Orange Moon and Complaints, Complains, Complaints

I was going to write something about the beautiful orange full moons we've had in the night sky this week, but it has been a billion degrees in Chicago and I'm an idiot and didn't take any days off around the holidays.  So instead of finding words that rhyme with orange  I am going to use this time to complain.

This was in the sky all week long but it was too friggin' hot even at night to be outside looking at it.

To the parents in my kid's gym class: I know weekends are busy and you probably have a lot of things to do like hit the grocery store, mow the lawn, and get the fence stained.  But during you toddler and parent gym class, it is okay to put down you phone and actually pay attention to what you child is doing, even if it just for an hour.  Seriously, Facebook can wait.  You can read Kevin Smith's dirty tweets about his wife tonight after your kids are asleep. Watch your kids try to do a forward roll.  Actally look at them when they are on the balance beam instead of sneaking a look down at your iPhone to see if your cousin finally took her turn in your epic game of Words With Friends.  You might see you child is having fun, or tackling other kids.  So please, for on hour, just leave the phone in your pocket or in your purse, pretend its the late 1980s when no one had smart phones and find that perfect balance between helicopter parent and completely ignoring your kid parent.  I think they are going to have to update the phrase to "Life is what happens when you are busy looking at your smartphone."

They never look this nice

To the person who first decided to pull their shopping cart while standing next to it instead of pushing it from behind while in the grocery store: I hate you.  Everyone now thinks this is a great idea, I'm not sure why, but unless grocery stores double the width of their aisles (and I doubt this will happen) all you are doing is making me spend more time in the grocery store.  It seems that you also move slower when moving this way.  That might be because there is no handle on the side of the grocery cart, so maybe it is harder to maneuver.  The good thing is you are always paying attention to others around you and you quickly move aside when someone is coming towards you, or trying to pass you.  Oh, wait, you aren't paying attention.  You are on your phone, only the corner of your bluetooth headset visible, talking to your sister, about nothing at all, but talking loud enough for me to hear ever work as I bump my card in to the Spaghettios while trying to squeeze past you.  I said, "Pardon me," but you didn't hear me.  I said it again, but maybe you didn't understand me. I gave up turned around and went the long way around to the next aisle where we did the whole thing over again.  Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way.  Maybe I need to lobby the shopping cart industry.  Maybe you are onto something.  There hasn't been a significant breakthrough in shopping cart technology since they added a fourth wheel, you know the one that never wants to go the same direction as the other three.  The only advances since I was a kid were the seat belts, which are always broken, and the advertising signs on the front of the card.  Maybe someone can redesign the cart so you push it from the side but it wraps completely around you so two of them can fit down the aisle.  Maybe I just need to try using the card this way myself.  Maybe I won't understand it until I try it.  Okay, I tried it.  I don't get it.  All it does is make me turn around all the time to see what I am bumping into.  Please, stop.  I beg you.

The burned out shells of these litter my yard

To the residents of my neighborhood who like to celebrate Independence Day starting around early June all the way through August: Please stop.  I like fireworks as much as the next guy.  I like celebrating the founding of our country by blowing up my own little piece of it.  Hell, we used to stop at Krazy Kaplan's (the animated gif on the Krazy Kaplan's website is timeless, but not in the good way you might use the word timeless, more like stuck in time.  Hey Krazy Kaplan's: 1997 called and they want their animated gif back!) anytime we were in Indiana and load up on the three for one specials.  We even got caught setting them off once.  Well, Bill did.  Everyone else got away.  I love your awesome three hour spectacle on actual Independence Day.  Hell, even on July 3, go nuts. It's my mom's birthday and  least I don't have to get up and go to work on the Fourth.  But once the fourth has passed us by, once Taste of Chicago has closed, once most people have to go back to work, can you tone it down?  Please?  I've got little kids, and, thankfully now, they are not the light sleepers they once were but I'd like them to be able to sleep without booms going off every night.  I know I can't call the police on you because, well, you ARE the police, or the son of a cop, or the nephew of a cop, but please, can we shorten firework season to just a couple of weeks?  I know you don't have to get up early, but tomorrow morning I might pull my car into your driveway and lay on the horn for ten minutes when I leave for work at six thirty.

I promise something less curmudgeonly next time.  Thanks for reading.