When it's punishment time at the Playground

Yes it occassionally happens. One of the imps will act out, smart off or generally cause havoc at 'the Playground' and a punishment will ensue (we have to because it spelled out midway through the fourth chapter of the official 'Idiot's Guide of How to be the Best Joy Sucker in 12 Easy Steps' manual).

Our nieghbors use the same relative technique, namely taking away something from the imps that they truly enjoy; video games, t.v., and/or various electronic devices.

However, that is not how WE roll here at 'the Playground'! Here we shout things like:
*Fine, don't wear your shoes to the car!
*Put that book down!
*No! I don't want a hug/kiss!

Yep, nothing can get the imps attention like depriving them of the essentials.

By the by, I was wandering through the house and realized how much JK Rowling has invaded our space.
There were open copies of Harry Potter books in the following rooms:
1)Upstairs bath - ...Half-Blood Prince
2)Imps' bedroom - ...Deathly Hallows
3)Family Room- ...Chamber of Secrets
4)DVD Player- ...Goblet of Fire
5)Car CD Player- ...Deathly Hallows

I really need the new season of Dr. Who to start...or Major League Baseball, either one....

Today

I think I have strep throat...I am trying to determine which will be least inconvenient, an urgent care facility or the primary care physician's office...

So we saw the LOTR films over the weekend and girl.imp has reduced Tolkein's characters to being Harry Potter impersonator wannabes:

Gandalf = Dumbledore
Gimli the Dwarf = a miniature Hagrid
Legolas the Elf = well he is just plain 'CUTE!'
Aragorn = a younger Sirius Black
Gollum = '...that naked man'
All the other blond-haired elves?? - Well, girl.imp had trouble believing that they were 'good guys' because they looked a lot like the Malfoys.

Which is worse...

The horrors that 'the Doctor' weekly faces, alien invaders bent on destroying the world by various neferious means OR the horror of watching middle of the Cincinnati Reds lineup, which right now cannot seem to hit a slow pitched beachball, much less fulfill its obligation of the 'Get 'em In' part of the Get 'em On, Get 'em Over...philosophy of baseball.


Why am I comparing oldest sci-fi television show of all time with the oldest pro-baseball team of all time?


Because here at the Playground we love quality. While the quality of the new incarnation of the Dr. Who series is stellar, the quality of the current Reds seems to have dropped off consistently from the 1970s heyday (with the exception of the 1990 Reds).


This is important because since returning from the Philippines on Tuesday, both imps have suffered from insomnia. Last night boy.imp made the rounds from his bed to girl.imp's bed to our bed from about 2a.m. to 5a.m.


still not seeing the path i am travelling in this tale? then let's examine girl.imp's late

and girl.imp? Well g.imp decided not to take the nightly bed-hopping tour and instead went to the family room and turned on one of the latest copies of Dr. Who (I had recorded the episodes I would miss while overseas) and around 2:30a.m. we heard her sobbing in her bed. It seems the show scared the 'sweet bejeezus' out of her and she was trying to cry into her pillow so she would not wake us.


However, upon learning what scared her so (and it was truly a great episode) I snuggled up against her and told her about how these shows are all pretend and not real. As we drifted off into a dreamless sleep, I kept asking myself why the Red's inability to hit off-speed pitches and the recurring horror of the 8th inning pitching meltdowns could not also be pretend and make-believe...

Just WHAT were you thinking, dennis?

Yes, this might be one of those moments where I might have been better off turning up the radio and not answering the question...

We were on our way to martial arts and girl.imp was in her mode of wanting to ask and ask and ask questions (meanwhile Twisted Sister, Foreigner, and AC/DC were playing on the radion and I was starting to feel mellow).

g.imp: daddy, what part of your body has the most nerves?
me: hmmm?
g.imp: what part of your body has the most nerves?
me: (laughter)

Not the belly laughter that happens when I run across an old Abbott and Costello recording. No this is the near insane laughter that happens when you are trapped in a moving vehicle with a kid who asks a question and the first thought in your mind is to answer 'gee honey, that would be my penis.'

Yes, I thought penis, the brain center, the obvious answer, except that I did not want to utter this sentence out loud. Not with wife.imp's 19-year-old niece sitting next to me and not with g.imp being only 7-years-old. (However since I started laughing, niece.imp started laughing and I kept laughing and n.imp kept laughing...)

I actually said 'your eye has the most nerves'. I lied. It is the penis. I know this because when I was 10sh and my little brother was 9sh and he reaaaaaally reaaaaaaally started to annoy me, that is where I kicked little brother (while wearing cowboy boots). I nailed little bro's 'nads about 11 a.m, and I was aiming for the uprights! He did not make it out of bed for dinner.

Proof positive of where the nerves are located.


Bedtime for boy.imp:
He was told to put his cars away. Those parents out there know when the imp gets that certain look, the set jaw, the glinting eyes and the 1,000 yard stare, that Peace-In-The-Household just packed its bags and went on an extended vacation.

Yep, he started throwing the toys. I chastised him and got The Stare. Then b.imp turned back to the toy box and launched another toy car. I gave serious thought about sending Restraint on the same vacation Peace-In-The-Household just left us for. However, b.imp is a lefty aaaaand he was putting some serious heat on the delivery.

Punish him for 'showing me up' or start planning on contacting pro scouts when he enters high school?

A lefty. A lefty with what looks like could be a really really sweet delivery...

I rolled another car to him, 'Here don't forget this one...'

Since her arrival, we have been foisting our favorite programming off on n.imp. You have read the posts (yes, I'm talking to you Maria) and you have seen the torture: 'Dr. Who', 'Voltes V', Cincinnati Reds' baseball, and if she shows herself tonight? CNN's 'Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner - The Clinton Years'.

James Taylor is Dead to Me...

No, I am not boycotting his music, he had done nothing to be targeted by my ire...I was just driving and one of his songs came on the radio and I turned to wife.imp:

"Who sings this song? I know his name! He's that guy that looks like Bert! You know, from Sesame Street?"

wife.imp: Yeah, well not when he was younger and had hair!
(note to self: do not make fun of aging rock stars that wife.imp adores...)

Which means that if James Taylor is Bert, then Jack Black HAS to be Ernie!


Sooo on a personal note, I have to admit that I am aging. I've known for years that aging is not something I will be able to escape. Gray has mixed in with my beard but what has reaaaally begun to disturb me is that the gray has also migrated ... lower.

At least the hair that tries to gain a foothold by growing out of my ears still retains some pigment!!

'Exterminate! Exterminate!'

wife.imp is getting a new toy for her office!



What says love more than a mini-Dalek (ok, a talking toy) that threatens to destroy all whom dare distract wife.imp from her tasks????

Wife.Imp is currently checking 3 local news channels and 1 state news channel and 1 national news channels...

NBC, ABC, CBS, ONN and CNN have increased their ratings as wife.imp refuses take any weather forcast at its, individual, word.

She has spent the last 2 (3?) hours flipping from one forecast to another. I cannot tell but she seems more annoyed that they are stating the same thing. If one, just one forecast allowed for no snow and half-way decent road conditions, she would have been out of here!!

girl.imp is out of school for the 2nd day this week. I believe we will stop buying her lunches, as every day this month that she marked to purchase lunch, we have had severe winter weather!! However, she is not claiming to be our teacher and is prodding me to do a vocabulary assignment!

boy.imp has his trucks so no new news there...

Oh, happy Valentines Day :)

As Heard at the Playground This Weekend

Saturday:
(I was visiting with my parents, hooking their house up for wireless internet)

girl.imp: mommy! Mommy, boy.imp pooped and needs his diaper changed!
wife.imp: (insert text here --b.imp's diaper was off by the time wife.imp arrived on the scene. In her words, the diaper was empty and the pile that lay on the bathroom carpet looked like ear of corn that had been burnt on the grill)

Sunday:
b.imp: I want medicine (g.imp has strep and was taking her meds)
me: You're not sick. You don't need medicine.
b.imp: I want medicine too!
me: You're not getting medicine. In order for you to get this, your throat would have to really hurt.
g.imp: yeah, but your throat will only hurt for the first two days. After that it won't hurt anymore but you will have a cough and runny nose.
b.imp: I want strep phroat!! (running out of the room and wailing--VERY.LOUD)


New This Week:
Wife.Imp's Video Pic: "White and Nerdy" by Weird Al Yankovic

The freak Geek in Me actually speaks

As the new Vice-President of AGPAAS (see Jenny's post 'No Kidding' on the Sept. 4 blog over at Mama Drama. Feel free to use the link on this page), I feel it is time to use my newfound position of authority to improve the intellectual dialogue over here at the playground.

To that end (and I know this conversation was a bit premature as I had not yet received confirmation of my new position with AGPAAS) I decided to open an intellectually stimulating conversation with wife.imp Tuesday night:

me: So do you prefer the episode (M*A*S*H) with Radar only or with Klinger only?
wife.imp: huh, aren't they both the same?
me: (well yeah, except one is semi-psychic and the other is a cross-dresser)...ok how about with Col. Potter v. Col. Blake?
wife.imp: Potter. Blake was just too goofy...I do like Winchester better than that other one...
me: Frank Burns?
wife.imp: yes. He just seems too -- incompetent -- to be a 'real' surgeon.

Yes, we had that conversation. Yes I have not only corrupted the wife.imp to the point she is a baseball fanatic (read: A real Reds fan -- apologies to Chag but if your gonna be a fan, be a fan of a team that started pro ball, not the team that buys it every season) :)

Do you think chag picked up on the mid-market jealously there?

Anywho, I have mentioned before how wife.imp has actively sought out baseball on the radio, sets football on t.v. (without my asking) and even sat through a Dr. Who marathon! It seems now I have her hooked on M*A*S*H Yes, I know this to be true because I have watched her absently flip the channels seeking out this show. I have such a good life here at the playground!

However this is not the worst/best topic we have covered recently. After flipping through 30 odd channels the other night, I popped in the first LOTR movie. About midway through the 'good wizard' and the 'bad wizard' fight (I know...I know just prop your eyelids open a few moments more and I promise you we'll move on). About mid-fight wife.imp asks a leading question about the 'bad wizard's' motivation.

Talk about an open door! The Geek in me could not help but surface and smother all my best intentions to keep the answer short!
Thing is, wife.imp managed to stay awake through my discourse!

Ok, moving on to the last topic of senseless conversation that has recently enthralled us:

Has anybody else lost all respect for Sally Forth as a decision maker? I mean we actually will make tsking sounds and emit moans of discuss with every career decision this 'woman' makes! wife.imp has been driven to such levels of frustration as to actually lecture me (preaching to the choir) and threaten to write the cartoonist to vent her frustration!

Quite honestly I would be happy to sign that letter because he has turned a strong-minded, career-woman into a parody of Walter Mitty (the Walter Mitty at the beginning of the book but without the daydreams). I am even finding that Blondie is a better model of a career woman!