Singing a song, driving landmarks and Pop-Pop Culture, the week that was week 49 with the Carr’s dipped in a big vat of chocolate.
Ice-cream man
With the lovely weather and the kids playing outside after school, timing could not be better for the annual arrival of the tinny music playing from the little speaker on big white truck, driven by the “ice-cream man”. The girls can’t hear you from the next room when you ask them to pick up their garbage, but they have some kind of fine tuned radar when it comes to the music trumpeting the arrival of the ice-cream man. Picking the girls up at the sitter this week, I first heard the sound, when I opened my car door. Just as I expected they came running with their: “Please, we’ve been good!” voices on faster then you could shake a stick. So I did what I always do, I asked, “How much money do you have in your pocket?” It’s amazing, because the answer is always the same, NOTHING.
I guess they fixed my wagon though, because although they had no money with them then at the sitters, by the time we got home, the truck had circled the court, and they did find more then enough tooth fairy money in their piggy banks. They had run in the house, grabbed the money, and ran back downstairs and out the door, before I could say “Hey! You can’t have ice-cream before dinner!”, it was too late. It was a done deal. I guess perhaps, I might have been able to catch them in the act and put a stop to it, if I where not in the washroom, and otherwise occupied. Next week, we start working on the listening to daddy, even if he is shouting from behind a closed door!
Landmarks
When I was young and just started driving, I could get just about anywhere using landmarks to navigate. I think we all do it to some extent, but this week I laughed thinking how my land-marking skills have changed. When I was in my teens, I could tell you how to get to anywhere based on McDonalds locations. I could also do it in reverse, by knowing where the closest McDonalds was from your current location. I was not even that big of a fan of McDonalds growing up, because I was (maybe still am?) a picky eater and anything I ordered had to be a specially grilled, and back then it added some major time to the whole fast food thing, but I could sure nail down each location.
Jump to present day, and although I am still very good about finding the closed McD’s, my new go to landmark is Canadian Tire or The Home Depot. I guess a product of necessity, but funny how time changes things. I have never talked about this with anyone, until this week when I was driving with Nathalie and it occurred to me that she does it to. “Remember I bought those maternity pants at that store?” she says while trying to remind me of the street she wants to go to. My only problem is we need to come up with a better way to merge our databases; right now they don’t always mesh and it gets a little confusing. See, Nathalie’s radar is naturally, places where she’s shopped. Between the two of us, we could be a very good GPS if we can come up with a way.
Sing a Song
Remember last week I told you I had some stuff to write in my blog, but could not remember it? While driving my Mom and her sister to a doctor’s appointment this week, I was reminded of one of the stories. The funny thing was, I was reminded because the same thing happed this week; only the cast of characters’ was a little different. I wrote on Facebook, as a status update:
“Just thinking aside from the steering and stuff, an hour in the car with two people over 72 is very different from an hour with two people under 11.”
You see last week when I was in the car with the girls, and one of their favourite songs came on the radio, they just broke into song and it was fun to just start singing with them. But when I caught myself jumping into the ongoing singsong this week with my Mom and my Aunt, I had to laugh. “Roses are Red (my Love)”, from Bobby Vinton is just NOT the same as Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” I don’t care what you say!
House
Looking so forward to the next few “do nothing” weekends, I am finding it a little hard to contain myself. I still have a list, and I guess I will need to get to it at some point, but after the very busy last few weeks, it is nice to wake up and not have a plan. I may try to get to a few small things, but likely not going to turn on my power drill for a bit! What do you know about “self fulfilling prophecies’”, because now that I have committed it to paper, sorta’ speak, I certainly hope that whatever doesn’t fall down, and need my immediate attention.
Pop Culture
Pop culture is a curious beast at times isn’t it? I am never quite sure where the girls pickup half of the stuff they come up with, but I guess it must be from television. Today, I caught Julia telling Jordyn in a voice right out of the 1980’s movie “The Elephant Man”, “I am NOOOOT an Animal” and I had to laugh, thinking that first, what current television show would have quoted this line, and in what context? And secondly, I thought if she had ever seen that movie, she would do what most of what her generation does when they hear something like that. They think, “Why is that old movie, using lines from Hanna Montana?”
I remember talking with my nephew a couple of years ago, and he asked “Uncle Jimmy, have you ever heard of this band called Van Halen before?” What can you do? I mean, you can laugh and shake your head, but the fact is that we probably where the same when we were kids. All we likely knew was what was going on in our own little worlds, on our same time plane. The stuff that happened long ago was somehow foreign and difficult to fathom and when someone used a line or said something in a certain way, it was new to use, and therefore fare game. Yes Pop culture, is an interesting subject.
In Closing
So when did “Punch Buggy” get added back to the riding in the car lexicon? I don’t remember hearing it for years, but this last few weeks, I have heard chatter of the kind, coming form the back seat and then today, we broke out into a full assault, no holds bar game and Daddy got hurt! While mending my very sore shoulder, I had to remind the whole car about the rules as I remember them and that lead to a little bit of a debate with Nathalie. Here is what happened. I said “Black punch buggy” and punched no one, just proud that I was able to jump in the game while responsibly driving a motor vehicle. Nathalie then proceeded to land a punch on my upper arm. I protested, “What was that for?” and while she starts laughing, she says, “You didn’t say no punch backs”. I am like “What, first of all you didn’t even say black Punch Buggy, and second, you don’t have to say no punch backs, that’s not a rule!” So she then said “black Punch Buggy NO punch backs” and proceeded to punch me again.
After I arrived at home, I did what any good husband would do, I Googled it and found the following from beetlemania.org.uk site:
“It is not necessary to add “no punch back” when calling a Punch Buggy. Punch-backs are verboten (not allowed) and will cost you one point for each punch thrown – not to mention show you up as a spoilsport and may get you grounded.”
I hate being right, but I am still refusing to ground Nathalie!
Thanks for reading and have a great and safe week!
Jim
