You're killing me, Smalls...

If you haven't noticed (doubtful) I'm ending all of my blog titles in ellipsis, even when it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Today's is an example of that. But I decided it makes me look mysterious, so you better just get used to it, or stop reading my blog. (Please don't stop reading my blog.)

Today's adventure focuses on a similar theme of a recent posts: the awesomeness of s'mores. Barrett's mom kindly bought us a giant bag of marshmallows, full box of graham crackers and a pack of several Hershey bars for our camping trip. But, being that there are only two of us, we ate approximately four, maybe five, of those marshmallows; used up one-eighhs of the graham crackers; and consumed at most two full Hershey bars.

Not wanting to let perfectly good s'more supplies go to waste, Barrett and I, plus two friends from work, gathered at my apartment last night to once again enjoy s'mores. I didn't take any pictures, which I see now was a mistake, so I'll just have to paint you a beautiful word picture.

Imagine, then:

A late spring evening at the end of an unbearably hot day. Temperatures have cooled some, but are still well above the threshold for shorts, t-shirts and other summer paraphernalia. Children play in the parking lot while one strange man runs laps around it.

All the while, four intrepid newspaper reporters build a fire in a grill raised about three feet off the ground (make that three intrepid reporters; one showed up late). Using wood foraged from a neighboring forested area, the reporters light old newspapers as kindling in a weird, symbolic kind of way. Now it is time for the roasting of the marshmallows, and everything is happiness.

Pretty epic word picture, right? Maybe I should move into free form poetry.

After chowing down on more s'mores than should probably be consumed, the four of us washed down our marshmallow treats with beers provided by the late-arriving reporter (making her late arrival acceptable) and returned to my apartment to enjoy Monsters, Inc.

All in all, an excellent evening filled with adventure.

EDIT: I forgot the most important part of the evening and the most epic adventure in my original. But, as an honest and straightforward reporter, rather than just inserting it as if it was always there, I'm marking this as an edit and an addition. Really, I'm just doing it this way because I liked the way the above paragraphs flowed and adding it in would be tough.

SO, while finishing up our s'mores and beers, the four of us embarked on another awesome mini-adventure: Playground Olympics. Alicia, the late-arriving reporter and supplier of beer, challenged Barrett to run up the stairs and down the slide of the mini-playground next to the grill within five minutes. He declined, because apparently he hates happiness, but the rest of us were all about it.

We carefully devised an obstacle course across the tiny playground and set out to prove who was the best at conquering it. I went first, and despite initially turning the wrong way (embarrassing, as I suggested the route for the course) I finished in a respectable 46 seconds. Next came Alicia, who seemed to be cruising along quite well, until she wiped out epically on the balance beam section. It was rough stuff, but, unlike Barrett, she believes in happiness and stuck it out until she finished.

Katrina, my other reporter friend, was very close to defeating my time, but was slightly hampered by her wee little legs and I eked out a win by approximately a second.

Barrett was lame and did not participate, proof that he is inferior in physical fitness to all of us.

It was actually super fun, and I suggest we all look for fun ways to attack playgrounds in creative ways in our daily lives.

BACK TO ORIGINAL POST: On the topic of Monsters, Inc., certain people involved were Grumpy Gusses (or, as I called him in the moment, Captain Jerk McJerkface, not to be confused Private Mustard) and pretended they did not want to watch Monsters, Inc., despite the fact that their life had clearly been decreased in quality by never having seen this awesome film. These people, or rather person, who's name I will not share (it rhymes with carrot) are surely eating their words now after enjoying what was, for a time, my favorite Pixar film.

That honor now probably belongs soundly to Toy Story 2, just because I'm a lit bit of a hipster and picking Up or the original Toy Story is too main stream. Readers, let's get a discussion going on in the comments - what's your favorite Pixar movie?



p.s. If you don't get the title of this blog, you're out of the family. You need to go watch The Sandlot immediately and report back.