Friday, July 20, 2018

7 Quick Takes about Interesting Dog Breeds, Why I Didn't Major in Philosophy, and Summer Mode

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

1


I've been dying to take this boat tour near us where you learn all kinds of history and go through a canal lock and everything. After 4 or 5 years, I finally got it together and our family went this week!

It was a complete disaster.

It was supposed to be a 2-hour tour but the weather was turning stormy so they cut the tour short. I'm not exaggerating when I say the driver was booking it home just seconds ahead of some seriously ominous-looking thunderclouds. It started pouring rain just as we docked and boarded the trolley back to the visitor's center.

Then the driver slipped and fell on the wet ground and hurt his knee, so we all huddled there drenched with the rain blowing in until the ambulance came, listening to periodic thunder and the tour guide telling us to "stay inside the trolley and don't touch anything metal."

It was not exactly what I'd envisioned when I paid for the tickets. But at least it's a tour the kids will never forget.

2


While driving, I pulled up behind a car with a bumper sticker shaped like a dog bone that said "I ♥ My Morkie."

Pointing to the sticker, I asked my 14-year-old daughter in the passenger seat, "What do you think a 'Morkie' is a cross between?"

"Probably a monkey and an orca," she answered.

I had to ask.

3


I don't think I have the patience for philosophy. I took a course in college and while I liked it, thinking about it too hard made me want to run from the room screaming "IT'S ALL SEMANTICS! THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER!!!"

My 12-year-old, however, must not feel that way because she thinks about this kind of mind-bending stuff for fun. She randomly approached me and said, "If you're on the Internet and you read the statement 'Don't believe everything you read online,' there's no way to follow or not follow it."

Because if you believe that statement then you're not following it, but if you don't believe it then you're not following it either... except that you also are.

At that point I felt my brain turning into cotton candy and had to go change a poopy diaper just to bring myself back to reality.

4


I'm not sure what I did in my sleep to mess up my neck so badly, but I woke up one morning and could barely move. I shuffled into the living room, got a heating pad, and was lying corpse-like with it on the couch when Phillip limped in the front door.

He explained that he'd been out running and twisted his ankle, then grabbed a bag of frozen peas and retired to the bedroom to ice it.

As I contemplated the two of us lying down in our separate invalid states, it hit me: we're adults now. And getting old sucks.

5


My 2-year-old is allergic to mosquito bites. What is just an itchy annoyance for most people is, for him, a hard red golf-ball sized lump that sticks around for weeks. If it's anywhere near his eye, it swells up so big he can't even open it the next day.

So I think you'll understand if I'm kind of a psycho about putting bug spray on him every time he goes outside. If I'm not, he comes back in looking like the Elephant Man.

Apparently he's been watching and learning from my hysteria because when we were watching a movie in the basement and he heard a mosquito buzzing around, he ran to my side shrieking "Buggy bites!!!"

I was glad because then I tracked down the little sucker and killed it, but it also made me feel like the behavioral psychologist who did that unethical Little Albert experiment in the '20s.

6


This is a very busy time for Phillip, and aside from the day he took off for the disastrous boat tour, we haven't been seeing a whole lot of him.

He's been on three business trips this month, and he also has a new calling at church. (Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints don't have paid clergy at the local level, just rank-and-file people like ourselves who are asked to fill different church positions at different times in our lives.) Phillip was just called to be a counselor to the bishop, who is the leader of our congregation, and he's been pretty busy.

Which means I should probably get out the ladder, climb up to the eaves of the house, and spray that wasp's nest the size of my head, because who knows when he'll next have time to do that?

Many callings require sacrifices of time, and I'm alright with that. Intense callings at church mean you increase your reliance on the Lord out of necessity, and while it's not something we would've gone out and asked for, I think this calling is going to be a great thing for him and our family.

7


Our kids' last day of school wasn't until late June, and then we were on vacation from then until the 4th of July — so here it is, mid-July, and we've only been in Summer Mode for 2 weeks. 

But the other day I went in the dollar store for some goggles the kids will surely lose within 10 minutes (which is why I buy them at the dollar store) and spied an endcap of school supplies. Then the cross-country team had their first group run of the season. Nooooo! I'm not ready. Not at all.

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?  {posted @ Unremarkable Files}
This is all I want to think about right now.

Yesterday, I ate Cheetos on the beach, people. The thought of signing reading logs again makes me want to yack.

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11 comments:

Diana Dye said...

Will you explain why your school year ended so late? Make-up snow days? Or are you now starting in October?

Unknown said...

I'm sorry to hear about the boat tour being cut short, but at least it was memorable! I also find it really interesting to hear about the school year in different parts of the country. When I lived in Upstate New York as a kid, school never started until after Labor Day and it always ended sometime in June. When I moved to Kansas, I was shocked that school started so "early"-in the middle of August! And here in Oklahoma City, it's all over the place-the OKC public schools follow a year-round model, so they start right at the beginning of August, but some of the other school districts in the metro don't follow a year-round model so they start a couple weeks later. The whole thing is just really hard to keep track of sometimes.

me said...

Your twelve year old understand the misuse of a universal quantifier! Congratulate her for her sound reasoning! As a math and logic teacher, that brings me such joy. If you really want to know why it's a paradoxical statement, I'd be happy to explain! (I've been on vacation for 2 months now and miss my classes!)
In the Midwest, my kids have been out of school for that long - we're all a little tired of the summer fun. Out of desperation, I had the little boys get their school supply lists and organize all the things! I do miss my New England roots of going to school after Labor Day. August can still be so hot that the public school lets the kids out an hour early every day in August as a matter of routine.
I hope you have some lovely days ahead!

Unknown said...

There are many things I miss about having 7 kids around the house. I choose to remember the joyful parts. One thing I don't miss in the least is back to school. The last time I did it was in 07 and it wad only the slightest thing with one senior. But when I go into Wal-Mart in July and see the displays I just shudder all over.

Rosie said...

I don't know why nobody has tried a monkey-orca mix yet. Seems brilliant!

annieduerlinger said...

We didn’t start summer until July 8 and have exactly two months off. We live in Austria 🇦🇹

Jenny Evans said...

I would buy one. Depending on how big it was and it we had a place to keep it.

Jenny Evans said...

This year my oldest is going into high school and they don't have a supply list, which I kind of love but I also am nervous about her staying organized. We'll see how it goes. Regardless, I'm planning on buying everything online this year and living a better life.

Jenny Evans said...

It's pretty variable. Which is weird! I was just thinking yesterday how SAD I was that summer is coming to an end. It feels like it just started! I wish our school district gave us 3 months of summer instead of just 2 and a few days.

Jenny Evans said...

Ugh, going back to school in August has got to be rough. Where in the Midwest do you live? I grew up in MN and I don't remember ever starting before September.

Jenny Evans said...

No idea. In New England we have a random week-long break in February. We also get many of the Jewish holidays off as well as the national holidays. Plus a week of make-up snow days. It also seems like we have a lot of half-days, but maybe it's not that unusual. We usually have at least 2 per month and also a half-day before our last day before a holiday.