Archive for the ‘These People Crack Me Up’ Category
Rilla: I’ve been thinking. We should have an art club for kids who want to be artists when they grow up.
Me: I love that idea!
Rilla: I wonder what we should call it.
Me, having a Jane Andrews moment: Um, the Art Club?
(Somewhere, Anne Shirley shakes her head in disgust.)
Rilla: No…I know! How about the Art Bassoon?
Me: *blinks*
Rilla: What is a bassoon, anyway?
Me: It’s a musical instrument—here, I’ll show you. *reaches for Google*
Google, beaming: You’re going to love this.
YouTube, modestly: This old thing? Why it’s just a little something I threw together.
We watch in delight as a bassoon quartet plays a Super Mario Galaxy medley. Rilla’s excitement cannot be described. She marvels over the size of the bassoons, their rollicking sound as they play the familiar melodies.
Rilla: Bassoons are awesome.
A pause.
Rilla: But on second thought, I don’t think Art Bassoon is the right name for our club.
She thinks.
Rilla: I’ve got it! Art Sardine.
Tomorrow (Feb. 14), the winners of this year’s CYBIL Awards will be announced. I had a wonderful time serving on the Book Apps round 2 panel and am honored to have been a part of the selection process once again. If you haven’t checked out the Cybils shortlists from this year and years past, you’re missing out on some truly excellent booklists.
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This afternoon, Huck and I were playing an alphabet game. What starts with P, what starts with F, etc.
Me; What starts with D?
Huck: W!
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I am also informed that he would like a puppy named Jellycar Jellycar Three.
In the grocery story I can’t resist slipping a package of gingerbread men into the cart. On the way home I tell Huck and Rilla the story—Huck’s never heard it, Rilla barely remembers. Huck is appalled by the ending, how the fox promises to carry the gingerbread man safely across the river, and then halfway there he snaps him up and gobbles him down.
Huck, distressed: “I don’t LIKE that fox!”
Rilla, eyes narrowed in a kind of scheming appreciation: “I do. I’d have done the same thing.”
Huck: I don’t like yogurt OR sandwiches.
Rose: Do you like complaining?
Huck (tilts head, considering): I don’t know. What’s complaining?
Rilla: Can we play Cranium Hullabaloo?
Me: Sure!
Rilla: But it’s a pie.
Me: What?
Scott: What?
Me: It’s a pie?
Rilla, Jane, Rose: No, it’s UP HIGH.
Looking at this serene child enjoying her lunch while gazing upon the butterfly garden, you’d hardly believe she’s the same creature who made herself a hunting license last night—that is, a license for hunting her baby brother.
“BE VAR VAR QIYT IM HONTEN [HUCK].”
At the bottom, next to her signature, a blank marked “GOV” (for governor?), which she very nearly got her Daddy to sign. Fortunately, he read the block print. And saw the Nerf gun behind her back, and the bloodlust in her eye.
Huck, pretending to read a Trivial Pursuit card: “What comes after set?”
Me, genuinely stumped: “I don’t know, what DOES come after set?”
Huck, triumphantly: “GO!”
Poking through my October archives, I found:
(2005) Some of Jane’s favorite things when she was ten. Math for Smarty Pants, Mark Kistler’s Draw Squad, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.
(2006) Our big westward move and arrival in California. More time than money.
In another post about our trip, I found this (which I’d never have remembered, so if you wonder why I blog, here’s why):
I forgot the best part of yesterday’s morning repast. The food was in the hotel lobby, the tables in a small adjoining room. I filled Beanie’s plate and told her to go find a place for us to sit. When I entered the dining room with my own full plate, I was surprised to spot Bean chowing down at a table occupied by a large party of senior citizens. Everyone at EVERY table was grinning with amusement at our happy Bean and her hard-boiled egg.
“Oh!” I cried. I had to laugh. “I told her to find a seat. Guess I didn’t specify AT AN EMPTY TABLE!”
(2007) A Rilla story that rather amazes me. (She was so little then!) A post called “Helixes,” which is of my favorite posts that I’ve written. And a surprise appearance by John Stossel.
(2008) Random acts of espionage. Autumn nature photos. A craft project I still haven’t finished.
(2009) Adorable Wonderboy stories. And suddenly Huck is in the picture.
(2010) A poem I wrote. Miss Suzy. Betsy-Tacy. (That was the month I got to visit their houses!) And…just wow. Rilla’s Sculpey solar system. I’d completely forgotten.
Rilla made a solar system’s worth of planets out of Sculpey. Their names, she tells me, are: Mom, Dad, Chocolate, Tinky, Pock, Imi, Marshmallow Yellow, and Beauty of Love.
(2011) We’d planted lettuce and peas in the garden already—guess I’d better get cracking. (I miss those morning glories. Time to replant!) Also: Dump Truck Huck.
