Bluegrass

So the girls (Nilla & Mocha, our guinea pigs) have been eating timothy hay up to this point as their primary food.  But the newest box for them, I ordered something different.

me: So the girls have a new kind of hay: bluegrass.  It's longer, very supple...
Big Frog: I like bluegrass.
me: Yes, I figured that would endear the girls to you all the more.  But if you strap tiny banjos to them, you're dead.

Oh No!

The godkids, their mama, & their dad have a moods chart on which each has a representative character which they can place in the red, green, yellow, or blue quadrant depending on if they're happy, sad, etc.  (Makes me glad I saw Inside Out.)  Curiously, both sad and sleepy are blue, which makes sense in an I'm depressed and never getting out of bed sense, but perhaps less in an I've been up since 6a sense.

After dinner D got upset, probably at me for correcting an attitude.  But not necessarily.  It was a rough day in general and on a couple different fronts.  But the kid hops up and swaps her character over to red.  And we (5 adults, M, D, and a sibling in the room) ask D why she's red.  And she tells us that she's mad.  Ok, good start.  Why are you mad?  We are informed huffily that teacher says when you're mad, you're red.  Fair enough.  Why are you mad?  Teacher says, when you're mad you're red.

This circles and circles unproductively for awhile.  And I ask her who is she mad at?  Me?  Mama?  M?  Mom?  Sibling?  (We're really reaching here...) Dad?  Uncle Big Frog?  ...???  No to all until she gets mad.  And when she's mad, teacher says you're red.

Well, that didn't help.

Let's try what are you mad about?
Teacher says mad=red.

Do you like being mad?
(vehemently) Yes!.
Which surprises all of us.

Now the kid is in this terrible cycle.  Terrible headspace.  And she can't back down even as the questions get ludicrous because that would be losing face.  But at least we've broken the momentum.  Change of state.  And she's listening to the questions instead of just on a single track.

I tell her, I know you may not be ready to give me a hug, but can you receive one from me yet?
No! 

Are you always mad?
Yes!

And it hits me. 
So I tell her, "You're an angry duck!"
To which I get lots of eyes suddenly pointing my way, and nods of agreement from Big Frog, which proves yet again that we've been caged together too long.

But it makes perfect sense!  And fortunately, my mom's favorite illustrator wrote an entire book about moods.  So I beckon D over and ask her if she'll watch a video with me.  This screen-happy kid may resist hugs, but never says no to YouTube. 


And I'm an interactive reader.  So I'm asking her with each animal, and she's responding like Pookie (another favorite by Boynton).  Are you happy as a hippo?  (No)  Are you angry as a duck?  (Yes)  Are you as sad as a chicken?  (No)  Can you sadly say, "Cluck cluck"?  (No).  But the song is catchy and the ukulele music is infectious and little miss angry duck starts smiling. 

I love that the song peaks with "We hope you are happy/But if you are not/You have friends who can help you/We like you a lot," and sums up "And a difficult mood is not here to stay/Everyone's moods will change day to day... unless you're that duck/He's always that way."

D's response to this happy little ditty?  The one which left her smiling?
A deep, from-the-toes sigh.
And the most distressed, exasperated exclamation: "Now I'm HAPPY!"

I love my littles.
 

French Christmas

Terping is tough!  You have to hear what's being said, hopefully hear things correctly, know your audience in terms of how to sign (including but not limited to ASL vs Pidgin Signed English or English word order, and at what vocabulary level), and you have to be a thesaurus.  And then there are the times when you have to be a linguist in other languages as well.  So it helps to have as much information in advance as possible.  

And then there are those moments. 

I was texting with a supremely capable interpreter who will be terping her church's Christmas program at DPAC (Durham Performing Arts Center, seats 2600).  And as she was planning things out she asked me, entirely as an aside, what Noël means.  She may be fluent in Spanish, but I took 5 years of French classes and immediately texted back that Noël is French for Christmas.  And then furiously typed, using gloss (English transcription of ASL, written in all caps for easy reading on the fly) to hopefully clear things up: Noël means CHRISTMAS, not FRENCH CHRISTMAS.  In French, the word Noël translates to Christmas in English.  

I can just see her terping FIRST FRENCH CHRISTMAS ANGEL PROCLAIM... (The first Noel the angel did say...) and I would be rolling on the floor in absolute stitches, but at the same time, fully culpable.

It's an awkward song.  The angels don't say "First Noël" or "shepherds in fields".  That entire first verse is: time (The first Noël/Christmas), subject (the angels), verb (did say), object (was to certain poor shepherds), and location (in fields as they lay).  Then location again (in fields), description of interrupted action (where they lay keeping their sheep), followed inexplicably by weather?! (on a cold winter's night that was so deep).  And deep, as far as I know, is not even a meteorological term, and is only in there because poetically it rhymes with sheep.  Only when you get to the chorus do you hear what the proclamation is: CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS!  BORN KING ISRAEL.

Phew!

ASL is pretty.  And it is a lot of work to make it so.

Small furry frogs

(All our critters are "frogs", even those that look like furry potatoes.)

<sweetly>

Carrot?  Carrot!
...It's not a bribe at all!

Levity

You know what would make this whole grieving process better?  Fluoride.  It's the sixth stage of grief.

No self-respecting gardener uses foam gourds.

Not the pastor

So, evidently my parents thought our banjo-pickin' chiropractor was our pastor & greeted him as such.

But he wouldn't take that honor from our pastor; we all know it's a lot of work to be a pastor.  So he corrected them that he was just Big Frog's friend.

They returned, "Big Frog's best friend."

To which he replied, "I wouldn't say best... greatest maybe."

I bet someone has that on a tee-shirt or a mug we could send him.

Dad's prayer

"You're keeping me, LORD, I can't keep myself. I'm desperate for you. I know I can't do it alone. I know I need you LORD." -Big Frog's dad, as related by Sharon as the thing she most remembered about him.

TBBT

Big Frog: It was nice of them (the hospital) to provide coffee and some snacks.
me: I think any time anyone calls you up at 3 am they should provide hot beverages.
I think it's a corollary of Sheldon's.
Big Frog (patting me gingerly on the shoulder at arm's length): There, there.
(He gets up to toss some bits we've accumulated.)
(From a distance) We could sing "Soft Kitty" to my dad.

What a friend

What a friend we have in Jesus

Did you know there was a 4th verse?  It's a really good one!  It should get sung more often.

Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised
Thou wilt all our burdens bear;
May we ever, Lord, be bringing
All to Thee in earnest prayer.
Soon in glory bright, unclouded,
There will be no need for prayer—
Rapture, praise, and endless worship
Will be our sweet portion there.

The girls

"I have a lap full of squeaks."

Nilla & Mocha are rarely affectionate on cue, and even more rarely simultaneously,  but I'll take it.

You zogged?

After *not* getting hit by the train when we stopped at a light and the gates started coming down towards our tail, GPS flipped out at us.

Me: Is JAARS in a residential area?
Big Frog: I zogged.
Me: You zogged?
Big Frog: It wanted me to zig, but I zogged.
Me: It wasn't a zag?
Big Frog: It was bad.

Little Buddies

We had friends over for lunch & tabletop games -- our little buddies came out to play along. "They sound like Windex."
In Formula D, car sounds are mandatory: "Your car sounds like my copilot."

On difficult cooking

I've never heard these words in this particular arrangement before:
"We haven't had dumplings before."
How is that possible?  But at least we rectified the problem.

Also, on Sloppy Joes being such a reach, and "don't go out of your way for us...", Cow-Lover says:
We didn't go out of our way!
It wasn't even on the way!
We sat on the porch and did nothing!

Wasn't there a song about Sloppy Joes?

Squeak squeaker...

me, to Mocha, who is in my lap: Squeak squeaker squeak squeakin...
<Big Frog laughs>
me: I don't know guinea pig!  The closest thing I have is that guy in The Emperor's New Groove who speaks squirrel!

Nothing good comes from comparing

Nothing good comes from comparing yourself with others.
That way lies nothing but death.

This blog post has been brought to you by the number...

"17!"* 

Definitely the number of the day.  In Wits and Wagers today, it didn't matter whether the question was miles of line a pencil could draw, number of hours per day a lion sleeps, or number of Weasley kids, D's answer, later picked up by T, was 17.

*  The exclamation point in this case means excitement, and in no way implies  factorial, Tim.

Castle

In the first 3 min of Castle today, the killer was described as asian, female, mid-30s...

Big Frog gasped, turned to me, & said, "It's you!"

You have been warned.

Karaoke

It's even more fun when the lyrics may or may not be someone whose first language is English. It's great having a setup at home.

Some of tonight's highlights include:

Not a Sam!

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut... you more than turkeys I love. (We followed that one up by YouTubing Boynton's Turkey Love Song.) (BTW, particularly in this instance, then =/= than.)

"Shatner" it.

Everyone needs an Uncle Baccy Juze.

That was written by the great "PD".

Oh, you're moving south -- it'll be warm there.

 Oh, you're moving south -- it'll be warm there.

THEY LIED.

Yes, it's warmer than Harrisburg PA (at this moment, 32F here vs 25F there, and generally 10-15F warmer), but there are drawbacks, mostly in human preparedness.  There is enough salt currently spread on sidewalks and streets all through the Triad that walking around literally crunches.  And yet, I know for a fact that there are households that park right along the street's edge of their driveways instead of in lovely covered garages (so glad we have a garage!) because they have no shovels.  In fact, on the late-night news, the poor reporter who drew the "you're outdoors in the snow" short straw is saying that if you don't have an actual shovel, try a broom, or a dustpan.  And if you don't have an ice scraper for your car, there's always a kitchen spatula.

90's pop

Big Frog, trying to figure out a personalized license plate: It says N...K...?
me, having glanced at it: It's New Kids on the Block. Clearly you weren't a girl in the 90's.

That's probably a good thing for all of us.