I went to the movies with some friends tonight. The movie was terrible, but pales in comparison to the awfulness of the show the woman in front of us put on.

I was chatting with Kevin when a woman walked into the theater carrying an infant seat. As she got closer I noticed that the baby in the seat couldn't have been older than a week and was likely just 3 or 4 days old.

Firstly, I don't think taking infants to movies is appropriate. That's why I never did it when Dominic was a baby. Secondly, this wasn't even a kid's movie. This was Eclipse. I know the baby won't understand what's going on, but it's a loud, violent movie. I'd be afraid of a baby being upset by the noise.

On the other hand, I've been a new mom and I remember when Dominic was a week old. I sat on my couch crying because I felt like my life was over. That I'd never go to another party or restaurant or movie again. Transitioning to motherhood is difficult even under the best of circumstances and I wasn't about to judge another woman trying to cope with that change as best she could. I figured as long as the baby was quiet I would mind my own business and if the baby wasn't quiet I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

The woman set the infant seat down across one seat and got all of her belongings settled.

Then she left.

I mean, she put the baby down and just walked out of the theater. As I watched her leave, I kept thinking, "No, she must just be going to say hi to someone she knows. No, maybe she dropped something. She'll be right back. She'd never leave her newborn in a theater with a bunch of complete strangers." But she did. She just left the baby there. I just sat there with my mouth hanging open, staring at the exit.

Kevin said, "That is the most ignorant thing I have ever seen."

The man sitting closest to the infant seat said, "Uh... did she just leave her baby here?"

She did. She just left it there. I was completely flabbergasted. My mind was well and truly boggled. I sat there gaping at the baby, at the man next to her, at Kevin and my other friends, at the people behind us also expressing shock at the situation.

"No," I said. "There have to be cameras. This is Candid Camera. I know it." I started looking around for cameras. I didn't see any.

Denise checked to see if the baby was real (yep).

The man sitting next to the baby said, "You saw me. I didn't touch that baby."

I pulled out my phone and checked the time. "She has five minutes. If she's not back, I'm getting help."

I could hear many people behind us whispering "baby".

A woman a couple rows behind us leaned over and tapped Kevin on the shoulder. "Did she really just leave her baby?"

I kept checking the time. Exactly five minutes later, the mother walked back in. She sat herself down in front of me, pulled out a bottle of pop she brought from home, woke up the baby, and settled down for the show.

For a newborn, it had really good theater manners. It didn't talk or text during the show. It made a few little newborn noises, but no crying. So, I mean, there's that at least.

But nobody asked me to sign a waiver to be on a hidden camera show, so I'm fairly certain it was real. And that's depressing.

Oh, what a weekend I had! That was the most fun I've had in ages!

After having lunch with Justin, Dominic and I drove to Michigan to visit my old friend Jessie. Jessie's sister, Candy, drove all the way up from Kansas City so her visit would overlap with mine and we could all have some time to visit one another. There was a lot of reminiscing and talk about what we were doing now and what we'd done since we last saw each other (which was roughly 14 years ago). We took the boys to the pool. Jessie and her husband played with the boys while Candy and I sat to the side and visited. Dominic had a blast!

After the pool, we had dinner, and I got ready to go see Muse. Albert loaned me his Garmin and I got to the venue with no problems whatsoever. As I pulled into the parking lot I saw a sign that listed prices for parking. The sign said $15, but had another sign half covering it that said $10. I was relieved because I had just enough cash on me to cover a $10 parking fee. I pulled up to the cash-taker and he very politely asked me for $15. I closed my eyes, sighed, and admitted I only had $10. He said, "That's all you have?"

I said, "Yes."

I was just about to ask him how to get out and where the nearest ATM was when he said, "That's fine." I handed him a $5, 4 singles, and a Susan B. Anthony. He thought for a second, then handed me back the coin (I think he thought it was a quarter). He said, "Enjoy the show!" I thanked him and went to park.

The show was in-frickin-credible! It was hands-down the best concert I've ever seen. I found several videos from the show I was at on YouTube. Here's a video of the opening. It goes from the intro into "Uprising."



They had a good mix of songs from all of their albums and they got to most of my favorites. I was especially pleased when they played "Uprising," "Undisclosed Desires," "Hysteria," and "Knights of Cydonia." My brain nearly hemorrhaged when they did "Knights of Cydonia" as the show closer. Because that's how it should be!

I got back to Jessie's house around 11:15. They were all still awake and we got to talking again. I was shocked when Jessie said it was 2:00 AM. So I went to bed. We all slept in. We had yummy breakfast (Jessie does corned beef hash right!) and Dominic and I hit the road around 11:30.

I made it home around 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I would have made it sooner, but the Ohio State Highway Patrol told me to slow down. I'm still slightly confused about why I was pulled over. The officer said, "I pulled you over for going 72 while passing a vehicle in the left-hand lane." I was pretty sure that passing was what the left-hand lane was for, but I know better than to argue with the police. He gave me an official warning and some unofficial advice. He said, "Keep with the flow of traffic like you were doing and set your cruise, but stay in the center or right-hand lanes because we check the left-hand lane first." I've been thinking about the incident ever since and the best I can figure is they were looking for drunk drivers because of the St. Patrick's Day Holiday. I was technically speeding (7 miles over the limit) so he pulled me over to see if I'd been drinking. I can't imagine I'd have been pulled over if it had been any other weekend. Still, I'm grateful that he didn't give me a ticket. He was very nice and dang if he wasn't one of the more handsome men I've ever seen...

Despite my run-in with the law, it was still the best darn weekend I've had in ages! I will go see MUSE again if I have another opportunity and hopefully I can drag some other people along with me. I hope they don't mind that I refuse to go over 65mph.

It's not all bad.

Dominic and I actually had a fairly good flight from Akron to Denver. It wasn't until we were landing that he started whining. I was feeling a little nauseated so I asked him how his tummy felt. That's when he started screaming that he had to go to the bathroom and throw up. I started frantically searching the seat backs for the air sick bags. I found it about 10 seconds after Dominic vomited everywhere. I was lucky nobody noticed until after the fasten seatbelts sign went off. We seemed to get more sympathy than anything, which was nice. A flight attendent gave me tons of paper towels and a bag to throw stuff in. I got the seat mostly cleaned, Dominic stripped and redressed, and was attempting to clean the seat belts when the flight attendent told me they "have people to do that" and that I should go. I grabbed our things and headed for our connecting flight. The remainder of our travel was uneventful, thankfully.

We headed to Anna and Seth's house and had a nice evening with them. We woke up to heavy snow in Issaquah and began our drive to the east side of the state. Dominic fell asleep almost immediately on our drive and slept for about two hours. The drive over the pass wasn't near as bad as I was expecting, but we took it at about 45 miles per hour until we got near Cle Elum. When we were about 20 miles outside of Colfax, Dominic started crying that he wanted to go home. This was perfectly understandable, so I just tried to talk him through it. Finally, he melted down, held his hands over his ears and started screaming to go home. I just said, "What would you do at home?" Then the vomiting started again. Grateful that I was only 20 minutes away from my sister's house, I called her only to get her answering machine. Uh oh. I called her cell and my mom answered. They were in Spokane. Luckily, Amanda had left her house unlocked, so we headed there for laundry and a bath. 3 hours later, we headed to Spokane.

Mom's birthday party went really well. We had lots of family and friends around. The restaurant was intimate and the food wonderful. Amanda had done a powerpoint presentation of old pictures that was so fun to watch. The cake Anna made was a showstopper (pictures to come). It was so much fun.

Yesterday we all met up for breakfast. Tony and family arrived just as we were leaving, so we met them at McDonald's and visited with them until about 1:00. Then we headed back for Amanda's house. She had left early because her baby was sick. On the way, Dominic fell asleep, but woke up about 20 miles outside of Spokane and started crying that he needed to go potty. I pulled the car over, ripped him out of his carseat, and ran him behind a bush. He panicked and tried to make a break back to the car while screaming, "I want to go inside!!!" I pulled him back and tried to get his pants down, but he suddenly relaxed. His face fell and he cried, "My pants are wet." So, I changed his clothes again and put him back in the car.

That evening, my brother-in-law got sick. Shortly after, Amanda got sick. Mom's sick now. So, flu's going around and I'm expecting Dominic and I to fall ill in about 12 hours. I've decided to rename this vacation "VomFest 2009".

Despite the abundance of bodily fluids, I'm enjoying visiting. Today I'm hanging out with Amanda, her family, and Mom. We were going to have girl's night out tonight and Mom and Amanda should both be feeling better. If I've avoided the virus they've got, we can probably do it, but like I said above, I'm expecting to be sick about the time Watchmen starts. Tomorrow I'll either be attempting to recover or I will be in the Valley. I'm still planning on heading back to Seattle on Wednesday, but I'm going to have to play this by ear. Thankfully, this sickness they all have seems to be very short-lived (about 12 hours). Here's hoping I miss it entirely.