Putting this up the night before to cover the insomniacs and/or East Coasters…
Welcome to —
WACKY FAMILY WEDNESDAY!
Okay, maybe your family isn’t that wacky…but some of us probably have some tales to share from holidays past.
Maybe the time your kid sister was so excited, she couldn’t sleep Christmas Eve…and then come Christmas dinner, she fell asleep with her head in the mashed potatoes?
Or the time your Uncle George and your dad got hold of some balloons and did their rendition of the Chipmunks’ Christmas Song?
Or maybe you had begged your mom for a drum set, but only got socks and underwear…but when you disappointedly went off to the kitchen to get something for your mom, you found the drum set all set up in there waiting for you? (I actually read that story in the paper.)
Let’s dish about holidays and families, past and present…
…and, a Public Service Announcement:
Oh my goodness, am I really going to be first to comment in a cafe? WOW
I’m not an insomniac nor an east-coaster but I’m here and wide awake.
I’m trying to come up with a wacky family story. My problem is….which family and which story?
RATS!! Second place again…..
That means I can’t mention my crush on the late Carolyn Jones.
I went to Pa to clean out my grandmother’s house and there was some VERY weird stuff there- including the ‘hair book ‘which I mentioned here before- this is a homemade paper book with Victorian women’s hair braided into little momentos- and pasted in- as a promise of eternal friendship,I guess. As has been seen in archeological digs,hair seems to last a LONG time.
Showed this to a friend last weekend and he kept saying ‘EEEWWWW- that is weird.Thanks for sharing’. (giggle)
And no I have no pics of it as yet.
Good Morning.
(Yawn)
counts as a wacky family story.
(that’s one quip for me)
(wacks Andi on the side of the head. lightly. really just a tap. no hitting.)
Ah, shut up and drink your coffee!
(one quip for me!)
Coffee I can do, shutting up not so much. And anyway if I shut up, won’t that make trading quips a little difficult?
(two)
Oh, yeh — I forgot that part.
(three for you)
At a passover seder* when I was kid, my Uncle Chick got way ahead in drinking his glasses of wine. My Aunt Neoma (his sister-in-law) was reading a section of the service when he boomed out “Neoma, did you just say testament? Boy, am I glad that was you reading instead of me because I would have said testicles.”
* wiki explanation of a seder for those who don’t know what they are.
That’s cute that he found a way to work it in, even though he wasn’t the one doing the reading. Did the rest of your family appreciate that skill?
cute is not a word anyone would have ever used for Uncle Chick — crude, tacky, loud, funny, dirty-minded but never cute.
Another classic Uncle Chick moment: we’re in a very nice restaurant and Uncle Chick is telling a dirty joke at nearly the top of his lungs and laughing so hard at his own joke that he falls over backwards in his chair.
I forgot to get my work clothes out of my daughter’s bedroom last night.
I hate stumbling around trying not to wake her up. But, I also don’t want to wear yesterday’s clothes.
And time is passing quickly while I dither on about it.
Ha! Crisis over — like a pig I left some clothes in our bedroom! I’m dressed. I’m ready. I can go to work!
to not go to work — can’t go nekkid, now can you.
Don’t worry about waking her up — she’s a kid, she’ll be back asleep in three seconds flat and if she isn’t, she’ll just take a nap later.
Well, that’s all part of the dithering see? I hate talking to people in the morning. It’s all about me. And my need for silence.
Jim’s just like that. I’ve had 34 years of almost no talking in the morning and I see it as a plus — I can ignore him and not even have to feel bad about it.
mister & I have a rule. Whoever has to go to work first gets the house to themselves for at least some period (sometimes there has to be an overlap).
One of the things that drove me wacky when our son came back to live after graduation was that he didn’t respect that rule. I’d often get up to find him watching TV in the living room. In my head I’d be screaming GET OUT OF HERE! But, he, not knowing the rule would just as nice as can be make casual chit-chat. How can you yell at a boy like that?
Ah, well.
Off-to-work time.
The worst part about the spouse’s current schedule is that to get my “quiet time”, I have to stay in bed till right before he leaves — otherwise he’s talking at me.
[Family definition:
Talking at — someone is talking but the other person is not disposed to listen, either because he/she is busy reading/working/watching TV, is trying to wake up, or is falling asleep but not willing to get his/her ass to bed.]
That gets my day to a later start than preferred; he seems to be dithering about going back to the transit doctor to get things checked again; not sure if he’s waiting till after the holidays, or if I’m going to have to be firm with that boy…
I didn’t see this until just now!
I know just what you mean about hanging out in bed wanting to get going for the day.
Oh I hear you. I really like complete quiet in the morning. When I was in my early twenties and I wanted to move into my own apartment I couldn’t afford it. So I needed a roommate. A friend of a friend of mine and I decided to meet to see if we would be compatable sharing space. I was completely upfront about my need to NOT be talked to in the morning. She was ok with that. We were great roommates (she tells me I was a better roommate than her husband is now). About three months after we moved into our apartment we evaluated things and decided they were working great. But she said she had been on pins and needles the first few mornings (repeating over and over to herself — do not talk, do not talk.)
I can’t use that excuse–I work at home, so I can work nekkid if I want to. It would be a rather silly idea, though, given that there are fully-clawed cats lurking about. I do, however, work in jammies and fuzzy slippers on a regular basis.
I don’t get snow days either. A couple years back when Denver got absolutely clobbered by a snowstorm, I think I was the only person in town who still had to work.
I work at home, too. I’ve emailed my boss a couple of times and tried “I’m snowed in. I can’t get to work.” It was actually true once when I couldn’t get to the airport. My boss takes very good care of me, though and always reminds of company holidays (I tend to forget about the minor ones) and tells me whenever they let people go home early to start holidays.
I don’t know why but I don’t like working in pj’s. I’ve been working at home for 16 years and I probably haven’t worked that way more than a handful of times.
In today’s modern and challenging business environment, pajamas, preferably adorned with a splatter or two of mustard or chutney, are the standard of professional business attire for home workers and bloggers.
Surely you can put out a little extra effort (and condiments) to bring your personal attire in line with your colleagues.
as you might think — the condition of most of the t-shirts I wear while working would more than meet your splatter requirements with the added feature of that many of them are quite stylishly dingy.
And year-round, I am either barefoot or wearing sandals.
Nooooo! :{)
Peace
get enough of my pictures, right? This is from yesterday, being all zen at the park.
Zen — isn’t that just an illustration of normal sibling relationships?
On another subject, did my second set of instructions on doing diaries work better?
I haven’t tried it yet. I’m a little fuzzy this morning and I didn’t want to completely demoralize myself by failing at something so easy. I’ll try later and if I have a problem you can be assured I will let you know. 🙂
about your ability to do it — just mine to explain it. I’ve got a much more detailed one I’m doing for the froggybottom cafe people, complete with actual screenshots if you want to wait for it to be done. It’s geared to doing the unhosted cafes but it still probably works as a general purpose tutorial.
Ok, thanks. I noticed Cali didn’t use a template and it looks fine, so maybe I’ll end up doing that if I can’t get the template right.
to use the template I stole…errr, borrowed from Diane, plus I didn’t think it would work with the extended text I wanted to use.
A little late getting in; the spouse was on the computer before work, then I had some wireless network problems. I love the AirPort Express, but I think it might just be a bit too heavy for the socket it’s in — it tends to work itself loose every so often. I think I may head for the Apple Store tomorrow and get the regular AirPort Base Station that actually sits on a hard surface; there’s plenty of room behind the printer for it anyway.
Raining here today, so will stay inside and get some work done (tentatively)…
I really like that picture! (On the other one, I must have been projecting my childhood sibling relationships on your kids).
Your kids are so beautiful, and they seem actually fond of each other. I like ’em. 🙂
Thank you, kansas. I think they’re beautiful, but all moms think that about their own kids.
What a nice topic for a rainy Holiday® Wednesday.
Dad and mom dated and married at the end of the WW2 big band era. Mom’d been a tap dancer so they often would play and dance a little at parties or at dance intermissions.
Somewhere along the way, dad figured out that he could shift his bass hand a half step or so off key. Mom the do-or-die performer would have to keep dancing of course; because dad with a straight face would meticulously preserve the beat for her, but the music became so wrong that people would howl.
He’ll still slip it in every now and then when company’s around. My brother the blues guitarist consequently worked out how to play Wrong Guitar which he’s using to great effect on his family teens and their friends at gatherings.
This is so funny! If you ever make a recording of it. . .
Any way to let us listen?
which I don’t know how to hook into a computer, though I guess the audio would patch into the line in on the sound card.
Then there has to be some place to put it.
Well, don’t drive yourself crazy with it. It would just be fun to hear. . .but only if it’s easy for you to do.
It’s not really holiday related, but here goes:
I owe my existence to military red tape.
My father was stuck at Treasure Island after WWII, waiting for the Navy to find his paperwork so he could be released and head back to Missouri to marry his high school sweetheart.
While he was there, a buddy of his suggested a night on the town. “Come on, I know a couple of nice girls — let’s get out of here for a night. It’s okay — one of them’s engaged to a guy from Jersey who’s still stuck in the service…”
Anyway, to make a long story short, my dad and my mom both ended up breaking their engagements…
[Note: when going through Mom’s things after she died, we found a bracelet with Dad’s name engraved on it…and on the back was engraved the name of his original fianceé. It’s amazing that Mom kept that all these years. We gave it to my nephew, who is named for Dad; hope he doesn’t have to explain to some future girlfriend who the heck “Ethel” is…]
Can anybody recommend a good comedy? Yesterday we went to see The Family Stone thinking it was a comedy. It was funny in parts but wasn’t really a “light” comedy. The new Kevin Kostner/Jennifer Anistan movie got terrible reviews. Any other ideas?
Ebert & Roeper gave the Jennifer Aniston film 2 thumbs up. I don’t remember the details, but you can listen to their comments here
are all on DVD — love The First Wives Club (more in the “dark comedy” vein), and for screwball comedy What’s Up Doc? is great (I just found that on DVD right before the holidays, in one of those $10 bargain bins).
Think I’ll stick First Wives Club in the player, in fact… 🙂
I would watch “Scrooged” again and again just to see that scene where Carol Kane merrily beats up on Bill Murray. It makes me choke with laughter. I am a sick person. “Tootsie” also still makes me LOL.
I’m not sure if I have any wacky family stories. I’ll have to think a while about it. In the meantime, would anyone like to grade papers with me?
Sure, but only if we can use a purple pen. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Purple, green, it’s all good. I am currently using a pink pen.
I know it sounds really stupid, but I can understand those that think red pens are too harsh. I have two kids with learning disabilities and they would struggle over reports or descriptive paragraphs or whatever, and then get it back all marked up with angry red marks. Well, they looked angry to them, and it was always painful for me to see how demoralized they seemed. They couldn’t see what they did right, just all the red marks.
So, pink is cool.
My parents are wonderful, generous people. They both grew up poor (my Dad during the Depression and Mom during WWII) and didn’t have much money until the last few years. As a result, they’re very practical people. This has translated into some….interesting Christmas presents. I’ve gotten all of these at least once: underwear, toothbrushes, toilet paper (!), deodorant, typing paper, shampoo, socks, and pencils.
My brother and I are still horrified about the toilet paper (he received a package too).
NEW YORK – Michael Vale, the actor best known for his portrayal of a sleepy-eyed Dunkin’ Donuts baker who said “Time to make the doughnuts,” has died. He was 83.
Vale died Saturday in New York City of complications from diabetes, according to son-in law Rick Reil.
link
To be fair, he never once said it was time to eat the donuts. RIP, donut dude!
Cali, maybe we ought to start a new Cafe, just to get it visible again. Do you want to do it?
My sister couldn’t stand not knowing what she was getting for Christmas. Mom ordered most of our gifts from the Sears catalog, so sis would measure all of her presents and compare the dimensions with the catalog specifications. She compiled a remarkable accuracy rate.
And then there was the ongoing effort to put out the largest possible stocking for stuffing on Christmas eve. We finally hit the jackpot when pantyhose were invented. Imagine Christmas morning–the tree is twinkling, the presents are piled high, and two fully-stuffed pairs of pantyhose are reclining on the sofa.
How about you? Did I miss anything exciting?
No.
I don’t know why, but this made me laugh.
I saw that kansas was thinking about opening a new cafe — should I?
Maybe it would give new life to our conversations.
I think that would be a good idea. We need new life. Yup.
(cough) Cough
Hellllloooo?
Andi, absolutely every single time I see that face it makes me laugh. You think it would get old, but it doesn’t.
I didn’t understand what you were asking about in your email, so just send it the way you prefer.
If you don’t know what a zip file is, then I won’t send them that way because I don’t want you to have trouble extracting the files. And if that doesn’t make any sense, check with your children and they will explain it 😉
Can I give the other folks your “good” email address or should I use the one you use here.
(I like that face too and I’m tired of it either and I’ve been seeing a whole lot longer.)
but vacant stare kid is truly dear to my heart.

Yes, we all love her. But it’s a maternal love (of sorts), she doesn’t make us laugh-out-loud crazy every time we see her.
Yeah, you can give them my real address, though I am changing over to gmail shortly. Same address at gmail.com
Me too! It’s like any other high-quality dumb joke — with repetition it just keeps getting funnier.
It’s the itty-bitty waving fist/buckles — they’re the funniest things on the Internets.
Yes, the waving fists (okay, buckles!) make it seem as if she’s all excited about something and her little fists just can’t contain it all.
of tiny fist fetishers. But what happens when I hit you with the full effect.
dorable! totally adorable!
Bring her to the new cafe, would you?
It’s cute, but it loses something in it’s bigness.
I admit I love that little squat body (which has, in fact, changed very little over the years).
I love ’em all equally. Truly.
OOOh, the little waving fists are calling me!!!
Can you play today?
Are you off tomorrow or just Friday and Monday?
(sniff) Just Friday and Monday. So I’ll miss the weekly “Wild kansas Thursday”
It’s just not fair.
On a more exciting note, my daughter designed a nice banner for the blog. So that, at least is coming along.
Hey, hello, I must be going.
But seriously, folks, just checkin’ in on a chilly evening to say hello & postpone my chores.
Thanks to everyone who offered thoughts on book abandonment last night.
Needless to say, as well, I doubt there’s any more for me to add to a ‘wacky family’ thread than I already have.
Buona sera, tutti!
Hi wilderness wench!! What chores are you postponing tonight?
Howdy, kb!
Ah yes, the chores. Last week I dealt with a rather serious plumbing problem; haven’t done the dishes since — nor had I done them as the problem developed. You can imagine what that looks like.
Plus, I must find the missing pooper scooper. Nikko, the kitten, has diarrhea.
Aren’t you glad you asked? 😉
(cough) (shaking head to clear it)
I hope you’re not actually ill, kb. Sorry if I’ve contributed ..
Ah well, to the mess I go.
Good to hear about your site’s progress, by the way!
As long as I don’t re-read your list of chores, I’m sure I’ll be fine!
I’ve opened a new cafe, Come and See it!