7 Quick Takes about Bug Bites, Strangers on Planes, and More Than I Ever Wanted to Know about Mimes

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

—1—

Well, I returned home from camping for a week with zero bug bites, but the day after I came home one of my kids left some windows open that didn't have screens on them for some reason, and now my legs are covered with itchy welts from mosquitoes. Irony.

—2—

This has been a very busy week. I've unpacked from camp, seen my daughter in a play, gone to church and meetings, grocery shopped, coordinated three teens getting to and from their four different workplaces, worked a shift at the temple, and driven taxi for everyday basketball camp and gymnastics practices, a laboratory blood draw, two dentists and an orthodontist. I'm also gathering school supplies for the younger kids and thinking about the logistics of helping my older two get moved in at college out-of-state in a few weeks.

Right now I'm writing this from the airport because I'm going home for the weekend for a family funeral, so good luck to Phillip at home with the kids. It's a nuthouse there.

—3—

In a lot of ways I feel like an introvert, but I also like to chat with strangers when I'm traveling by myself. So I'm not sure what that makes me.

My Uber driver to the airport was a great conversationalist, and even though she had flawless English she spoke with me in a little slow Spanish when she found that I was learning so I could practice.

The people on either side of me on the plane, however, are less interested in talking. In any language. (They're at least more subtle about it than the lady on my last flight, who literally draped her jacket over her head after she sat down and kept it there the whole time.)

—4—

The gate agent who checked my boarding pass gave me a smile and a heavily-accented, "Okay, Mr. Yennifer" and I think life would be a lot more fun if I could be addressed that way at least occasionally.

—5—

The railing on our front porch was rotting and starting to sag, giving our house a haunted mansion feel that I'm not too fond of.

Phillip was going to replace the old railing, but once he removed it we realized we liked it much better that way and decided to redo the porch floor with no railing.

There are still a few things to finish up, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. Now instead of haunted, our house's new vibe is the-garage-is-full-of-tools-from-a-DIY-project-project-so-we're-all-parking-in-the-driveway. You can't have everything.

—6—

Sometimes on summer nights we'll have what my kids call a "beach dinner." We'll bring paper plates and swimming stuff, and Phillip will grab take-out food on his way home from work and meet us at the lake. After a picnic-style dinner, the kids can swim.

Usually it works pretty well, but this time the 8- and 10-year-old kept leaving their food and wandering over to the playground nearby, and we had to keep calling them back. 

After the tenth time. I asked the 8-year-old, "Have you ever head of the phrase 'herding cats'?"

"No, but I know how to do it."

"How?" I asked. Maybe he had some tips for me.

"Squeeze 'em."

You guys, HE THOUGHT I SAID HURTING CATS.

—7—

To amuse her siblings, the 12-year-old was miming at the dining room doorway like she couldn't get in. Her 10-year-old brother looked confused and then said, "Oh, she's being a French clown."

I laughed but then started wondering: are mimes French? So I Gooogled it and I went down a rabbit hole and that ended with how Marcel Marceau used his miming skills to quietly smuggle Jewish children to safety during WWII.

Which just goes to show you honestly never know where you're going to end up with the Internet.

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