BlabberMouse

Boys Will Be Boys, And I Will Probably Be Dead in Five Years

2009-11-15T16:22:13-06:00

Larry spent the morning building the boys a tree fort. Or really it's more of a tree platform I suppose. But still. It’s fun. And the boys are having a blast with it.

They climb the little ladder, they stand on the lookout, it’s not too high from the ground, so they’d (allegedly) be hard pressed to kill themselves falling off of it.

This afternoon, having delivered a brief safety lecture about not pushing or using the jump rope as a noose, I went inside to check my e-mail. As I was sitting at the computer, I was sort of wistfully thinking to myself how nice it is that the boys are at an age when they can entertain each other in the yard, and I don’t have to watch them every single second. Then I heard this strange sound coming from Patrick. Kind of an egh egh egh egh sound. It wasn’t his usual little brother victim cry, but an odd noise that my brain could not make sense of. So I went to the back door and looked out. Patrick was sitting on the lawn several feet from the tree fort, whimpering. I scanned the yard for Gus and then, two feet to Patrick’s right, beside the tree fort, I saw Gus’s foot. And his leg. AND HIS BODY LYING ON THE GROUND TOTALLY STILL. I threw my can of soda down on the deck and ran across the lawn, screaming Gus's name like I was in a Lifetime movie. GUS! GUS! OH MY GOD! PATRICK, WHAT HAPPENED TO GUS? GUS GUS GUSSSS!

His little face was so still. I thought he had fallen off the platform and hit his head. Or fainted? He looked so peaceful and strange, I thought. Is he dead? In a coma? Should I move him? Did he break his neck? And all this time (two, three, ten seconds?) I'm saying his name and touching is face, and he’s lying there, unresponsive because HE THINKS I’M PLAYING ALONG WITH HIS GAME.

“Police Army Force.”

In which Patrick had just shot him!

Egh egh egh egh egh.

Cause Gus was the bad guy!

See?

HA!

Ha ha!

HahahahhahahhahahahahhahahaOH.MY.GOD.

Boys.

A Short Film by Gus O'Brien

2009-11-14T10:13:40-06:00

Amanda O'Brien

Out of Curiosity, Who Do You Think I Am?

2009-11-12T22:46:07-06:00

So reader Jennie left me a comment today. She said she's having trouble with the new blog template. Emotional trouble. She doesn't think the new look is "me."

On the one hand (the one wearing the sock puppet), I kind of agree with her. The new header is a little "BlabberMouse accidentally gets an invitation to the big Inaugural Ball and wears not one but TWO (!) pairs of Spanks under her fancy blue bias-cut dress." But on the other hand, it's so PRETTY! I love the little burstily bubbles, and the shades of blue. It makes me happy every time I see it.

Nevertheless, I'm all about customer service here at the BlabberMousery, and I want you people to feel at home. (Assuming you can feel at home with the burstily bubbles and the blue background SOME THINGS ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE LET'S JUST BE CLEAR.)

Okay? We'll put it to a vote. Your comment is your ballot. Stuffing the ballot box is totally permissible. Here are the three candidates:

A: BlabberMouse Gets A Fairy Godmother

B: BlabberMouse Stuffs Her Face With Cheese & Candy Corn at A Slumber Party

C. Oh, God, Please Don't Pick C!

Vote early. Vote often.

You Make My Heart Sing, Weird Little Filmmaker

2009-11-11T20:14:39-06:00

Weekend before last, I videotaped Gus giving a six minute impromptu monologue about Where the Wild Things Are, a movie he is obsessed with but refuses to see because of "The dangerous situations Max finds himself in." (I read him a review of the film that used those words exactly, and he has been incorporating them into every Wild Things conversation since.)

Since the movie premiered, he's followed the hype with scholarly devotion. He's watched all the trailers (which, to my delight, he mistakenly calls "trailer trashes") and has scoured YouTube for all things Wild Things. On Sunday night he made me watch an instructional video demonstrating how to make an official Wild Things costume.

"Watch carefully so you can make this Max costume for me tomorrow," he said.

"I don't even have a sewing machine, Gus."

In a tone suggesting that I am a tedious person who always gets hung up on trivial details, he sighed and said, "You can buy a sewing machine, Mom. Now did you see how they sewed the tail on or do you need me to go back?"

He asked Larry to videotape him and Patrick performing their own interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are, which will be very different (and "much less scarier") than the movie. He says the idea for his Wild Things movie came to him in a dream.

Because we are always trying to encourage the boys' creative expression, Larry has been very gung-ho about Gus's movie-making talk--though we were both somewhat mystified when Gus announced that his next feature film will be called San Francisco Party Dance. In it, Gus says, he will play the role of "Larry", a guy who walks around San Francisco saying "All I got is this $1 bill!"

If you know what he means.

Dark

2009-11-09T21:45:52-06:00

Have you had ample opportunity to soak in the Halloween photos from the last post? Do you need another week? I know some of the images are intellectually and philosophically challenging (Are they cookies? Are they art?) Just remember. Learning is a journey, not a destination. Take your time.

You're good?

Alright then. Moving on to the next discussion topic. This one is entitled "Dark Chocolate: I Know You Love it, But To Me It Tastes Like Pan Seared Diarrhea."

Truly. I'm not just saying that for effect. Given the choice between dark chocolate and no chocolate, I'll take a rich creamy bar of NOTHING any day of the week. Thank you and pass the Symphony bars.

I am so sick of the rampant chocolate snobbery in this country. Everywhere I go, people are all, "You prefer milk chocolate? Eww, not me. If I'm going to eat chocolate, I'm going to eat the GOOD stuff."

I'd like to see what they do to a Snickers bar when the cameras aren't rolling.

And yet they behave as if I'm some kind of Cacao Neanderthal.

(Which they no doubt pronounce Neander-Tall, because that's how CULTURED DARK CHOCOLATE CACAO LOVERS DO IT. And don't get all up in my business about how Neander-Tall is the PROPER pronunciation, unless you are also willing to admit that your strong suit is called your FORTE and not your FOR-TAY. What? You knew that, but you continue to pronounce it For-tay because EVERYONE ELSE DOES? Hmm, that's kind of how I feel about NEANDER-THHHHHALS. Thhhhhhhh.)

I remind myself of Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. "My therapist says I'm very ANGRY."

Here you can read about a few other things that annoy me (since you brought it up).

And to that list I would like to add #11: The fact that the only person who commented on that list did so to lament my loathing of dark chocolate*.

(*Though I still think you're swell, Margie.)