Holy wind gust!

I was just trying to help out.

Sitting at church this morning, I noticed Father needed a few more people to help with communion during mass. As I made my way out of our front row pew and to the altar, I decided to remove my sunglasses from on top of my head and toss them onto the pew where I'd been sitting.

You know, to make my presence a little classy and all...

As I stepped towards my pew to chuck the sunglasses, I stepped onto a floor vent blowing nice cold air. Right up my dress.

I felt the skirt of the dress fly up and quickly grabbed it, stepping away from the air and patting my dress back into place. I went about distributing communion and sat back down next to my husband when I was done.

"Are you wearing underwear?" he whispered.

"What?" I asked.

"Lesley didn't think you were wearing underwear."

I looked over at my friend one section over who was shrugging her shoulders in question.

"Yes!" I mouthed to her, nodding.

Dave put his arm around me. "Apparently she caught quite a view," he explained.

Mass ended right after, and Lesley filled me in. It seems the vent blew my dress further up than I'd thought. Way up. Like, over the waistline of my flesh-colored panties up.

My first thoughts included a litany of things worse than an entire congregation seeing my laundry day undies, including the entire congregation seeing my laundry day undies in a wedgie formation, encasing monthly feminine supplies, or foregone in place of actual granny panties. Or a thong.

Still, I felt a need for confession.

Father was busy chatting, so I asked Sister Doris to cleanse my soul. She assured me the sin was not mine, however. The sin lies in the heart of those who enjoyed it.

Knowing what the view must have been, I imagine we all got out of there sin-free and clean.

Amen.

Natural habitat

We enjoyed a fabulous weekend of fun in the sun and water at Lake Weatherby with our good friends, exploring the lake and listening to our kids compare notes on who peed in the lake the most. Not revealing names, but the winning number was 5 times in one cove outing.

In that lake there live a number of turtles, absolutely darling little things who defy gravity in my mind by swimming with little flexibility.

One of these little guys (or girls?) crawled out within arm's reach of one of the kids. Far more entertaining than catching a cup full of minnows, the kids decided to keep it.

"We need to build a habitat for it," I heard my son exclaim.

At this point it looked like our home was destined to be host to the hard-backed creature. I could not let this happen, we have 4 kids, a dog and countless plants and bird feeders that need daily attention. Not to mention instruments to practice, bikes to ride, and books to read. Caring for a turtle was not fitting into my day, or theirs.

"Turtle already has a habitat," I said. "Put him back in it."

"You're not any fun," my children husband responded.

"I know. I'm not." It was a hard, cold fact. I am not fun. I am the ruler of rules, from brushing teeth to eating vegetables. I am the homework horse and the cleaning czar. I am not any fun, and I did not care to subject yet another living being to my torture of no fun.

Eventually they caved after a lecture about the morality of turtle-napping. Little guy has no idea how lucky he is.

I'm so mean.