Left of the Dial

a fair pony

I watch The Rose stare at an apple pie for three minutes before I finally say, "Would you like me to--"

"YES," she says, jabbing the pie slicer in my direction. 

I sigh. "You know, of the many disappointing things about my life, having children who suck so bad at cutting pie is definitely most of them." 

The Bean nods in acknowledgment. 

"You know, though," Max says, "It's not like you or Mom are exactly great at it. So, really, it's genetics." 

(The title comes from a recently botched voice to text translation of "a fair point" and has now entered our family's lexicon. 

startle tactics

The Brawn has been on fire recently. In addition to his spelling phase, he's been trying to subtly expand his vocabulary. (One suspects having sisters talking about the patriarchal society paradigm may have something to do with it.) 

So last night he comes back to his room to get dressed, but is surprised to find me already there. He startles visibly. A minute later, as he's pulling on his ninja pajamas, he says casually, unaware of the curare-tipped dart he has just thrown straight into my chest. "You intimidate me, Dad." 

"I do?" 

"Yeah," he says, not seeming terribly intimidated as he tries and fails to throw his socks into the laundry basket. 

He starts riffling through a stack of books until he finds the one he wants (Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil, a book he's been semi-obsessed with for the past week). He climbs into bed and flops his feet down heavily on top of the bedspread. It either sounds or feels satisfying, so he does it again, and then a third time. 

"Intimidate does mean 'scare,' right?" he asks. 

"Yeah, that's sorta what it means, roughly." 

He nods as he opens the book. "You intimidated me when I came in." 

expect the expected

The Brawn is feeling philosophical as he gets ready for bed. 

"People always say to expect the unexpected. But that doesn't make any sense. It's impossible. That's the point. It's like jumping to the moon without clothes."

There's a short pause.

"Well, without shoes."

There's a longer pause as he tries to work through this metaphor.

"Rocket shoes. It's like jumping to the moon without rocket shoes." 

arctic exploration

So it's been unusually cold and unusually rainy this late December. After spending the majority of our lives in places where there's precipitation roughly 25% of the time, Top Management and I adjusted with surprising rapidity to a place where it only rains 8% of the time. So the rain's been good for the growing things, good for keeping the wildfires at bay, not so good for our spirits, given the young people who want to play outside. (Actually, The Brawn and The Golden Weasel love playing with the surprisingly fierce currents that form in the street's gutters when it rains—unlike Connecticut or Denver, the road planners here didn't give a lot of thought to runoff, with the result that ten minutes of rain leads to flooded intersections; fortunately, the flooding's also gone about ten minutes after the rain stops.) 

 

But that unusual rain and unusual cold did have one benefit for us. Which is why, in the early afternoon on Christmas day, we jump in the van and drive east a little under half an hour and then north for about fifteen minutes. About thirty minutes into the drive, the cars coming the other way grab The Brawn's attention.

 

"What is that stuff on those cars?" he asks.

 

We ask what he thought it was.

 

"It looks like foam," he says.

 

We agree it does, but said it wasn't.

 

Another car goes by. He studies it. 

 

"It looks like bubbles," he tries again.

 

Again, we agree, but said it wasn't.

 

He ponders.

 

A minute later, he yells, "Hey, that stuff's on the ground at the side of the road!"

 

We agree that it was.

 

More pondering.

 

Then suddenly he yells, "Hey! That's snow!"

 

Soon after, we get to the entrance of a state park. The park is closed, but that's okay; we pull in to the entrance and park in front of the gate. We get out and The Brawn—and, it turns out, the Golden Weasel—gets to touch snow for the first time he (or she) can remember. Ten seconds later, he throws the first snowball he can remember. Two seconds after that he gets pelted with the second, third and fourth snowball he can remember. It's on. 

 

Top Management, to the shock of absolutely no one, declines to participate, as does The Boy once he is informed that he can't throw snowballs if he's not willing to get thrown at in return. Top Management passes the time trying to identify a nearby woodpecker. One 15 minute snowball fight later, the Brawn and the Weasel have red, wet, burning with cold hands and are more than happy to get back in the car and head home, having utterly mastered the wintery concoction of which they'd heard so much but had no actual memory.

 

My California kids. 

 

 

(Postscript: The Brawn was extremely surprised, he told us on the drive home, that snow didn't look like it does in books: he thought each individual snowflakes would be 10x or more the size, so you could actually see each flake's shape. That had never occurred to me, but of course he did—that really is how it's pictured in most of the books he's read.)

"Ramsy in Blues"

[title because sometimes you just can't improve upon a direct quote]

The Brawn wants to talk. The Brawn pretty much always wants to talk, unless he's absorbed in a video game, and even then, depending upon the game, he's probably more than delighted to keep up a running commentary, whether someone's responding or not. 

But it's currently early and I've explained to him that while I love him dearly and would happily throw myself in front of a stampeding giraffe to save him if needed, that right now, it's imperative that I have my coffee before I'm ready to converse. 

He nods. Given how how he sometimes feels the need to concentrate on a game, he understands...in theory. He's a great kid, he wants to do the right thing, but sometimes when you're a kid—and sometimes even when you're not—your body and/or your brain just has ever so much trouble doing what at least one of them knows is the right thing. 

So he whispers, or more accurately, pseudo-whispers. "d. a. d." 

[The Brawn is big into spelling these days.]

I look up, somewhat grumpily. "Yes?" 

“Can you put on ‘Ramsy in Blues’?”

This is not what I had expected. I assumed a request for something sweet to eat, the kind of thing I pretty much never give him but his mother often does. “What?" 

“Can you put on ‘Ramsy in Blues’?”

I look at him for a while, as my brain tries to boot up and start running its translation program. 

“…'Rhapsody in Blue’?"

“Yeah."

I stare at him for a bit. 

"Or...or is that too loud?" he says softly, his big blue eyes wide open and full of just oodles and boodles of understanding. 

Oh, he's good.  

flamingo, flamango

So we're watching Fantasia 2000. As the credits roll, bits and bobs from the now-finished film flash alongside the numerous names of the animators. Their utterly delightful take on Camille Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals, starring a host of wacky—well, one wacky, and six rather severe—pink flamingos flashes across the screen. 

“Oh!" The Brawn says. "Swans! I love the swans one!”

“Flamingos," corrects the Golden Weasel.

“What?”

“Flamingos. Those were flamingos.”

“Right. That’s what I meant," he says. There's a pause, then he says again, softly, "I love the swans one.”

OFFs

So I'm at the store and I see something that reminds me of a fantastic Christmas present idea I thought of; this is very much not something I normally something I do—either shop for Christmas presents or think in general—so I'm very very pleased. I immediately start to text my great idea to my good lady wife when I remember… Top Management's the one the present is for.

It's possible I need to acquire a second friend.

so true and yet so not true

So I showed The Little Mermaid to the kids the other night. It'd been so long since they'd seen it that not only did The Brawn have no memory of it—not entirely shocking, since when you're not quite eight, you only have, what, three or so years worth of memory? But even The Golden Weasel had no recollection of ever having seen it...although thanks to her sisters, every one of the songs was already known by heart. 

Happiest of all, however, was The Rose. She said along with every song, she forced herself to recite no ore than 75% of the dialogue—and, again, she hadn't seen it in five or six years. And when it came to the line in "Part of Your World" about how "betcha on land they understand, bet they never reprimand their daughters," she (and her fellow girl-offspring) turned around to glare at me. 

But the best part has been in the week since. At least once a day, the Rose'll exclaim, "Daddy, I'm 16—I'm not a child!" 

a whole old world

So The Golden Weasel is feelin' punk. We therefore decide it's an evening of cinnamon toast, gatorade and animated movie. The Rose picks Aladdin and we're off to the races. I marvel at Robin Williams' performance, as always, until we get to the part with Aladdin starts spilling his guts. 

ALADDIN: Well, there's this girl. She's smart and fun and...
GENIE: Pretty?
ALADDIN: Beautiful. She's got these eyes that just...and this hair, wow...and her smile.

"Hey," I say, accurately. "Sounds like he's talking about you mother." 

"Oh!" say the girls appreciatively. 

Then the street rat continues. 

ALADDIN: But she's the princess.

"Never mind," I say. 

"Hey!" the girls object. 

"Do you wanna look at her bank statement? Do you? DO YOU?" I yell back. 

Game, set and match. Unfortunately. 

Still and all...