This weekend was what one might consider "magical" in our little suburb; and by that, I mean, we met friends for dinner at the park down the street, and stumbled upon a black-light bubble bus and face painting extravaganza. I know that sounds bizarre, and I'm not sure how to explain it exactly, except that you might remember that I went for a run and stumbled upon Mitt Romney in the very same park earlier this spring--so I guess what I'm saying is that sh#! just magically appears over there, or *maybe* I just do a POOR job of keeping up on our local events.
So anyway, there was a cover band playing current top 40 tunes, and a number of food trucks, and it was like the opening ceremony to the Greentree Festival that is happening here next weekend, except that there were, like, 100 people there TOTAL--which basically means that the city paid for my kids to have their very own glow-in-the-dark bubble show. And also, that they bathed in soapy chemicals, and now their intestines likely glow in the dark, because they stood in front of those industrial strength bubble blowers for HOURS. A few complained of blindness, but we got them to stop whining about it by distracting them with very intricate blacklight face painting, which really took the evening to a whole 'notha level, particularly when my friend's three-year-old son was transformed into a glow-in-the-dark Michael Myers--and while you might assume this to be terrifying, it was actually HILARIOUS. At the end of it all, our children's faces were GLOWING, some of them like undead serial killers, everyone was freckled with blacklight soap--and the entire scene was set to the soundtrack of Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" and Adele's "Rolling in the Deep", and you're just going to have to take my word that this was the most perfect neighborhood-sponsored rave in the history of the entire world. 
But you know what wasn't so magical? Discovering our second dead hamster, half an hour before our babysitter was expected to arrive on Friday. Apparently, these things have a knack for dying at the WORST TIMES EVER, as I was forced to think FAST (not my strong suit) and hide the entire cage/dead hamster in our bedroom, with the door closed. There were many reasons for this, as I didn't want to upset the children before leaving them for the evening; and I didn't want to upset the sitter, before leaving her in charge of the children. This proves that sometimes it is in EVERYONE'S best interest to ignore the dead rodent in the house; except that this also sparked great debate as to whether or not our bedroom would reek of hamster upon our return later that evening, which is, honestly, the last thing I was worried about in this scenario. It was FINE, people, and practically odorless--and Pinky was eventually sealed in a Lean Cuisine box on Saturday morning, and transported IN OUR VAN throughout the city of St. Louis, while we shuffled children between sporting events, and waited for the moment when we could officially lay her to rest. I never anticipated that among the list of arguments against organized sports, we would include "makes hamster burial inconvenient, if not impossible", but there you have it. At one point in our day-long funeral procession, I looked back at my beautiful children, and also noticed the MOSTLY FULL bottle of chocolate milk that we purchased LAST SATURDAY, sitting in our back seat--and when combined with the knowledge of the dead hamster wedged in the driver's door, it became abundantly clear that we are the most disgusting people on the planet.
Let me back up a second and tell you, that since my last hamster-themed post, it became very obvious that Pinky was in a bad spot and suffering from some sort of biblical plague. Certainly, hamsters are not supposed to lose their ears and hair, but also, their tails are *probably* not supposed to spontaneously bleed. I'm no vet, but I knew this was BAD, and I considered putting Pinky out of her misery, except that I sort of have a problem with suffocating beloved pets with my bare hands. So we suffered through it together, with me gently speaking words of encouragement to her everyday, and Pinky running in fear that I would kill her and wear her as a necklace--which is pretty much exactly the way our relationship has gone since we brought her home from PetSmart in 2010.
Eventually, we made it to my in-laws house around 3 p.m., but I was quickly distracted by sitting on a lounger while watching Mike clean and close his parents pool; and before I knew it, we needed to pick up two of our children from playdates, and poor Pinky was still awaiting burial. Excuse me, IS still awaiting burial.
In a Lean Cuisine box, at Mike's parents house.
We should never be allowed to own pets, EVER.
{FYI, if you're new to the hamster burial saga, click HERE.}
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