Let me ‘splain. …
No there is too much – let me sum up.
I found an app on my phone that translates things on the fly and then repeats them back in the Destination Language.
I’m going to use it to communicate with a guy I see on my ride frequently.
So, while testing it out at home I decided I might be able to reproduce the sounds of the destination language and get English back out.
Hello, how are you doing?
你好，你怎么样？ (what I heard – Ni HahNee Tsa MaTsua?)
So I just said it back (what I heard).
Ni HahNee Tsa MaTsua?
Hello hello how do?
HEYYYY – success, at least in my book!
Then TheWeeOne tried.
Ni HahNee Tsa MaTsua?
Hello hello how you how do?
Mommy’s turn – walking in from the kitchen – correcting our bad pronunciation.
And with authority…
Ni Hah Nee Tsa MaTsua?
The thing cranked a little longer for TheMommy?
We waited with bated breath.
It sounded great to me.
In a very proper and beautiful voice it translated
I was winning this morning! 🙂
15-20 mph wind at my back, 55 degree (F) temps, breathing good, and I chose the sidewalk.
I thought it would get me around a stranded bus faster.
It did, but then I spent 20 min changing the flat I received from a freshly broken half rack of beer bottles somebody pitched on the sidewalk.
Kudos to my Schwalbe Durano Plus tires once again.
Total slice through the tread body with a piece of glass the size of my fingernail and only a pinhole in my tube.
I can ride the tire for a while, but I’ll need a new one for safety sake.
Last weekend Wee was “helping” me fix things in the garage – but she got bored.
So she asked,
Can I draw something?
uhhhh, yeah!?
And in the cold of the garage she started, very quietly and deliberately.
After 20 minutes I was done with my task and told her I would move upstairs if she needed me – she followed a short time later with her pad and pencil in hand.
After 30 minutes she paused to ask about the black pencil lead all over her hand but during the entire hour she only paused to stare out the window for short periods of time while she considered…something.
I didn’t pay much attention, happy to have some “peace and quiet” doing my own thing.
Suddenly (to me) she announced she was done and asked me if I’d like to hear her story.
I’m lucky I had the wherewithal to start a recording and later I took pictures of her drawings.
She also defined the title of her story, on the fly, while telling me the story and, based on that, she drew the cover page at the end.
I’ve compiled the pieces, together here, in a video as narrated by the author and illustrator.
I heard about The Harlem Shake meme on the way home from a bike ride (on NPR) and learned that A) it’s super easy B) it’s super doopid (perfect for me) and C) sounded like fun.
Knowing that Grande was having a friend (let’s call her Twinnie) over for a sleepover, I gave it some thought (not much), and then Wee and I produced this first one (mostly) ourselves.
Then Grande and her friend Twinnie (and of course myself) decided we wanted to get in on the action. Live and in-person, we provided no end of entertainment for TheMommy and TheCassie.
Last night TheWeeOne and I went to a Daddy Daughter Dance – but we made it a Daddy Daughter Dinner Dance since I took her out for her favorite rice at Pabla’s Indian Cuisine first.
The Community Center staff really knew what appealed to little girls; crowns on the table for decorating, Kool-Aid in a fountain, and teensy corsages to pin on…not many stayed on (it was mostly Dad’s you know).
Wee made her crown first, and though the music was playing, nobody was dancing. We changed that.
Emma and I broke the ice on the dance floor.
First one’s on, last one’s off – 90 minutes with nothing longer than a sip of Kool-Aid break.
In the past 10 years I’ve lost touch with large swaths of Pop Culture – but I do hear a fair amount of pop songs, some of them I even like (gasp). This night – that paid off. I knew every song, some of the words, and most of the important dance bits to go with them.
Execution – probably left something to be desired – but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Some snippets:
When “Single Ladies” came on Emma grabbed her little gold ring back from me and lip-synched into the mirror, pointing to her finger “If you like it then you should’a put a ring on it!”
She acted out some video or other (perhaps it was in her mind?) by having me spy her from across the room while she fixed her hair in the mirror, then I was to come over and ask her to dance, we’d dance together, then when the song was over we’d take up our previous spots “as if it was all just a daydream.”
I had to pump my fist down, in a ‘shoot – I was hoping that was real!’ motion.
First of all, I’m reminded of a three year old I used to know whose repeated re-enactments of the Prince/SleepingBeauty reunion scene caused me to wonder if there was anything to this whole nature vs nurture argument. I concluded then, and it’s been reinforced now, there is a WHOLE LOTTA nature.
Regardless, there will be some love-struck on my doorstep someday and I will be ready with a very stern warning,
This Holiday wasn’t like any Christmas we’ve had before.
It began innocuously enough – some time off, a little last minute shopping, some late night movies (and charlie brown cartoons), cookies and gingerbread (graham cracker) houses, and a neighborhood party.
and then…
…at nearly 2:00 in the morning after the neighborhood party (a.k.a. Christmas Eve) The Wee One lost it.
“It” might be explained – rather described – as everything she had eaten earlier at the party.
Maybe she just had too much junk food?
I sure hope so.
Then she lost it again, and again…and again every coupla hours until late into that evening.
image redacted as seriously too gross for this blog
For being such a sick kid she sure was composed and matter of fact.
Momma?
Yes?
It’s throw up time again.
[It]
All done.
The rest of us watched, transfixed and with no small amount of dread, at the progression of this highly contagious stomach flu.
We all figured we wouldn’t be as composed as TWO when it struck us.
So this unfortunate turn of events cancelled our Christmas Eve at Monya and BopOp’s house. But thankfully, TWO was well enough to get new jammies.
The next morning Santa was still able to attend to his duties at our house. LaGrande woke up at about 3:30 but she graciously waited until 5AM to wake up the rest of us – out of concern for her sister’s condition.
TWO was unbelievably able to power through an approximately three hour present-unwrapping stint sans [It] and we thought we saw light at the end of the tunnel.
But alas, [It] continued it’s unabashed assault on TWO for the remainder of Christmas Day.
TheMommy took this free time to optimistically pack her bags in order that she may attend her brother’s wedding in Pennsylvania – and those same bags are still there today – obstinately so.
That’s because on the 26th, only about 18 hours before TheMommy was scheduled to depart, she…got…[IT].
Without the unsightly details, it was a somewhat different [IT] – but [IT] nonetheless.
So while TheMommy nursed herself along, LaGrande and I waited in horror, for our turn.
Turns out it never materialized in any real way; we escaped and we’re still giving each other mini high-fives over that one.
On the 28th, with TheMommy still tired out by a walk to the living room The Mermaids and I prepared ourselves for our planned trip to visit TheAmboyObserver and his family.
While TheMommy recovered at home (incidentally Monya was doing the same) TheMermaids, BopOp, Grumpy, TheAmboyObserver, HeidiCoaster, TheBoys and I shot arrows, found our first geo-cache, ate, visited, ate some more, walked, and visited (and ate) some more. All this while the kids danced endlessly in front of the Wii until their legs became sore.
When we returned home, sleep deprived from all the fun, we discovered that the street in front of our house needed maintenance – and so at precisely 8AM on Monday the 31st we got HammerJacked.
I took the liberty of getting some high-speed photography out of the deal.
Now it is 2013, amazingly enough, and we rang it in with another very late night and a neighbor…and their children.
Luckily the only ill effects were some seriously tired Mermaids (and parents) and the only thing we got for it was sleeping in until about noon the next day – I’ll take that.
This then was when we finally celebrated our Christmas with Monya and BopOp – a light dinner, some Tripoli, and a movie.
Bueno.
So, do I want to do that again if I can help it – no.
Do I want to remember it – kinda. So I wrote it down.
TWO may remember it someday – at the time it was a pretty crummy Christmas, but looking back, we made the best of it.
These taste amazingly good this year – this is the espresso flavor truffle.
I’ve had 5 tonight and probably 10 more in the past week.
My sugar restricted diet from a year ago is still mostly in effect, which makes these candies so much more delicious when I do indulge.
And I remain, for the most part, asthma free, eczema free, medicine free, and on a path to not expressing those genes I clearly have which turn sugar into triglycerides at an alarming rate in my body.
But I’m here to say, that if your body doesn’t freak out quite as badly as mine does when I’m “on sugar” and you are interested in the best homemade candy this side of the MississiCedar, hook up with The Frosting Angel or find her on Facebook at facebook.com/TheFrostingAngel.
There’s just a few boxes of assorted truffles remaining.
It started as an innocent grinding. In forty feet it became a stuck pulley. Tonight I took it off to inspect/clean/repair but I most certainly will simply replace the bearing…I thought.
So I got a good blunt instrument at the ready to extract the remnants of the bearing race…and I broke it.
The whole pulley.
The cost isn’t as big of an issue as the wait to get new pulleys. Sigh.
Today was an unconventional, time-shifted, Thanksgiving.
TheMommy developed a migraine (for which no-body is thankful) yesterday-ish and without much hassle our Thanksgiving date was moved to Friday in hopes that the migraine would be tolerable (or gone) in time. Thanks to AuntiePam for being flexible.
While the migraine isn’t gone it is diminished enough for The Mermaids to begin making cranberry relish and a pumpkin log for Thanksgiving – tomorrow.
Today, apparently, time is a theme.
We read a book called The Magic Half that deals with time travel.
We watched a movie called Back To The Future, also (oddly enough) dealing with time travel.
Tomorrow we celebrate.
blief 