7 Quick Takes about Two Seasons in One Photo, My Life Philosophy Summed Up by a 4-Year-Old, and Learning the Story Behind the Meme

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

—1—

We've been having such weird weather here. 

First of all, the fall colors have been unusually vivid. I've lived here for 10 years and never really drooled over the changing leaves like I have this year, so either they really are more beautiful or I'm just getting old and things like that are exciting now. I guess both are possible.

Usually all the leaves fall off first due to wind or rain, but this time it randomly snowed on top of them, then started melting to result in weird pictures like this one:

Fall colors on the top, winter white on the bottom.

This weekend it's supposed to be almost 70 degrees.

—2—

How was your Halloween? Our town decided to cancel trick-or-treating (a decision I felt was unnecessary and just mean since trick-or-treating is one of the easiest activities to make low-risk,) but the kids had already finished their costumes and were excited about them, so we put them on, took some pictures, and went for a Halloween walk to look at the decorations in people's yards.

The walk sounded like a fun idea, but to be honest it was actually kind of depressing. 

I usually love the energy out on the streets with all the excited kids on Halloween night, so without it the only thing to be excited about was my 8-year-old's Princess Leia shadow.

Which was pretty cool, by the way. The light source for the shadow was the arc reactor in my 16-year-old's Iron Man costume so I enjoyed that thoroughly.

—3—

After the sad Halloween walk, things got better. We went home and took a jack-o-lantern we'd carved earlier that day, and blew it up.

Well, we didn't exactly blow it up. Phillip filled it with some sort of flammable powder and billed it to the kids as "a pumpkin sparkler."

Lighting the fuse and running away.

The kids were entertained and delighted by the results, and I'm sure Phillip is already thinking about how to make it bigger and better next year.

Not the biggest explosion I've ever seen, but not the smallest one, either.

Then we had a candy hunt in our yard. We taped 300 glow sticks to 300 pieces of candy (put on some music and get the whole family to pitch in, and it's not as bad as it sounds) and I scattered them all over the yard, including the forest immediately surrounding our house.

Apparently glow sticks don't really show up on camera, so you'll just have to believe me when I say the end result was breathtaking. In the pitch dark, glowing neon colors covered the yard. The ones I'd balanced on bushes, the swingset, and tree branches looked like they were floating.

Actually, the kids agreed that the glow-in-the-dark candy hunt was better than regular trick-or-treating (plus, you randomly discover candies for the next few days afterward.) So maybe we'll do it again, even if the town doesn't cancel laughter and general merriment in 2021.

—4—

After putting the kids to bed, Phillip and I watched the first episode of Stranger Things. We've been looking for a show to watch together, and we don't have Netflix but I found the first two seasons on DVD at the library. 

The fact that we started on Halloween night was random coincidence but man, was it appropriate. That show is creepy. 

Nobody tell me what happens, though. I mean it.

—5—

I continue to be surprised at how much my kids love our pet rats. 

My 14-year-old taught Piper to run across the room, climb up her leg, and perch on her shoulder for a treat when she makes a clucking noise. 

Phillip and I call the 8-year-old The Rat Whisperer because she regularly hypnotizes Scout into going to sleep cradled in her arms on its back like a baby.

I just wish all the kids were old enough to know how to be so gentle. Our youngest still needs heavy supervision to make sure he doesn't squeeze or hurt them accidentally, so watching him play with the rats is like handing your toddler a pop-up book from the library. Easily the most nerve-wracking thing you'll do all day.

—6—

I laughed the other day when I overheard my 4-year-old in the next room telling his sibling, "I know everything about life, except I don't."

If I wrote a book, that would most likely be the first line. Most of the pages after that would be blank.

—7—

Lately I've been watching a BuzzFeed Video series called "I Accidentally Became a Meme." 

If you're a social media user, and especially if you go out looking for funny content to share like I do on Unremarkable Files' social media channels, you've seen a handful of super-popular memes (like Bad Luck Brian and Success Kid) a hundred times captioned a hundred different ways. 

This series finds those people in real life and asks them how it happened.

Inexplicably, I showed a few of these videos to Phillip (who goes on social media like twice a year) and he thought they were boring. 

I've since realized it's kind of like when he shows me sports stuff; it's only interesting if you're into that world already and know who people are. Otherwise, why would you care?

 

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