Overheard at Gramma and Poppa's

Hubby: Gracious goodness.

Large Fry: Goodness gracious.

Hubby: Gracious goodness.

Large (mildly annoyed): Goodness gracious!

Hubby: Gracious goodness.

Large (irritated): It's "Goodness gracious"! Stop arguing!

Medium Fry: Gracious goodness.

Hubby: [laughing uproariously]

I am not a fan...

Normally, I hate reality tv. I really loathe the music competition shows. I spent two years in a semi-professional a cappella college choir. I know music. I can't stand hearing terrible musicians just for the sake of ratings. During my accident recuperation four years ago, I suffered through more than enough episodes of American Idol to last me a lifetime. (Sorry, Dad. I still don't like it.)

Hubby, however, loves watching the clips from shows like America's Got Talent and Britain's Got Talent and other shows like them.

Mitzy came over tonight, intending to do some housecleaning for us, but decided that she'd worked long enough today and we sat and watched tv together while I finished up an editing job and she just relaxed. (It's nice when you have friends you can just be with, without having to constantly talk, but I digress.) After Mitzy left, I popped in to see Hubby, who was in the den, before going back up to the living room to check in with another client.

He said, "You've got to see this."

I knelt on the floor next to the couch and watched as he started this clip.

"Do they suck? Please tell me they don't suck."

"Just watch."

I'm telling you the same thing.

Just watch.




Curious how this all got started?

Check this out:




Yeah.

Quote of the Morning

Overheard while I was finishing getting ready for church and the Fries were all down in the kitchen:

"I'm gonna tell Mama on you forever!" ~Small Fry, to Large Fry

Tattling, after all, is an Olympic sport in this house.

All three are medalists. 

Dickens' Days

Don't ask me what Dickens' Days is. Are. Something.

I have yet to find out. Too much else has been going on.

What I do know is that today is our little burg's Dickens Days' parade.

The PTO at the Fries' elementary school decided to do a float for the parade, and invited all the students who won "Character Counts" awards in September and October to participate and ride on the float.

Medium won in her class in October.

The theme is "A Charlie Brown Christmas," so they want the students to dress warmly and wear winter gear.

Now, I just so happened to purchase these little guys during my last foray to Kohl's. They were going to be Christmas presents for the Fries.

Given the float's theme...Christmas is coming a bit early, and they'll get these tonight, so that Medium and Woodstock can ride on the float together.

Update: Dickens' Days apparently kick off our holiday season here, and includes the town tree-lighting.

Explanations by Small Fry

"Mommy? Did you know that this—" Small waved her partially-eaten apple at me, "—has apple juice in it?"

I'm trying to read the last part of the book for my ladies' study group tonight.  "Mm-hmm."

"That means we're eating something that already has the drink in it! We're eating our drink!"

Quote of the Night

"That's the strangest version of 'Hey, Jude' I think I've ever heard." ~Hubby

This, ladies and gents, is what our esteemed Light Classical Music Choice channel deems as "light classical":

Oh, yes. They have a whole album. And you can hear this acoustical delight for yourselves.




Enjoy.

Incidentally, Beatles-covering cellists were followed by this:

And I thought Buddy Greene playing the "William Tell Overture" on the harmonica was impressive.




The whole thing is worth a listen, but "William Tell" starts at about 2:35.

Overheard

Small [laying on Hubby]: I wuv you.

Hubby: You wuv me, huh?

Small: I wuv you. L-o-v-e. Wuv.

Agog

Hubby is doing the 30-Hour Famine with the youth group teens, so it's just me and the Fries today.

I decided we'd have a movie/jammie day, and Large Fry was magnanimous enough to let me pick the first movie.

No one in my family will be surprised when I tell you I chose White Christmas. I love that movie, and it's been cold, and a few flurries here and there, and I love snow, and I love that movie, and...well, I really don't need a reason to pick it.

We're at the very end now, where Bob Wallace and Phil Davis are back in uniform again for the opening salute to Gen. Tom Waverly. They've just rushed back up on stage and are singing, "Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army."

Small Fry: Is that person in the Army now?

Me: No, Bob and Phil were in the Army. They're just singing about it.

Small: No, the one that we know.

I gave her very confused look.

Small: The one with really curly hair, like Medium.

I had to sit and think for a good thirty seconds, because I honestly had no idea who she was talking about at first.

Me: You mean Mommy XSIL?

Small: Yeah.

Me: Yes, she's in the Army now.

Small: Does she live in the Army?

Me: Yes, she lives on an Army base.

Small: Where's her house?

Me [getting exasperated]: On the base.

About then, Large walked into the den.

Large: Mommy, is Mommy XSIL dead?

Me [managing not to be startled, but just barely]: Nooo.

Large: Oh. I thought she was dead already.

"You love us, an' Momma loves us."

Hubby smiled down at Small, who was snuggled against him as she made that pronouncement. "Yep, you're my four favorite girls."

"Fouwr?" Small looked at Hubby quizzically. She looked at all of us on the couch. "Me an' Lawrge an' Medium an' Momma!"

"That's right."

"It should be five," Medium proclaimed imperiously.

It was Hubby's turn to look quizzical.

"Your mom, too," Medium reminded him.

Hubby chuckled. "Yes, my mom, too."

Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time

Hubby has been reading C.S. Lewis's The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to the Fries.

Last time, he read the Stone Table scene, and ended up having to explain to the girls exactly what had just happened to Aslan.

I was going to come downstairs and just putter around, but I knew what chapter would be read tonight, and I decided I'd rather go listen instead as Hubby read.

In my opinion, it's one of the most glorious passages Lewis penned in this book. The despair of two young girls is so eloquently drawn, and yet, even though I know what is coming, the hidden depths of hope shimmer beneath the grief...

"Ugh!" said Susan from the other side of the Table. "How beastly! There are horrid little mice crawling over him. Go away, you little beasts."  And she raised her hand to frighten them away.

"Wait!" said Lucy, who had been looking at them more closely still. "Can you see what they're doing?"

Both girls bent down and stared.

"I do believe—" said Susan. "But how queer! They're nibbling away at the cords!"

... And at last, one by one, the ropes were all gnawed through. 

I sat in our big oversized arm chair and closed my eyes. I could see it all in my mind, in exquisite detail.

About then, the Weasel jumped up on my lap and then to the back of the chair behind me.

And he started purring.

Now, if you've never heard Pa'ani purr...well, there's a reason why we say he's got the motor of an Edsel. He's loud. He can't keep a rhythm. It's like he hyperventilates as he purrs. (It amazes me that he doesn't pass out.) Did I mention he's loud? He can be heard across a moderately noisy room if he's got a mind to do it.

"What does it mean? Is it more magic?"

"Yes!" said a great voice behind their backs. "It is more magic."

The Weasel's purring intensified as tears stung the back of my eyes. Oh, this is so the best part of this story. The absolute best.

"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward..."

I could not stop the tears leaking out. I leaned back and let Pa'ani's purr rumble through my ears, imagining the upcoming roar in the smaller beast behind me as his purr seemed to crescendo with the story.

...and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind.

Oh, man.

"...I feel I am going to roar. You had better put your fingers in your ears."

Dear Clive Staples, that would have been a most excellent spot for an exclamation point.

Worth a Thousand Words

"Here, you suck that one and I'll suck this one."

Genetics will out, kid.

Hubby: What was that that you said about this family, Medium?

Medium: Dis family is weird.

Hubby: Do you know who the weirdest one is?

From the den, I hear my name being muttered and I walk back to the half-wall that separates the dining room from the hall.

Hubby (looking suspiciously guilty): You're getting me in trouble!

Me (to Medium): Did Daddy say I'm the weirdest one in the family?

Medium: You're the weirdest one!

Hubby: Ah, the informant. You're getting me in trouble!

Small (chirping): Mommy's da weirdest ooooone! Mommy's da weiwrdest ooooone!

Hubby: You're getting me in trouble!

Medium: Mommy? Are you cwrying?

Me (gasping): No!

Hubby: She's just laughing.

Yeah, and trying not to pee my pants at the hilarity of the conversation.

"I didn't eat a Smuhwrf!"

Bad Choices

Small Fry: Tickewling is a bad choice, Daddy!

Hubby: Nooo, tickling isn't a bad choice. Mommy, is tickling a bad choice?

Me: Nooo!

Hubby: Now...

Medium zerberts Hubby on the arm.

Hubby: ...zerberting Daddy's arm is a bad choice.

Me: Nooo!

Yeah, I'm evil that way.