BLOG CHALLENGE: young. at heart.

The other day, I met a fellow Mom who is only six years older than I.
I am 37.
She seemed 60.
I thought to myself, "Man, Stace. You're pretty young for your age."

Later that day, I was chatting with my friend Jenny, and I quipped that maybe my "youngness" has to do with the fact that I'm immature. She said, "I wasn't gonna say it, but since YOU did..."

Hmpf.

A week or so ago, I was chatting with Joe, my friend in Brooklyn whose blog is linked in my sidebar ----------->, and I said, "I can't believe I wrote the word "fart" in my comment on your blog. I wonder how many people I offended." (See, Joe's a preacher, and lots of preacher-types read his blog.) He replied, "Who cares?" Then we talked about my penchant for things like airplanes and mud puddles and... farts. "I bet your boys have a blast with you as their Mom," he said. I glowed. Yes. Yes, they do.

Yah, so I'm young at heart.
I wouldn't have it any other way.

Today was our monthly scrapbooking gig at Fortress. After dark, the Fortress neighborhood gets pretty scary. Often, we have homeless people, or high-on-crack-people, or various other unbalanced people knocking on the windows, wanting us to give them money or a sandwich or a ride. Since it's only us women up there on scrapbooking nights, we sometimes slide a sandwich through the mail slot, but we never open the doors. We've been cussed out and flipped off and had the windows kicked at because of our refusal to open the door. Hey. We're generous. We're kind. We're loving. But we're also careful. And because we're also immature, we use that constant being-on-guard-healthy-fear against each other. heh heh heh.

Tonight, Kristi and Nikki left to go get dinner. When they came back, they rattled the windows and screamed and made all kinds of racket. I nearly peed myself. In fact, I think I might have dribbled a little in my pants. I mean, really. People have broken into the Fortress building before and made off with a CASE OF JUICE. Crackheads are crazy. C.R.A.Z.Y. So I jumped. Sue me. Kristi and Nikki laughed their cute little heads off.

Later, Cara and Nikki left to give someone a ride home. Kristi and I lit upon a GREAT idea. We'd scare them when they got back. Except... they'd be expecting me to retaliate for the earlier scare. So we had to get creative. We creaked open the door, looked both ways, crossed the street, and hid behind Kristi's car until Cara and Nikki returned. Every time a car came into view, we'd start giggling and getting ready to run. When it was finally Cara's car, we waited until she and Nikki got out, and then we went screaming back across the street at a full sprint.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Cara instantly went into Kung Fu mode, and posed as if she was gonna take someone down with a thwack and a hmpf. Nikki, on the other hand, hotfooted it into the building and locked the door behind her.

It took me 10 minutes to catch my breath from the laughing.

Good times.
Good times.

It's no wonder I feel so young.

the challenge: This week, write about the last time you had a really good laugh. A belly laugh. A laugh that took your breath away. A laugh that starved you of oxygen and gave you a headache. A laugh where you tossed your head back and really let 'er rip.If you can't recall a time when you've laughed that hard, then figure out WHY NOT, and write about that.Laughter.It's good for the soul.If only it burned more calories.