Last year the girls discovered the "Junie B. Jones" books.
This summer they graduated to Beverly Cleary and are smitten with sisters Beezus and Ramona. Last library visit, they found "Ramona Forever" on audio CD, and now a new element has been added to their "book discussions". In addition to regaling each other with favorite parts of the story, they've become enamored with the narration style of the reader, who happens to be actress Stockard Channing.
I have listened with them and their fascination escapes me. I don't have anything against Stockard Channing, I just find her voice rather .....unfascinating. But the girls hang on every nuance of every syllable. In fact today's lunchtime was largely spent debating the correct tone and inflection of one word.
Here's how the conversation unfolded:
Peanut: Sissy, wasn't it funny in Ramona Forever when Ramona was at the doctor and the doctor asked her how she felt, and Ramona said, " I feel just awful". I love how she said 'awful'.
Sissy: Yeah, "awful".
Peanut: No, it wasn't like that, it was like (with a little less drawl) ....'AHful'.
Sissy: No, it was like.....(significantly shortens the first syllable) ....'ahful'.
Peanut: "AHful".
Sissy: "ahful".
Peanut: No Sissy, you're not doing it right.
Sissy: Yes I am!
Peanut: "awful"
Sissy: "awful"
They make their voices deeper, then more stuffy then they slightly change the emphasis. They keep going, tweaking the pronunciation with differences too subtle for my unrefined ear to catch.
"Offle". "OFFle". "AUphul. "auphul". "Awful". "Awful". "Awful.
"Awful". "Awful"............................. "Awful"
This is followed by 30 seconds of blessed silence, then ......
Peanut: When Stockard Channing does it she sounds like this......"awful".
Sissy: "awful"
Peanut: I sound just like Stockard Channing......"awful".
Sissy: No, I sound just like her.....listen ......"awful".
Peanut: "awful"
Sissy: "awful"
Peanut: "awful"
Sissy: "awful"
Conversation mercifully turns to another subject for a few minutes, then Peanut takes a bite of her sandwich.
Peanut: Hey, how come this baloney tastes so bad?
Sissy: shrugs her shoulders
Peanut: (taking another bite).....It tastes awful!
Sissy: (in her best Stockard Channing voice).... you mean "awful"!!
They crack up laughing and the remainder of the conversation is filled with phrases like......."Hubbabubba Bubbahubba" and "Glop".
One of these days I swear I'm going to be taken away in a straitjacket.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Summer is Winding Down
.....or so it feels like.
But the calendar on my wall protests.
"For crying out loud," it says to me...."we're still in the month of JULY!!! What do you mean , 'summer is winding down??' "
But no matter what the calendar says, I know the end of summer is near because the signs are all evident:
The butterflies have become bored and irritable.
The things that make that kind-of buzzy, droning sound in the trees in late summer? Cicadas maybe? Anyway..... they're here.
The crickets are chirping earlier.
The pool toys at Wal-Mart have been replaced by school supplies.
School systems around here get started August 4 which is ohmygosh, next week.
See what I mean? You can't ignore the signs. We'll start our school year next week too. And even though my heart rebels at starting school in early August, my mind knows there is some wisdom in it. Once the idleness of our lazy summer mornings has been replaced by some structured learning, I don't think I'll hear as many sister squabbles or complaints about being bored. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking, but we might as well start when everyone else does. It gives us more freedom to take days off when it's not oppressively hot outside.
The beginning of the school year always feels a little schizophrenic though. The smell of schoolbooks, the sound of the pencil sharpener, the order of the lessons.... together they drum up a cool-weather mindset, especially if you turn up the AC :) Then you go outside after supper and feel slightly off-kilter for a minute, because the evening air lets you know that summer is still here.
Here's to the beginning of the end of summer.
But the calendar on my wall protests.
"For crying out loud," it says to me...."we're still in the month of JULY!!! What do you mean , 'summer is winding down??' "
But no matter what the calendar says, I know the end of summer is near because the signs are all evident:
The butterflies have become bored and irritable.
The things that make that kind-of buzzy, droning sound in the trees in late summer? Cicadas maybe? Anyway..... they're here.
The crickets are chirping earlier.
The pool toys at Wal-Mart have been replaced by school supplies.
School systems around here get started August 4 which is ohmygosh, next week.
See what I mean? You can't ignore the signs. We'll start our school year next week too. And even though my heart rebels at starting school in early August, my mind knows there is some wisdom in it. Once the idleness of our lazy summer mornings has been replaced by some structured learning, I don't think I'll hear as many sister squabbles or complaints about being bored. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking, but we might as well start when everyone else does. It gives us more freedom to take days off when it's not oppressively hot outside.
The beginning of the school year always feels a little schizophrenic though. The smell of schoolbooks, the sound of the pencil sharpener, the order of the lessons.... together they drum up a cool-weather mindset, especially if you turn up the AC :) Then you go outside after supper and feel slightly off-kilter for a minute, because the evening air lets you know that summer is still here.
Here's to the beginning of the end of summer.
Friday, July 11, 2008
How Does Your Garden Grow?
"You want to go look at the garden with me?" I ask Sissy.
As usual, she's the last one to leave the supper table - not because she eats all that much, but because she............ eats......so............very.............slowly.
We walk up to check our little vegetable patch. When I say "little" I'm being generous.
When I say "garden" I'm usually talking to one of the girls, because that's what they insist we call it.
What it is, is one okra plant, two each of tomato, bell pepper, and zucchinni, a teeny lettuce bed, and a very few radishes and sunflowers.
We inspect the leaves for insect damage. So far so good on the tomatoes, but the peppers......
I'm amazed at how much I fret over this 6' x 8' patch of ground. Gardening is not a hobby for worriers. Or maybe the opposite is true, and the garden is a worrier's nirvana. There are just so many unknowns, so much potential for failure here.
Some things you find out by simply waiting.
For example:
Is my cucumber dying? Sadly, yes.
What happens when you wait until mid-May to sow lettuce seed?
You get lettuce!
As usual, she's the last one to leave the supper table - not because she eats all that much, but because she............ eats......so............very.............slowly.
We walk up to check our little vegetable patch. When I say "little" I'm being generous.
When I say "garden" I'm usually talking to one of the girls, because that's what they insist we call it.
What it is, is one okra plant, two each of tomato, bell pepper, and zucchinni, a teeny lettuce bed, and a very few radishes and sunflowers.
We inspect the leaves for insect damage. So far so good on the tomatoes, but the peppers......
I'm amazed at how much I fret over this 6' x 8' patch of ground. Gardening is not a hobby for worriers. Or maybe the opposite is true, and the garden is a worrier's nirvana. There are just so many unknowns, so much potential for failure here.
Some things you find out by simply waiting.
For example:
Is my cucumber dying? Sadly, yes.
What happens when you wait until mid-May to sow lettuce seed?
You get lettuce!
Other answers you find through reading:
Why did my peppers stop producing just as they were getting started?
Apparently peppers don't like nightime temps below 60 or daytime temps over 85.
We've recently experienced both those extremes, which would explain it.
Some questions remain as yet unanswered:
Did I overprune my tomatoes?
Should I use chemical pesticides?
It's not like I have a lot invested in this , or like I can't get fresh produce elsewhere...... but what if I COULDN'T? What if we had to sustain ourselves on what we grow? Could we hack it?
I read of countless garden enemies..... blight, blossom end rot, powdery mildew, aphids, leafhoppers. My head spins.
And yet......
I show Sissy a tomato the size of her thumbnail, still surrounded by the yellow flower petals. Crouched low, our faces almost touch each other as we admire the little green jewel . "Wow", she says softly. "That's so cool Mommy".
And it is. It's incredible, really. God's design for the tomato, unchanged over thousands of years.
If I could visit any place in history, I think I would have to go to Eden and pick some vegetables.
Sissyand I were so in awe of this little green thing that will grow into something we'll want to eat. I wonder if Adam and Eve ever watched a fruit grow with the same delight? Or because they never knew anything else, was gardening just routine for them?
I can't believe it was. I like to imagine them every now and then discovering a baby tomato, and whispering "Wow".
Saturday, July 5, 2008
I Love A Parade
OK, make that "tolerate".
We don't usually do parades, but it was unusually cool yesterday, and I was pestered with that nagging feeling that if we didn't go I would regret it because one day soon, the girls will be too old for parades. So we went, and enjoyed ourselves for the most part. The kid's loved it, and it was easy to get caught up in their excitement for awhile.
But after an hour had gone by with no end in sight, we began watching with a more critical eye. And wondering what the criteria are for being in the parade. Or to be exact, if there actually are any criteria.
It BEGAN like a parade.
There were soldiers, many, many soldiers. Truck after truck of soldiers of all ages. There were veterans including former POW's from WWII and Korea and Vietnam and Desert Storm and the current war (I forget its name). And really, if anybody should be in a Fourth of July parade, its our servicemen and women.
There were marching bands which you really can't have a parade without;
There were cute little girls in tiaras and glittery sashes, waving as they rode in convertibles;
There were a couple of clowns, a LOT of motorcycles, some square dancers, and church choirs;
all in keeping with the spirit of a parade.
But for every half dozen or so legitimate parade floats that went by, there was a vehicle that was apparently there for no other reason than free advertising. It really did appear for a little while, that every business in town saw the parade as an open invitation to roll out their ad-displaying cars, trucks and vans.
I have a tendency to be overly cynical at times, and I try to nip this in the bud when I feel it welling up, but when "Good Old Boy's Tree Service" (yes, that's the real name), paraded it's fleet of not two, not three, but SEVEN trucks by - without so much as a single patriotic streamer flying from the antennae to at least give the pretense of, well, patriotism, I think even my kids wondered what they were doing in the parade.
The kicker is that yesterday evening, after drought conditions for I don't know, forever, we had a major storm which left many downed trees and limbs in its wake. It was absolutely great...... if you happened to own a tree service company. I wonder if it's a coincidence that SEVEN has proven to be the average number of times a person has to see a name before it sticks in his memory.
Really, the timing of the storm was kind of eerie. Kind of makes you wonder if God has a soft spot for "Good Old Boys".
We don't usually do parades, but it was unusually cool yesterday, and I was pestered with that nagging feeling that if we didn't go I would regret it because one day soon, the girls will be too old for parades. So we went, and enjoyed ourselves for the most part. The kid's loved it, and it was easy to get caught up in their excitement for awhile.
But after an hour had gone by with no end in sight, we began watching with a more critical eye. And wondering what the criteria are for being in the parade. Or to be exact, if there actually are any criteria.
It BEGAN like a parade.
There were soldiers, many, many soldiers. Truck after truck of soldiers of all ages. There were veterans including former POW's from WWII and Korea and Vietnam and Desert Storm and the current war (I forget its name). And really, if anybody should be in a Fourth of July parade, its our servicemen and women.
There were marching bands which you really can't have a parade without;
There were cute little girls in tiaras and glittery sashes, waving as they rode in convertibles;
There were a couple of clowns, a LOT of motorcycles, some square dancers, and church choirs;
all in keeping with the spirit of a parade.
But for every half dozen or so legitimate parade floats that went by, there was a vehicle that was apparently there for no other reason than free advertising. It really did appear for a little while, that every business in town saw the parade as an open invitation to roll out their ad-displaying cars, trucks and vans.
I have a tendency to be overly cynical at times, and I try to nip this in the bud when I feel it welling up, but when "Good Old Boy's Tree Service" (yes, that's the real name), paraded it's fleet of not two, not three, but SEVEN trucks by - without so much as a single patriotic streamer flying from the antennae to at least give the pretense of, well, patriotism, I think even my kids wondered what they were doing in the parade.
The kicker is that yesterday evening, after drought conditions for I don't know, forever, we had a major storm which left many downed trees and limbs in its wake. It was absolutely great...... if you happened to own a tree service company. I wonder if it's a coincidence that SEVEN has proven to be the average number of times a person has to see a name before it sticks in his memory.
Really, the timing of the storm was kind of eerie. Kind of makes you wonder if God has a soft spot for "Good Old Boys".
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