Family Fun!

 It’s been a while since I updated on tales of Stinky and the Moth… so here goes!

Stinky has decided that girls are different… and possibly interesting. Fifth grade is, apparently, the year this happens. So, when we were picking up stuff at the local Target (pronounced tar-jhay’), he asked if he could have body spray and hair gel.

Stinky is, quite literally, stinky these days, as he plays with his Axe (now, come on, that is not a euphemism). Of course, his interest in females has not changed his base personality, and if he had to choose between hanging with his crush and going to a horror-fest, well, the gore would win.

(Blood-gore -Not alGore - Gore… I’m waiting probably 2 or 3 years for his faux-environmental attitude to kick back in. It’s taken a back burner these last few years, ever since I told him that being environmental meant not using electricity, so instead of TV or music, we could WALK to the library and check out some books to READ (not listen to). )

Mothy, on the other hand, has always thought girls were interesting. He’s now in the third grade, and every day he has encounters with a rare beast: the male elementary school teacher. Mr. Sullivan is Mothman’s new hero. Every night it’s tales of what Mr. Sullivan said or did – often embarrassing to the kids in class. But the boys love it. It’s a different kind of nurture and Moth is thriving. The boys in the class seem to give this guy props because he speaks their language – lots of boy humor seems to abound – and he makes them laugh.

Unfortunately, all this joviality is giving the Tim monster a reason to practice a new laugh, kind of like those monkeys in the wild who have their own unique shriek as a “calling card”. His laugh of the week is loud, forced, fake, and determined to garner as much attention as possible. (What, gentle, quiet Tim wants to be the center of attention? Not my wallflower! Oh My! Snert.) I first heard this laugh in the middle of Bertucci’s the other night. As did every other customer in the place.

Just keep telling yourself, it’s only a phase, and all the other boys in Mr. Sullivan’s class are doing the same.  Really. It’s not just your kid.

Sigh.

The other resident of the house, one Chief Dirty Bird, has taken to cooking a new kind of cuisine. In his efforts to be a good ambassador for Captain Planet (who else remembers that bad cartoon?), he’s been feeding us a more LOCOVORE diet. What is this you ask? It’s the diet I grew up with, basically. Eat what you grow, or what grows locally and doesn’t need to be shipped. We do the latter.  The boys now grumble “but we don’t WANNA be locovores” as they choke down zucchini surprise. But this is not zucchini that I grew. No, siree. This is pucchini that we PAID for. I pause to let you wonder at this travesty: people paying for zucchini. Yes, living in the suburbs makes you crazy enough to pay for crappy food.

Why aren’t I growing this nasty stuff, instead of buying it? (after all, we have a huge plot of land for subarbanites). It seems that, in addition to my being lazy, I have a completely black thumb. We’ve grown herbs for years, successfully. This year, we tried a few other things. My tomato plants flourished! They had lots of flowers! They never had a tomato.

Heck, we can’t even grow freaking pumpkins! Everyone knows gourds are a weed in PA, but our huge vines, which produce dozens of flowers, only produced one, tiny pumpkin. John actually BOUGHT a pumpkin from a local and put it in our pumpkin vine to make it LOOK like we grew a big one. Yes, he really did. (John, don’t bother trying to deny it. I can take pictures as proof.)

I blame the lazy-ass bees not pollinating the plants. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

And if you’re still reading, and want to read more (Yes, Please!), I’ve a non-family update below. Saturday mornings are so nice!

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