Monday, May 19, 2008

News of the Weird, Hannah edition

Hannah has changed her mind that she wants to be cremated when she dies. Instead, she wants a double-decker casket, with a tv and unlimited movies, a toilet, and snacks and magazines. Plus, everyone has to wear white to her funeral.

In less morbid news, she has revisited the Grease-remake idea and decided that the original Grease needs to be remade with *pets*. John wanted to know if the cats and hamsters would get greasy hair-dos. Hannah gave him her patented "whatever" look, complete with "W" gesture.

I took Hannah to John's office while I had class today (only 1 week of school vacation left--woooo!), and on the way we passed a little boy walking with 2 ladies who were ignoring him crying. (Totally understandable.) Hannah wondered why he was crying. I pointed out that the ladies had probably denied him candy or ice cream, or permission to pick up a dead bird. Hannah said she wouldn't cry like that because she is a teenager. I pointed out that she is 10 years and 51 weeks and 5 days old. That is a far cry from "teenager". Then she came home and played on the Noggin site. *g*

News of the Weird

I broke my not-cutting-myself streak by making a magnificent slice in my thumb Saturday night while slicing onions. Luckily, I did not get any blood on the food. Unfortunately, I had to finish cutting up the onions and 2 pounds of tomatoes for soup.

It stopped hurting immediately, and the bleeding stopped pretty quickly, too, but now I have a gaping, white flap of skin on the end of my thumb. I finally got rid of the last bandaid this evening while washing dishes, but the thought of anything catching on my thumb-flap made me scrub very gingerly. And the thought of having to type the words "thumb-flap" makes me physically ill.

Making meatballs without meating up my thumb-flap was also an adventure in cookery that I would have avoided if at all possible.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

The Hannah-upagus (-Lupagus? I don't know)

Me to John: It’s 10 o’clock—do you know what town your child is in?
Earlier in the school year, Hannah’s class went to a museum in another town with the train, but she never made it clear to us what town that was.

Conversation with my child:
Me: Hannah, you do not have fat, hairy legs.
Hannah: Yes I do.
Me: That is crazy talk.
Hannah: No, this is crazy talk: blah blibbzty blahdy blblblblbl.

Hannah took part in a chain letter for kids (allegedly for a Guinness Book attempt), and some of the resulting mail got mis-delivered to our house, despite having the correct address on the envelope. Hannah has been anxious to get the letters back in the mail—OMG! Chain letterrrrr!—so we wrote “MIS-SENT” on it this morning and she ran it down to the mailbox. When she came back, she declared that the postal service was lucky we didn’t sue them for their egregious error. While John and I tried to talk some sense into her, she blew us off with the reflection that she doesn’t have any money for a lawyer anyway. As John said, “Our little litigant.”

Hannah was asking me what kind of movie I would make if I could: Sci-fi? Animated? Grease re-make with transvestites? She knows me so well.

Hannah is constantly speculating on what happens to characters after the action of a book or film is over (I see fan-fiction in her future). She thinks there should be a Grease 3, but she doesn’t appreciate my efforts to deduce what kind of vehicle will be featured. Original Grease had fast cars; Grease 2 had motorcycles. For Grease 3, we came up with jet skis, skateboards, a Segway--

Get that guy, Thunderbirds!


--or the Little Rascal.


Hannah was not amused.

Hannah’s birthday is coming up fast. She is going to be 11! I am not too weirded out by my baby growing up so fast, but some days I think, “Poof! 11 years gone.”

Hannah has already been planning out her birthday parties for the next few years, to be sure to cover all the possibilities. This year, we are taking her and 2 friends to Holiday Park after a sleepover. Her birthday falls during school vacation *and* on a holiday, so the amusement park will be open an extra hour. She has already asked us if we can celebrate her birthday in the summer vacation (August) the next two years, that way we can take her to Legoland (in Germany) and Parc Asterix (near Paris). She doesn’t really care about celebrating with friends, as long as we take her someplace cool.

John and Hannah insisted we buy an inflatable boat, so that is how they spent Mother’s Day, paddling around on the Neckar.
all aboard!

(Full set here.)I have very bad luck with boats smaller than a ferry, so I stayed on shore and photographed the big event. It didn’t help my peace of mind to know that Hannah was wearing a swim ring as a make-shift life vest, and that the tourist cruise boats were out in force.
near-miss with tour boat #1

Hannah was dying to get back in the water this weekend, but the life vest John ordered hasn’t come yet, and it has been overcast with intermittent rain, so I don’t think she’s going to make it today. Maybe on Monday, says John.