Whenever we were being introduced to something new and different or things had veered severely off course, my mother would quell our whining by telling us that we were “Having an adventure!” She always said it with such enthusiasm and, after years of having some pretty ridiculous stories to tell, I adopted this attitude for myself. In addition to the general optimism of it all, this mentality also allows me to make the best of most situations and not freak out or lose my sanity.

So.

Today the Bear and I had to run out to send some mail and, on the way out I realized that I was starving. I’d wanted to take her by the park and knew that if I put off eating anything I’d be starving later and would devour my entire kitchen. Always having been a fan of carpeing the diems I thought I’d check out this drive-thru taco place that had obviously once been a Central Park and was now downright shady looking. (Complete with handpainted graphics and menu!) Looked like fun.

As a painful reminder as to how atrocious my Spanish is, I clumsily ordered a chicken quesadilla and a horchata, a drink I’d heard about but could never get around to trying. At the window it became obvious that the woman had no change for a 20 and I had nothing smaller. She was offering to let me ride away with a free meal but my conscience was screaming “JUST NO!” at me. So the lady got a $13 tip on a $7 tab. (I hope it made her day.) We get down to the park where I’m trying to juggle a purse, a diaper bag, a squirming toddler, and a bag of food when I press too hard on the sides of my massive styrofoam cup and send cascades of horchata streaming across the driver’s seat, the center console and all over the floorboards of the back seat. Awe. Some. (My positive thought at the moment was, “Well, that’s one way to cut back on my caloric intake.”) I resolved to spend 20 minutes at the park because I can’t afford for rice milk to dry in the carpets of my mother’s Suburban (she’s loaned it to me so I can transport mass amounts of baby accoutrement back to Atlanta this weekend to return to my cousin) and the Bear would need to eat soon anyway. This results in the bear scah-reeeaaming all the way back to the car 30 minutes later and me having to listen to it for the entire car ride home while soaking my pants in horchata.

::sigh::

It was an adventure.
Today is the type in which I miss drinking.