Aloha Friday is brought to you by the letter A and by Snarky!

What is a dream you have had more than once?
I used to have this recurring dream that I was in an old abandoned building.  The room I was in had wooden crates stacked three high all around the room and were holding sickly looking people in them.  There was a man sitting in a creaky rocking chair in the middle of the room, holding a shotgun and rocking back and forth.  As soon as I would realize I was there, I would turn to run out the door, but he would always shoot me in the leg.  I would wake up with leg pains every time.

Have you ever walked out of a movie or play? Why?
I have only walked out of kids movies, and it was because Kaiden was showing no interest in the movie and was over it.  There have been a couple of those.

Play the Boo-Yay game. Tell us about a “boo” and a “yay” from the past week.

Boo - This new medicine I am on is making me really tired.
Yay - I got an A on my first Web Design test last week and Ashton (the mini Hannibal Lector) has stopped biting!

When we were growing up, we always had soda in the house.  My mom would keep the soda on top of the refrigerator, so that it wouldn’t be so easy for us to grab, forcing us to have to ask for some.  When I was older and could reach the soda myself, I developed a really bad habit of grabbing a bottle and swigging directly out of it, instead of pouring myself a glass.  My mom HATED this, and would yell at me all the time to stop swigging from the bottle.

One day, I came in from playing outside and ran over to the fridge.  I reached up and grabbed for one of the soda bottles so that I could take a quick swig and get back outside.  I happened to grab a 7-Up bottle.  I unscrewed the cap, put the 2-litre to my mouth, tilted my head back and started swigging.  It took me a couple seconds to realize that what I was swigging was NOT 7-Up.

Apparently, the last time my mom had made Fried Chicken for dinner, she funneled the old, nasty, used chicken grease into an empty 7-Up bottle and instead of throwing it away; she put it on top of the fridge with the rest of the 2-litre soda bottles. 

Words cannot describe how disgusting that grease tasted.  It was thick and smelled like chicken.  I could feel all kinds of floaty chicken things in my mouth.  I immediately threw up all over the kitchen floor.  It was days before the queasy feeling left my stomach, and the memory of the taste will never completely be gone.  My mom had NO sympathy for me, she simply said, “Guess you won’t be swigging out of the bottles anymore, will you?”

NO – I WOULD NOT BE!!!

Kaiden likes to go with my father up to the church he works at.  While he is signing checks and setting up for events, she plays in the nursery and in various other rooms in the church.  She is always bringing something home with her.  Stuff that was someone else’s junk that was given to the church, because they did not want it.  Now it comes home with my daughter and becomes our junk.  I have begged and pleaded with my dad to stop letting her bring the stuff home, but he cannot seem to comprehend my requests.

The last item she brought home was this old fisher price children’s tape player, complete with built-in microphone, so that you can sing along with whatever tape you are playing.  We do not own tapes anymore, so my father stepped up to the plate like the “pop-pop” hero that he is and donated his old “Ace of Base – The Sign” tape for Kaiden’s listening enjoyment.

I swear to god I think I am going to lose my mind.  My daughter has been walking around the house for weeks with this damn tape player, like some old-school break dancing/rapper with it up on her shoulder, blaring Ace of Base at intolerable levels.  I did not like this band in 1993 and I REALLY do not like them now!  She brings it in the bathroom with her, in her bedroom, downstairs, in the car and she is constantly in my bedroom, in front of my full length mirror, so she can watch herself dance to it.

Somehow, I must destroy this thing, without her knowing!  I must get the words “All that she wants is another baby” out of my head, before I am sent to the state mental hospital!!!

This weekend was the 32nd annual Neptune Festival down at the beach.  The weekend is filled with sporting events, surfing contests, an art & craft show with over 300 vendors, live music, great food, sandsculpting competition, fireworks and much more.  For the locals, it marks the last event-filled weekend at the beach.

We went down on Saturday night to get some dinner, listen to some music and let the kids run around.  Then went down again on Sunday to look at the arts and crafts, get some more food and look at all the great sand sculptures.  We had a really good time.