More Stuff Overheard Around Here Lately

We laugh a lot at our house, and sometimes I will jot down what made me laugh.  Plus, it gives me something to share when I have no news, (other than I finished knitting one sweater and started another one.  Yay, me).  Because I'm a giver, you guys.  YOU'RE WELCOME.

Here are a few (more) things overheard at my house recently:

1.  My brother-in-law describing a gold dredge, after an unsuccessful weekend spent turning over rocks in an icy creek in the mountains: "It's not a dredge.  It's called The Trough of Disappointment."

2.  My college daughter's roommate, describing the in-house food at the university: "This soup...it tastes like my nightmares."

3.  Our youngest, when describing some really loud coyotes one night that woke us both up because they sounded odd.  "I heard them, but I was dreaming and thought they were special-needs coyotes."

4.  Youngest to oldest, while watching a close-up shot of Russell Crowe in a movie:  "AYY YO GONNA RECYCLE THOSE BAGS UNDER YA EYES?"  (no offense, Russell).

5.  Annnnddd...a text from my youngest to my oldest when they were upstairs one night:

Awww.  Now give each other a hug.

Chopsticks and "Laughings Fits" with my Brother

I love that my brother and I share an odd sense of humor, (and possibly a brain)...even though we've lived opposite ends of the country for most of our lives.

I was thinking of him today, because our mom's birthday was this week, and he's taking her to dinner tonight at a restaurant where we had one of our silliest laughing fits, a long time ago.  It's a Polynesian restaurant in south Florida, where it's dinner and a show:  fire-eaters, dancers, loud drums, drinks in mugs that look like totem poles, the whole thing.  There's even a big tropical garden to walk around in after dinner.

But, for some reason, you can order chopsticks to eat with, when you eat there.  Which he did, last time we went.

Possibly exactly these

Maybe it was the drinks in the totem pole thing, but we got to looking at the Chinese lettering on his chopsticks while watching the island dancers and fire eaters stomping around.  It started with him wondering, "Do you ever wonder what this writing actually says?"

Suddenly, we both had lots of ideas for loose translations.  Here are a few I remember:

Use other end.

Good luck finishing dinner.

You ordered rice, didn't you?

Do not use around eye area.

We know you can't read this.

Hope you didn't order soup.

Haven't you ever heard of a spoon?

We don't even use these in China any more.  These are so 1800's.

We only make these to send to American restaurants.  Because FORKS.

****

It kind of spiraled into this uncontrollable fit of giggling that we couldn't stop, and my mom had to pretend like she wasn't with us, or even related to us...which made it even funnier.  You know the kind.  Like when you spill Skittles on the hard-wood floor in the middle of a church service...but somehow it's the funniest thing that ever happened, and you can't stop trying not to giggle?  (well, maybe not that funny, but still).          not that that's ever happened to me...

It also morphed into a conversation about his various tattoos, most of which are cool-looking groups of Asian script.  He swears that the one down the back of his calf is the word for "courage", but I like to tell him, come on, it probably just says "broom" or something.  Because, who would know?  And if they did, who's going to say anything?  Like, sir, excuse me, but why do you have the word 'frying pan' on your leg? And do you know it says "kick me" on your shoulder?

I always warn him that, maybe the tattoo guy has no idea, or those were just the prettiest script letters that day, and he was like, oooh, I want to do that one!  Next guy that comes in...I'm doing that.  I don't care if it means "shovel"--it looks AWEsome.

His next tattoo is going to be a totem pole, though, so maybe there's some weird connection there that I'm not getting.

Ahh, good times.  I miss him.    *sniff*




Ever find yourself in those situations where you're laughing at something at an inappropriate time, when you know you shouldn't, and it just gets worse?  

My Daughter's One of My Favorite Bloggers--AND We Collaborate

Here's a link to my oldest daughter's blog--she draws comic stories that make me laugh out loud.  Like today's post about her and her sister at her blog called Running With Cookies:

There is also a post over there where she drew the illustrations and inserted them in a silly highschool report that I actually wrote at age 17 in 1987, then posted it as an illustrated story, which is like...collaborating with your own daughter, at the same age.  If that makes sense.  

I feel like Nat King Cole and his daughter on that song from way back when.  Except that we're both alive, and it's not a song.

Not quite this, but close enough

"Fluh" is a Word

I love my brother Jesse.  We share an odd sense of humor, a love of cats, similar coloring, and a lot of years of a dorky hippie childhood.  Even though he lives at the opposite side of the country, we have managed to stay in touch and always pick up where we left off, and we always laugh a lot.  When he visits, our kids are like Whoa. He's like...you... except, he's a guy.  High praise indeed.  *wink*

 

We joke that we must share a brain, sometimes.  On his last visit, we were all randomly trying to remember the name of an Emilio Estevez movie, and someone blurted out the title, Young Guns.  We both absolutely simultaneously chimed in...."Did you see the size of that...CHICKEN?".  I haven't seen that movie in probably five years, and I've never watched it with him. We graduated high school from separate ends of the country, yet we both picked out the same exact line? 

 

People who haven't seen the movie totally didn't see the humor, but we thought we were hilarious. Maybe quoting movies is a symptom of growing up in the 80's, I don't know.

 

Sometimes we will just randomly text each other a song that's stuck in our head.  You know, just to share the love.  This spring I was remembering a shared joke about cooking with thyme (the herb), so I sent him this:

 

Me:  "If Iiiii could save tiiiiiiiime in a bottttttle"

 

He immediately wrote:  "Lol thanks! Lately I've been stuck with crappy 'Walk Like An Egyptian'.  Radio stations suck down here".

 

Me:  "Nooo!  Now I hear those big kettle drums!!!"

 

That's what siblings are for, right?

 

When I picked him up at the airport this summer for his visit, after not having seen him for a year and a half, my phone went off, with a text from Shane, and Jesse started reaching for his phone. Apparently we have picked out the exact same chime/ringtone for text messages. I know--not a big deal.  Unless you consider the fact that we have separate phone carriers, different phone brands, and the sound we picked out (from about a million choices) is a really odd sound that isn't normally used for text messaging alerts.  He was like... "Seriously? That's your ringtone?" High five.

 

One of my favorite things, though, is our joke about "Fluh".  We were talking about people who yakk nonstop on the phone without coming up for air. We all know them.  You don't really even need to participate, during these conversations, other than to let them know you haven't actually hung up every once in awhile. He had a girlfriend like this once, and he said she would talk for so long that he would just set the phone down on the couch while she talked, and do whatever he needed to do. Every once in awhile he would just pick up the phone and say uh-huh and put it back down. Then, to mix it up, he decided to just throw in random sounds. She never even noticed. So he would pick the phone up at random times, and say something like "Fluh," then set the phone back down. A few minutes later he would pick it back up and say "Schweagle," then, "Snarf".  I guess it was fine for her, because she just kept talking. 

 

Not surprising, they are no longer together...

 

We aren't ones to spend hours on the phone chatting, and even our texting is sometimes pretty brief, but sometimes I just need to touch base, so I'll text him a random word like "Fluh".  Sure enough, a few minutes later I'll get back: "Snarg", and that's all we need sometimes.