Random Thursday: Strange Sounds, Cool Bags, and Bad Puns

Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s been sent by friends or has otherwise stumbled upon in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.

And here we go!

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Enough Said

Especially inside.

oooooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooooo

Wait . . . Play it Again.  Cool!

I played this for three people.  This is exactly what they said, with some variation on the last exclamation.

See what exclamations you get!

oooooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooooo

One Purse to Rule Them All

One day last week, Watson found online instructions for turning books into purses.

She thought about it for a day or so, sent me a slightly disturbing e-mail about hot glue guns, made a supply trip to the craft store and the secondhand book shop . . .
then made this:

After we all asked her for one,* we mentioned how sad it was that she had to throw away the insides of the book.

She agreed.

But a few days ago, she found this:

Hmmm . . .

oooooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooooo

Has Anyone Seen my Car Keys?

(the titles of these posts don’t lie, people)

oooooooooooooOOOOOooooooooooooo

It’s all in the Delivery

This vid is meant to accompany James Harbeck’s  brilliant article, “A linguistic dissection of 7 annoying teenage sounds.”

So go read it.

The next time I hear one of these, I’m going to be tempted to tell Janie to put more emphasis on the glottal fricative and try it again.

Except she probably would.  In front of her grandmother.

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*I thought Sherlock Holmes for me, but considering my Bag of All Holding, Watson and my MIL thought the OED would be a better, pun totally intended, fit.  Jane asked for the dictionary, but she admitted she just wanted us to stop making her use it.

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Poetry Wednesday: Two Decades of Marriage

It’s difficult, after twenty years of marriage, to find an anniversary card that says what I want to say without inducing sugar shock or referencing stereotypical jokes that don’t apply, or blatantly propositioning my husband where my MIl might catch on.**

I need  something that encompasses knowing someone for over half your life, meeting, loving, and learning each other, and staying together anyway, through three apartments, two houses, four cities, three states, four cats, two kids.  Through colleges, careers, in-laws, weight fluctuations, annoying hobbies, lies, silence, tears, fights, hugs, backrubs, communication, dependence, independence, acceptance,  change.

That’s a tall order for a folded piece of cardboard.

It’s a tall order for a poem.

Because love isn’t what you think it is when the ring makes its big appearance and marriage is a lot more than not being alone anymore—sometimes it’s a lot less.  But not always.

It’s complicated.  Except when it’s the simplest truth in the world.

Luckily, there’s one poet who always has those nebulous paradoxical certainties covered:

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

—e.e. cummings

Happy anniversary, honey.

I love you, mostly, sane and sunly with a touch of mad and moonly.

Wanna go for twenty-one?

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*Except for the toilet seat thing, which always seems to apply, but never sets the right tone.

**That’s for birthdays.

Weatherwhine in Vane

The rains came back this weekend—I wish they’d give us time to miss them— and by Sunday evening, the stormwater drains on our street couldn’t cope any more.  A few of them even sent up distress geysers, to the awed delight of the neighborhood kids.

At least six cars stalled in front of our house and my husband had a great time offering advice from our front porch about how to get through the rapids without sucking water up their tailpipes and, inevitably, the phone numbers of tow trucks.  Eventually, he waded barefoot across the street to consult with the neighbors, taking Janie with him without mentioning it to me.*

In my defense, I was too busy looking around for Brad Pitt, Craig Sheffer, and Robert Redford to notice they’d gone—I figured if a river was gonna run through it, there should be some compensation.

Sunny, who had been left behind once again because of blatant size discrimination, promptly ratted them out and left button noseprints all over the windows, while giving running reports on her father and sister—“They’re still there!”— and also on the impressive lake forming at the bottom of the slope behind our house—“Can we have a pet duck, now, Mommy?”**

By Monday, everything had drained enough for Sunny to go rain-puddling in the late afternoon with her sister without adults worrying about undertow or sewer mutants climbing out for a breath of air.  Dry feet, though, were another matter—at one point, Jane took off a rain boot and upended half a gallon of dubious-colored water onto our driveway.  Her sister, or I’m told, tap-danced in it—squish-danced seems more likely.***

Eventually, my husband hauled them in for decontamination^ and we all had barbecue—from our favorite smokehouse restaurant, since it had started raining again.

My husband, it should be noted, is my hero.

But we never lost power and my MIL’s lower-level apartment—ie, our basement—was never at risk, and none of the kids are itchy around the calves this morning.  And I had naps and a pile of smoked chicken.  Sure, getting to work was tricky this morning—most of the towns between the kids’ school and the library were preemptively closed in case the river decides to go exploring again and not many detour signs were up—but it was more of an adventure than a cause for Road Rage.

So it was a good weekend, despite the weather—I can almost ignore this week’s forecast and the Armageddon-expression the sky is currently wearing.

Almost.

How’s the weather over there?

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*This was a wise move on both their parts, since the idea of touching floodwater gives me the scrub-my-skin-off-squickies, but I can usually cope with what’s done is done when it comes to the rest of the family—before scrubbing off their skin.

** Stupid livestock ordinance.

***Or so I’m told; I’d snuck off to have a nap at that point.  I’d like to say it was so my hydrogermaphobia wouldn’t ruin the kids’ fun, but I’m not that altruistic.

^Thus ending the nap.  Why is it that kids who are incapable of passing by a shallow indent filled with liquid filth are so loudly allergic to clear water produced in a relatively clean bathroom?  And why does my husband seem to take such glee in using them as alarm clocks after his wife has only had her head down for a measly two hours or so?  Yeah, yeah, rhetorical, never mind.

Let Us Remember . . .

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

—Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Full Metal Librarian (Eye for Lunch)

Have a WIP, an EIP, an MS, or a published work you want to share on your blog, eight sentences at a time?

Want to sample other people’s WIPs, EIPs, MSs, or published works, eight sentences at a time?

Be a Weekend Writing Warrior!

Rules are here!

List of participants is here!

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We Interrupt this Scheduled WeWriWas Post to wish you all a 

Very Happy Sleep in Until Seven Because Your 10-Year Old is Staying With a Friend
And Your 6-Year Old Isn’t a Morning Person Day!!

Best.  Holiday. Ever.

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About twelve hours in Book Time™ have passed since the last snippet, including a  plot point that just tried to stab Clyota in the heart again.  After her reaction the last time this happened, her apparently air of calm—is confusing Charlie.

He doesn’t get that there’s only so much sturm und drang one person can take before it cancels itself out . . . at least temporarily.

You’re hungry?”  For the first time since I’d met him, he sounded confused.  “Why—I mean—”

“Why aren’t I diving head first into your toilet right now?”  I shook my head.  “I don’t know.  Maybe I’m too goddamned angry, maybe it’s been too long since breakfast, or maybe I’m in emotional overload—I’ll check with my shrink later.  But right now, while I’m sitting here in the eye of insanity, I’d just like to think about lunch.”