7 Quick Takes (Volume 74)

1) Kevin, who is most definitely NOT a morning person, came downstairs on St. Patrick's Day wearing jeans and a cream-colored shirt. Ladies Man, decked out in green plaid shorts, a green t-shirt and a green sports jacket with a shamrock stuck in the pocket, immediately pinched him.

Kevin: OW! Don't pinch me.

Ladies Man: That's the rule. If you're not wearing green, you get pinched.

Kevin (spoken like a three-year-old who's been poked by his neighbor in preschool): Don't pinch me.

Ladies Man (laughing his head off): Sorry, didn't mean to tick you off. It's just the rule.

Two minutes later, Kevin walked up to Ladies Man and slapped him in the face.

Ladies Man: Hey, what's that for?

Kevin: It's a rule. If you're wearing too much green you get smacked in the face.

2) Ever since my mom hosted exchange students from Japan, my kids have this weird habit of eating popcorn with chopsticks.


(And yes, I'm still making popcorn, even after the "incident.")

3) Drummer Boy is home for spring break. Every time he comes home I think he looks a little older. His arms are getting thicker, his face more masculine. He's shaving more often and I swear his vocabulary is improving! (Kevin will find this humorous as I used to tease him about using bigger words when working on his Master's degree.)

After filling out that stupid census form, having a very mature discussion with Drummer Boy and seeing him look more manly, I felt sad at how life constantly moves forward, whether we're ready for it or not.

And then Drummer Boy left our adult conversation, snuck down the hall and screamed as loud as he could into Ladies Man's room trying to scare him.

I smiled. Maybe some things never change.

4) Whenever I call someone on the phone I always say, "Hey, whoever, it's Tami."

In the modern era of caller ID it's completely unnecessary to identify myself, isn't it? I kick myself every time I do it. I'm showing my age, huh? Yikes.

5) When I borrowed Drama Queen's camera to take my popcorn pictures, I found this shot of her at our nephew's wedding.


I LOVE the way her eyes just sparkle here. Most likely she's biting her lip to prevent herself from saying something completely inappropriate. So pretty and so much fun. Love you, babe!

6) Ladies Man told us a story he read on the internet about a guy trying to convince young people to consider the cost of joining the military.

Ladies Man: He talked about this friend who went to war and when he came back he started chopping people's heads off.

Me: What?!

Kevin: Chopped people's heads off?

Ladies Man: Well, I don't know if he did or he just wanted to, but the guy was using it as an example of how you shouldn't join the military without really thinking about it.

Me: Or you'll come home and chop people's heads off?!

Ladies Man: No. It was just an example. I don't know. It was something like that.

Though we found the story quite funny, Ladies Man did not and quickly got frustrated with us, so Drummer Boy changed the subject.

Drummer Boy: Have you guys seen The Book of Eli? It's about this guy who has the only Bible in a post-apocalypse world (see what I'm saying about his vocabulary--he just ripped this word off like he was saying "toast") and everybody is chasing him to get it.

Ladies Man: Are they trying to kill him? Does he have to kill anybody?

Kevin: Or does he just chop their heads off?

Ladies Man: Stop it!

Drummer Boy: He does chop somebody's arm off. Anyway, they get the Bible away from him, but it's locked up and they have to break the lock. When they finally get it open, they discover it's printed in Braille.

Kevin: Hey, someone with their head chopped off could still read that!

Poor Ladies Man couldn't take it. He left the room in a huff.

7) We tried to make it up to him by planning a little family time yesterday. Though his friends were headed skiing or to Florida, we took the fam to the booming metropolis of Lincoln, Nebraska (true confession--we were going anyway for an appt for Ladies Man).

We decided to make a day of it with the whole family, having a nice lunch together, maybe hitting a matinee, but nothing quite worked our way. There were no movies playing we wanted to see, so we got the bright idea of doing laser tag. Nope. No place open until 6 which was too late. Plan C was Champions Fun Center which everyone was stoked about until we drove into the empty parking lot which would not fill for another three hours. No one wanted to bowl, but we remembered an indoor miniature golf course out at the mall, so we headed there only to find it gone.

What could we do? We made the best of it and played in the "amusement park" at the mall.

Drama Queen sprung for the ride, so Drummer Boy drove.



Ladies Man barely got out of the chopper.



Miss Innocent One had the most expensive ride--lions, hippos and monkeys don't come cheap.



This guy gets my motor going--vroom vroom!



All in all it was a fun afternoon. We managed to get out of the park before mall security arrived, then rounded out our time with a visit to Barnes and Noble. As we say in our house, "It's all good."


I hope it's all good for you too, friends. Enjoy your weekend and take in some other Quick Takes posts at Conversion Diary.