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I wanted to go out picture taking and made Nathaniel go with me. I was heading to a Cao Dai temple in Garden Grove, but spotted a restaurant sign I wanted to get a shot of, so we stopped to get it.

Then I noticed across the street an adult book store, so I made Nathaniel walk over to it with me.

Then next to it was another adult place called Spanky’s, which was so nice on the outside, it looked like a really cool restaurant. There was an old 40s cop car parked outside it:

Then we noticed some murals painted on the wall in the back of the parking lot:

Interesting.

On the way back to our car, I said, “Do you think it’s cool to have a mom that takes you to adult book stores to take pictures?”

Nathaniel said, “That sounds weird.”

I do. But I don’t usually realize I’m doing it. I do it when I’m alone. But I’ll do it in public, too–when I’m alone in public. If that makes sense.

After I say something to myself, I’ll realize I’m doing it, but that’s not enough to get me to stop.

When I was in high school art class, I’d talk to my paint, my paintbrush, my painting. It was a lot like that painter on PBS, Bob Ross, but I wasn’t consciously imitating him. I mean, I wasn’t saying stuff like, “Where does this tree live? This tree lives here, by this friendly little bush…” or whatever. It was more like, “You need paint on you. No, not that color, this color. Don’t go that way! Stay here!” My friend thought it was hilarious. I just knew it helped me concentrate.

My kids think I’m weird because I’ll talk to drivers in other cars when I’m driving. Like if we’re at a four-way stop, I’ll say, “You go, then you go, then I go.” Or if I’m changing lanes, “Stay where you are over there, I’m moving into this lane.” At first my kids were like, “You know they can’t hear you, right?” But now they think it’s my superpower. I can make other drivers hear what I say when I drive.

I’d rather be able to fly.

I’ve been doing this thing lately where I email a group of people and ask them to send me a song related to some theme. I compile them as a playlist and listen to it. One theme recently was songs about a specific (and real) location.

Daniel and I took a road trip up to Lake Arrowhead last week. I’d burned the location playlist to a cd, so I put it on. He kept asking who had sent which songs. Whenever a song that I had contributed myself came on, he always knew it was mine.

James Taylor: This is yours, isn’t it?

Yep.

John Denver: This is yours, isn’t it?

Yep.

He said, “I can always tell your songs because they’re the cheesy ones.”

Me: “They may be cheesy, but they make you feel good!”

Daniel singing along with the song, a few moments later: “Rocky mountain high, Colorado!”

Me: “See? They make you feel good.”

I had one of those moments when I laughed so hard I was crying hysterically today.

The boys were telling each other stupid popsicle stick jokes. I love those and I can sometimes figure out the punchline because they’re such silly puns. The joke as I heard it was: What do you call a sleeping bowl?

To figure out the answer I usually start throwing together various possible answers to see if anything triggers the actual answer. I made the mistake of saying my first guess out loud: A snooze dish?

The boys started laughing because I heard the joke wrong. It was: What do you call a sleeping bull?

Oh, OK, a bull…A snoozing ox? They had me flustered from laughing at my snooze dish, so I just told them to tell me the answer:

A BULLDOZER.

Then we started telling each other silly jokes.

Me: Why did the cookie go to the hospital?

Elijah: Because it was feeling crummy.

Elijah: Knock knock.

Me: Who’s there?

Elijah: Orange.

Me: Orange who?

Elijah: Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?

Me: You did that wrong!

Nathaniel: It doesn’t matter, it still makes sense. I mean, aren’t you glad he didn’t say banana?

Me: Knock knock.

Elijah: Who’s there?

Me: Soup.

Elijah: Soup who?

Me: Superman!

Elijah: OK, that might be the best one so far.

Me: Knock knock.

Elijah: Who’s there?

Me: Moo.

Elijah: Moo who?

Me: Interrupting cow!

It was at that point that the laughing-till-you-cry commenced. I had totally gotten the joke wrong. The boys would not stop making fun of me for it, and I could not stop laughing. Daniel had missed it, so we had to explain it to him, but he wasn’t familiar with the interrupting cow joke, so first we had to tell him how it’s supposed to go, and then explain how I had messed it up. I mean, the boys had to explain–I was still laughing too hard.

Eventually Elijah said, “OK no more laughing–she’s going to die!”

My daughter’s been posting random overheard quotes on her Facebook status. I stole all of these from her. (Parenthesis contain my comments.)

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Nathaniel had his arm rested on my head. I told him to put his arm down because he smelled. He said “I know, I was seeing how long it took you to notice”

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Dad:”you’ll get sick of anyone stuck in a room 24/7, you could be stuck with Jesus and you’d get sick of him”

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Elijah “you ok dad?” dad “ya, just tired” elijah “just making sure, cause you were on the ground and that’s usually not a good sign”

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I had an interesting conversation with my dad just now, it went something like… Dad: “It’s so weird that dogs dream… but then again, it does make sense cause they have so much personality” Me:”Well Cats have personailty, do they dream?” Dad:”No, cats aren’t animals, they’re parasites and should all die.”

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Me-about to make cookies, Mom “if you need shortening, here it is” Nathaniel “I dont think she needs shortening” and pats my head

(Nathaniel is 6’2″, Cat is barely 5′.)

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I told my little brother that I’m too tired to pay attention to him talk and he said “can you not pay attention but I tell you anyways?” I love him so much. He accepts that I dont listen but talks to me anyways. No misunderstanding here

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Is it weird that my dad turned on the Tyra Show and complained he’s already seen this one?

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I have to keep my computer off, and I complained to my brother about how I wont be able to sleep tonight because there wont be any hum. He’s volunteereed to hum while I sleep and slowly get more obnoxious over the years. Then I wont be able to sleep without the obnoxious yelling.

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“knock knock. who’s there? rosa parks hahaha I’m on a school bus and I didn’t have to sit in the back” hhaha Apples to Apples with my family. My little brother rocks

(The cars we all set down were Rosa Parks, a school, bus, and knock knock jokes.)

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“mother from another mother in the living room” -Nathaniel

(My mom was visiting.)
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While Elijah and his dad were watching Power Rangers on TV.

Elijah: I think Buckethead is a fan of this show. He covered the theme song. I think he’s a fan of anything involving giant robots.

Daniel: (says something I can’t make out)

Elijah: He has an album called Giant Robot!

But that’s cuz he IS a giant robot.

My 16 year old son Elijah: “Mom, why do you dress the way you do now as opposed to the way you dressed in the 80s?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Elijah: “I mean, why do you dress so dorky?”

I guess I should get cool points for the fact that he doesn’t think I was a dork when I was a teenager.

He might be the only person in the world to hold that opinion.

I don’t know if it qualifies as a phobia. I just dislike the phone. I dislike answering the phone, especially if I don’t know who it is, and I really dislike making calls. I rarely call anyone. If I’ve ever called you (and most likely I haven’t) consider yourself a rare specimen. Someone Susan has called.

A lot of it has to do with my auditory processing disorder, I’m sure. I have a hard time taking in what people are saying if I can’t see them. Phone conversations can be hard.

I always screen calls. Always. Caller ID is nice. If you call and have a private number, you’re getting the answering machine.

Last night I went with Daniel and Cat to the cell phone store. They were going to upgrade their cell phones, since Daniel’s is breaking and Cat’s is even older than his is. We thought with our plan we should get a free upgrade, but the phones we were looking at would actually cost us about $30.

While we were there, Daniel was talking about adding texting to his options (he’s never had it), and Cat decided she wanted to keep her old phone. (Our kids are weird. And that’s saying a lot, coming from me, right? But what 19 year old girl refuses a new cell phone? She’s weird.) Then I joked about wanting a cell phone with texting someday, and the saleswoman said if we added a new line she’d throw in two new phones for free. We did some math and figured out if we canceled our land line, which we wouldn’t need if I had a cell, we’d be saving money every month.

And Daniel and I could both have unlimited texting.

So…all you who I’ve never talked to on the phone because I never had one and never call anyone if I did, drop me an email and I’ll add you as a contact…and we can text! Now when I’m sitting bored in the doctor’s office I’ll have something to do. Like I ever sit around anywhere bored…I never go anywhere. But if I add you as a contact, I’ll be sure to give you a goofy name (Daniel is now officially DanielPie) and take a picture of something that will represent you.

So if you text me, bythelbs, a picture of Flat Fergie will show up. Because you’re just as Fergalicious as I am. For Mike I’ll do a picture of vinyl records. How cool is that? And for Amber, a picture of a chicken. First I’ll have to find a chicken to take a picture of. Maybe it’ll be KFC. No offense to your chickens. For Madhousewife, I’m thinking a pirate. Might have to go to West Hollywood to find one, but that’s no problem. Tawnya will get a picture of shoes. Etc.

I’ll have more fun with the camera on the phone than the phone, but that’s OK. No offense to any of you who might actually text me.

My email: whenigodeaf@gmail.com

Oh yeah. Can you guess which is mine and which is Daniel’s?

Daniel: Why are you home so late from school?

Elijah: I had detention.

Daniel: Cool!

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Me: So how was detention? Was it boring?

Elijah: Not as boring as it is here. Why do you always think stuff at school is going to be boring?

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Daniel: Did you order pizza while you were in detention?

Elijah: No.

Daniel: Probably a good idea not to do that.*

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Elijah at the Disney Concert Hall in downtown L.A., through the Lomo Fisheye camera:

* Daniel once ordered pizza while he was in in-house suspension in high school.

That’d make more sense if it just said “lunch bythelbs.”

So the other week not only were my parents and my brother visiting, but bythelbs was also down here on vacation with her family. We all met up for lunch at Downtown Disney.

I took this picture of us with my Fisheye camera:

I had the film cross-processed, which gives it the weird color. Oh wait. I didn’t take it, maybe William, my brother, did. Or Daniel.

Here’s a pic my dad snapped of bythelbs checking out what the Fisheye does:

Things I remember from this lunch:

• Daniel came along because he wanted to meet bythelbs, because she’s always sending me awesome and hilarious stuff in the mail.
• bythelbs felt bad that she wasn’t very entertaining during the lunch when I told her that.
• When I mentioned to Daniel later that he’d been incredibly quiet during our meal, he said, “That’s because I knew whatever I said would end up on a blog somewhere.” How right he is.
• I learned that Southwest has general admission style seating on their flights, and they’re known for flight attendants singing to their passengers. Kinda weird. And kinda AWESOME.
• I also learned that Michael Jackson made a short movie for Disneyland. Not just any movie. A 3-D movie conceived of by George Lucas and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. bythelbs got to see it. If you don’t believe me.

Geeze, I can’t really remember anything else. Stupid brain.

Except it was really fun to see her and I wish we’d had longer to hang out!