Text Message: Hi Honey, I’m going to see Chappie, I didn’t think you’d want to see it because it got a 41 on iMBD. I leave the house. I question my decision. I have time, I should be in my studio painting. But I need to relax. A good sci fi or an episode of The Walking Dead always relaxes me. I get to the mall. I visit Sookie, get my eyebrows threaded. Then Peets. The lady in front of me is giving her friend dating advice. “What if I told you that you’d have to go on 60 dates before you find The One (in finger quotes)” She goes on, “Wouldn’t that change your attitude about the dates? For example, I like networking, so I go into the date with the mind set of who is this person? If he has a bad back I can recommend a chiropractor. Oh sorry we’re not in line, we’re just waiting for our friends.” She turns to me and says. I get my soy chai latte, walk through the mall, spot some super cute overpriced sundresses at express, (I’ll wait for them to go on sale) then buy my ticket for Chappie. I have a half hour of free time. I sit outside in the sun, drink my chai. As I’m leaving the theater I hear, “It was good right?” I turn to the voice not sure the question was intended for me. “Chappie?” I say. “Yes” He says. “Yeah it was really good, I don’t know why it got such bad reviews.” I say. “People are stupid.” He says. We walk in separate directions, I wish I would have replied, “Yeah ain’t that the truth.” It’s gotten cold outside, a bit windy, I’m walking to my car and behind me I hear a man saying “Mommy, Mommy.” I get spooked, I turn to look, he might be crazy. I start walking really fast to my car, get in, lock the door. Am I getting paranoid? Did I imagine that? Sometimes that happens to me after I see a sci fi movie that really takes me to another place, it stays with me. (Chappie). I get home, Jack and Fiona are delighted to see me, I’m happy to see them too! They’ve eaten mac and cheese and are ready to go. They’re all wound up. I decide to walk them down to the neighborhood kiddie park for the first time since they’ve been walking. “Could you take your dogs out of the kiddie park, I want to play with my babies.” I say to a woman who has her two gorgeous huskies loose in the kiddie park with a rope tied around the broken gate to keep it shut. She has a little dog in a baby carrier and she looks like a tweaker. “I need to find their leashes.” She tells me. She finds her leashes, takes out her dogs and leaves. The dogs pissed all over before they left but I’m going to overlook that. The babies start to explore. They start climbing on the play structure. It’s dangerous because they are too young to go down the slide by themselves and can’t go down the stairs either. They are both on top of the play structure, I’m holding onto Fiona’s foot, she’s headed one direction, and Jack’s arm, he is headed another direction. This is nerve racking, I scoop both babies and squeeze myself and them onto the kiddie slide, doing the splits down the slide, one leg up, one leg down, underwear showing. But we make it down safe. I go over to the swings, put Jack and Fiona each into a swing. “Weeeeeee” I say. This is nice, until I see in the corner of my eye a pile of dirty nappies and plastic bags. “That’s disgusting.” I say. “Let’s try the other area.” I take the babies to the big play structure. I know they can’t get up that one. There’s a nice big tree and a large area to run. Jack starts running, playing under the play structure. I turn around to look at Fiona, “OH MY GOSH, FIONA DON”T MOVE”I scream. I run over to grab her off the two foot high retaining wall that she climbed up on top of, that I can’t believe she climbed up on top of, and if she fell off the other side she would have cracked her head open. “Fuck this park. It’s disgusting and dangerous, let’s go now.” I say. Jack protests, I feel bad, but this parks no good. Bummer. My neighborhood park sucks. Jack and Fiona are at the stage where they need to go to a park and run every day. It’s like in dogs, you have to satisfy their prey drive or they’ll tear shit up at home. Babies are the same way. You have to satisfy their need to run and climb or they’ll start tearing shit up at home.  I feel kind of strange. Light headed. I’ve done something. I’m not sure if it’s smart. I’ll tell you about it another time. The babies are taking their nap now. I hope it’s a good weekend. Alan and I have date night tonight! I’m not going to get drunk. It’s a belated birthday dinner. I’m excited. But I’m not going to get drunk and have a hangover tomorrow. Maybe stoned but not drunk. The End