Life in the Obscura House-o-Geeks


Various vignettes

Day before yesterday:

Me, to Daughter: You look nice today! (She has on a light turquoise tank top under a short-sleeved terry hoodie, white w/ a design in various shades of turquoise.)

Daughter: That's it, I'm changing! You know there's no faster way to get a teenager to change her clothes than to tell her you like her shirt... (/sarcasm)

Me: C'mere. (attempts a hug)

Daughter: Noooooo! (backs away quickly)

Me: Oi! How come you can glomp me and I can't glomp you? That ain't cricket, yo.

Daughter and #1-Son both make Bwuh?-My-Mother-Is-A-Looooony faces.

#1-Son: Um, Mom, I think you're...

Me: Mixing my slang?

#1-Son: Yeah.

Me: School -- You can go there now, kthxbai.

==##==

Last Monday, when it snowed:

Daughter showed up at the breakfast table in a short-sleeved hoodie over a tank top, jeans, and flip-flops. I went slightly ballistic: "Honey, it's right at freezing out there! It's trying to snow! Put on shoes! And long sleeves!" Okay, maybe a lot ballistic.

Both boys were sitting right there at the table when I had this little attack.

Not half an hour later as I shoved them out the door to the bus, #1-Son turns to me and says, "Bwuh? It's snowing!?"

*heavy sigh, with eye roll* I said, "Why do you think I made your sister put on real shoes? And told you to wear your winter coat? I said it was trying to snow, didn't I? It's opening day [of baseball season] -- of course the weather sucks!"

==##==

The Monday before:

#1-Son said to me at supper, "It was so weird to see your comment on one of my LJ comms."

I kinda blinked at him and replied, "Well, yeah... I read it and occasionally comment. I even post there, once in a moo balloon."

Daughter asked, "Why is he so surprised?"

I said, "Because he usually hangs out around ff.net and I won't go near that place."

He said, "Yeah, we don't play in the same parts of the Intarwebs. I mostly RP anyway.* I only read fanfic for the lulz."

I just had to: "You, sir, are in it for the lulz!"

*I call bull -- he spends most of his time lost in the time-sink that is TVTropes.

==#==

That morning:

Daughter came down the stairs after brushing her teeth singing Sondheim's "A Little Priest" from Sweeney Todd.

I chimed in with the second part.

And both of us took a wee bit of malicious delight in singing the last line of the verse: "It has to be grocer; it's green."

==##+==

A week earlier yet:

The kids and I were having supper in my friend's restaurant, and the ambient music was tuned to some odd digital station that I'd never come across before -- it played a lot of "unplugged" / small club live recording / not your normal version of stuff. I thought it was great; there was a brilliant track of Steven Stills doing an acoustic, solo version of "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," for example.

Then the Beatles' "All Together Now" came on. The kids all perked up, and Daughter sang along until #2-Son, whose autism includes a major intolerance for off-key sound (rather than touch-sensitivity, thank heaven) snarled at her, because she has inherited my inability to carry a tune in a bucket. When it was over, the DJ nattered on for a bit about John Lennon and Liverpool.

Daughter looked at me all puzzled and asked, "What's that got to do with anything?" and I realized that the only version of this song that the kids had ever heard was off the Kermit: Unpigged Muppet album. While the kids do know that most of those songs are covers, they don't know the original artists.

I answered gently, "It was originally a Beatles tune."

Bless her, she did head-desk.

==##==

I leave you with Ten Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse, which actually describes 0100₂ out of 0101₂ members of the Obscura household.

Posted: Fri - April 10, 2009 at 11:22 AM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

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