Easy "Breezy"

It was a long weekend. Short, but yet, looooong....

As in, I didn?t get nearly enough accomplished, but we had our fair share of stress and frustration. My son is tentative by nature and its hard to get him to try new things. So, whenever something comes up that is on his list of ?things Ty likes to do? we try and make sure we do them.

For example, we heard that at the county fair last week, there was going to be a fireworks display after the country concert Friday night. Well, Ty loves fireworks, so we left the house late and got there in time to walk around a bit and have a little fun before the fireworks started.

We took him to the creepy guy making balloon animals (badly, I might add), we let him take a couple of runs at the RC race track game on the midway, and then we spotted the pony rides. Ty does enjoy a pony ride, so I considered it well worth the $5 to watch him clinging to the saddle horn on that itty bitty pony for dear life. (Seriously, those were some of the tiniest ponies I have ever seen. The one Ty was on looked like he was WEARING him. But, I digress....)

The little equestrians were about a minute or so into their ride, when suddenly, and completely without warning, the fireworks started.

At which point, the ponies positively WIGGED OUT.

Which proceeded to make the kids FREAK OUT.

And we very nearly had a bad accident. I?m amazed none of the kids got thrown. The guy running the ride did his best to calm the ponies down, I?m assuming his theory was ?keep them walking and they?ll be fine?, but he was wrong.

The parents were out there in a heartbeat, walking next to their kiddos, but when Ty started trying to climb me like a baby ?coon, I told the guy, ?Hey, I?ve got to get him off this NOW? he yanked the ponies to a stop and looked visibly relieved when the rest of the parents followed suit and removed their panicked children as well. He said to me, ?Wow, they really didn?t give us much warning, did they?? He was clearly less than thrilled with the situation, himself, and considering that we were practically beneath the fireworks, I don?t blame him. There could have been a very serious accident.

So, skittish little boy clinging to his momma, we walked over and tried to turn the fireworks into the fun display they were meant to be.

Instead, we now have two LESS activities that we can do with Ty, since he has now decided he no longer likes ponies OR fireworks. *sigh* I need a drink.

I remembered seeing this in Mark Bittman?s How To Cook Everything when I was reading his Tequila Sunrise recipe a few weeks ago. I?ve never tried a Seabreeze, but have wanted to since the first time (of many, many times) that I watched the movie French Kiss. "Seabreeze? Does that translate?"

This seemed like a pretty good time to give it a shot. The recipe makes enough for several drinks, but I cut it back to one. Okay, so I did it twice, so, technically, two. But hey, I deserved it. Switch the ?cup? measurements to ounces instead and you should be a-okay.Seabreeze (a la Mark Bittman)
¾ cup vodka
1 ½ cups grapefruit juice
1 ½ cups cranberry juice
Lime wedges for garnish

I poured mine over ice and then squeezed the garnish into my drink for some extra punch. Two of these and I was feeling MUCH better about the ponies. And the fireworks. Now I just have to deal with my boy going off to Kindergarten in a few weeks. *sigh* Its always something. Good thing I still have some vodka....