What Is Life

After a nice break from Tootsie-pop the past five days, I have been reluctant about her showing up at the house again tonight. But I was pleasantly greeted with our usual sweet nine year old, and breathed a quick sigh of relief that the rest of our time with her this week would go well.

Things got off to a smashing start tonight. Home-made pizza (again) which we were all very excited about. Even the onions decided they were pleased with the idea of home-made pizza (they totally arranged themselves into that smiley face, I didn't even have to manipulate them).

And then after a nice dinner, with a fantastic bottle of slightly bubbly pinot grigio, we got down to the business of cleaning up the kitchen. Now, let me just say this, Ken's thing is music. We have music on all the time, which is great, however I have decided that the rule for cleaning the kitchen is that "whoever cleans the kitchen gets to pick the music". Which is great for me because it gives me free access to all my bad music.

Which I play very loudly.

=)

But Ken is always trying to sneak his music onto my Kitchen Cleaning play-list.

"How about this one?" he asked, turning up George Harrison's "What is Life".

:::me shaking my ass a little:::

"Oh, yeah! This one can go onto the Kitchen Cleaning list!" I exclaimed.

:::me and Ken dancing together in the kitchen:::

"Hey you!" I shout over the music to Tootsie-pop, "Stop drying those dishes and get over here! No being a square!"

:::Tootsie-pop drops the towel and runs over:::

:::we all crazy dance for the duration of the song:::

If there is one thing I love about my little family of choice, above all the other good stuff that we do together, it is that we spend a good deal of time unabashedly dancing like crazy people.

It is good for the soul.


Word of the Day Monday, February 01, 2010

mondegreen

\MON-di-green\ , noun;

1. A word or phrase resulting from a misinterpretation of a word or phrase that has been heard.

I quickly walk across the street and check the estimated arrival time of the Number Eight bus. Five minutes. Then I notice that the later bus is supposed to arrive in five minutes as well.

"Great, the bus is running late," I think, but resign myself to the wait and the inevitably crowded bus that will soon arrive.

I pull my book out and start to read about the drama filled world of diamond mining.

"What the fuck! Where the fuck is the god damned bus!" I hear off to my right. I glance over towards the outburst without moving my head and recognize the Crazy Bus Guy.

Clearly he has been waiting for the bus for a while.

I look back down at my book and try to concentrate.

"Jesus! Why the fuck doesn't the bus fucking show up on time!" he mutters again loudly.

Now the rest of the crowd waiting for the bus has noticed Crazy Bus Guy unwinding, and collectively, we all shift our weight uncomfortably.

"God dammit! I gotta get to work on time! What the fuck!"

Our unsettled, agitated crowd continues to ignore Crazy Bus Guy with intense concentration and silently will the bus to show up a minute or two faster than expected. Although the thought does occur to me that once the bus shows up we will all soon be in a small, enclosed space with Crazy Bus Guy.

He goes on swearing up a storm as a father and this three young sons walk by, the four of them laughing and smiling. The thought crosses my mind to suggest to Crazy Bus Guy that he not swear in front of little kids, but think better of the urge and instead hope a more benign mondegreen will reach their youthful ears.

Finally, in the distance I see the Number Eight bus making its way down the street. Gratefully the rest of the crowd starts to shuffle towards the bus stop.

"Hey! Is that the Number Eight?" Crazy Bus Guy asks genially.

The crowd collectively nods and murmurs to him, hoping the arrival of the bus will quell the crazy, and he amicably climbs onto the bus with the rest of us.

Throughout this entire exchange I think to myself, "Dude. I can totally understand getting pissed off about the bus ride home running late, when one could miss out on something important like crazy dancing. But the bus ride to work?!?! Dude! Save the aneurism for something worthwhile!"