Mary Poppins Would Be Aghast!

It became clear last week that in her treks around the neighborhood and the surrounding hills and fields that Kenner had come into contact with some poison ivy. She developed a couple red streaks near her right eye and on her eyelid, and the doctor said to bring her in because it was in such a sensitive area.
She was given a prescription for some liquid, which the doctor warned would not taste too pleasant. However, he explained, she could wash it down each time with a spoonful of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup.
Kenner, who, when she doesn’t want to comply with a request, has nearly perfected her repertoire of whinings, groanings, and gruntings to the level of performance art (admittedly a low bar), has never been so eager--make that ecstatic--to take her medicine.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we were out of chocolate syrup and had to substitute a spoonful of rich, creamy hot fudge topping (served cold in order to get a bigger glob on the spoon).
[Photo to follow later]

Apt Analogy

Cindy called me at work today.

I could tell she was in the middle of cleaning, as she asked me where she could put certain items of mine that had somehow ended up downstairs. (I can't imagine how!?)

I, being stupid beyond my years, commented, 'You're really tearing things up!'

After a moment of silence, she replied, "No, this is what I do every single day."

Certainly with no urging from me she continued, 'Do you remember when I said that everything I do around the house would be like you working all day on a translation and then your manager walking by and hitting the Delete button and then saying, 'Please do it all over again' e-v-e-r-y s-i-n-g-l-e d-a-y?'

Yes, I got the picture. And, amazingly enough, I DID remember when she had previously made such a comment!

And now I am recording it here for posterity so that I don't forget it ever again!

Hopefully, anyway.....

What housing slump?

In the past month about 10 lots have sold in our neighborhood. We now have a house across the street (it just got sheet-rocked), a house to the right of us (framed but not sheet-rocked), and two lots on the left of us all staked out to be dug.

Sigh.

We were hoping to have a small neighborhood for a lot longer! (At the neighborhood party we had in late March (a goodbye party for 'Mr. Joe' as he was deploying) we had45 out of the 47 neighbors attend--and the 2 that couldn't make it still brought a dessert over!)

Fortunately, if they develop the next section it will be on the other side of the neighboorhood--not behind us--so we should have a couple more years of living on the "edge of civilization."

But I will add that the dumpster diving at the worksites has yielded some nice treasures!

Zippidee Zoo da!

Two week ago Friday was stellar weather and it was spring break for the kids, so I took half a day off and we all went to the Cincinnati zoo!

Unfortunately, so did all the denizens of Southern Ohio--I ended up dropping the fam off near the main gate and then driving around for a half-hour until I found an empty space on a sidestreet (and not a nice sidestreet either....)

Ally was really excited, and just as she hoped for, she got to see everything that Penelope saw in the 'Penelope Goes to the Zoo' story I made up years ago for Cameron or Kenner. Yep, elephants (elephant poop plays a leading role in the story), giraffes, lions, pretty birdies, and--the perennial favorite--the monkeys with the red butts! (Japanese monkeys.)

Photos.....

Here we are looking at the flamingoes...(use your imagination!)



(You will notice that Cameron is smiling and Kenner is not....I bet a psychologist could deduce a lot from this photo! And, though it looks like I am a translated being (that's a laugh!), it is just a smudged lens.)

And Erin even got to ride the choo-choo train, one of her lifelong goals. (Yeah, and it's $3 per head for about a 4-minute ride--I would have been happy to have made Erin wait much longer!)



Just before we left we got this photo:



Anyway, we had a good day--and we did not make the mistake of trying to stop at IKEA on the way home like we did last year--that was a FIASCO!

Bad influences at school....

Schools can be hotbeds of verminous influences on our children, and it is especially insidious when it is something that is sponsored and sanctioned by the school.

If it were only cruelty to animals (such as cats, especially) that would have been more stomachable, but NOOOOoooooooooooooo, it school-sanctioned cruelty to the most vulnerable in society. Yes, I am speaking of cruelty to vegetables!

Over a month ago his school had an assembly, where the world-record playing card long-distance throwing champ (an Ohio native) came to the school to amaze and amuse. He deftly threw the cards and sliced through carrots, cukes, watermelon slices, and who knows what else.

It was an epiphany for Cameron.

He watched the guy on a number of YouTube videos to get the throwing method down, and then began going through a bag of carrots, a bunch of celery, and whatever veggie he could find.

And I must admit that he is pretty good!



But like any addiction--he just can't get enough of it! Though it has been a long time, cards are still whizzing around our house at all hours of the day and night, and it is really pitiful to see him begging to be taken to DollarTree to get a 2-deck pack.

All I can say is that I am glad he has now found a use for his Pokemon cards.

Anyway, here he is in action....

Big Threesies

Ally celebrated the big 3 birthday last week.



In my family as a kid, if you wanted Mom to make you a cake you had to do extra chores that day (none of this namby-pamby 'Oh sunshine of my life, this is your special day and you can do whatever you want because you are so special!')

To bypass this requirement, by age 12 I was proficient at making my own cake from scratch. It was usually a 12-egg angel food cake (cake mixes were for those sorry wimps in other households who couldn't cook--or at least had more money!)

Though Cindy came from the above-scorned 'wimpy' family culture and has kindly yet firmly lifted me up by the neck and told me that things are going to remain their way on birthdays, obviously Ally wasn't taking any chances and was at least learning the ropes just in case the policy were to ever change....

What the heck!?

That, in a nutshell, is Ally's new catchphrase--usually said with a grin and a wave of her hand.

As in last Thursday when Cindy told her, 'You need to get dressed because you are going to M's house to play!'

'I get to go to M's house?'

'Yes!'

'I get to go again?...[Big grin].......What the heck!'

Through a pyro child's eyes

Last Saturday Cameron and I made our first fishing trip trek of the season to the company pond.

I caught a lot of small bass, and he caught a lot of bluegill.

Anyway, on the way there I pointed to some blooming trees, exclaiming that I sure liked those dogwood trees with their purplish blossoms.

He looked at them, and then commented, 'Yeah. And I bet they'd burn good too!'

All I got wasn't just a dumb T-shirt!

It's been about a month since Cindy went on a cruise with my sister and her 2 boys,



(cruise ships are famous for sumptuous feasts, and there was obviously a full cargo of HAM).

Anyway, in a round of email correspondence with a Japanese gent at the parent company I mentioned that my wife was on a cruise without me (for some reason people found that amusing), and he wrote back, 'Gee--I hope she at least gets you a T-shirt!'

Well, Cindy actually brought home THREE things for me!
1. A burnt orange-colored Cozumel T-shirt
2. A Royal Caribbean hat (though my nephew got it for free and gave it to her because they didn't want it....I guess that still counts?)

and to top it all off...

Number 3: A promise to let me peel the dead skin off her sun-burned calves once the skin really started loosening up!

Well, I didn't get any huge swaths of skin, but I did get enough big ones off to gross her out!

She had an enjoyable week, as did I.
She did fun things at pretty places....



And I rototilled a garden spot, worked on the basement bathroom, and bribed the kids with a possible trip to CiCi's Pizza if they acted at least semi-human for the week.