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Into our family life.

Daniel was watching the ski jumping on the Oympics, you know, when they look like this:

Daniel said they should put some webbing between the skis and the person’s body, so it’d be like wings.

Elijah said, Yeah. And then they should attach a string to them that someone in the crowd could hold.

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The other day the subject of kids’ names came up (yes, again). I think it was because Elijah was complaining about not having a middle name—so he could never just use two initials and then his last name. Like R.L. Stine does.

Cat has a list of kids’ names she likes, which she showed to us. Included in the boys list was Beatrix. I told her no.

Daniel said he was going to name his next kid Shutup Youstupidhead. We had fun with that.

“What’s your name?”

“Shutup Youstupidhead!”

Roll call in class: “Darren…Present. Shutup…Here.”

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Elijah was telling us how his friend Mark’s dad is just exactly like Daniel.

He said, “There’s only two differences. One, Mark’s dad is Mexican. Two, I came from Dad.”

Into our family life.

Elijah will often come home and say this same phrase: “I was the only one in my English class today who knew what (fill in the blank) meant.”

Most recently, it was a Napoleon complex.

Before that, it was propaganda.

And if you ask him how he knows about these things, he gets insulted. “I read things!” And he does. Always reading stuff online, looking up information on all kinds of stuff. What’s weird is he retains. Everything.

Nathaniel had what I’ve come to think of as an Elijah-moment the other day. Daniel doesn’t really like peas, so I never make them. Like, ever. But the other day we were having mashed potatoes and I like peas in mine so I made some. Nathaniel was busy so he ate later than us. He went into the kitchen, saw the peas, and asked, “Is there something wrong with the corn?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about. He said, “Why is the corn green?”

Today at church, our stake president spoke. He’s the leader over several congregations in our area. And he always likes to speak in these extended metaphors. Daniel describes his talks like this: “There was a bicycle and a rabbit, and they did some stuff…So don’t be a pancake!”

This morning his talk was all about being goalies (Olympics-inspired). I leaned over to Catherine and said, “So don’t be a mailbox!” just as Daniel leaned over to me and said, “So don’t be a palm tree!”

I’ve been waiting and waiting for American Idol to start back up. Pathetic, really.

The day it was coming back on, I called Daniel to see when he’d be home. I asked him if he knew what was happening that night. He said, “Uh, the most greatest thing in the history of the world?”

That distracted me. What exactly did he think was happening that night?

“Doesn’t your show start back up tonight?”

He knows me so well.

I was watching tonight and Elijah was strumming on his guitar on the couch next to me. He said something but I shushed him. Then I realized what he’d been doing. “You were just playing along with that singer?”

“Yeah. It’s easy to figure out and predict pop songs.”

Can’t remember now exactly what song it was. Possibly “Summertime.”

And now thanks to one of those last auditioners I have this song stuck in my head:

(Elijah groaned when that guy made it through. He said there are kids just like him at his school who carry a guitar around and “play like this”—he strummed two or three chords softly over and over–”and then they say it took them a year to write it!”)

So far I don’t really have any great favorites, except the Mormon guy from last week and um, I forget who else. The hill billy girl was awesome. Oh wait here she is:

Her singing starts at 1:50 or so. What can I say, I love hillbilly music. Don’t believe me?

Elijah, my 15yo, has always complained about us moving to southern Cali. He hates the sun (he’s a redhead—not only that, but a redhead that refuses to wear anything but black). He hates the crowds. He hates everything about it. He’s always said when he moves out he’s going back to Washington.

The other day the boys started asking me what I was going to do when all the kids move out. Would I miss them? Elijah asked if I’d come visit him. I asked where he was going to be living. He of course said Washington.

But then he made an admission I didn’t think he ever would.

He said, “But I don’t know if I can move to Washington, because at this point I’m sort of obligated not to.”

I thought, What 15 year old uses the word “obligated” in casual conversation? And had to go write it down so I wouldn’t forget to mention it on my blog. Ha.

When I came back he said, “Don’t you want to know why I’m obligated to stay in California?”

Of course I did. I fully intended to ask him when I got back from making notes on his language. He just got the first word in.

He said: “Well, there’s three things I might want to do in life. One is make music. And I can find a lot more people here to make music with than I could in Washington. Another is work on videogames, and yeah, they have videogame companies in Washington, but there’s more down here. And the third is make movies. And, well, you can probably make movies in Washington but not like you can in L.A.”

I said, “Yeah, there’s a lot more opportunities down here than there are in Washington.”

Then I remembered he’d mentioned he had an idea for a silent movie, so I asked him about it. He said he had lots of ideas for silent movies. Then he started talking about how he wants to make movies without scripts, just have a plot to follow and let the actors do the scenes by improvisation.

He said, “I think it’d be a lot cheaper to make movies that way.”

Elijah: All my teachers this year know I’m smart.

Me: What does that mean?

Elijah: Well all my teachers have always said how smart I am.

Me: And what do they say this year?

Elijah: One of my teachers is mad at me because I’m only getting a B, but I’m the smartest kid in the class.

Me: Did you tell her that grades don’t reflect intelligence?

Elijah: Sort of…In my music theory class we had to write a chord progression. So I wrote one and turned it in, but I told my teacher it was stupid, and I didn’t really like it. He played it and said he liked it, that it sounded sad. So then I changed it a little bit, and he played it again and said it sounded really evil. I was like, “Yeah!”

(Then came a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo about music I can’t remember or understand.)

Elijah: My English teacher knows how to torture me now. She said she needed some volunteers so I said I’d do it and she said I didn’t know what she wanted me to do yet. I said I didn’t care, I’d do it. She said well maybe it’s sitting outside getting hit with stones. I said I’d be ok with that. Then she said maybe it was being forced to listen to Britney Spears all day. (Shrugs) I’d be ok with that. Then she said but what if it was having to admit that there is no greater band than Led Zeppelin, and I said OK I won’t do that.

Daniel was talking about how he can’t wait for winter, when the temps will come down out in the desert. He said, “I just want to go out to the desert with my chick. I’ll ride my dirt bike and she can take pictures of rocks.”

He was talking to our daughter, Catherine, age 18, who laughed her head off. One, because her dad called her mom his “chick,” and two, because she knows I do take pictures of rocks.

So I’ve had basically everything I need to set up a darkroom for a long time now. I just kept thinking that I don’t have space to do it in. Mainly because the trays I have for the chemicals are so large. But this weekend I dug everything out that I’ve got and realized I have some tiny trays that’ll fit 5×7s. I set it all up in the kids’ bathroom:

I had to ride my bike to the local photo store to get some paper and new chemicals (the stuff I already have is really expired). I had to ride my bike because our car is still being fixed, and Daniel was putting a new radiator in the truck. Good thing we live in southern Cali where anything you could possibly need is within bike-riding distance. Anyway, I didn’t get a darkroom light because I thought a lightbulb I already had would work, but it turns out it’s not darkroom safe. So I have to wait till next week when I can go get another light bulb.

Gonna be fun!

Last night we were playing a Cranium game called Hoopla. If you’ve never played any of the Cranium games, I suggest you check them out. Hoopla is our favorite. It’s a guessing game where you give clues by various methods, like charades or drawing pictures. One reason we like it is there’s no winner—everyone is playing together against the clock. This is important for a family with more than one person who is a bad loser, and an even worse winner.

The game has various people, places or things on cards, and you draw cards. You have to give clues for everyone else to guess what is on your card. Everyone is allowed to know if the card is a who, what, or where.

Elijah had a where card and he had to draw clues for it. This is how his brain works. Ready for this? (Warning: potty humor ahead.)

He drew the curve of someone’s naked behind and a big piece of poop coming out of it. Then he drew arrows at the poop, big arrows, and said, “Only think about this!”

We were guessing: Poop, excrement, bowel movement, feces…you get the idea. Like any of those are a “where” or would be on a Hoopla card!

So finally we asked if could possibly draw another clue. He drew two people facing each other and one was saying, “I’m breaking up with you!”

Divorce? Break up?

No. No.

Finally I got it: “DUMPING!”

He turned the card over. The word was “Dump.”

We were literally falling over we laughed so hard. Elijah still doesn’t understand why we thought it was so funny. I said, “You couldn’t draw a garbage truck dumping garbage onto a big heap of trash?”

I still laugh out loud just thinking about it.

Last night Daniel was telling me about a friend of ours whose boyfriend is a tattoo artist. She was saying she wants to get a tattoo on the side of her finger that looks like a moustache. When people ask what it is, she can hold her finger up above her lips to show them.

I thought that was pretty funny. In our discussion, it came out that Daniel had never done a google search for the terms “bad tattoo.” He immediately went to the computer and typed it in. Much hilarity ensued.

Here’s the first one we found:

It’s called Little Blueberry Man. We laughed pretty hard at how bad it is.

The we moved on. What came up first were the more famous bad tattoos, which you may have seen already. Daniel hadn’t. I don’t know how he’d managed to live so long without ever seeing Mr Cool Ice:

Here’s my personal fave:

Daniel just saw me writing this post and asked me what you call that creature. My answer: Magnificent.

When we came across this one, Daniel told me a joke that our son Elijah had told him:

Chuck Norris can cure cancer—with his tears. But it’s never happened because Chuck Norris doesn’t cry.

Then came the tattoos that look like they’re drawn by a four year old. Well, let me amend that. A right-handed four year old, using their left hand.

Crooked hair. Lopsided, giantic mouth. And wading in fish scales. Pretty talented four year old.

This four year old must have very irresponsible parents:

After that we started venturing into the what-the-heck-were they thinking territory:

Think maybe she asked for a Chinese dragon and got this instead?

This may be the best tattoo, ever:

If only you could combine that somehow with the Patrick Swayze centaur, I think the world might stop spinning on its axis.

I’m sure her pastor appreciates this one:

I’m not sure there’s a person alive who can fully appreciate this one:

Give it a minute to soak in. Note the mustache…the eyebrows. The double chin.

Then we turned it up a notch. Not disturbed yet? You’re about to be.

He must be a really big chess fan.

This last one really brings out his amazing hazel eyes:

Another view, in case you don’t think it’s real.

After all that, little blueberry man looks pretty good, don’t you think?

Was listening to the Waterboys yesterday…such a lovely, sad tune.

I was having an email conversation about a friend’s friend who is getting a divorce. This person’s friend said that the “spark” is gone and that’s why they were splitting up. My reply went like this:

That is sad. I guess I’m a little bit confused about what people mean by “spark.” I mean, Daniel’s my favorite person to be with, so does that mean “spark”? Or is she talking like “spark” like you get when you first fall in love? Because that just doesn’t last, and it shouldn’t last, you know. Who wants to spend their life mooning over someone?

I could spend my life mooning over the Waterboys, though.

Yesterday my husband told me he liked my hair and asked if I’d done anything different to it.

I hadn’t.

My first thought: Nice of him to notice.

My second thought: Time to get a haircut.

Daniel likes my hair longer and wants me to grow it out. I don’t like it long for a variety of reasons:

1. I dye it to cover the grey and it’s a hassle to dye longer hair.
2. I don’t like my hair in my face.
3. I think I’m too old for long hair. I see other ladies way older than me with long hair, and I think they’re too old for long hair, and they’d look better with it shorter. I’m only 39 but still.

But then I see pictures of myself from about a year ago when my hair was getting longer and think it looked pretty cute. What to do?

Here’s how my hair is looking right now:

Yes, I took that while driving, and yes, that’s my finger getting in the shot. You try to take a picture one-handed with a tiny camera while driving! Or you could be smart and don’t.

I also keep thinking about letting my natural color grow out. So much grey in it though…Hard to see in that picture, but my roots have grown out quite a bit. The hair you see near my cheekbone-level that is white is actually all grey. It blends really well with the blonde. Not so much with my natural dark brown color.

But I’ll probably let it grow out a bit more just because I’m too lazy to go get it cut or dye it right now.