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Monday, March 08, 2010

highly effective habits of very dramatic people

C is preparing for 4-H Presentation Day this weekend, at which she will present an interpretive reading of the passage from Anne of Green Gables wherein Marilla and Anne meet for the first time, and Anne finds out that they don't want her because she's not a boy. I am (among many other positions including nurse, nutritionist, teacher, spiritual guide, and taskmaster) my daughter's drama coach, so I was helping her along a bit with her reading:

I: All right, here's what I want you to imagine. We've built a beautiful barn, and fenced in our whole acreage, and bought hay and grain, and we go with the horse trailer to the breeder's farm, and you hug your new horse and love her and give her a name, and we bring her home and turn her loose in the barn and then a sheriff's deputy comes and tells us that we have to take her back because you can't have horses here. That is how Anne is feeling right now; she was getting everything she ever wanted her whole life but now she's just figured out that she doesn't get to have it after all.

C: OK.

I: Ready?

C: Yes. "'You don't want me? You don't want me because--'" [racking, uncontrollable, whole-body sobs.]

 It took five minutes for her to be ready to try again. When she's on Broadway, she'll have to come up with some kind of Method-Lite or she'll never be able to make it through a performance.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Am I a hippie?

Veronica did an awesome post about whether she's a hippie or not and I thought I'd do one too because I'm nothing if not a perpetuator of blog memes. Which this isn't. Yet. But maybe with MY HELP, it will be! Who knows? Ahem. To continue:

IS RACHEL A HIPPIE?

Pro:

1. I compost.
2. I have a vegetable garden that's bigger than my house.
3. I homeschool my kids.
4. I don't trust the government.
5. I breastfed my two children for a total of three and a half years, including one child who was old enough not only to ask for it by her own special name for it ("zurse!"), but who, one time when she asked to ZURSE and I told her she needed to eat something and asked (rhetorically, I thought) what she would like to eat, pondered for a second and then said, "A mambinger. And fwies."
6. I used cloth diapers with one of my kids.
7. If I wear skirts, which I usually don't, they must reach my ankles and give me adequate room to move.
8. I only wear makeup maybe fifteen times a year.
9. I hang my clothes on the line to dry.
10. My hair is long and straight, never hairsprayed, never blown dry. (Well, I cannot lie; in the year and a half I've lived in this house, I've used the blow dryer one time.)

Con:

1. My two-year-old daughter once asked for a mambinger and fwies. Come ON.
   
2. I eat meat every day, sometimes more than once.
   
3. My children are current on all their vaccinations.
   
4. I used disposable diapers with one of my kids.
   
5. I have never used recreational drugs.
   
6. I voted for Bush. Twice.
   
7. I remove excess unwanted body hair.
   
8. I am an ardent supporter of military veterans, military spending, military awesomeness, and generally of blowing up bad guys who try to kill us.
   
9. I also have a Gadsden flag flying in my front yard.
   
10. If I am going to protest about social policy, it's probable that the people against whom I am protesting will be hippies.
    
11. One of the many reasons I homeschool my kids is that I think the school system is too liberal.
    
12. I do not like tie-dye.
    
13. I do not care if my food is grown "organically", and I put that in quotes because I am really annoyed by the way a perfectly good word was co-opted by a food trend.
    
14. I really am much more Backwoods Home than Mother Earth News.
    
15. Reading Ronald Reagan quotes or, even more, watching footage of his speeches, makes me get all misty-eyed.
    
16. I am a really good shot with a rifle.
    
17. My favorite line from a Clint Eastwood movie is "Shut your face, hippie," and I think my kids could quote that before they knew their own middle names.
    

So the final verdict seems to be that I am an antihippie in hippie clothing. Why am I not surprised by this?

Now it's your turn. Are you a hippie? I am on the EDGE OF MY SEAT waiting to find out.

Monday, April 14, 2008

I can only laugh because it wasn't [shudder] a centipede

(Seriously, just typing that subject line is making my body feel funny. I'd go delete it but then I'd have to look at it.)

This afternoon we were taking the dog on our usual stroll to the mailbox (which, sadly, DOES NOT COUNT as exercise, even though it's a quarter of a mile each way) when we noticed that Smokey had a lizard. Now, we live in the country, hope to have a garden, and possess fruit and nut trees. Hence, there are a few kinds of small animals whose consumption by Smokey we at least ignore, if not actively encourage. (Gophers, I am looking at you.) But all lizards are protected species as far as we are concerned, and they're also bad for cats, so I got Smokey to let go of the poor thing, and it promptly disappeared. I was ruffling the grass trying to make sure that it got far enough away before I let go of the cat, when I felt a suspicious... tickling sensation... on my shin. Which was and is covered by my jeans. No way, I thought. That only happens in movies.

And, apparently, in my front yard.

I don't mind reptiles; except for venomous ones, I actually really like them. This doesn't mean, though, that I didn't yelp a little bit at this point while engaging in a very silly-looking one-legged Lizard Dislodging Dance, to the immense amusement of my children. The lizard made good his escape (at this point, he probably wished the cat had just gone ahead and finished him off), fortunately before I had to resort to the removal of any clothing, which would have traumatized everyone concerned including the lizard, the cat, and the dog. Not to mention any neighbors who might have happened to drive by.

Moral of the story: This is why tapered jeans with (artfully mismatched) socks over the zippered cuffs should have stayed in fashion.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

conversation at my house, ca. 1996-2001

xkcd: nerdy. hilarious. (and frequently way over my head.)

Monday, February 04, 2008

four things

Thing one:

Crate training proceeds apace. I can see a tiny light of sanity at the end of the tunnel. (This dog, T points out, has cost us more than a vacation to the beach would have. More than we spent on our first child in his first, oh, three or four years of life. More than I could have reasonably spent in an absolutely dizzying expedition to a bookstore. Or, to get all practical and also to tie in a reference to my other current obsession, possibly more than it would cost to have our driveway graded. She had better plan on saving someone's life, Lassie-fashion, at some point.)

She has just emerged with a very guilty expression from my bedroom. I had better not find any dog-logs in there, missy.

Thing two:
C is sick. She is puky, and flushed but so far not feverish. Poor princess. Here's hoping it's a 12-hour bug. (And also that I don't get it, because tomorrow is a Very Important Night in history class, and also who would take the dog out to poop?)

Thing three:
looklooklooklooklooklooklook:

Not even a single solitary chance of rain. BLISS. I am no longer a person who loves winter. I cannot wait for spring. Heck, I cannot wait until I'm taking the dog for a walk at 8:30 in the evening in a tank top and capris, instead of freezing my toes off in my jammies, jacket, and canvas shoes taking her out for her morning potty. (seriously, we will need some more moisture before the annual drought sets in or we'll all catch on fire around Labor Day. But a break is going to be very very nice.)



Thing four:

HEE.

Monday, November 12, 2007

letting other people write the jokes for me

Whenever I'm short on blog material, I can always turn to my search stats. Behold a small sampling of the ways in which people accidentally find themselves at my webpage. I am sorry, accidental webpage-finders, for the terrible disappointment that must have confronted you when my page loaded.

what is the name of the school that goose wants the phone number of in top gun?
Oh, now that takes me back. I haven't watched that movie in years. T has it on VHS; maybe I'll watch it the next time the kids aren't around. Which is -- oh. Never. (I don't actually know the answer to this, but I can picture the scene in my head. Most people associate Anthony Edwards with whatever medical drama show it was that he was on; I still picture him as Goose. Also, Patrick Dempsey will always be that cute little nerd-boy in Can't Buy Me Love. I live in a popular-culture time-warp bubble, people.)

boring blog
Hey, at least this person found what s/he was looking for.

terminology for cough whizzing
I think they meant 'wheezing'. But I must confess, since having babies and reaching my 30s, I'm not entirely sure.

crochet marijuana
This phrase is always popular in my search stat listings. Do people crochet... with marijuana? Or are they hoping to crochet a replica somehow? [scratches head.]

how do you spell subtly
very, very quietly.

what do u call the white puffy thing you put on a cooked turkey
I... do not know. I have no clue. I can't even picture this.

izzy willy nilly cheat essay
Well, at least they're upfront about it. Come on, people, do your own homework! It's not that hard.

mr.collins repulsive
My thoughts exactly.

im going crazy over you wile your locked up poems
Words fail.

craving the smell of gasoline
and again.

how straighten icicle lights
Good luck. You might google "how solve mideast crisis"; you'd have more success.

embarrassing stuff
YOU HAVE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

three things

Thing I don't understand: Knitted food. I mean, more power to you and no offense intended if you're into that sort of thing, but for me personally, well, I'd rather make real food. Which I can then eat. It just seems like forty years from now, the grandchildren of this generation's knitters will be going through their grandmothers' attics, find knitted bagels with lox, and laugh uproariously. (note: LT says it would be nice for a centerpiece, instead of just using fake fruit. Not that you'll see a centerpiece any more complicated than a Styrofoam cup of wildflowers at OUR house -- in fact, I'm having a hard time figuring out where he has ever seen a fake fruit centerpiece -- but I digress. And I stand by my attic statement, regardless of LT's opinion.)

Thing that annoyed me: T went to a going-away party last night for one of his coworkers. It was held one of the two swanky restaurants in town, all California cuisine, and balsamic vinegar and olive oil for your bread instead of butter, and $15 for the very absolute cheapest thing on the rather limited menu, and such things. We ate there once a few years ago when it was new, and pretty much made a solemn compact never to return. Roped into violating this compact, T ordered the aforementioned least-expensive item on the menu and drank water. Which ended up being a complete waste because the other people ordered filet mignon and wine and who knows what all else and then dumped everything into one check and divided it up. So T ended up paying $42 for his $15 item. Oh well, it's only money. It's not like there's a shortage of that or anything.

Thing that made me laugh uproariously and yet also as subtly as possible: C's latest poem. I'm pretty sure she would short-sheet my bed if she knew I was sharing this with all of you, and I may delete this bit later once my regular readers have had their opportunity to enjoy it, but I just can't resist. This is what comes of C riding home in the car whilst thinking about recent history lessons on the French and Indian Wars, I guess.

Seat Belts (And the Indian)

by C

If you were in a car
and in that car you were driving far
If you did not wear seat belts and you stopped suddenly
out you would fly
the world flying by
An Indian comes out of a cave
And says I'll scalp you to the grave
(A) You just play and have fun
(B) You run
Answer (B), you run and yell
that Indian will surely go to Hell
Seat belts are important
Especially for infants.

This public service announcement brough to you by the "Wear a Seatbelt Or Get Scalped" ad campaign. No Indians were harmed during the production of this poem.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

hee!

Sometimes funny things happen when you alphabetize your playlist. I swear this was not staged at all.

Maybe it's the kind of thing whose humor is more evident late at night.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

The parable of the lost... filters?

Which of you, if she have a thousand-dollar camera and a very nice flash and spare batteries and also four lenses, and who have photographic filters in three different sizes, and compact flash cards and a cleaning kit and a spare camera and a large camera bag, and if she lose three of the filters which hath a cash value of approximately $120 and which fit thy precious wide-angle Tokina lens and also thy spare camera, will not wail and bemoan thy wretched stupid carelessness for many weeks, and who will not mourn at thy inability to take proper pictures of clouds or darken a scene, and will not look in every nook and cranny and also check several lost-and-found boxes for the filters which have gone astray?

And which of you, if after many days of mourning thou shouldst find the filters tucked away safely in thy spare small camera bag, will not leap gleefully in the air and shout, "YES!", touching thy head against the ceiling fan (which, thanks be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was not turned 'on') in thy joy?

Verily I say to you, likewise shall be the joy in heaven over a sinner who repents, even more than the camera bag full of sinners who were not lost.

Monday, August 29, 2005

School poem

This is the result of our Crazy Lib for today. (Mad Libs are a huge part of the reason that I ever learned parts of speech; what better tradition to carry on in my own personal private school?)

Without further ado:

The Garbage Gatherer
by Alfred Noyes
(with a little help from the students of Liberty Christian Academy)

The clock was a torrent of pain among the thin trees,
The fork was a squeaky tank tossed upon stinky seas.
The book was a ribbon of moonlight over the pink moor,
And the garbage gatherer came flipping,
Flipping, flipping,
The garbage gatherer came flipping, up to the heavy inn-door.

He'd a French cocked-hat on his skull, a ton of paper at his chin,
A steak of the claret velvet, and breeches of windy doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle. His bombs were up to the thigh!
And he ran with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilts a-twinkle, under the slippery sky.

And over the stairs he clattered and melted in the silly inn-yard.
And he cuddled with his horse on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.
He whistled a tune to the boy, and who should be falling there
But the landlord's black-eyed warrior,
Herbert, the landlord's warrior,
Pushing a dark purple toy into [his] long lavender hair.

-- Corrupted excerpt from "The Highwayman," by Alfred Noyes.

I dunno, I thought it was funny... Archives | Page 1 of 4

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