09 | August | 2012 | Earful of Cider

Been an odd week at Chez Wesson, all told—though I’m not telling all of it.

Yet.

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Let’s Give Mommy an Earmworm: Sunny

Singing this under my breath all day wouldn’t be so bad, if I worked in Youth Services.

I don’t.

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Invisible Fairy Gardens

When my folks arrived to take the kids to Six Flags last month, Mom showed me photos of the old herb garden. What was once a clump of wildly overgrown, half-buried half-barrels is now an area of raised beds and neat plantings—though I noticed St. Francis of Assisi is still being strangled by the mint.*

To the right of that longsuffering, if fresh-smelling, saint is Mom’s fairy garden, of which she is very proud.

It features an upright log with a driftwoody sort of top and a small door at the bottom. There is a pathway. There are toadstools. There is patio furniture. There are gnomes.

It is excellent.

It is also invisible, because I couldn’t pull the photos off her camera for some reason and decided just last night, that I could use them for today’s post. I called Dad, explained how to send an attachment, and after a while, received an iPhoto file that he thought might actually be all the photos on Mom’s camera and which completely baffled my laptop when I tried to get it open, even with the recommended software.

My husband suggested that Watson might be able to open it on her iPad, so I forwarded her the file and sent her a head-up text before remembering that she has trouble getting a connection on her Virginia-based phone, especially when she’s in my MIL’s guest room (ie, the back basement).

I could have gone down to see her, but I’m essentially lazy and a few minutes later, my MIL came up for a book she’d left, anyway, so I asked her to ask Watson to look at her e-mail, but only if Watson wasn’t asleep already because it really wasn’t an emergency.

Apparently, this translated into intercepting Watson on the way to the bathroom and telling her I needed her right away.

So Watson and I had a very quick conversation which was half apology on my part and half yes, okay, hurry up and tell me what you need, please on hers. She told me to forward it to another e-mail address and disappeared.

Fifteen minutes later or so, I received an e-mail that said she couldn’t get it open, either.

So, I sent Dad an e-mail thanking him for the effort along with another stab at explaining how to attach a photo using an e-mail system with which I wasn’t familiar on an operating system I don’t use, because I’m a librarian and have had some experience in explanations of this kind.**

The explanations aren’t always successful, b either way, at the posting of this, he hasn’t yet replied. You’d think he had a life that didn’t revolve around me, or something . . .

And that’s why there aren’t any images of Mom’s fantastic fairy garden today—but as the entire family was involved, barring the kids and the cat, I thought I’d mention it, anyway.

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Let’s Give Mommy an Earmworm: Janie

She has it memorized.

And she’s sung it so often that I am psychologically conditioned to respond with the next line whenever I hear:

“Da da DA dada, ChickEN!”

And everyone in the family knows this.

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Watsonisms, or Yeah, that one’s my fault

My sister-in-law, aka Watson, has brought more to our lives than a truly massive DVD collection, mad cooking skillz, a dog the size of a pit pony, and a general willingness to schlep her nieces to softball games.

She’s also brought a whole range of infectious sayings. Usually, it’s one of the kids, but we’ve all pretty much picked these up, barring my husband, who just shakes his head:

Kiss my grits — shorthanded over the months to “See those grits?” and then “Griiii-iiiits.”

It’s all gravy — presumably to go with the grits, but I’m afraid to ask.

Easy, killer — hilarious when five-year old Sunny says this to her older sister.

And what did we learn? — yesterday, or so I’m told, Sunny grabbed Janie’s nose and let go just as Janie took a mock swing at her. Janie punched herself in the face and sat there stunned as her favorite aunt raised an eyebrow and said what came naturally.

Really? Really? — yeah, that’s apparently where I picked that up. I’d wondered . . .

Dude — more of a reintroduction, really (really?), but she showed us that a complete conversation could be had with a single word:

It’s all good — See “It’s all gravy.”

‘Sup pup? — because it drives Janie crazy, that’s why.

It was Meeeeee!” (must be said in a high-pitched voice with enthusiastic Wallace*** hands) —- the explanation for this one involves a sports bike group, an SBD,^ and a six-foot tall Hungarian model. I’m sure you can work out the rest.

Klassy with a Capital K— follows naturally from the previous one, doesn’t it?

Yeah, that one’s my fault — See “Easy Killer”

Ha! That one wasn’t me! — translation: hey, I’m not the one who dropped the frozen peas all over the kitchen floor and said that word in front of ’em.
It’s a small price to pay for her company, I suppose . . . even if she also sends me things like this, instead of images of fairy gardens:

It’s a view of the Milky Way from the surface of Mars. Really.

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Strings Attached

My husband introduces me to the coolest stuff: cult movies, Metallica, skiing, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, weightlifting, Wallace and Gromit (by the way), Apocalyptica, marriage, Terry Pratchett—or maybe those last ones were me?

But this one was definitely his:

Thanks, love.

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* Which appears to be the tradition in every herb garden I’ve seen in which he makes an appearance, even if the gardener never planted mint in the first place. I can’t tell if this is due to reverence or jealousy on the part of the floral world.

** And have also developed a sort of what-the-heck pessimism that looks a lot like optimism if you don’t’ work with the public as extensively as I do.