Memoriable Day Weekend

Yes, your honor, I knew it was a bad idea to provide a razor sharp knife to a hyper 6 year old who was hopped up on chocolate milk and donuts...

Bring in exhibit A

Now how did this all start?
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We had a great weekend at our house. Friday night we had a family game night with some of our friends who have kids Ryan's age. The kids completely tore up our upstairs area, so we are ready to remodel now.

Then Fran and I got into a big argument over whether or not the kids are going to watch "Old Yeller". I was standing on the stairs, she was downstairs, and the kids were upstairs...Now that you have the stage direction, here's an excerpt:

Me: "Honey, I really couldn't care less what they watch. They picked out Old Yeller."

Fran: "They really don't want to watch that. Pick something else"

Me: "Okay. Kids, what do you want to watch besides 'Old Yeller'? How about 'Lion King?'"

kids (weeping and gnashing teeth, and as they are exhaling between sobs, squeak out "We-want-to-watch-'Old Ye-e-e-e-le-r-r-r-r-r-r-r'.....PLEASE!!!"

Me: "They really seem to want to watch it..."

F: "No! Don't make them watch that movie just because YOU want them to see it!"

Me: "Seriously, I don't care what they watch."

F: "Then pick something else!"

So, at this point, I'm sure you're thinking 'just put on Old Yeller--how would she know?'--remember-it's a sad, depressing movie...The emotional well-being of 6-year olds are not going to be hanging over my head, expecially over the urgings of others to watch something else. So I sent the kids down to tell Fran that they REALLY wanted to watch it, which they then did.

An hour or so later, one of my friends looks up abruptly from his cards and said, very seriously and somberly, "They just shot Old Yeller."

We played this card game called Wizard, and I was being a little obnoxious by dramatically saying "Wizzzarrrrrd!" at odd random moments, which would really crack Fran up, but seemed to have no effect on the rest of the group--but I kept doing it anyway.

Fran's been chomping ice all the time lately, which we have read somewhere is a sign of anemia, so she's starting taking supplemental iron.

During the game, while Fran was in mid-chomp, one of the guys told her "I noticed you have been chewing ice--do you know what that's supposed to be a sign for?"

Fran: "Yes, I just can't help it, though."

He gave a bizarre look. I knew something was up, so I asked him "We've read that it's a sign of anemia--it seems like you heard differently?"

He laughed and said "Yes-I heard it was a sign of sexual frustration!"

Fran: "I was about to say 'I bought some pills for it...'"

Me: "Hey, give me some of that ice!" (ha ha).

Sunday, we drove out to the piney woods of East Texas to see my friend Gar and his family. We had a very nice time seeing the family, but discovered a few things on the trip:

1) Fran hates the idea of Ani Difranco without having listened to any of her songs. I put on a mix of music and she kept asking "Is that Ani Difranco? Change that!" But of course, it never was Ani. The problem is that I don't know who it was because I didn't write down the names...

2) There is only so much Dido that can be listened to without going into a coma.

3) It's a better idea to plan 2 hours to go 90 miles than to plan 1 1/2 hours to go 90 miles, especially when driving on 4 different highways, through 3 towns, and in intermittent rain. Fran's goal: If the party starts at 1:30--show up exactly at 1:30. My goal: If the party starts at 1:30, try to get there around 1:15, and if you're early go get a coke and relax.

4) Apparently, Fran can't stand folk music at all.

5) Kaitlyn can now put her foot in her mouth. Gee, I wonder if she gets that from me...



6) It is possible for Ryan to play Game Boy for 2 solid hours without getting bored.

7) She doesn't want me to go to Cabo to go marlin fishing because she's afraid that I'll be captured and killed by Mexican banditos.

8) We have determined that, like quarks (subatomic particles that "act differently" while being observed than they act in their natural state?--how would we know that?), there is behavior to volume control that is dependent upon who is listening.
by this definition: a) Anything that Fran listens to should be at whatever volume is necessary for her to hear anything she wants. b) anything that I want to listen to needs to be 20-40% quieter (in my words "low enough so you aren't bothered by either the tune nor the words")

9) Fran has still not forgiven me for my photography faux pas at the wedding we recently attended. My pictures come back and she's like "Where's the picture of Kaitlyn in her pink dress?" Whoops! Of course, they got there at the last minuite. In the meantime, I had 2 hours to kill before they got there so I got great pictures of stained glass, the exterior of the building, etc. The kicker was that one of the bridesmaids took her shoes off and I snapped a quick picture of the shoes on the carpet in front of the stage (you really never know what's going to be a good picture--seriously). When Fran saw that, she went ballistic--"You got a picture of some chick's nasty shoes but not of your 1 year old daughter in her beautiful dress???!!" So she still hasn't forgiven me for that. I'll keep you posted.

10) I grabbed my camera to get a shot of some beautiful clouds, apparently knocking off one of the bones in Fran's elbow...



Monday AM--Ryan and I went fishing at a nearby lake. I thought we would just be out there for a little while, but Ryan lasted for 4 1/2 hours before asking to leave. He did really well, sitting in his Spider Man chair watching the bobber. We were fishing for catfish for now, which, I know is usually accompanied by the "pfbst" of a beer can, but thanks to our local Starbucks Ryan was drinking hand-mixed chocolate milk (costs $1) and I was drinking cafe mocha ($4) and we were chomping down on those little Dolly Madison chocolate donuts.

We caught 3 catfish and 2 turtles. I let Ryan reel them in--the last and biggest fish he actually set the hook and brought in pretty much by himself, so he was very happy about that.



Of course, because it was me, and I am destined to encounter snakes whenever the world can arrange it, we ran across a fat-bodied, gross-looking striped brown water snake about 3 feet long, and it was aggressively watching us over a period of about 20 minutes--popping its head out of the water from different angles--I could see it swimming underwater, and resurfacing. At one point I think it scared Ryan because it came up about 10 feet from him and started heading toward land and I was on the other side of our little peninsula we were fishing from. I've tried not to pass on my silly phobia to him, though.

But another weird thing about this place was that there were tons of ducks and geese, including a freakishly huge goose with 5 baby geese the size of huge ducks, that kind of made me a little anxious. But there were tons of cool ducks, mostly mallards, taking off and landing all the time, so I got some good pictures, I think.



When I was packing up for us to leave, I had to figure out where Ryan was going to stay--at the car or by the water. He had been pretty good all day about not getting too close to the water, so I kept the poles in the water and took a load to the car. Before I left, I pointed to my long-blade fishing knife in the leather sheath.

"Hey Ryan, if you need it, there's a knife right here."

When I came back, of course, he was swashbuckling a tree like zorro, "just in case the snake came back". Although he begged to keep the knife for protection, I took it from him and packed it up.

Walking back to the car, I told Ryan to stay with me. The godzilla goose was right off the trail and I didn't want it to get aggressive with him.

But Ryan loves animals, and the next thing I knew he was going to say goodbye to the super-sized uber-goose, and her goslings were between her and Ryan. She came hissing toward him with her huge beak open. So I had to act like a dumbass and just held up my arms and said firmly, "Get back, goose! Ryan, come over here right now!" and he did.




The goose walked the other direction, but turned after a couple of seconds and gave me one last, protesting, honk.

Ryan looked up at me and, knowingly told me "See? You should have let me keep that knife!"

So, luckily, the goose bloodbath was avoided.

Debriefing Ryan this AM: "You wouldn't have really stabbed that goose, would you?"

Ryan, unblinking, not moving his eyes away from the TV "Yep. Aren't we allowed to do that?"