I got an "A" on my diorama!

Now if I can just get my sister to send me a picture of the darn thing, I will have a lasting memory of it (and so, fortunately or unfortunately, will you!)

One of those things you don't need to know...

...but which I am going to share anyway, is that the 8 year-old is very..."regular." Almost immediately after he finishes eating, he takes the newspaper and disappears into the bathroom for a bit (okay, there's no newspaper involved).

He came out the other day looking particularly pleased with himself, so my sister asked, "Did you enjoy yourself?" which sounds stupid, but is hilarious when you have a mouth full of Mac 'n Cheese and aren't expecting the question. I managed not to spray, but I made the baby giggle and clap his hands.

Said giggling and clapping was a very welcome change to the usual razzleberry-blowing during turkey-and-sweet-potato dinner noshing.

Apparently the 8 year-old DOES have a good time in there, because I walked by the door Sunday night and heard him singing to himself. I couldn't really hear the song through the door, but I believe I made out strains (no pun intended) of "I Can See Clearly Now the Rain is Gone"...

(I'm so lying about that, but the euphemism was too tempting to resist!)

Now it's like I'm being stalked...

Musings of the 8 year-old mind

So I was in Atlanta for an extended weekend visiting with my sister and my two nephews. One is 11 months old ("shares" a birthday with me by a difference of two days) and the other is 8. They are both bright as newly minted pennies, but the smaller one is stuck on drooling, babbling and being generally cute. The 8 year-old is cute, too, but he has the added advantage of being able to communicate. So he communicates a couple of amusing things during my stay:

"There's a kid in my class who doesn't celebrate any holidays, so my teacher asked him if he was a lesbian."

And on the subject of the diorama project he was asked to do (which I immediately took over and wouldn't let him work on - a fact that was received pretty well since it mean he could go play "Streets of LA" or "Car Theft" or some other age inappropriate PS2 game):

"Do you think I'm taking advantage of you?"

BTW, I literally spent all weekend, from Saturday afternoon through Monday evening working on the diorama. It wasn't my best work, but for a 2nd grade class, it's going to set the standard by which all others are judged. Ha ha. Everyone else is going to fail, 'cause mine...I mean "ours"... is "da bomb diggity"!

God Complex

"Hotlanta" is just Atlanta these days. Seems that just before I came to visit my kid sister, the temperature was in the high 70s/low 80s. Apparently I brought the cold NY weather with me. I surmise from this that I am some sort of weather deity like Storm from the X-Men, which is way cool because she's always been my favorite.

Unfortunately, I have not yet mastered the art of bringing the warm weather to fore, but I'm working on it. I hate the cold, so it would be the ultimate irony to have become the Snow Miser.

Speaking of which, why are they Snow Miser and Heat Miser? They would love nothing better than to invade each one another's territories (as evidenced by "The Year without a Santa Claus") and share their respective weather conditions with everyone. So how are they "misers" in any sense of the word? Somebody make a Consumer Phone Call* to Rankin/Bass!

* "Consumer Phone Calls" are yet another UGA invention of McSorely, Dancer and meself. When things got a little slow, boring or we just didn't want to do a damn thing (yes, YOUR tax dollars not working!!!), we would arbitrarily choose some 800 number on the back of a product and make inquiries. The best was "Mrs. Butterworth." We wanted to know her ethnicity. Guess we weren't the first to wonder, because the Answer Chick had a prepared response for us. Apparently Mrs. Butterworth is (as I like to phrase it) "of questionable ethnicity"...mainly she's just a "nice old woman you'd like to have in your kitchen." That answer simply rocks!

My Buddy

I have this friend...let’s call him McSorley for two completely non-PC reasons: (1) he’s Irish on Pop’s side, and (2) there’s an Irish bar near my apartment named “McSorely’s Pub.” I met him when we both worked at Unnamed Government Agency (hereafter “UGA”). This alone will provide many an anecdote in future blogs, I promise.

Anyway, McSorely and I fancy ourselves quite amusing, and we have had ongoing inside jokes for over a decade now (he’s available for parties, weddings and bar mitzvahs for reasonable rates. Contact me for details.) One of these jokes involves Guy #2 who also worked with us at UGA. Guy #2 takes too long to type, so we’ll just call him “Brad.” Brad was in our Division at UGA, but in another group. Somehow or another he and I struck up a friendship, and he began spending time with McSorely, Dancer (another McSorely/SuperMilkChan group associate) and me. He started joining us for lunch, and this continued for several weeks until he decided I was his soul mate and started mooning over me. This might not have been so bad, except I was engaged to be married at the time.

This initially being an uncomfortable and, soon after, annoying, situation, I stopped hanging around with him. He made it a point to try and continue his friendship with McSorely and Dancer, neither of whom was particularly interested, as he had only been a fringe on my moccasins, and not an entire shoe on his own.

His favorite excuse for trying to keep up a relationship was lunch. He thusly earned the moniker “Lunch Buddy.” For those of you who think this sounds vaguely familiar, you probably remember the boy doll “My Buddy” (complementary male version to the girl doll “Kid Sister”). The point of “My Buddy” was to create a non-threatening, non-gender-specific-owner doll that could be comfortably played with by little boys...

(yeah, THAT lasted!)


But the best part was the ad jingle…”My Buddy, My Buddy, wherever I go, you’re gonna go, My Buddy, My Buddy, My Buddy and me!” (this is probably paraphrased – don’t hold it against me). McSorely and I immediately co-opted the song and changed it to “Lunch Buddy, Lunch Buddy, wherever you go, he’s gonna go, Lunch Buddy, Lunch Buddy, get away from me!”

So I go shopping for a new umbrella a couple of weeks ago (hold on, hold on, this does connect up), and the one I pick out is called “Rain Buddy!” Oh the memories it brought back! (I still haven’t come up with a good set of lyrics, so please feel free to throw some out there.) Rain Buddy. What a classic.

Okay, so that’s probably only funny to McSorely and me, so press the button below to go back in time 5 minutes and pretend you never read this.