On Sunday, Vivian and Nora invited their best friend in the neighbourhood, Wyatt, to our house for a sleepover. Now, we were very clear on this that this wouldn’t actually be a sleep over. The kids would wear pyjamas, watch a movie, play a little bit, and then Wyatt would go home.
But then Vivian got this notion that sleepovers needed ghost stories. And she managed to get a good one from watching an episode of Alfred Hedgehog which featured a campfire tale and lots of headless bugs (the cicadas did it).
This is, you’ll remember, Vivian who gets very upset when watching movies with any sort of conflict or retribution in them. Thomas the Tank Engine is always getting in trouble, so it’s off our list. The Winnie the Pooh movie from Pixar last year was quite good, but we struggled to sit through the Heffalump movie which featured a little bit of peril before the happy ending.
But on the other hand, Vivian is now six, going on seven. She’s matured in a number of ways. She watches the news with poppa Eric and asks us questions about the world. She laughed at Lorne Elliot’s song “I Like You (Nootka the Killer Whale)” which features a heck of a lot of death and destruction at the hands of an orca and a great white shark. And now she wants to tell ghost stories. And she’s taught the other kids to play “Weeping Angels Tag” (okay, I taught her that first). Is she moving on from her earlier fears?
As I was thinking about this, I asked Erin if maybe we should see if she’d enjoy some more older stuff on television, like Doctor Who. Specifically, I asked, “I wonder if they’d enjoy Blink.”
Then, by coincidence, I heard three wails down in the basement where ghost stories were being told, and three sets of footsteps pounding up the stairs. “Scary!” they shouted “Scary! Ghosts!” And the rest of the sleepover was conducted in the living room with the lights on.
Well, I guess that answers that question.
A month ago or so, you all saw this picture below:
This is, of course, the Doctor Who Chase Dalek and Mechanoid set that I purchased from Pixel Barrel as a birthday treat for myself, and set up tastefully prominently on one of the shelves of my living room bookcase.
Well, earlier today, I was by that bookcase, and saw that these figures had been rearranged like this:
The picture doesn’t show it too clearly, but the long, curved arms of the Mechanioid (middle) have been pushed out and are now draped (sort of) around either side of the flanking Daleks. Like they were the best of buddies.
The culprit, it turns out, was Vivian, who arranged them thus because, “they should get married”.
And clearly they’ve immigrated to Canada to enjoy freedoms completely unheard of on Skaro or Mechanus.
On a completely different note, my latest column for the Kitchener Post is over here…
The other day, while I was returning home, I spotted an elderly gentleman riding a scooter on the sidewalk, and I thought to myself, he’s riding that scooter awfully slow.
Then I realized that the elderly gentleman wasn’t riding a scooter, he was riding a motorized wheelchair, except that it was made up to look almost like a Vespa.
And I thought to myself, that’s a good idea. While the mobility offered by these motorized assistance devices is invaluable, there’s still a stigma attached to these devices, but if you think about it, not much separates a motorized wheelchair with handlebars from an electric scooter or small motorcycle like a Vespa, except speed. But while one does not expect a motorized wheelchair to travel with the speed of a Vespa, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t look like one, now is there? How much better will that individual feel if he rides around in one of these, saying to himself, yes, it’s a motorized wheelchair, but I look good in it. I look damn good!
That’s a million dollar idea, right there.
Nora with a hamper full of dress-up clothes. This is the result. Good times. Good times.
My latest column for the Kitchener Post is here. I have to say that I really like finely balanced hung parliaments. They always make for interesting copy. At least, in my opinion.
We stayed home this weekend. The kids were able to entertain themselves with the neighbourhood kids and the good weather. Erin and I have been busy cleaning and also doing work-related projects. More on that later, I hope! Stay tuned.
I’m already vetting some of the songs on my iPhone from play in the car. I was reminded why earlier today when I was playing The Maid on the Shore, an old folk song made famous by Stan Rogers, but played this time by the group The Once.
For those who don’t know it, the lyrics are here. The song tells the story about a mysterious young woman walking alone on a shore who is spotted by the captain of a ship. Struck by her beauty, the captain bribes his men to kidnap her and bring her to his ship (“after much persuasion, they got her aboard”), whereupon she sings the whole crew to sleep, and then robs them blind before paddling her way back to shore with the captain’s own broadsword, telling him sternly that what happened on board stays on board (“I’m a maiden again on the shore”). Lyrically, it’s beautiful, and singable. But Vivian is now definitely old enough to follow along, which leads to her saying:
“Daddy? What’s a maiden?”
(long pause) “Uh… a maiden is an unmarried woman.”
“Oh. So, what’s an unmarried boy, then, Dad?”
“That would be a bachelor.”
“If I were the Captain, I’d just stay with the maid on the shore.”
To which Nora pipes up, “No! I’d sail away!!”
“But Nora! We could be married. As Captain, I’d cook and clean for her.”
“No! Sail away!!”
“But I would make us breakfast every day! And bunk beds!”
And I quietly press skip ahead to the next song…
