Crazy Crap #256: Where Sailor Jack is amusing in the middle of the night

A few days ago, I checked my email first thing in the morning to find missive from my dad, sent at 3:30am. Apparently, rambling emails to one's daughter are a new insomnia cure-all. The last paragraph amused me mightily:

The Pfost's Grandson, Matthew, is marrying next month and much of the energy is directed along those lines. It will be take place in a winery in Temecula. Not even a Catholic winery!

Crazy Crap #255: The part where Ann cracks wise

Today, I emerged from my den of thesauri and style guides into the bright sunshine. My legs needed a good stretching, and the bathroom needed a variety of supplies, which I figured I could obtain at the CVS.

Upon striking out into the great outdoors, I came upon James and Ann, who were just embarking on their daily walk/scooter to school. I offered to accompany them as school was right on my way to the drug store.

As we wandered, Ann brought up the topic of the signing of the health bill (huzzah), and we rambled onto the topic of how insanely immature and vengeful several members of our government had been in their opposition to said bill, and anything else that didn't square with their personal ideologies.

I ventured the opinion that such people were more invested in acting out with great disregard for personal restraint than they were in their actual dogmas, and theorized that they were actually drawn to dogmas that encouraged and validated such immature outbursts.

Ann had a better theory.

"I think it's because the World Wrestling Federation doesn't have enough openings."

Touche.

Crazy Crap #254: The part where Nolan makes his feelings known

Last friday, I had the pleasure of attending a neighborhood shindig at the house of Megan, she who gets thirsty. The party was in honor of the traitorous O'Connors, who some years ago moved away from this sylvan paradise of Norwood to the barren outlyings of the Milwaukee suburbs. We mourn them to this day.

So it was we gathered for pizza, snackings, cocktails, and sips from the half-keg of Sprecher's rootbeer (the last thoughtfully provided by the traitorous O'Connors, straight from their new home town).

When not entertaining myself with grown-up chit-chat, I, of course, amused myself with the teasing of small children. Thus it was that Nolan, age 3, and I were were having jolly good times in the family nook. After some cavorting, Nolan took my hand, and told me, quite earnestly, that he wanted to take me somewhere.

"To funky town?" I asked. "Are you taking me to funky town?" Then, of course, I had to sing. "Won't you take me to ... FUNKY TOWN????
Won't you take me to ... FUNKY TOWN????"

Ann Casey, Nolan's mom Mimi, and others joined in, singing us out as Nolan dragged me down to the basement. There, all the other children were sitting slackjawed, watching cartoons on an enormous television.

I stood, awkwardly, for a few minutes, then thought, "Nuts to this, I have a cocktail upstairs," and started to edge toward the door.

This movement caught Nolan's eye, who adjured me:

"Kay! You can't leave funky town!!!!"

Indeed, you can't.

Crazy Crap #253: The part where I hope James is not misconstrued

So last night, as Jack was undertaking his first reconciliation, James repaired to my house for an evening of cookie-baking and general mayhem. As part of the night's entertainment, I showed him my brand-new Weight Watchers pedometer, and we spent a good amoutn of time testing exactly how good a job it did counting my steps.

Today, I received this missive from Ann, alluding to our evening of fun:

This morning I was getting the boys ready for school. Jack was complaining of being tired and James was saying he wasn't tired at all. I explained that Jack had a big night out while James relaxed and watched cartoons at your house.

James said "I didn't just relax, I walked all over and kept checking the temperature" I was totally confused by this and asked him "what temperature" and he said "the one on Kay's pants."

That is not what one wants to hear about one's babysitter.

Crazy Crap #252: The part where Jack prepares to cleanse his soul

Jack Casey, believe it or not, has reached the mature age of 8, and thusly has faced the first of many Roman Catholic sacraments, Reconciliation--also known as the scariest of the sacraments.

In preparation for this holiest of events, Ann revealed that Jack had attempted to codify and quantify his sinfulness. She came across a table he had constructed, the left-hand column labeled as "Sins I have done," and the right-hand column labeled as "Number of times." Ann noted that he had nothing written in the left-hand column, but had included a number of mysterious hash-marks in the right-hand column. Apparently, he wants his sins tallied, but not recorded.

Crazy Crap #251: The part where Jack offers sage insights into sibling relations

I was just about to hunker down and start work on a new project when I was lured outside by the siren song of hockey sticks hitting frozen bricks. The young Caseys, Jack and James, were imitating recent Olympic glory on the brick expanse in their backyard. While I in no way wish to foster any such violent, ER-tending activities, it was quite an amusing spectacle, and required further investigation on my part.

I introduced my coming by demanding to know why they were not in school, and whether they were playing hookey. Strep throat was the culprit, Jack informed me. Inquiries about his current state of pain ("Does it hurt?") received a negatory ("Not right now.")

I watched their rather lop-sided matches, all the while interjecting questions, comments and topics for discussion, such as:

- the fact it was their mother's birthday
- my new haircut, which neither had noticed. Indeed, neither could recall my previous waist-length hair when questioned. I let the matter drop.
- a comparison of our varying levels of involvement in watching the Olympics (theirs extreme; mine minimal)
- a demonstration of a new game, in which Jack blows a designated number of toots on a whistle, which signal to James a series a commands: come here, go away, freeze, etc. When Jack had finally added enough commands to have a 5-toot sequence, I queried how far this system could actually go. To wit, "28 toots mean make me a sandwich." "32 toots mean do my laundry." I pointed out that this way madness lies.
- a series of questions regarding the climate surrounding the Grand Canyon, and whether one could wear shorts in the canyon in the middle of summer.
- a recounting of highlights from a program featuring survivalist Bear Grylls, and estimations of the height of a railway bridge that had in some way threatened his life (anywhere from 25 feet high to 1 million 80 one hundred feet [James' estimate]).
- a concern registered that the very large stick James was wielding was going to poke Kay's eye out, and a suggestion by Jack that if such a tragedy should befall, Kay could always go to the "body shop." A clever witticism.
- a follow-up discussion about colored contacts and the fact that some people have two different-colored eyes.

Eventually, our discussion wound back around to Jack's health, and how he had spent his weekend. It was noted that while Jack had hunkered down with his dad--watching videos, enjoying warm baths, observing the preparation of Italian delicacies by his dad and uncle--James had attended a birthday party and gone to an open gym.

We noted that James attends birthdays nearly every weekend, and I observed that his friends did seem to keep getting older, and that he should look into that.

At this point, Jack volunteered that James had actually gone to the gym at Jack's suggestion. "Sometimes," he noted, "You like to have time by yourself, to spend some time with one of your parents all by yourself."

Cherish these days, Caseys. Soon, there will be nothing but hormones, sass, and angst.