I think I might call this little piece "Thought for Food". Here's a taste of what's going on inside my brain. Enjoy, and sorry.

Circle Dancing

I went to a wedding this past weekend. My co-worker here at the church was getting hitched and I kind of got a sympathy, new kid on the block invite, which was nice. After the wedding reception I was thinking, you know what I've noticed about wedding reception dancing? I'll tell you. There seems to be a lot of holding hands circle dancing going on at these events. You know who's at center stage of these things? Kids. I don't know about you but standing in a circle holding the hand of the person on each side of you while trying to dance in place can be kind of awkward and uncomfortable. That's where the kids com into play. They take over. Usually the kid comes to the middle of the circle. When he/she starts to do his/her thing, all attention is on the kid. You can look as stupid as you want standing there at the will of the woman beside you whose decided to flail your arm around like she just don't care because nobody's paying you any attention. Everything the kid does turns to gold. Even if said kid is not really into the whole spotlight thing. Everyone ewws and goos over the kid(s) and you're free to flail about until the song ends. Incredible.

Another note. If the hand holding circle dancing becomes too much to handle, and it will, here's what you do. It makes you look kind of good really. In order to disengage from hand holding, start clapping to the beat of the music. All will follow suit. Slowly back away from Aunt Beatris and Grandma Rose. They're so wrapped up in how cute the flower girl looks doing her thing, they'll never notice your escape to the bar. Mission accomplished.



Those kids and their Spanish

You know what's crazy? Little kids who speak Spanish, like, as a first language. Everyday I walk from my car to our house and there are Hispanic kids outside their homes playing and doing whatever little kids do out on the sidewalks. Nevermind that Spanish is their first language, they're good, they're very good. I think I took as many years of Spanish in school as these kids are alive. Five years of Spanish class and these kindygardner's are blowing me out of the water. It just freaks me out. There's something a little creepy about little kids wo can speak a language you can only partially understand. They're yelling back and forth to each other about, a bicycle maybe? I think to myself, how does my hair look? Are they making fun of my hair? I don't know. Yea, I see you over there on your tricycle Carlito, probably talking to Julio about the not yet opened juicy juice you're going to put underneath my front tire. Two can tango amigo. I know how you roll Carlito. Don't you look at me like that. I know where you sleep and your mother and I are...well, we're acquaintences damn it. We've exchanged hellos.

How do these kids know so many big words? I start to walk a little bit faster, finally, safe inside the house, far from their taunts and playful laughter. Ok, I know they probably didn't even see me and if they did, they were like who's the white guy, or, "gringo" as some might say. So, next time you walk by a heard of Hispanic children and they're speaking to each other in that cryptic language some might call "Spanish", you see how you feel, then get back to me.

In your face Energy

Have you ever looked at an energy drink can? It's like they're tying to out energy the competition. You got our friend Red Bull on the far right. Red Bull's pretty non-discript, kind of came in on the front side of the energy drink revolution and he's just kind of sittin back chillin in his blue and silver can, lookin slick, but not in your face. Then you got these other energy drinks and they're screaming, hey look at me I'm a freakin energy drink. I'm so loud and energizing! Drink me and you can jump off a cliff and land on your feet. No problem. Why do energy drinks yell at us with their vibrant colors and crazy fonts?

There's a billboard pretty near the interstate exit for our house advertising a new energy drink called Freak. There's this kind of scary looking black and grey, green eyed monster on the can and he single handedly out energy drinks all the competition. The add says "evil energy" at the bottom. Drink me if you dare and if you survive you can flip out on some lesser non-Freak drinking soul. Moral of the story, energy drinks are scary.

Thanks for reading. Hope everyone's well and I apologize for all this wierdness -Tyler