Party Oatmeal

A very graffiti'ed tunnel under the CMX freight railyard has linked my here and there since we moved to the 'hood. (Yeah, we're literally on the wrong side of the tracks). I drive it practically daily: to Younger Girleen's preschool, to the grocery store, to just about anywhere I have to go outside our neighborhood, and a few weeks ago, a particular piece of graffiti appeared to replace my previous fave on the concrete outside the tunnel, Please Save Us From Ourselves.

Party Animal is what the paint-dripping scrawl really says — but when I drive Younger Girleen to school and see it, I read Party Oatmeal instead.

Party Oatmeal seems like it might be a fairly good way to describe, not the middle-aged equivalent of being a Party Animal, but some measure of geologic time. We've got B.C., A.D., the Cretaceous Era... and we've also got Party Oatmeal, which, boiled down to its essence, is that period of time when most of the humans you spend time with are under the age of six. Sometimes fun, sometimes a quagmire. Deeply domestic. What could it be, other than Party Oatmeal?