Owen’s T-rex Music Club

My favorite game to play with the 6-year-old boy I nanny goes like this:  He makes up some kind of game, and I write down the rules.  We never actually play any of the games; he just likes telling someone to write down things that he says. The following is one of my favorites.  I wrote down everything just exactly as he said it.  If you can figure out how to play it, you could try playing it at a party or a book club as an ice-breaker.

                                         Owen's T-rex Music Club

1.  Use the clarinet to hit the dinosaurs.

2.  Take off the end of the clarinet to make a circle.

3.  If you press the arrows, the clarinet will fly.

4.  If you make it to the finish line quickly, you'll win a trophy.

Enjoy!

6:11 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Married
Current mood: full

I got married, so if you were planning on asking me out on a date, you can go ahead and ask someone else.

4:19 PM - 5 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

registered for tulips
Current mood: savage

We are getting married in June.  We are not registering anywhere for gifts.  Please leave us alone.  If you feel compelled to give us a gift, you might try being thoughtful and/or creative.  However, we do not feel that because we are getting married we deserve presents.  Many people have told me that it is impractical and inconvenient for others.  If you were thinking of telling me that, please don't bother.  I am prepared to end up with things I never thought I wanted and framed crosstitch pictures and 27 toasters and china in the wrong colors.  I really don't care.  On inconvenience:  If we as a culture have become so greedy, so self-centered, so materialistic that it is actually inconvenient to others when someone tries not to be... well, that is just sad.  And I will not play that game.  (And anyway, I just thought that if I had this burst of non-materialism I should really run with it.  It doesn't always come this easily.)
Tulips
Yesterday morning at preschool, we were making May Day baskets by gluing die cut flowers into  paper cups.  I was looking at the die cut tulips and thinking about how much I really like tulips.  I love their simple design and bold colors.  As flowers go, they seem bold and unafraid.  They don't have a lot of wussy frills or pale, blend-y colors that can't quite decide what to be.  Well, I started thinking about how I would love to have some tulips.  And since I was at preschool, I started thinking about how nice it would be if one of my students brought me some tulips.  For whatever reason, that lead me to thoughts of telling my students how much I like tulips in hopes that one of them might remember and bring me some.  I'm not actually prone to the manipulation of 3 and 4 year olds for my own gain, but for some reason, I had a lapse in judgement just then.  So I told them how much Miss Evans looooooves tulips.  Yes, it was shameful.  The story continues.  Later that morning, when it was time for the kids to go home for the day, I walked over to the door and opened it for the parents to come in and get their children.  When I opened the door, I saw hanging on the outside doorknob a lovely bouquet of... tulips!!!  Yes.  A beautiful, homemade, bouquet of bright purple tulips hanging by a bright purple ribbon.  One of the moms brought them to me for May Day.  But it was really Jesus.  Thanks, you two.

8:59 AM - 10 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

"A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having."
Current mood: nice

So far, I am having a most dancy weekend.  Let me describe.  Some friends and I had dinner the other night with a family of refugees from Senegal.  None of them spoke english very well, and we certainly didn't speak... whatever it is they speak.  Dinner was still fun.  We all tried to speak to each other and we laughed a lot.  (I kept wondering if they were all just laughing AT us.)  But when we moved into the living room and asked them to let us hear some of their music...  it happened.  One by one, we all got up to dance.  Soon, almost everyone was dancing.  Weird moves, too.  It is so funny how nothing else mattered anymore.  I mean, it really didn't.  We were all just the same for awhile.  I even feel like I got to a point with this family that I don't  get to with most people I am supposed to know pretty well. 

Later that night:

I met some other friends at this weird, seedy kind of bar in a strange part of town that we've been wanting to try.  Everyone was sitting at a table eating and sipping, and it turns out that I still had my dancing shoes on!  So I got up and just started to move a little bit to this funny band playing who may have been sort of cool many years ago, in some circles.  Soon, a drunken man who fits right in at this place, if you know what I mean, must've thought I was sort of waiting for someone to ask me to dance.  So he did, and I kept insisting that I really didn't want to, and glancing at my boyfriend sitting at the table who was just laughing.  I finally decided that it would just be easier to dance with him than to not.  So we made our way to the dance floor where some of your parents were probably dancing, and I started to get really free.  I danced the way I always want to, with a lot of mechanical sort of arm motions and such.  It has been awhile since I cared so little what people thought of me, with the full knowledge that I may have looked like a space alien.  Every so often when i was doing an intense move, I would be suddenly overcome with the giggles.  The really nice kind.  My boyfriend did eventually cut in, by the way.

The next night at a wedding:

It was a nice, pretty, outside wedding with white Christmas lights and really good food and wine and everything.  The official dancing had not yet begun when this lovely girl who appeared to have Down's Syndrome, wearing a flowy, soft, pale yellow dress captured the beauty of the night.  She danced, by herself, in the middle of the dance floor with big, graceful, sweeping arm motions, and a smile on her face that looked as if she knew the best secret of all.  Later, when it was time for everyone to dance, I noticed one of my friends dancing with the girl.  It looked so wonderful that  I went to join them.  We danced for a few songs, copying each other's moves, and I think I had every good feeling all at once.  We were the same.

That is all. 

12:22 AM - 3 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

on the farm
Current mood: pleased

I just had the most lovely morning.  I am housesitting on a farm in the middle of nowhere with chickens, ducks, dogs, and cats.  I used to think that the hustle and bustle of the city was my very favorite place to be, and maybe it still is, but for now I think that the slow, country life might just be where it's at.  Well, this morning there was the most brilliant thunderstorm I can remember from my experience in the Northwest.  I ran around like crazy putting the baby chickens back inside their house and bringing the dogs inside... even one that doesn't live here...  If you're missing this dog, don't worry, I'll release it when the rain lets up a bit.  Well anyway, when everyone was safe and sound I just sat in the rocking chair on the porch and drank coffee and watched the storm.  The cat was sitting on my lap and being very cuddly, which was charming, except for a couple of times when he would suddenly make this weird growling noise and bite me when I wasn't even moving.  It was mostly nice, though.  When I was nannying yesterday, there was a thunderstorm on Bob the Builder, and everytime there was a flash of lightning he would count, "One elephant, two elephants, three elephants..."  until the thunder clapped , to measure how near the storm was.  I tried that today.  I got a little nervous a few times when I only made it to "two elephants," but who knows how accurate that system is, anyhow.  

I am so paranoid that I use too many commas. 

9:36 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

O.J. Simpson
Current mood: bouncy

I could NOT figure out how to make a blog there for a few minutes.  I knew I had done it before...  Anyway, I was just remembering this time in...maybe 5th grade or something when my class was tuned in to the O.J. Simpson trial.  They were about to announce the jury's verdict, so it was kind of a big deal.  Well, I was remembering how when O.J. was pronounced "not guilty," my whole class cheered really loudly for a long time.  I mean, it was weird because probably all of our parents were always talking about how he totally did it, and we probably knew, too, that they were right .  But I just think it's funny that we were so happy when someone didn't have to go to jail.  It's kind of like our young minds recognized mercy--in a weird way--and something about that resonated with us.  You know, just the idea of not getting the punishment you deserve.  Being in a preschool classroom always reminds me of how our minds get so different from where they were intended to be as we get older and more influenced by what goes on in the world.  That is all.  I can't remember why I started thinking about O.J.

7:16 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

tmj
Current mood: indescribable

My jaw hurts. Maybe I grind my teeth when I sleep. Maybe I'll hire someone to watch me sleep and record any unusual sleeping behavior or jaw movement. I like Valentine's Day. I just realized it today after teaching at the preschool. I don't think it's very cool to like Valentine's Day, and I think I've always tried not to. But it really just is kind of fun and cute. Don't tell anyone I said that.

Currently reading : Searching For God Knows What By Donald Miller Release date: 13 October, 2004

1:44 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

My 1st blog!
Current mood: happy

I've always liked blogs.  Ever since I was a small child, I have wanted to post a blog.  Where in the heck is my chapstick?!  Mmmmm... Burt's Bees.  So nice.  I sure hope it snows more today.

Currently listening : City on a Hill: It's Christmas Time By Various Artists Release date: 24 September, 2002

1:10 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment