i don’t know exactly what happened, but in the space of about 45 minutes, the lady sparkler became a guitar hero aficionado.

and i’m pretty sure it’s fostermom adventure’s fault.

our beloved M.O.H. (maid of honor) was in town this weekend, and apparently has a bit of a guitar hero addiction. (the last time she was here, she was reportedly up into the wee hours of the morning playing…)

so we broke out the game for a fun, family activity … when all of a sudden, sparkler stopped sucking.

literally, up until this very second, my beloved was content to play one song (hit me with your best shot) and do her little butt-waggle in front of the telly, ignoring her single digit scores, and then pronouncing she was “done” with our silly little game.

now, she greats me in the morning with statement’s like “can we play guitar hero tonight?”

what happened? seriously, no clue. one minute she sucked, the next she is breathing down my neck, looking for signs of weakness.

damn, i’m a lucky man. i think.

we only tripped on this because the D.C.’s home “stadium” (air quotes, the court is temporary and was constructed in the middle of a parking lot downtown) was used in the trials for the homeless world cup.

the format is a stripped down version of tennis (first to five wins the set, first to four wins the game, no deuces/advantages) where each set is a different competition (men’s singles, women’s doubles, men’s doubles, mixed doubles, women’s singles). the team with the most sets/games wins.

tragically, washington got whupped (by the 2 win, 10 loss delaware smash) so the two best parts of the evening had nothing to do with the matches:

• first, in between sets there was a wii tennis match between an 8-year old and a member of the d.c. team where the kid got crushed.
• second, half way through the final set of the match, the public address mis-announced washington player Sacha Jones (17-year old new zealander tennis prodigy) as Sasha Cohen (23-year old american gymnast or 36-year old british “borat” actor).

all joking aside, it was a good time, and the organizers were obviously trying really, really hard to make sure everyone had a good time.

with apologies to letterman, here are the top five signs the person you married might be a boy … (all said by the lady sparkler this week):

as for the latter, after more than a little effort, the lady sparkler and i have beaten super mario galaxy through the first time in two-player mode. i completely sold her short, thinking she’d bail after the first couple of challenges.

turns out she was totally addicted, and was literally bouncing up and down as we polished off the 100th challenge last night.