They named their daughter after their dog

I forgot to mention yesterday that the neighbors named their daughter after their dog. Not even kidding.

What really sucks, though, is that the dog was never allowed inside. She was outside for snow, sleet, rain, 100-degree heat. The poor old thing was blind, and they let her wander the neighborhood, sleeping on other people's porches and pooping on their lawns.

She was a sweet, sweet dog, and they seemed to be affectionate with her. They just didn't provide her with any sort of shelter.

Full disclosure: I liked the dog more than the daughter, and if I had to house one of the two - I'd house the dog. The daughter is one of these children who stops at your property line and stares, smiling creepily and not really saying anything unless you ask her a question. The most you get is a one-word answer.
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Speaking of creepy, I am a good judge because I'm now officially the fucking freak of the preschool nature class at the arboretum.
This is how it happened:
Last week, I took to Thing 1 and Thing 2 to their first class. It was so fun! They learned all about how snowflakes are formed; we went on a nature walk and saw deer and fox tracks in the snow; and we made snow globes. AWESOME, right?
Right.
Except I'm super awkward.
I'm trying to fit in with the other moms. As we've established here, I'm too friendly.
I struck up a conversation with this nice woman there with her 4-year-old chunk of cuteness, Emma. When we left for the nature walk, I noticed Emma and her older sister were wearing their wellies.
*smackforehead* Why didn't I think of that?
So, I said, "Emma, I really like your boots! They're so cute."
Her mom responded about how they bought them in the fall because Emma fell in love with them and now they were coming in handy.
I said, "Oh, they're so clean! Our boots are all dirty and cracked." (Parenting tip: Mud is the only toy a child needs.)
Long story short, we chatted for a few minutes about boots.
Fast forward to Saturday. I had some meetings and a dinner to attend, so PHubby took the Muppets out to run a few errands.
When they came home, the kids had brand new boots "for class," PHubby said.
H-dawg had bright-yellow boots with monkeys on them.
LJ had pink polka-dot boots with Hello Kitty on them - the exact same boots Emma had at class.
I tried to convince the kids to wear different shoes to class. I pleaded with PHubby as he got them dressed to persuade them. Finally, I told him about the conversation with the mom at the nature class and how creepy it was going to seem when we showed up with Emma's boots.
"She probably won't even notice," he said.
I nodded. My heart filled with dread, but I hoped he was right.
What happened at class?
Emma's mom walked up to me before class began, and said, "My kids wore their boots today, too. Have they been to Target?"
FUCK.
So, I hobbled together some sort of lame abbreviation of the story for her. She wasn't really paying attention. She was probably too busy thinking about how weird I am.
Most of the moms are 10 years older than I am, with kids the same age. I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a young mom.
They all hang out at the arboretum and garden and drink organic coffee and wear the kind of expensive outdoorsy clothes that are very plain and always wrinkled and kind of pointless. They're wholesome not in the breastfeed-until-five way, more like in the husband-is-a-CPA, liberal-guilt way.
And now, I am the outcast of the Crunchy Bunch.
There's a nice pregnant mom there about to burst with twins, so she won't finish out the class. After she leaves, maybe I'll latch onto the friendly lady with the tick and the cute little boy or the chick who let her 3-year-old girl wear a sundress to class in 40-degree weather and her 5-year-old boy wear a brown coat with a pink, leopard-print, faux-fur trim.

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Thank you to all of you who voted for Out of Tune Idol Season 2!
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