Now She Just Needs To Attend 9 More Parties There

This morning I drove Laura to a bowling birthday party that started at 10:45 sharp. It was at the bowling alley where Matt and I spent an enchanted evening a few months back. When I was last there, I was drinking some quantity of beer, which may be why I barely recognized the place when I walked in today. I was like, "They have bumper cars in here?"

On the way, Laura had asked to be briefed. "So what's the deal with bowling?" she said. I said, "You've never bowled before?" "Only on Wii," she said. So I gave her the gist of ball, lane, pins, two throws a turn. She said, "How do you get your ball back?"

I thought that was so adorable somehow. My answer: "I don't exactly know. A machine does it but I think it used to be people." I am so awesome at explaining stuff--I can't wait until we get to talk about menstruation.

I did tell her how she could lean her face over the little air blower thing and pretend to be a super model.

Then we got into the bowling area and greeted the party folks. I said, "Okay, Laura, go on up to that counter and get your shoes." She goes, "Wait, what?"

THEN my former co-room mom Jan was there (she completes me!) and she was in a heated discussion with the shoe counter man. Or heated for a bowling alley before eleven in the morning. It seems that her little girl had forgotten to wear socks, and now the man was telling her she couldn't bowl unless she purchased socks from their vending machine, for $3.50. That is like a mugging. She had no cash so I handed her four dollars, and she offered to drive Laura home when the party was over. Supah sweet deal!

An hour after the party was over, Laura called me on Jan's cell phone and said that they would be late coming home because Jan was parked on the side of the road trying to coax a stray dog into her minivan.

For a party favor, Laura brought home a full-sized regulation bowling pin with her name on it. No joke. Not a toy, not a pin-shaped coin bank. That thing is solid wood and heavy as hell. Matt and I were laughing about it and wondering what those things cost, and he briefly tried to price it using the internet. Turns out, it is kind of hard to purchase a single bowling pin.

Oh, and Jan was unsuccessful with the dog and Animal Control was apparently closed, so she left it with a bowl of water and several energy bars. If I know her, she went back for another try. So not to worry.