When I was a kid, I used to dream about the future – when I would be a grown up, and would live in my fantasy home. I remember drawing pictures of it. It had two swimming pools (one indoor, one out), an animal sanctuary, a helipad, secret passageways, and faucets out of which ran grape soda pop (a la the shamefully-out-of-print book, “Mr. Pudgins”).
Well, I’m grown up and I have a house and it is, in its way, ideal. But it differs vastly from those childhood dream homes.
No helipads here: every action movie features a helicopter getting stuck in overhead electrical wires and spinning down in a billowing flames. A little too risky for me. Grape soda pop: it’s sticky, and you know it will get everywhere. And the animal sanctuary? I haven’t cleaned our 12-gallon fish tank in four months. It’s unlikely I’d keep up with the up-keep of elephants, lions, and lemurs. (Read more…)
We have a routine. It’s not original, but it works. After dinner, we take a bath. After the bath there is dressing for bed, then an episode or two of Curious George off of the DVR, and then a story and bed. All in all – a pretty full night.
Tonight, however, we inadvertently decided to “jazz things up” a bit.
Several months ago, Spicy Girl figured out how to unstop the tub. I don’t like this one bit, because I’m concerned she is going to put her hand down the open drain (we have an old house with one of those stopper-style tubs). But tonight, I almost shoved her hand down their myself in order to retrieve the 3 Tub Crayons that found their way into the drain, acting as stoppers themselves.
Honest to goodness. Tonight was not the night for this. I just had the worst week at work, my favorite team got swept by their arch nemesis, and I have turkeys mating in my driveway (this is a separate issue altogether, but notable as they don’t like to be disturbed). (Read more…)
Growing up as the child of immigrants whose native language wasn’t English, meant dealing with certain truths. I had to explain a lot of words, terms, and jokes. The pronouns “he” and “she” were used randomly. I went for long periods of time thinking that I slept on a mattrix at night, and that the Sears Tower is in Chahcago. All of these I accepted. I understood that it was difficult to master a new language as an adult. But there was one thing I totally didn’t get: they would always ALWAYS call me Michael-no-Kate and my brother Kate-no-Michael.
How many times did I roll my eyes and think, “Can’t you even tell us apart? We’re your own flesh and blood! “
I mean, how could our own parents get our names mixed up? I am five years older than my brother. We have very different personalities. Heck, besides our common DNA, we are different in every way except that we both get called by first-name-hybrids.
Clearly, this was some kind of language/brain FAIL.
Of course, now I know that is not the case.
Most of the time I call out Elise or Luke’s name, it comes out stupid. Luuuu-se! Ehhhluke! Elleeke! Luke (to Elise)! Elise (to Luke!) It’s gotten to the point that if I actually call them the correct name, I’m pleasantly surprised. (Read more…)