Last night at our house it was TV held hostage -- by Spongebob Squarepants. What a relief. I spent several glorious hours with Jess, Geoff and Geoff's sleepover buddy K watching and laughing. Doug spent the evening online, monitoring the news and reading blogs.
And, if you haven't seen it already, this is excruciatingly amusing. Ready.gov is a website put together by the turds over at the Homeland Security office, and it outlines all the wonderful things you should know and have memorized in case you're attacked or see some anthrax in piles on the street. This wonderful Ready.gov parody cracked my shit up to no damn end when someone mailed it to me, and Doug found it in web-form on someone's site the other day. I wanted to take the email that was sent to me and format it in html and slap it up, but someone beat me to it. So enjoy and have a good laugh. The one that knocked my socks off was the one cautioning people not to offer anal sex to terrorists. Good thing I didn't have a mouthful of coffee, or the Gateway 17" monitor'd be covered with the morning happiness.
Remember -- in light of all that is negative, I'm all about havin' the good laugh. I have said here once or twice that I've been called "flip" by a former manager for crackin' wise during times of stress, and that if I were on a plane that was on its way down, I'd say a quick prayer and then start singing Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life." I'm just that way.
Leigh wrote her response in her journal. As for me quoting her without permission -- bleurgh. She loves me, I love her, and blogging's all about community. And her quoting herself shows her that I'm paying attention to what she says (grin) and we should all be doing that. Keeps the truth flowing. Here's from Leighish:
"Christine has come out for the war: but not for the war broadcast in Wal-Mart, which I completely agree with - when you are surrounded by the guilty American pleasure of buying merchandise possibly made via slave labor but OH! it's so cheap! - one hardly needs the added anxiety the broadcast of a war brings. Really, whose idea was that, in all seriousness? I'm glad Christine made her displeasure known, and hope they wise up. Now, in her daily entry, I am listed with the "against the war" crowd, which is not untrue, because I most certainly said:
""at this point in time, I am against it"
"However, I wrote that before war was declared / waged / begun / commenced. I still believe that the policies and attitudes (if you will) that the Bush administration have used to enter into this conflict are ill-advised. However, that said, now we are engaged in active combat with Iraq.
"So...in my opinion, the best recourse is not to suddenly change our minds and look like we made a mistake going in there, but to act decisively and swiftly and kick butt - and in this manner the Bush administration may just salvage its arrogant ass by proving itself right, so to speak. I would love to see Saddam out of power. A small part of me has hoped over the past 12 years that he'd get an intestinal blockage or coronary disease or pulmonary embolism and nature would take of this person. But it has not happened. I'm not convinced it's our place to oust him, but since we're there we may as well follow through. I'll pray for the best.
"Sounds kind of stupid when I read it, but there you have it."
Doesn't sound stupid at all. I think that a lot of people who were conscribed to fight the war in the first place are now simply praying/wishing for it to be over with fast, and with as little mess as possible. Praying for the best. And baby, I'm right there with.
I have kept some TV on when the kids aren't interested to see what is going on, especially as night falls in Iraq. When it's night here and day there, well, there isn't much to talk about. And when it's morning here and late afternoon there, all they do is hash over what happened 12 hours before. The incessant coverage is not necessary. Not at all.
Best coverage I've seen though is on MTV. Believe it or not. Very interesting. They had lots of interviews with artists from both sides of the fence. They did a big "so how did we end up in this position in the first place" piece which was very good and very clear. All told, best coverage ever. And to think I thought MTV was only interested in showing me Christina Aguilera's belly.
Carson Daly made some interesting comments about the incessant coverage. To him it was amazing that this was on tv all day every day... and I can't quote him directly but he said that this was the first time in his life he'd ever seen anything like this, the constant and instant accessibility to information and images.
I thought, "Dude, where were you in 1991? Doug and I sat in front of the TV on our unemployed college graduate asses for HOURS at Jon Bishop's house watching CNN and yelling at what was going on!" Then it dawned on me... Carson was probably in like fourth grade and mommy didn't let him watch. Or something. Forget about Gideon Yago. He was probably in friggin' pull ups in 1991.
Okay. No more about the war today. Today I regale you with tales of Geoff's friend sleeping over.
K got dropped off by his mom at about 6pm last night. He loved our house, loved Geoff's room, loved Jessica's room and was fascinated by the fact there's a door to the outside world in her bedroom because it used to be Clay's living room and we've not gotten around to changing it. Probably will before the rebellious teen years set in.
Jessie played the hostess, she taught K how to play Uno, and he liked it a lot. I made dinner and she kept them entertained. She cleaned up and made coke floats for us all and we settled in to Spongebob-o-rama. K was deathly afraid of Jackiedog, so we had to keep close tabs on him. If Jack so much as rubbed against him, he'd panic... so an adult had to be around at all times. K loved Kinger. Kinger just lounges around and lets you pet him. No jumping, no nipping, no nail scratching... he's a great dog to have around shorties.
Geoff started to fade fast at about 8:30. That is pretty darn late for him as he usually puts himself to sleep without us knowing at 6:30 - 7pm. Daylight savings time should prove interesting. Anyway -- K was still wide awake but his mom told me that he couldn't stay up past 9 because he'd be a bear all day today. I built them a tent using our dining table chairs and an old bed sheet. The boys argued quite a bit about leaving the light on. K was nervous and wanted it on, Geoff hates lights on when he's trying to sleep, but I told him he'd be asleep in two seconds if he just closed his eyes and ignored it. I was right.
A couple of times during the night K woke up whimpering... not because he was scared, but Geoff the sleeps-like-a-corpse kinda guy was touching him. His arm was touching K's arm, or his knee was bent too closely. So K kept kind of whining for him to move over...
I went in at 1am and asked K if he wanted to move up on the bed so no one could touch him. His answer was no. I guess it's preferable to be annoyed all night and sleep in a cool tent with your bestest friend than to ... sleep alone.
Geoff will sleep anywhere with anyone. He's a contact comfort kind of creature. He is like a puppy, a hamster. He loves to curl up with. He won't kiss me good night, but he sure loves to snuggle up into me while watching TV or visit me in bed for a reassuring cuddle. I talked to K's mom this morning and she told me K doesn't care for physical contact of any sort. He likes a hug goodbye, a kiss on the forehead at night before sleep, but for the most part -- hands off.
Kids are funny.
| Doug took them to the park so they could run some Ya-Yas out and so Jessie could visit the library. We had lunch and then I took K home. We also fed the ducks and the swan across the street in our pond. I'll leave you with these images today... in a world where there are too many pictures of 18 year olds aiming rifles and buildings burning, I'm happy to give you these. Enjoy. |  |
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