I Never Did Like Houston

If you don't stalk me in all of the best places (i.e. Twitter and Instagram), you don't know that I've been in Houston for the past few days for a work thing. Which, HOW ABOUT THAT TIMING? My work thing was a trade show which just so happened to be located in the building adjacent to a gathering of people in red hats.

Yes, THOSE people in red hats.

They were in town for a rally.

With Tangerine Mussolini.

So, here's the part where people are thinking about how disrespectful I am towards said Orange Twit, but let me just say, you're wrong. At this point, I've WAY more disrespectful towards anyone who still supports him. It was one thing to play partisan voting games, but now we're into the REAL chaos and I really can't with people who are cheering on the racism and awfulness that is going on.

So, shoo if you like him. SHOO FAR FAR AWAY GOODBYE.

Ahem.

Perhaps the funnest part of my professional life colliding with my personal opinions happened Monday morning. I SUPER needed coffee so I wandered to the hotel lobby to get in line at Starbucks. But, there were at least 50 people in red hats in that line. Possibly more than 50. Each and every one of them is clearly good at protests, by the way. I kind of wanted to chase them all away with a plain red cup, but alas, there were none to be found. Instead I panicked and ran out of there like Scooby Doo chasing a truck filled with Scooby Snacks.

I found coffee a few blocks away. No worries.

The second funnest part of being way too close to a MAGA rally happened later that evening after the rally. There were helicopters circling the event, which was 50 yards from my hotel room, so I couldn't think. I couldn't work, sleep, watch TV, nothing. Too many helicopters makes me dumb, apparently. So I went outside and walked around.

Two things:

1. I felt safer walking around in the Middle East than I did walking through that crowd. I WONDER WHY.

2. I must not be the only person who gets dumber from helicopters circling because everywhere I looked, I saw people in MAGA hats forgetting to check for cars before crossing the street. I legit witnessed at least a dozen near misses from pedestrians walking out in front of moving cars.

I won't admit what I was thinking each time it happened, but it was REAL fun in my head.

New Life Strategy

Because I'm destined to live in Confusedlandia, Mila is suddenly scared of things. She's made it through the first four years and four months of her life completely unafraid of everything, but now? Don't look at her wrong. She gets scared.

Except, not of things that make sense.

The kid loves scary movies. A lot. She's been watching Gnome Alone on Netflix on repeat lately and while it is definitely a kids' movie, I'd say it's more meant for 6-8 year olds. It's not TERRIBLE, but it's not sunshine and rainbows either. It happens to fall into the genre of "Halloween movies" which Mila has been completely dedicated to lately.

Mila watched The Goonies all the way through without freaking out before Alexis did. So.

Mila is also not at all scared of rides, as in there is no amusement park ride that's too big for her. It's almost a good thing she's tiny for her age because I think she would have worn high heels to Kennywood so she could get on the Black Widow if she thought she had any chance of getting away with it.

She's also not afraid of heights (watch out for falling Milas, y'all), telling me off, or the 12-foot tall inflatable witch in our front yard. Actually, she likes all Halloween decorations. She doesn't care if they're scary or gory or whatever. HALLOWEEN IS THE BEST.

That love of Halloween made me think the kid would be game to go through the little Haunted House at a little community-type thing. It was built for small kids, so it was suuuuuper tame and cutesy. There were a few scarecrows and skeletons, but legit I have scarier things hanging out in my fridge than were in that haunted house.

Of course, Mila was petrified and refused to go in. OF COURSE. Because I thought she would like it if we just got past the entrance, I pushed the issue a little.

That was a bad idea.

As we inched our way inside, with Mila fighting me with every bit of her might, a skeleton walked up to us and said, "Hello!" Like I said, it was more of a cutesy haunted house.

Mila turned to the skeleton, scowled, and then screamed, "YOU CAN'T BE MY FRIEND GO AWAY."

I've decided to adopt that strategy right there. I'm going to scream, "YOU CAN'T BE MY FRIEND GO AWAY" at every person I encounter for the next several weeks. It's going to be great!

It's Halloween o'Clock

The way Mila sees it, Halloween is a month-long event, not just a day. She wakes up October 1st ready to start very serious training for the candy marathon that will come at the end.

She's DEEP into her training plan right now.

Mila has multiple costumes figured out, because of course, and she has already managed to trick-or-treat once. It was a "little" bit of trick-or-treating. You've got to ramp up for the big day, you know?

The fun part about that "little" bit of trick-or-treating was that it really shouldn't have happened.

There is an annual fall festival thing near-ish to our house. It involves trunk-or-treating in the parking lot and then activities inside a big building. It's generally a mess of people and terribly crowded and basically, it's a really dumb idea to go. So I do every year.

This year, the weather was beautiful and perfect in the hours leading up to the event. Then, at the EXACT moment that I piled two costumed girls into the car, it started to rain. By the time we made it to the magical candy-filled parking lot, it was POURING. As in, people who were outside walking were losing their umbrellas to the wind and it didn't matter because it was raining sideways and they were soaked anyway.

Mila is scared of that particular brand of heavy rain.

We sat in the car for a full five minutes with her going back and forth between being too scared to get out of the car and OMG THE CANDY IS RIGHT THERE. I didn't particularly want to go stand out in the rain, so I finally offered her a trip to the candy store (aka Five Below because that's how I roll) instead.

She pondered it.

She decided to overcome the rain and trunk-or-treat like she had planned.

The good news was that in the time Mila spent arguing with herself, the trunk-or-treating managed to move indoors. The even better news is that Alexis saw someone she knew and we were able to mosey up to the front of the line. But the bad news? The bad news was that *I* got soaked because the two costumed kids managed to steal my umbrella and leave me in the rain.

But, hey. At least I scored a costume out of the deal. I always wanted to be an annoyed, frazzled mom impersonating a drowned rat.