Friday, March 3, 2017

7 Quick Takes about Classic Cars That Are 7" Long, Nerd Superheroes, and Libraries with a Sense of Humor

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


I'm pleased to announce that this week, I made it to an appointment earlier than I've ever been to anything before.

I was a whole month early.

Let me explain. All kids starting school in the fall come in for a "kindergarten screening" in the spring. My daughter was both nervous and excited for her appointment on Monday.

Unfortunately, if you look at the calendar you'll see the dates and the days of the week in March and February are the same. So I didn't realize until we were actually in the lobby of the building on February 27th that I'd written down the wrong Monday the 27th. Our appointment is in March, so there was nothing to do but turn around and go home feeling super on top of things.

As we left, my daughter asked, "Mom, is it 'kindergarten screening' or 'kindergarten screaming?'"

No wonder she was nervous.

2


My 8-year-old participated in his first Pinewood Derby. If you don't know what that is, it's a yearly Cub Scout thing where the boys make little wooden cars from kits and race them against each other.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Phillip painstakingly weighing and measuring each car to see that the boys followed all the rules.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Each heat of the race only lasted 2 seconds so you had to crowd around and try not to blink so you didn't miss it. 

My son's car was pretty cool-looking but unfortunately it didn't do so well. He and Phillip claim that one of the axles was slightly bent and hampered its performance.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Winner of the "most authentic classic car" award. Love the racing stripe.

In any case, he still had fun and at least he can say he's doing better than the generation that came before him. In his first Pinewood Derby, Phillip's car didn't even make it down the track and he cried on the way home.

3


The Pinewood Derby is a family event, and while I looked forward to being fed dinner I did not anticipate the amount of explaining I'd need to do in advance.

First I had to explain to the little kids what a derby was. Then I had to explain that this derby was called "pinewood" because the cars are made out of wood, probably from a pine tree. Then I had to explain that pine trees aren't where pineapples come from. Then I had to Google pictures of how pineapples actually grow because no one believed me.

I was exhausted and we hadn't even gotten to the derby yet.

4


Rubik's Cubes have become the new cool thing in our elementary school. My son has the classic 3x3 cube you remember from the '70s, but now they also have all kinds of crazy iterations like this:

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Egyptian torture device.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
Least enjoyable way to spend your free time that I can think of.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
I don't even know what I'm looking at.

He's got them all solved except for the evil pentagon and appears to be successfully teaching the other kids to do it.

Occasionally he gets stuck and watches help tutorials on YouTube. In every single one of them, when someone wants you to do a sequence of turns, they say "apply this algorithm."

My 7th grader thinks this is hilarious and now replaces every verb with "apply this algorithm." (i.e: after sweeping the kitchen she goes to put the rug back on the floor and says "Can you move over so I can apply this algorithm?")

5


The last take makes me think of this video. You'll enjoy it if you're a stickler for how people use words, too:



FYI, if you're running out of ways to procrastinate doing your taxes, there are more Captain Literally sketches on YouTube.

6


I know the Oscars already happened, but I have a nominee for the world's worst invention: this sippy cup that explodes on contact with the floor.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
At least there was only water in it.

You know, because kids never throw those things just for the fun of it during lunch.

7


Does your public library ever play cosmic jokes on you? Mine does all the time.

Right now I'm reading a book called The Collapse of Parenting, which I've reserved through inter-library loan three times but it kept getting sent back because I didn't come pick it up. Seems like I should already have a clue why parenting is collapsing if I can't even get it together to make it to the library 4 minutes from my house.

See? Cosmic joke.

Just like last year, when I checked out a book about helping chronically disorganized boys, called That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week. And then I lost the book.

I'm serious, that really happened.


Click to Share:
Unremarkable Files

27 comments:

Kathleen said...

HAte the sippy cups that stink... They are the worst!

Claire | Life Love & Dirty Dishes said...

I think the universe is against you borrowing books from the library! Thanks for linking up to #FridayFrolics

Beth (Coffee Until Cocktails) said...

Seriously those type of sippy cups should be outlawed! Have you tried the Tupperware ones? I swear the tops are so hard to put on them that once they're on they are never coming off! And too funny about the February/March mix up, that is totally something I would do!
Beth
http://www.thebethnextdoor.com

Rosie said...

I hate hate hate when my books get returned because I can't pick them up in time!!! Our old library gave us a week, but the new one? THREE DAYS. Not cool.

me said...

There's really a book called "the crumpled Paper that was due last week? Where was it when my one boy hit junior high! I will add to my infinite list of holds at the library today. I have a few more boys coming up, and some of my other girls aren't that organized either. Thanks for this tip!
And most sippy cups are useless, which is why most of my kids just went to cups. At least then you expect the spills and are suitably prepared for disaster.

Beth Cotell (A Mom's Life) said...

I could have used those Rubik's Cube tutorials back in the day! We even had the one shaped like the pyramid!

Oh, the Pinewood Derby!! My son actually WON one year. That was a thrill. The local Lowe's Home Improvement store had a test track set up several weeks before all the different derbies so you could go for some test runs. Peter's car beat everyone on those test runs so I knew he was going to do well at his troop's derby. Happy Weekend!

Jenny Evans said...

Those crazy cub scouts (and more accurately, their dads) get pretty into the Pinewood Derby. Congratulations to your son! We can only go up from here.

And I thought the pyramid Rubik's Cube was a new thing! Who knew?

As my son has been watching these tutorials, I can just imagine the feeling of injustice to all the people who worked so hard to figure it out on their own and now every little 8-year-old can just go find a tutorial online and learn how to solve it in a day!

Jenny Evans said...

It was a decent read, but I felt like it would've been better as a pamphlet than an entire book.

Jenny Evans said...

That one is going right in the trash. I like the ones where the lids screw on!

Jenny Evans said...

Ours is a week, I think. I would never make it in three days. It takes me three days just to get everyone's shoes on and get us in the car!

Jen @ Into Your Will said...

Libraries should totally have a delivery option. I would pay for that!

Ann-Marie Ulczynski said...

You totally get credit for being a month early!

AnneMarie said...

I only just turned the page in our calendar yesterday, because I hadn't noticed-until then-that the dates match! Thankfully, it will be different in April :)

Lux G. said...

Kindergarten screaming sounds about right. Normal, I guess. Haha.
Hey, those Rubik's cubes are amazing. I've never seen these ones. Cool!

Jenny Evans said...

Obviously I did not realize that, either!

Island Living 365 said...

Ahhh the library is always conspiring against me like that too! Then I can never find the books to return them and end up with more fines! #FridayFrolics

Michelle said...

I am so glad you introduced us to Captain Literally! I will be referring a lot of people to those videos whenever they annoy me.

Jenny Evans said...

Just carry around some business cards with the URL to hand out when they misuse the word. People like that.

Moira said...

Jenny,
Fun Quick Takes! I didn't realize you were on twitter... I'm going to follow you for sure -- and congrats on last weeks funniest parent on twitter award -- or whatever the official title was.

Jenny Evans said...

I'm not nearly as active on Twitter as I am on Facebook, but yes! Follow me!

PurpleSlob said...

Jenny, ALL rubik's cubes are evil! How in the Sam Hill can u solve one that's all the same color?????

AiringMyLaundry said...

I remember those sippy cup throwing days. My daughter will probably want one of those Rubik's Cubes.

Rachel said...

We did some Pinewood Derbies when I was a kid. I won "Prettiest Car" because mine was painted to look like a lovely landscape. And no, I was not at all worried about paltry things like speed...
I'm not really sure what we did a Pinewood Derby with because obviously it wasn't Cub Scouts...

Jenny Evans said...

My daughter would LOVE to do a Pinewood Derby... I think some years I've seen them do a heat at the end that's open to anyone, not just cub scouts.

Mary said...

I was exhausted reading about the pre-pinewood derby fiasco!
And, who thinks up the "new and improved" spins on things we could never figure out anyway? (At least I couldn't ever figure out the cube!) Are kids today that much smarter than we were??? :D

Unknown said...

Haha - that is impressively early! I often get confused by that correlation of dates to days of the week through February and March too (I think it is true every year that isn't a leap year?)!

Thanks so much for joining us on #FridayFrolics

Jenny Evans said...

You are apparently much smarter than me, since I'm 34 years old and have just now realized that.