A.K.A.
Tonight at midnight Slovenia will become a Schengen nation. This means we will not need our passports anymore to go grocery shopping. The event seems worthy of writing a proper post about, but I am a bit busy tying up loose ends before the Christmas holidays, so suffice it to say that being able to whiz into Italy without stopping to wave our passports at bored, contemptuous, and soon-to-be-redundant officials is likely to make us feel slightly askew.
Adam has this new thing where he says, “YEAH!” with a certain intonation that carries the sense of “ARE YOU A MORON? HOW COULD YOU NOT BE AWARE OF THIS?”
[Sunrise, in the front room]
Adam: Birds!
Me: Birds?
Adam: YEAH! Birds! Did you seen dem? [pointing out the window]
Me: Oh, yeah, now I see them.
Adam: YEAH! Dey are eating da roof!
According to my spell-checker, I am supposed to be married to someone called Magma Buckaroo. This does sound exciting, I have to admit, but overall I am pretty happy with the status quo.
Related: Huey Lewis’s mother’s name was Magda.
I may have previously mentioned that H.L. and I attended the same high school. BRUSH WITH FAME!
</namedropping>
The House Of Wigs is my new favorite old thing I should have known about several years ago (as usual, I blame Europe).
Have I ever mentioned how much I love the Old Bay tin design? So gorgeous.
Comment by jane — Thursday 20 December 07 @ 14.51 MST+2.00
I read this post while listening to an Incubus song, and right when I read the word askew the word occurred in the lyrics of the song. Very strange.
Just think of having a wife named Magda as something that makes you similar to J. Naz.
Comment by Erik R. — Thursday 20 December 07 @ 15.02 MST+2.00
Either that’s an extreme close-up, or my tin was a lot smaller. :-(
Comment by Erik R. — Thursday 20 December 07 @ 15.02 MST+2.00
Mulling over Adam’s forays into speech, adults, eying questionable behaviour, I can only defer to others more eloquent, namely Billy Collins from back in 1988.
Child Development
As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three-year-old children
enter the phase of name-calling.
Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.
They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.
The mature save their hothead invective
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.
YEAH. oh, YEAH.
Comment by DarkoV — Thursday 20 December 07 @ 20.50 MST+2.00
When I first saw the Old Bay tin I thought perhaps there was another EMERGENCY!
Comment by gaoo — Thursday 20 December 07 @ 21.50 MST+2.00
Erik: I sent the sgazzettis a 100lb tin of Old Bay. Thank goodness for Costco!
Comment by jane — Friday 21 December 07 @ 05.21 MST+2.00