Crazy Crap #262: The part where I never thought about it that way

It's Memorial Day Weekend. On Norwood Street, this is a holiday replete with neighborly interactions. Being, as I am, a roller derby widow, I found myself the recipient of much fine hospitality.

While I could expatiate upon the bench-side snacks provided by Megan on Friday afternoon, or the delicious backyard barbecue hosted by the Harris-Wattses, for the purposes of this blog, I will pause only on the impromptu offer of a spare-rib dinner by my dear neighbors, the Caseys.

The dinner, itself, was delightful, garnished as it was by Jim's homemade, ketchup-free barbecue sauce and Jack's many witticisms. But a standout of the evening was a small performance by James, age 5.

In a particularly wriggly mood--and who wouldn't be, with such a scintillating guest as myself present--James enacted some very strange writhings and facial spasms that caught my attention.

Fortified by several glasses of the Caseys' excellent red wine, I said the first thing that came into my head.

"Are you favoring us with your Elephant Man impression?"

In the sober light of day, I realize this is not the question you ask of a 5-year-old, or his precocious 8-year-old brother, who will demand an explanation.

Thankfully, Ann leapt into the breach, describing the disease Elephantiasis and all its accompanying horrors. Naturally I feared the inevitable follow-up, queries about the likelihood of contracting this disease.

As it turns out, this should not have troubled me.

Upon hearing the explanation, James leapt onto his seat, stood with legs apart, fists on hips, and announced, "Never fear, Elephant Man is here!"

Then there was some booty shaking, but I think that has more to do with James himself than the pachyderm superhero he was portraying.

Crazy Crap #261: The part where Jack stumbles on a bit of wisdom

The boys of Norwood are squirrel hunting. In my backyard. This explains the sticks and rocks that have mysteriously appeared on my garage roof in the past few weeks.

This evening, a flash of white caught my eye as I passed our backyard-facing windows. Young Jack Casey was building a trap. Well, not really a trap, he explained. He had set some bird seed in a small fragment of flower pot, directly beneath a very large and heavy board held up by a stick. A rope was tied to the stick. You do the math.

As we discussed the efficacy of this engine, Jack lit upon a new topic.

"Do lots of people get bitten by squirrels?"

"I don't know if lots do, but some do."

"Have you ever been bitten by a squirrel?"

"No, but I stay away from them. "

"Do people ever touch squirrels?"

"I'm sure they do. Jon Hey does," I noted, referring to our neighbor who is notorious for hand-feeding his squirrels, and, occasionally, inviting them into his house. "But I don't. They're germy."

"So is Jon Hey germy?"

"If he touches squirrels, I guess he is."

"So I shouldn't touch Jon Hey?"

"In general, no."

Thus from the mouth of babes.

Crazy Crap #260: The part where Jack suckers me in

There are three things you need to know about Jack Casey. He is 8 years old. His favorite show is Bear Grylls' Man vs. Wild. (Incidentally, he does a remarkably adept Bear Grylls impersonation). He has taken the Dangerous Book for Boys as his own personal Bible.

And so it was that this past weekend, when we held a block party in honor of his and neighbor Emmet Calto's first communion, Jack came to me with not-entirely-unexpected request.

"You need to help me make a knife. I have the instructions. It's for survival."

In previous years, I might have jumped in without looking on this one. A knife? Let us proceed. But five years of watching the small ones of Norwood fall from trees, collide on scooters, and endanger each others' safety--sometimes with my unwitting encouragement--has led me to be a bit more discriminating in my indulgences.

So it was that I took the tactic of delay and indirection.

"How would I know how to make a knife?" I asked.

"I have instructions." Jack laid the aptly titled Dangerous Book open on the grass. "It's for survival."

I indicated that I could not participate in the construction of any knife without the sign-off of his mother. Disaster averted.

Or so I thought. Ann's response, "Sure, if Kay's helping you, you can make a knife."

This was unexpected.

So now, I had to make a knife. We examined the two proffered designs. The first, carved entirely from wood, made entirely no sense to me. "Why," I asked Jack, "would they give you directions for an improvised knife that required you to have a knife so that you could carve an improvised knife?"

Jack, skilled logician that he is, immediately grasped the paradox and agreed to follow the other design. All we needed, he pointed out, was something sharp, such as a sharp piece of metal, or a sharp piece of glass. Sighting an empty beer bottle (this was, after all, a block party), he posited that we could simply break the bottle.

"We are not breaking the bottle," I assured him, and steered him to the safer option of searching my rotting, tumble-down, rat-invested garage, now with Emmett in tow.

This promising setting offered surprisingly little fodder for knife building, so I offered that locus of all bounty, my basement. A search of said environ yielded a tile, which I broke into a small piece, and a very promising fragment of plaster which had chipped, presumably, off the wall. Emmett located a paperclip, and suggested it would make a good handle. I gently dissuaded him, as his suggestion in reality, made absolutely no sense. We gathered a few stick-like items, thinking one might serve as a handle, and nice length of rope. Grabbing a roll of electrical tape for good measure, I ushered them outdoors for construction.

At this point, we realized none of our handle options were workable, and the boys scavenged for better options. At last, Emmett brought forth the most wondrous of items--a stick of sturdy diameter and length, cunningly split by the elements at one end. I felt he had redeemed himself from the embarrassment of the earlier paperclip suggestion.

I took Jack's hunk of plaster, wedged it into the split, then wrapped the end of the stick with black tape. Emmett and Jack were duly pleased.

Jack took it from me with a palpable sense of awe, brandished it, then announced, "Let's go attack the princesses!"

"I thought this was only for survival." But I said this only to the back of his head as he skipped merrily and murderously away.

Crazy Crap #259: The part where Nolan is open to suggestions

The boys of Norwood are dinosaur-mad. "Dinos," they call them.

I try to support this craze by purchasing every tiny, inexpensive twelve-pack of dinosaur toys I can find.

Recently, wee Nolan, but three years old, was displaying to me many of the dinos he had purloined from my toy basket. I asked their names, as is my wont. To my surprise, rather than loudly asserting that animals have no names, and telling me "You're driving me crazy," as is his wont, instead, he pointed to each in turn.

"This is Ducky, Ducky, Ducky, Ducky and Ducky."

I suggested that Cocoa is also a good name.

He pointed again. "This is Ducky, Ducky, Ducky, Ducky, and Cocoa."

Crazy Crap #258: The part where April is peeping out all over

Those who have been reading my updates for at least a year know that here on Norwood, we have a hallowed springtime tradition. The Peeps Party. Long has it lived in the lore of the block since last year, when I held the first such event.

It's brilliant in its cunning simplicity:

- I buy a bunch of Peeps.
- I amass a bunch of craft supplies.
- I collect all my shoe boxes.
- I Scotchguard my entire house.
- I invite small children and others over to my house to create dioramas of their own design employing marshmallow peeps.
- Eamon looks gaily on.

And so it was that we held the Second Annual Peeps Party on April 17. We had planned to hold said event in the dining room, where it convened last year. But as the day dawned full and fair, we realized that with a few borrowed tables, we could move the festivities out into the back yard, where the children could bask in the early springtime sunshine, and I could avoid countless hours of sweeping up glitter and scraping adhesive-backed googly eyes off my hardwood floors.

In the now-vacated dining room, we set up snacks of all description, a large basin of wine bottles, and other assorted refreshments.

And thus it was that the day fulfilled the glory of celebrations past. The highlights:
- Somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 kids, with attached parents, descended up our yard for a whirlwind of creative outpouring.
- Neighbor Jim Casey helped feed the masses by bringing over an unsolicited roast, fresh of the grill. Delicious!
- We saw an array of themes in this year's displays, with an emphasis on:
* dinosaurs
* violence
* free-form

We were all tickled by a number of creative and accomplished displays, including the darling Peeps-aria pizza parlor, a peeps garden, a particularly bloody rendition of Robin Hood, a lifelike rendition of activism and civil disobedience, a bleak and heart-rending portrayal of the Civil War, a shooting gallery, and Eamon's cunning re-creation of our favorite karaoke bar, the Bong Ho.

Check all the glorious photos!

Festivities wrapped up around 6:30pm or so, and a small merry band retired to the Harris-Watts benches to bask in the glow of a firepit. For me, the spirit was willing for more festivities, but the body was weak, so I crashed in front an interminable "House" marathon until I lost myself in sleep's comforting embrace.

Excelsior Peeps!