great to eat.

9. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Give a boy some stickers and you'll be finding them all over you for a lifetime.

8. Digging for worms is better then Saturday morning cartoons. Almost.

7.  Spiderman hops on one foot when trying to save people..

6. Washclothes aren't actually for cleaning. They are fish. And there's a mommy fish, daddy fish and baby fish and they all like to sleep on the side of the bathtub.

5. There are talking donuts in the trees. And we can only see them by looking through 'noculars'.

4. If one's stomach hurts only hamburgers will cure it. Supposedly.

3. Beds are now considered unacceptable which is why I now find my son lying on different areas of his bedroom floor each morning.

2. Kenny's love for being animals includes being them in public places. Like flopping around on the ground as a dolphin. In the Dollar Tree.

1. I am his best friend :) <3

The Help

Maybe it was just one of those moods I was in, or the surge of hormones ....or maybe the euphoric high from all the M&M's I had inhaled but whatever it was, The Help is one of the best movies I've ever seen. I laughed, I cried, and just when I thought I was done crying I cried some more. It was moving and inspirational, and a wonderful reminder that what we put in our children is going to come out of them when they're older. I'm too lazy to launch into an explanation of the movie which hopefully most of you already know about, but I'll at least tell you it's based in the 60's during the Civil Rights Movement. And one thing that stuck out to me was that these women were pouring their lives into these children, the very children that would one day grow up thinking it was ok to be disrespectful, rude and feel inferior all because of the color of their skin. One mother wasn't even a mother, her child was more or less an accessory, one that " the help" would bath, love on and comfort. The mother was more concerned about the deviled eggs for her bridge game, or what the latest gossip was. The only time her sweet little girl got any attention was when the maid took the time to love on her, and to tell her " You is kind. You is smart. You is important." There are mothers today who view their children as an accessory, as something to get them attention. They don't take care of their child, because their too busy with their own lives to give a $h*t. And then they complain when that child rebels against them. Children are a product of their environment. If we, as parents, are always annoyed with them then that child is going to grow up feeling unimportant. If we treat others with disrespect then that child is going to grow up being disrespectful. It's not a hard concept to understand. It's a shame that the little girl in the movie was only loved on by the maid. Even in today's society children are often passed off to someone else. And that someone else may not take the time to love on them, to make them feel special. I may have to work a full time job but my son knows who is Mommy is. And I try every day of his life to make sure that he knows that he is kind, that he is smart, and that he is important.