Totally Awkward Tuesday!

Have you ever had an awkward moment? You are probably thinking who hasn't?... But how many of you take your awkward moments and then tell the world about them? Well, I'm about to do just that, I'm going to follow the lead of one of my really awesome friends out there in blogger-land. Tova has taken your average Tuesday and turned them into Totally Awkward Tuesdays, which is an idea that I really like because let's face it: I have many awkward moments. Many of them would probably create much amusement for you all, so consider yourselves lucky! If this works out well, I may just do it on a regular basis.

For the last couple of weeks Tova has actually gone back in time and talked about awkward moments of years past, specifically middle school crushes. And oh. my. gosh! Were they funny. But guess what Tova? I have one of those too! (and by the way, I had the same creepy stalker type crushes as you girl! But those stories are for another post)

A post or two ago I briefly mentioned a long time (my all time favorite!) crush I had on D.P (I will never forget him... You think I am still too obsessive about him don't you?). The crush developed in 6th grade when we reunited in middle school (we'd previously been in the same 2nd grade class, but I didn't have those feelings then).

D.P was the ultimate. He was popular, super cute (in my opinion) and totally unattainable (for me). He was going out with a girl named Gretchen (bane of my 6th grade existence).


Jeez! Hold on, the awkward moment comes soon, I'm just giving you the back story!


So a couple years go by and we're in 8th grade. Every couple of weeks the school threw what they called weekenders, which really were just after school dances with half the gym reserved for basketball and the other half for dancing...don't question it, that's just how it was. I religiously went to these weekenders hoping to score a dance or two with anyone willing...within reason (of course). I had this one fantasy about D.P that went something like this:

D.P walks up to me in the dry ice infused smokey air. At the same moment that D.P reaches out his hand to ask me for a dance, Brian Adams' Everything I Do starts playing (um hello? All time most romantic song! duh. oh BTW? This was roughly 1993/1994). D.P smiles as I take his hand in mine and we dance for a glorious 5 and a half minutes (if you haven't figured it out yet, I also chose this song for it's length...if you're unfamiliar with it, the song has the longest instrumental ever!). As the song comes to an end, D.P doesn't quite want to let me go. So he holds on to my fingers until the last possible second, lingering for just a few more seconds...

And (dramatic pause) end scene...

Okay, so this fantasy had pretty much been going on in similar form since 6th grade, and I'd given up hope of it ever happening.

Flash forward to the 8th grade prom. It's some kind of masquerade theme or mardi gras... some such thing, you can picture it can't you? I'm as decked out as my mom would let me get at that age, and I am going solo (well, with my best friend and her boyfriend...if being a 3rd wheel counts). So I'm sitting at a round table with a group of my girl friends, gawking at all the beautiful people. Scope out D.P and pretty much stalk him with my eyes all night.

A while into the dance I notice D.P walking toward our table.


I'm sitting next to a girl named Shelby, and I lean in to whisper loudly "Oh my gosh, D.P's heading this way! Hyuck!"


Yes, I used the Goofy laugh because that's how I imagine it sounded.


D.P stops at our table and says "Would you like to dance the next slow song with me?"


I stare at him for what seems like an eternity, waiting for Shelby to answer him. I hear nothing so I slowly turn to Shelby trying to figure out why the hell she's not answering him! I mean come on girl!


Only when I turn to face her, she's staring at ME like I'm the crazy one.


Then it hit me.


Oh. My. God. (did he mean me?!)


So I say it out loud... natch.


Did you mean me? Hyuck! (yes..I did)


D.P is probably not sure what he's gotten himself into at this point....but he nods his head.


"Oh sure! Yes. Great!" (Did I really just say Yes! Great!??? I might as well have said You Betcha! Okee dokey!)


So D.P says "ok, see you on the floor for the next song."


So at this point my girlfriends are like, "what are you WAITING for?" And I'm not sure, but I think they may have had to pry me out of my chair.


A minute passes like molasses, it's so slow. But finally. FINALLY. It's time.


So I walk out onto the floor feeling extremely out of place because I may have gone out a tad too early. Also, the thought of him ditching me on the floor isn't entirely far fetched as I picture him doing exactly that. What other reason would he have for asking me?? (to this day I still don't know why...just in case you are wondering)


But thankfully, there he is. He smiles and walks up to me, at the exact moment the song starts. (perfect timing!). And just what song do you think starts playing? Yup. You got it. Good ol' Bryan Adams.


So we start dancing (there IS a God!). And I find myself thinking 3 minutes into the song, that yes. This could very well be the best moment of my life. Look at all those people, his friends, staring at us. I am sure most were wondering why he was dancing with me, as was I.


*But he did, and here we are, so there! *


So the song ended and he said to me "thanks for the dance." And that was it.


*Sigh*

So you're probably wondering where the awkwardness comes in. I mean sure, there were some awkward moments, but where's the real awkward stuff?

Well. Being that this was the prom, it goes without saying that this was the end of the school year. Hence, yearbooks. So I get my yearbook and like most young girls I go through it with a pen and make notes on the pictures. Or maybe this is just me...


*Get to the point...*


If you were to look past all of the "have a fun summer, see you in high school" notes (and one that says Bologna tastes good with mustard...I kid you not) and find the P section of the 8th grade part of the book you would see D.P's head with a big pink heart around it. From this heart is an arrow pointing to the margin of the page. Now friends...this is a direct quote (yes I did go and find my 8th grade yearbook, just for this post you lucky readers!): "He asked me to dance at the prom 5/20/94. And I did!! It was awesome, I think I am in LOVE!"


Silly right? Harmless right?


Well, like most kids, I carried it around to all of my classes with me that week. Hoping to get as many signatures as I could.

So what do you think happened? I leave it in my English classroom. I don't even notice that it's missing till the next period. I quickly get permission to run back to the other room to get my misplaced book.

I knock on the classroom door as I enter the room, while I'm thinking to myself how lucky it is that I sit near the door so I won't have to walk into the middle of the class to get the yearbook. As soon as my eyes find the desk it should be on, I realize it's not there. In fact it is a few desks away, in the hands of several other students and they are reading the EXACT page I quoted from a minute earlier. The worst part? D.P was sitting in the same classroom I was standing in at that moment. And these kids were reading ALOUD... aloud! I about died as they started snickering when they saw me standing there... I calmly held out my shaky hand and asked for my book back. The girl that had it, said "why don't you ask D.P for it?" And she handed him the book. *Biatch* (oh yes I went there!)

He barely looked at me as he handed back the yearbook...silently I might add. And I got out of there as fast as I could.

Talk about your awkward moment! As I sit here thinking about it, I remember it fondly, even though that is only because of the near perfect dance scene! The embarrassing moments I could do without though.

Now it's your turn to shine! Or not to shine...that IS the question, isn't it? Talk about one of your awkward moments on your own blog, then link back to mine. THEN tell me about it with a link to your post in my comments section. I'll then post your link at the bottom of this post for all to see. It's one big awkward party folks! Sorry it's almost the end of Tuesday, for some of you it might already be.... I'll let it pass if you want to have Totally Awkward Wednesdays...

PS. I am TOTALLY going to scan some pics from the 8th grade prom tomorrow. Yes as a lot of you know, I keep everything. So I still have them. Woo Hoo! Stay tuned for those, you won't want to miss them!

*udpdate 7/13/2009*
Sorry for not actually posting any pictures folks. I found them, but my scanner at home leaves something to be desired. : ) But guess what? Someone participated! Check out my friend and her awkward moment!

Tiffiny

Valentine's Day

It's been far too long since I've written anything here. I am sorry my loyal followers, it is no excuse, but I get so preoccupied that I just plain forget. Today marks the first day of a 3 day weekend, so I'll be able to kick out at least one more post while I'm at home being lazy.

Today is Valentine's Day. Tim and I don't normally go overboard with the celebration of this holiday but we do make a point of doing something. The kids both got Valentine's gifts of the obligatory candy and stuffed animals from all of the relatives, including myself. I did manage to give Reagan a Transformer's card and that pretty much trumped all other gifts, even the candy. So I guess I rock.

Around 3:45 this afternoon Tim and I took the kids to one of my willing relative's house. We were supposed to go see a movie before dinner, but we decided at the very last moment to skip the flick. So I turned off the blinker and kept driving. We didn't know where we were going at the time, but ended up downtown at Silverbow Bagels. We both had a cup of coffee and a cookie while we chatted away. It was reminiscent of the old days (before we had kids) when we used to go into Starbucks and we'd talk or read for 4 hours. I miss those days at times, but life is what you make it, right? Today we didn't stay for 4 hours, but we did stay for a bit.

After leaving the coffee shop we decided to take a walk through town. I'd like to point out that by now it's after 5 and dusk... let me also say that it was extremely cold. We weren't prepared for the nippley walk since we had originally intended on just a movie, so we only made it as far as Hearthside Books. For those of you who don't know, that's only about 2-3 blocks. We went inside to warm up and I ended up buying a new bedtime story for the kids. Even when I'm away from them on a pre-scheduled event, I can't stop thinking of them. Tim and I had an unintended conversation with the overly chatty guy behind the counter, who was obviously lonely due to his clientele all out celebrating their love for one another and NOT buying his books. That killed a teeny bit more time. Due to the chill in the air we didn't want to spend too much time outdoors, so we headed over to the Wharf. This destination was in the original plan, however we weren't supposed to be there this early. Since we skipped the movie, we were having dinner earlier than planned.

On a side note (and Tim insisted I put this in my blog, so I apologize for, how do they say? TMI.): Before going into the restaraunt, we both had to use the restroom, the Wharf must have recently done some remodeling because the men's room door had been replaced with saloon style doors. Stranger still, Tim says that the stalls in the men's room were the same way. He said he was half expecting (his words, not mine) a man with a cell phone camera or John Wayne to kick through the stall door with one foot while he was on the john (pun intended). I thought this bit of information odd, but found myself thankful that the ladie's room was intact with normal doors.

Digression over: We went into a very busy Pizzeria Roma (our favorite date place) and went about the normal dinner routine. My waiter was my sister's high school prom date, I'm sure she'll get a kick out of that. He was the only waiter/cashier on hand. I am assuming on a normal day, this works out just fine. Tonight, and I'm not sure if this was poorly planned or maybe someone didn't show up, but he was very busy. Example: Tim and I wanted refills of our soda and we mentioned it to him when he checked in on us, he told us it would be a minute. Several minutes went by and still no soda...we felt bad for the guy ("guy" seems so impersonal, my sister went on a date with him, so for heaven's sake, let's call him Josh!)..we felt bad for Josh so Tim went downstairs with our cups and asked him if it would be ok to do it ourselves (they have a fountain behind the counter). Safe to say Josh was more than willing. Dinner came and went, by the way, they make killer stuffed mushrooms and a not so killer cannelloni. We chatted some more and held hands like an old married couple, which when you subtract the married part... we kind of are (haha...ahem). When dinner was done we just couldn't think of anything else to do, so as we left the Wharf I called my aunt to let her know we were on our way back already. We had only been out just over 4 hours and missed the kids. We were ready to head home.

Now it is roughly 10pm, our kids are snug in their beds after being read their new story, and Tim and I are contentedly doing our thing at home. I have never been much of a Valentine's Day celebrator, tonight's events are pretty exact replicas of years past. But I have to say that I am extremely content. I got to spend an evening out with the man I love, and I was home tucking in my beautiful kids by their usual bedtime.

I wouldn't trade today for a million roses, a cheesy card and a diamond in my cannelloni. Ok, a cheesy card would be the icing on the cake.