Asheville Idiotarod

This past weekend Asheville hosted the legendary "Idiotarod" shopping cart race. It is part of the race for awesomeness series that also includes the basketball 5K (dribbling a basketball 3.1 miles). I have been trying to get a team of 5 to compete the past few years and have never been successful. Mainly because my ever so ethical husband ( who used to make me pay taxes on my babysitting money) seems to think that "stealing" a shopping cart is bad news. So this year I found a way to be involved without breaking any laws. I took part in an honest to goodness flash mob!

For those you who aren't up to date on Flash Mobs (or current episodes of the Modern Family) don't worry, it isn't what it sounds like. We don't go around flashing people. That would give Jaime even more of a heart attack than stealing a buggy. The actual definition is: a term coined in 2003 to denote a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire. The director of the race heard that the E! Television show "Too Fat for Fifteen" was going to be filming this years run and decided to put together a group of people who suddenly appear and do the entire dance to Micheal Jackson's Thriller. We met secretly all week and learned all of the steps. Not an easy task for someones such as myself. I would rather run 10 miles than do a single cha cha and that MJ has some pretty crazy moves. But it was a learning experience and by the end of the last practice I felt good about it. So imagine my sadness when Sunday's performance was less than thrilling. Boo. We had a large group of about 100 people who dedicated time and effort into learning each step for a fabulous performance (and one very hot, Micheal Jackson dance teacher, who may or may not have been gay, who spent the whole week teaching like 10 dance classes) all to have a ton of drunk people join in and try to preform the dance as well and basically stepped on feet and dropped it like it was hot. Entertaining, yes. Thrilling, no. But in the end I am left with a small space in my brain that now contains all of the dance information I need to surprise the heck out of some people at the next Halloween party. And that, is good enough for me!

Check out these pictures of how fabulously weird Asheville is. We really want to move back to the beach (like really, really bad) but there is no comparison for this town. It is such a uniquely, wonderful part of North Carolina. Enjoy!