Adventures with Kimo

 Scene: My bedroom last night.

After a rough day, I decided to enjoy a late-night bowl of chocolate marshmallow ice cream. Now, I'm not sure if it was just because I had food in a bowl (particularly ice cream) that drew Kimo's interest, or because her person's bedroom door was shut and she couldn't get in, or both, but I had a 12-pound tuxedo land shark with a soul patch follow me from the kitchen all the way to the bedroom. 

I also made the mistake of trying to multi-task and do a bit of research into something before I posted something stupid online, inbetween bites. I had to abandon that task and focus solely on fending off Kimo, who had gotten so bold as to hook her paws over the edge of my bowl more than once. I found myself constantly parrying her moves while I ate. When I didn't relent, she resorted to bribery: she rubbed her head against my leg and then flopped dramatically at my feet, purring.

Nice try, kitty, but wilier cats have preceded you. You're cute, but I want my ice cream more than I want your love at the moment. (Heck, I'd even heavily discouraged the kids from touching the chocolate marshmallow earlier when they asked to have ice cream. I'm not sharing.)

Now, the rule in our house for more than twenty years has been that cats don't get to lick any plate, bowl, what-have-you unless it's on the floor. Keiki, bless her furry little heart, would sit there and stare at you like a little prairie dog, up on her back legs and everything, until you were done with your ice cream, and then her pre-rinse would leave the bowl almost spotlessly clean. She had an unmatched devotion to ice cream. Kimo, on the other hand...

I finished my ice cream and Kimo was now downright begging. You have something I want and I want it now. Fine. I set the bowl down on the floor and let her have at it. She jumped to the floor and attacked.

Five minutes later, I got up to go take my pills before bed, and I discovered that she'd knocked over a small pile of books to bury the bowl. One book was even in the bowl. I retrieved it. Of course, I couldn't even see where Kimo might've licked at the ice cream dregs.

Wonky beast.

Scene: The kitchen, not long ago.

Me: Your cat tried to eat my ice cream last night.

Middle: Aww.

Me: She wouldn't leave me alone. And then, when I put the bowl down on the floor for her, she maybe took a lick or two, decided she didn't like chocolate marshmallow, and said, "I reject your offering." Then she buried the bowl with books!

Middle (chuckling): That's her. She's so sassy. She's full of sass.

Two peas in a pod, they are.

Once Upon a Summer's Eve

Two nights ago...

Me: Please throw away the ice cream carton you left out and take out the kitchen trash.

Normally, kitchen trash is Oldest's job, but as she's recovering from some minor surgery, I've called an audible and passed it off.

Middle: Does it have to be tonight?

Me, staring at the kitchen trash that has been full and getting excessively fuller all day: Yes.

Middle: But I'll get kidnapped!

In our own yard? You're more likely to get mugged by a bunny.

Me: You can plead your case to your father.

Middle: But he's counting cases!

Hubby and Youngest are talking about today's active Covid numbers.

Middle ties off the bag, goes to lift it, and the bag rips open at the top, just below the drawstring ties. I fetch another cheap bag and call for Hubby to help.

Middle (shrieks): There's a thing on here! It just crawled out of the trash!

She looks to her father for help with the bug whose name she can't remember, oddly enough, in this moment of trepidation.

Middle: Get a thing! (gesticulates wildly)

Me: She means a paper towel.

Hubby gets one and tells her to just kill the house centipede that is now perching on the side of the trash can. Middle shrieks again but finally does the smooshing. Hubby helps her with the trash bag, gets it out of the can, and ties it securely.

Me: Now, take that out, unless your father will spare you--

Hubby: I'll take it out. I won't get kidnapped. Put a new bag in.

I grabbed a new bag (one of the last of the cheap ones we have, thankfully) and handed it to Middle for the trash can.

Hubby (outside): Ah, kidnappers!

Middle: See, that would've been me!

Y'know, I'm not entirely sure she was joking. I do know Hubby was.

Make-up Day

Middle came to me several weeks ago, expressing an interest in getting some makeup for herself. She's the last of the girls to do so, and when I mentioned this to Special Edition, she wondered if Middle might like to wait a few weeks until after Special Edition came out for her next planned visit, and the three of us could go to Ulta together. 

Middle decided makeup wasn't an A-Number-1 priority, and a girls' day with Mom and her oldest sister sounded like lots of fun, so she was willing to wait. I personally was relieved, because (a) Special Edition knows more about makeup than I ever will, (b) I rarely wear makeup anymore, (c) I don't know how to help my cocoa kids color match themselves, (d) I have never before shopped at Ulta, and (e) Middle has (to her great consternation) inherited both her grandfather's and his father's genetics when it comes to her poor skin.

We went early this afternoon, and were able to get lots of help from one of their employees doing a great color match for Middle. We got her tinted moisturizer, blush, a soothing primer, some stuff for her eyebrows, and lip gloss. 

The total was staggering.

Not unexpected, since I knew how much the tinted moisturizer alone was, but staggering all the same. We have to buy the best products we can simply because of just how sensitive Middle's skin is.

Special Edition had already gone and purchased a slew of other things on her own for her sister (cleansers and brushes and a makeup bag and stuff).

If not for the generosity of my oldest daughter, this would have been a more expensive day.

We may have only had her with us for not quite five and a half years, but I love how much she has assimilated herself into our family, and how she's taken to heart the relationships we've granted her here.

I defy anyone to look at us all and say we aren't family.

Family Game Night

One of the things that got instituted here, at Youngest's request several months back, was a weekly Family Game Night.

I'm telling you, this is one of the best--and funniest--decisions we've ever made.

We've played all sorts of games. We currently have a running tally on a Phase 10 game that's gone several weeks in a row (I've used an app to keep score, and just paused the game when we call it a night). We've played Uno a couple of times. We have Disney's Color Brain, which forces us to break into teams and tests our Disney color knowledge (it's surprisingly difficult, even for Disney fiends like us). I picked up a new game, called Relative Insanity, about two months ago, even though it had a warning that it was for ages 14+. It was created by Jeff Foxworthy and sort of a situational version of Apples to Apples. He's a clean comedian. How bad could it be? Oh, it was definitely Foxworthy-worthy redneck humor, sometimes more than a tad risque, but we laughed so hard. (Special Edition had spent several months with us during the shelter-at-home orders, because Mr. Nurse being, well, a nurse was worried about her health and safety while he worked during the height of Covid cases at his hospital, and preferred her staying out of the range of germiness. She was bummed I bought Relative Insanity after she went home.)

We also introduced the girls to card games that Hubby and I have played with my parents for years. I had to get through June before we could do that, but theD girls have picked up on both 2500 and 9 Hole Golf pretty quickly.

So what follows here are a series of vignettes culled from various Family Game Nights.

Last Night

Hubby (as he's trying to see why our brand-new card shuffler work): There's a screw loose.

Middle: Always knew you had at least one.

Hubby: What was that?

(Later)

Middle (after drawing a card and looking to the heavens): How did You do that? It's gotta be a God thing.

Hubby: Shuffle, the card god.

Middle then proceeded to lay down five Queens.

Hubby: Whoa.

(Later)

Special Edition: Did you ever change out the filter in the purifier?

We have a water purifier installed on the faucet in our smaller second kitchen sink, by the back door.

Hubby: Yes. It went just about three months, like clockwork, and we replaced it.

Special Edition: Good. Because, you know how water tastes fatter in your mouth.

We all just kind of stared at her.

Special Edition: Tap water always tastes fatter in your mouth.

Yeah, we got nothing.

(Later)

Special Edition (as her score keeps going into the negative): I don't like this game.

***

July 14th

We're out at my mother's, celebrating both my birthday and Oldest's, since our birthdays are a mere six days apart. The game is 2500, and we're teaching the kids to play.

Mom: Who's in second place?

Me: I am.

Mom: Who's in first?

Me: Youngest is.

Youngest (leans over towards me and cocks a snoot: I'm gonna beat the pants off you, woman!

There's dead silence for about two seconds as it registers with all of the adults that my youngest child has just taken her life into her hands by calling her mother "woman." But Youngest is laughing, I'm not willing to ruin the fun because I know she said it in jest because of the game, so...

Hubby (howling with laughter): You're going to wear your teeth around your neck!

(Later)

Youngest has just lost 200 points in a single hand.

Hubby: It ain't over till the fat lady sings.

Me: Tell her she's on in five.

Youngest: Laaaaaaaa!

Me: By what definition, anywhere, are you the fat lady?

(Later) 

Mom is despairing over the cards left in her hand, and the one she just picked up.

Mom: This is...

Youngest: Epic?

(Later)

Youngest (singing): Something is wrong with me.

Me (staring incredulously): Yuh-huh.

Hubby: What did she say?

Me (cracking up): She said something was wrong with her.

The rest of the table cracks up (including Youngest, who lost it at my first comment). The conversation then deteriorated through several topics, ending with her focus pill for her ADHD (on proud display at the moment), ending on this zinger:

Youngest: I don't want to focus at night. That's crap!

***

July 2

The twins were at camp for the week, so Oldest decided it would be a good time to teach me how to play Skip-Bo.

I do things with words. Numbers are not so much my jam, despite my day job, and I got thoroughly confused throughout the practice hand we played.

And Oldest is merciless in Skip-Bo.

Still managed, somehow, to crush them both in the first hand.

Hubby (dealing for the second hand): Okay, this time, it's my turn to win. 

Me: Just because you said so?

Hubby: Yes, because I said so.

Um, I won. Again. (I wasn't sorry at all.)

***

June 10

The game of the night is Phase 10. Hubby is explaining the first phase, and he's got his phone playing hits from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. And so it begins.

Hubby (in reference to his mother): Gramma Bevvie will go to play Phase 6--a run of 9--and she'll lay out ten cards and discard on the first turn.

Me: Gramma Bevvie offers sacrifices to the card gods.

Hubby: She's just darn lucky.

Me: She offers sacrifices to the card gods.

They're real. You'd know if you every played any card game with my mother-in-law.

(Later) 

Middle just went out. I kept an 11 in my hand because I knew Oldest, to my left, was collecting them.

Me: It was worth the ten points just to keep that.

Oldest: I hate you!

Me (cheerfully): I know!

So much fun. So much card hate.

(Later)

Youngest: Did you finish number one, Daddy?

Hubby: No!

Middle: I like this game.

Hubby: I don't like this game!

Meanwhile, Youngest has skipped me twice, and I don't have any cards down and I'm a Phase behind. (Incidentally, it took Hubby five hands to complete Phase One.)

(Later) 

Elvis's "Burning Love" is playing.

Youngest: Isn't this from Lilo & Stitch?

No! Ack!

Me: This is the original song, done by Elvis.

Youngest: But wasn't it in the movie somewhere?

Sigh. End credits, by Wynonna. Decent job, but not the same.

(Later)

"Come and Get Your Love" is playing. 

Youngest: Why are all these songs so terrible?

Hubby: You go to your room.

I don't think he was kidding. Sam Cooke? Dion? Elvis? The Beach Boys? The Temptations? The Archies? Terrible? 

You go to your room, kid.

***

May 6

The game of the night is Disney's Color Brain. Special Edition wasn't feeling well, so she opted out. The teams ended up being the adults versus the kids, and since the game allows for four teams, each of the kids was their own team against the two of us. Middle took the news well.

Middle: What? No! You've seen every Disney movie. Three times! I will fail. I can't fail. I will literally fall on the floor and die.

Incidentally, she and her twin tied to win.