Thursday, June 22, 2006

The Ballad of Bob the Mouse

"Bob the Mouse woulda been snake bait
'til a little young lady helped him escape
She put him in a box that she left on her bed
and woke the next morning with freaking asthma attack."

Doo doo doo, daa daa daa, and whatever the hell else you wanna put in there.

Not my best lyrics, I'll admit. But I'm in a rush and, per The Hubbins, I'm not supposed to find the story of Bob the Mouse amusing, especially because our Dear Sweet Thing 1 was having breathing difficulty. But it is just sooo darn funny.

The Hubbins bought a little tiny baby mouse to feed Checkers the Snake. Thing 1 discovered the little mouse in the snake cage yesterday and took umbrage at this -- we had been feeding Checkers Mice on Ice ("The other, other white meat"), which is somehow more acceptable to her. She asked me why. I told her I had no idea and bucked her question back to The Hubbins, who is Chief Gamekeeper in our household.

This morning, I walked in on a discussion between Thing 1 and The Hubbins, wherein Thing 1 claimed that the mouse was outside, having escaped. For those of you unfamiliar with our house -- for Thing 1's story to be true, the baby mouse would have had to scale a 18" glass wall in the snake cage, remove the lid (which is hooked in place), jump down 4 feet to the floor, run out of Thing 2's room to the staircase, run downstairs, unlock the bolt lock on the front door, twist the door handle, and then close the door behind him so that the dog wouldn't run out....The girl has GOT to work on the plausibility factor. I joked about the sad loss to the scientific community, now that Wonder Mouse was repatriated he could not be studied.

The Hubbins called me about an hour ago to find out what I knew about the mouse incident and inquire as to why I didn't nip it in the bud last night when he was at work. (It seems that Thing 1 was wheezing up a storm, and it was probably my fault, what with my being at work and all.) Here's what really happened:

Some time yesterday, Thing 1 saw the little mousey and liberated him. She put him in a box in her room and named him Bob. At bedtime, she put Bob on her bed to "cuddle" with him. (The story gets a little fuzzy as to whether Bob remained in the box or scurried around her bed all night.) I didn't tuck her in last night, so I didn't notice Bob. Today, some time after I left for work, she owns up to all this but only after breaking out in hives and wheezing a whole lot. Bob has since been repatriated back to the wild, where one can only hope that he happens upon a peckish hawk.

My challenge: without laughing, tell Thing 1 that she is not to do this again, and, without sounding cruel, explain that we are not getting any rodents as pets. Our homeowners association bans pet varmints, so I can blame them.

Friday, June 16, 2006

To Coretta and The Bathmat

Weeks after watching the Monte Python video, and without further prompting, Thing 2 came up me this morning and said, "Mommy, remember? 'The Larch'." That's my girl!

I caved. What's it to ya?

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

D-I-V-O-R-C-E and C-R-A-F-T

DH and I regular joke about who would run off with whom and who would get what in a divorce settlement. (Typically, it involves me with the pool boy, Pedro, and John with and the housekeeper, Babette. . .)

While driving around in John's little toy, we were recently joking about John running off with a barely 18 yo high school intern from a particularly affluent neighborhood in town. They bonded over the rare opportunity to sit in and turn on a Bugatti at the local Rolls Royce dealership. (Retail price $1.4MM -- there were nickle millionaires standing behind velvet ropes, watching in deep envy as one of the Town's Finest and a pony-tailed teen got to actually TOUCH it).

So this conversation progresses a bit, when John reminds me that if we divorce, he gets "half of everything [I] make." Thing 2 chimes in with, "If you get half of everything Mommy makes, then you get half of my Jackalope sweater, half of the hat she's knitting, half of . . . ."

Half of everything I make won't fit in the trunk of the Bugatti.

Smart Ass!

In an effort to encourage my family members and friends (the people to whom this blog is directed) to comment, I coded it to permit comments from anyone, not just registered users of Blogger.

I had to change that, though, because some smart ass apparently believes that: (i) the one's depth of knowledge of HTML somehow translates into an ability to write english prose; (ii) I intended this blog to have widespread appeal; and (iii) I (and you) care to read repeated biting commentary like, "Nice colors. Keep up the good work. thnx!" Whoa! Oscar Wilde got nothing on him or her. I shall avail myself posthaste of a tutorial on blog design!

Anyhoo, those whom I know and love can either register and comment, or send me private emails like you usually do. Those whom I don't know can comment as well, but try to focus on the content, eh? If you like what I write, if you don't like what I write, I'm happy to hear from you and even debate the merits with you.

And no, I won't be adding pretty graphics any time soon. I may enlist Thing 2 to create something for me over the summer if she's got the inclination. I do not.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Sightings

The Heterosexual Knitting Male once thundered across the land. But with the rise of the industrial revolution, the Heterosexual Knitting Male was driven from his home and forced to work in office buildings and to abandon his craft. Nearly extinct, sightings of the Heterosexual Knitting Male have been documented in print knitting magazines and online. But few knitters have actually seen one for themselves.

Until Yesterday. . . When several Connecticut knitters thought they spied one in two different Borders Bookstores.

I expect that, much like ornithologists Arkansas, Connecticut knitters will flock to the handcraft sections of Borders to experience a Heterosexual Knitting Male for themselves. They will camouflage themselves with copies of People and TV Guide (so as not to attract attention to themselves) and give the call of the knitter: "Worsted wool! Worsted wool! Click, click, click!" If it IS a Heterosexual Knitting Male, he will give the reply, "Noro! Purl, purl, Noro!"

But, alas, no reply will come. Their quarry was no Heterosexual Knitting Male. 'Twas but a Knitter's Husband (which are not at all rare) dutifully purchasing the current Knitter's for his wife, who was busy shoe shopping nearby. Disappointment again.

*********

John informs me that if he ever wanted to cheat on me, all he would have to do is show up in the knitting section of Borders again with one of our children