The Howell exhibit

On Mother's day we went to the Philadelphia Zoo, which incidentally is America's first zoo. Chris, his mom, Matthew, William, and myself all loaded into the car for a day of fun filled excitement at the zoo. We were supposed to get there for 9:30 AM. We left our house at 10:45AM only to find once we were in downtown Philadelphia that each and every one of Philadelphia's 6 million residents and their mothers were running the "Race for the Cure". Nobel cause, I support it wholeheartedly, but it took us 2 1/2 hours to get to the zoo. I know you expect me to say that Matthew and William were hysterical, but no, they were good. Chris on the other hand had a little cabin fever temper tantrum after hour 2, but calmed when we promised him ice cream.

By the time we parked 1/2 a mile away and walk to the zoo entrance, we see the line to get in wrapped around the block. The only way to bypass this line is to become a zoo member, so Jackie graciously joined us up for zoo for 2 years and in we went.

First order of business: diaper changes. Have you ever been to the restroom at the zoo? I do not recommend it.
Second order of business: "OF Fies", this translates to French Fries in Matthew-ese. After standing in line for 25 minutes and spending 35 dollars on a hot dog, a hamburger, and 3 orders of OF-Fies, and a soft pretzel, we realized we had no where to sit and eat.
... I present to you "The Howell Exhibit".
There we all were, squatting down, shoveling food quickly into our mouths, me holding William's bottle with one hand and eating with the other, Matthew threw his soft pretzel into a tree, Chris retrieved it, blew on it and gave it back to him. At one point, I picked tree pollen and debris off William's head, still eating with the other hand and realized I looked like a mommy orangutan preening her young.
Finally, we walked around and enjoyed the zoo. It was really fun. Matthew and I rode a horse. The whole time he was screaming "No Thank You" at the top of his lungs and as usual, I was cracking up laughing.
Matthew and Chris fed a goat and a sheep, we watched a Cheetah pee, we roared at lions, made elephant noises along with arm motions as if they were trunks. William slept mostly, but did see a peacock and the giraffes (my personal favorite).
We left exhausted but had loads of mother's day fun.

JC Penny Portrait studio

Let me preface this story with this: I love Chris' mom dearly.
With that being said, she purchased the gayest (Not that there's anything wrong with that) light blue sailor suits ever made for little boys and brought them to New Jersey during this latest visit. We hid them from Chris until the day of the photo shoot. As I'm dressing Matthew, I have him standing on the toilet lid while I was combing and spraying his hair and I was not watching what he was playing with. When I turned him around to fix his bangs he had grabbed my eyeliner from the vanity and smeared it all down his face.
Determined that I was not going to have any sort of fits this date, I calmly said, "Matthew,sweetie, sit still while Mommy removes this eye liner".
At that precise moment, Chris opens the bathroom door to see his eldest dressed in this extremely feminine outfit with makeup all over his face and hair spray in his hair. The look of distress that overcame him was absolutely priceless. Like in those old Saturday Night Live commercials for the fake drug "homocil" that you take to combat the ill feeling in your stomach when you realize your son is gay (again, I reiterate... Not that there's anything wrong with that.




Anyway, Matthew and William took very cute pictures in their matching sailor suits and were both very good and sweet and surprisingly cooperative during the process. I'm quite proud.




Matthew seemed to like the outfit all except for the shoes. We had to get those old style white leather soled non bendable shoes that make you march instead of walk because they decrease the natural rocking motion of the foot. It's a wonder any of us learned to walk in those things.

Kentucky Derby

So last night was the Kentucky Derby. I love horse racing, I used to love going to the Fairgrounds in New Orleans for my birthday and play all day.

Anyway, my mother in law is up visiting and we decided we'd like to bet, so I went online to figure out how to do off track betting. This sounds easy. I finally got a hold of a company and was very hesitant to give my credit card info and sign up. I kept calling them asking questions about how hacker safe are they and do they charge me for any transactions and do they take a percentage of my winnings. They were laughing at me and assured me that everything was free and safe. I wondered how they made any money if everything was free and the man chuckled and said "We make money when you lose".

So the next step was to get a prepaid VISA so I could deposit betting money into my book (like bookie, bookmaker etc...). I go through all this bull, time consuming, and I finally have it all ready to go, I call to place the bets, we are only minutes away from the starting bell of the race and the phone rings. It's the fraud prevention unit from our credit card company. Chris answered the phone and apparently I opened an account in Israel and they were trying to charge our card $54.00 over and over again.

Chris explained to the man that his insane wife and mother were drunk on Mint Julips and were trying to bet on the stinking Kentucky Derby. Chris and agent shared a hearty laugh and he removed all charges from my card.

Incidentally, I would have won. I was going to bet "Eight Bells" to win, place and show. Eight Bells came in second (Place), but sadly was euthanized immediately after the race on the race track because she broke both ankles as soon as she crossed the finish line. It was a very somber end to an otherwise fun and happy day.

So, the moral of the story is ... Next year, I'm just going to go to the Kentucky Derby myself.