Embedded Files
Summerstay Anecdotes 2013
Doug’s biggest accomplishment this year- receiving a doctorate in computer science from University of Maryland
Lesli’s biggest accomplishment this year- getting this Christmas letter together
Daniel’s (11)- my biggest accomplishment this year is attending Frederick Classical Charter School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
[Daniel attends a charter school where they wear uniforms reminiscent of Hogwarts and call the principal headmistress.]
Education
Daniel- Can you teach me to sketch by the end of fifth grade?
Doug- What do you think I was trying to do yesterday, when I asked if you wanted to learn how to draw faces and you said no thanks because of your video game?
Daniel- Dude, you have to be more forceful than that.
(Two days later)
Doug- Daniel, get some paper and a pencil and come down here and I'll show you how to sketch.
Daniel- Not right now.
Doug- You don't have a choice. Move it.
Daniel- Yeah! That's what I'm talking about!
[while sketching]
Doug- I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, why are we spending so much time on this stick skeleton if we're just going to erase it?
Daniel- No. I was not thinking that.
Daniel- So you know the idiom ‘the light at the end of the tunnel?’ Well I had an idioms test in 5th grade which I failed because there was a question that said “Jimmy was sick from school for 5 days then he finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel.” I said Jimmy died.
[We passed a van advertising ‘Frederick County Chimney Sweeps’]
Doug- Isn't that the name of your schools' sports teams?
Daniel- Oh, it sure will be now. People will ask what does FCCS [Daniel’s school, Fredrick Classical Charter School] stand for? And I'll tell them Frederick County Chimney Sweeps.
Doug- I can just imagine the games. All the people in the stands will be chanting Chim Chiminey Chim Chimeny Chim Chim Cheree!
[Watching TV show showing a prison with inmates out in the yard on pavement, some playing ball, others walking around]
Daniel- This looks like school.
Lesli- Um, it's a prison.
Daniel- Well, they're having recess aren't they.
Lesli [laughs]- Yes, I guess they are.
Daniel [enthusiastic]- How would YOU like to graduate in hamburgerology?
Lesli- I wouldn't.
Daniel- That's an ad on McDonalds.
Lesli- That's a dumb ad.
Daniel- I know, right?
[In the TEDTalk 'How to Use a Paper Towel,' the man ended with saying, ‘Next year, toilet paper.’]
Lesli- I wonder if he really did it?
Daniel- Mommy, how can you demonstrate how to use a toilet paper?
Lesli- Haha. Good point. I guess that was just a joke. [looking it up, I couldn't find it]
Daniel- Of course it was. How can you demonstrate how to use toilet paper. I mean, in public?
TEDTalk How to Use a Paper Towel
Family Relations
Lesli- No one looks good in a goatee. You can say that's just my opinion, but my opinion is right.
Daniel- Mommy, no one's opinion is right.
Lesli- Daniel, that's not true.
Doug- Yeah, that's just your opinion.
Daniel- But my opinion is right.
Lesli- Here—make a father's day card for Poppy. Here is the card all ready for you.
Daniel [wondering what to draw on the card]- What does Poppy like?
Lesli- Everything.
Daniel- Everything?
Lesli- Anything.
Daniel- I doubt Poppy likes terrorists.
Lesli- Please move, Doug, when Daniel’s going down the stairs. I don't want him to fall.
Doug [tired, lazy talking]- If he fell I would catch him.
Lesli- Shut up.
Daniel- She doesn't want you to catch me.
Doug- She doesn't want me to catch him?
Lesli- No, I don't want him to fall at all.
Doug- In Lesli, that's a term of affection. If she was actually mad she would say shut the hell up.
Lesli [joking]- you wanna beating?!
Daniel- Well, I have nothing else to do . . .
Lesli- Don't jump on my bed.
Daniel- Ok, I’ll jump on a different bed!
[he proceeds to jump on the mattress in the corner]
Lesli-Daniel, I'm not in the mood for you to be in this mood.
[Daniel, sitting reading at his computer, and Lesli was sitting reading at her computer]
Daniel- Why did you bookmark this?
[Lesli didn’t respond]
Daniel- You don't need to ignore me more. You already ignore me enough!
Lesli- What are you talking about?
Daniel- The bookmark you put on my computer.
Lesli- What was it?
Daniel- [the article] ‘The Benefits of Ignoring Children (Sometimes)—Mothering Community’
Daniel- You know, we could make a good sitcom about our family.
Lesli- It wouldn't be a sitcom, it would be a tragedy, like Hamlet.
Daniel- Yeah, it would be a sit-traj.
It would be a tragedy with comedy mixed in. I mean, you've got to admit -- there's a lot of comedy in my life.
Lesli [in a grouchy mood]- Daniel could you go live somewhere else for a 1/2 hour? I'm in a grouchy mood and I don't want to yell at you and for you to hate me for the rest of your life.
Daniel [laughing]- It's a bit too late for that now.
[Daniel, sneezing on my bed while I was working with photos on the bed]
Lesli- Don’t put snot all over my bed.
Daniel- I’m not. I’m putting snot all over your photos.
Lesli- You say “like” so often. What do I need to do to break you out of that habit?
Daniel- Kill me.
Daniel [to Lesli]- Your hair looks like a birds nest attacked by a weasel and struck by lightning.
Jokes
Lesli [reading science jokes]- I don't get this one: ‘There are two types of people in the world: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data sets’
Doug- Hmm, I guess that puts me in the first set of people, and you in the second set.
Daniel- Oh, I get it!
Doug- And Daniel is also in the first set.
Lesli- I still don't get it. It doesn't end, it doesn’t have any closure. That drives me crazy!
Daniel- Mommy, there are two types of people in the world: Those who can tolerate lack of closure
Lesli [about an empty tic-tac box]- You could store small things in there, like your teeth.
Daniel- That would be a mean joke to play on someone. [He then picks up the tic-tac box, pops open the top and pretends to shake the contents into his mouth]
Doug- No, what you should do is put your watch in there, and then some time when you're playing naughts and crosses, you can pull it out and distract the other player. It's the famous Tic-tac tick-tock tick-tac-toe tactic.
Daniel- Darth Vader must be terrible at hide and seek.
Lesli- why?
Daniel- Because his hiding place is betrayed by his breathing.
Playing Jeopardy for family home evening, we made up our own clues from the same category:
A: (by Doug) This question was repeated several times in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
Q: What is 'Who is John Galt?'
A: (by Doug) This band was part of the British invasion, along with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
Q: What is “The Who?”
A: (by Daniel) The question from the clue two clues ago.
Q: What is “What is ‘Who is John Galt?'’”
A: (by Doug) This time traveler goes around the galaxy in a blue telephone box.
Q: Who is “Doctor Who?”
A: (by Doug) The answer to the question that would be asked in a certain music video if it were about an owl instead of a fox.
Q: What is “Hoo, Hoo.”
A: (by Daniel) The first baseman's nickname in Abbot and Costello's skit.
Q: What is “Who?”
A: (by Doug) Horton hears this.
Q: What is “a Who?”
Daniel saw a bumper sticker that said RIT and he said, “That means Rest In Tension. That's very clever of them.”
Maggie's jokes [Daniel’s 5 yr. old cousin while he was video chatting with her]:
Knock knock / Who's there?
Peach / Peach who?
Knock knock / Who's there?
Peach / Peach who?
Knock knock / Who's there?
Apple / Apple who?
Apple you glad it’s not another peach?
Why was six afraid of seven? Because seven ate eight.
Mammals
[Daniel was stretching in the morning after getting up from lying on the floor.]
Lesli- Did you know that all animals stretch? At least, all mammals stretch. I saw it on a documentary.
Daniel immediately comes back with- And how do whales stretch?
Lesli- That is a good question. I didn't think of that when I saw the documentary. And how do dolphins stretch. Dolphins are mammals too, right?
Daniel- Yes.
Daniel- Mommy, do whales vomit? Never mind. I'll look it up.
Daniel- Hey, Mommy, ask me what I learned at school today.
Lesli- Did you learn about whales vomiting?
Daniel- No. I learned about dolphins farting.
Daniel [quoting from internet]- ‘The simple answer is yes. Whales can and do vomit. In fact whale vomit has been used to make perfume, cologne and cosmetics for many years.
Surprisingly whale vomit can be quite expensive to purchase and has even been called floating gold.’
Lesli- Why would anyone want to use it to make those products. That's really gross.
[Looking at Smithsonian book of North American Mammals]
Doug- Armadillos are so weird.
Daniel- They’re evolved roly poly bugs. What’s so weird about that?
Lesli [having word-finding problems]- You can eat an applesauce or a chihuahua.
Daniel- What's a 'chihuahua?'
Doug- A chihuahua is a small dog from Mexico that has ears that stick out like a cat
Daniel- I know but...
Doug- and its head is as big as the rest of its body and its eyes are the size of—
Daniel- Yes but…
Doug- a regular dog and—
Daniel- I know what a Chihuahua is in English, but what does it mean in Leslin?!
Doug- Shouldn't that be 'Leslish?'
Daniel- Well, do you speak American?
Doug- Well, no, but I see your point.
Lesli- I don't get it.
Daniel- American, Leslin.
Lesli- I still don't understand.
Doug- He's pointing out the etymological, metaphorical construction of America-n and Lesli-n, and subliminally hinting at a deeper confluence due to the fact that NEITHER ONE IS AN ACTUAL LANGUAGE!
(Religion cont.)
On the Australian kids TV show, ‘Elephant Princess,’ describing how the fantasy world was separated from the real world, the character Kuru was saying, ‘Manjipoor was once a part of this world . . . In order to safeguard [it], the most powerful sorcerers were assembled and used their magic to hide us from the outside world. They decided to affect the vibrational field and shift the entire kingdom to a parallel space.’
Alexandra replied, ‘So what you’re saying is—Manjipoor exists all around us but on a different frequency.’
Daniel- So it’s just like Heaven.
Lesli- That’s what you think Heaven is like?
Daniel- Yes. People are always saying ‘Heaven is all around us.’
Lesli- What’s on the [advent] calender for today?
Daniel- anangel
Lesli- A ninja?!
Daniel- No. An. Angel.
Lesli- You know, that would make sense in the scene. Surprise! There's a ninja! Nobody saw him because he was so stealthy.
Lesli- Did you get a good book on kangaroo rats? [from the library]
Daniel- Yes, a book with every species of kangaroo rat ever invented.
Lesli- Invented?
Daniel- Invented by God.
Food
Daniel- I wish there was phlegm tasting like candy. No, I wish there was candy tasting like phlegm.
Lesli- Shhh. That's really gross.
Daniel- But phlegm tastes really good.
Lesli- You have to eat this asparagus for dinner.
Daniel- What is asparagus?
Lesli- Larry is an asparagus.
Daniel- No, he's a cucumber.
Lesli- Jonah the prophet is an asparagus, I'm sure.
Daniel- That sounds so wrong.
Doug- I made something delicious today, but I'm not going to tell you until you promise not to be grossed out by it.
Lesli- I can't promise that.
Doug- You want to hear it, Daniel?
Daniel- I'm considering my options. Does it involve meat?
Doug- No meat.
Daniel- Go ahead and tell us.
Doug- I put sour cream in my root beer.
Lesli- Eeeeew! Disgusting!
Daniel- I was prepared for worse.
Daniel- Can I have a hundred thousand dollars?
Lesli- Yes. After you go eat your apple.
Daniel- I would eat like twenty apples for a hundred thousand dollars. A real hundred thousand dollars, that is. Not a candy bar hundred thousand dollars.
Lesli [to Daniel]- Go eat your cello practice and do your dinner.
Daniel- What did you want me for?
Doug- You didn't eat lunch. And now it's dinner time.
Daniel- True. You know how I'm going to fix that? Eat both at once: Chicken. Nugget. Sandwich.
Daniel [talking to himself]- There's nothing so cruel as being forced to eat.
Medicine
Doug [speaking two octaves lower than usual]- Why didn't you catch this cold instead of me?
Daniel- Because my white blood cells are a highly trained army.
Doug- Huh. My white blood cells are a bunch of losers.
Daniel- Can I take Melatonin, too?
Doug- No.
Daniel- But I have lots of trouble getting to sleep.
Doug- The difference is, your sleep problems don't cause us any trouble.
Daniel [while we were driving in New Jersey on the way to the doctor in New York]- That's a huge hospital. Have you been to that one mommy?
Lesli- No, I haven't been to every hospital everywhere Daniel.
Daniel [insistent]- But have you been to that one?
Lesli- No.
[Lesli, asking Doug what she should do about her unsolvable health problems]
Daniel- You should go into the future and take a miracle pill.
Lesli- I would rather go into the past—
Daniel [interrupting]- you should go into the future and take a miracle pill and then you can go back into the past and enjoy it.
Opposites
Daniel- Want to hear a word paradox?
It's opposite day.
Lesli- I guess that is a word paradox. Did someone tell you that or did you figure that out.
Daniel- I figured it out.
Daniel- Can?—
Lesli- No!
Daniel- I—
Lesli- No!
Daniel- (sighs)
Lesli- No!
Daniel- Can—
Lesli- No!
Daniel [quickly]- Can I not-kill you?
Doug- That tree is like a skyscraper for ants.
Daniel- Yes, but what would the ants call a real skyscraper?
Doug- I don't know. A mountain?
Daniel- No, they would call it a plant for people.
Philosophy
Daniel- That's a crab if I've ever seen one.
And I've never seen one. So I have no idea if it's a crab or not.
Daniel was asking me a few weeks ago about what the purpose of a plant's life is. I told him the purpose of the plants in our garden is so we can eat their fruit, and he asked, ‘So the purpose of plants is whatever people use them for?’
Last night Daniel got out of bed and said- ‘I've been thinking deep thoughts and I've found the point of life. It is... to reproduce before you either get eaten or die of wounds.’
Lesli- And where did you get that from?
Daniel- Nature programs. All they care about is animals getting eaten. The only other thing they care about is animals reproducing, or doing something else having to do with reproducing.
Daniel- [about angry birds stuffed toy] The great thing about this stuffed animal is that I don't need to feel a little bit guilty about throwing it no matter how it lands.
Lesli- I don’t agree with anyone all of the time.
I don’t even agree with myself all the time.
Lesli [about a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin says ‘How would people like it if animals bulldozed a suburb and planted new trees’]- That would be awesome!
Lesli- Youth is wasted on the young. And it always will be.
(Daniel, talking to himself)
I wish all cars had sirens. It would be so easy...
Actually, it wouldn't because you'd have to pull over all the time.
I wish MY car had a siren.
[In the car after his piano recital]
Daniel- Did I tell you about my ‘if the world were made of chocolate’ theory?
Lesli- No.
Daniel- Well, there was a song someone played called, ‘If the World Were Made of Chocolate.’ And it ends in a minor key. Now I wondered, wouldn't the world made of chocolate be a good thing? And I thought it must be because global warming would melt it.
Art
Daniel wrote:
[about Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware] You know this painting is all good and patriotic, but it’s completely wrong! I mean if I were planning a sneak attack on someone with the nights darkness as my cover, I don't think I'd want to be raising my bright red and bright blue flag to tell everybody: "hey look at me I'm American and I'm crossing the very same river that just happens to run by your camp." Plus what's this I'm sitting in? A rowboat? N'n'n'n'no you see I'm bringing pure metal cannons on these boats. And cannons on rowboats has been tried before. It does not work. Not to mention the horses that are in the back of the picture. They don't like the rowboat. They're about to jump out of the rowboat. Horses need space. And besides, even if I were in a rowboat I wouldn't be standing up. For one thing I'm making the guy on my left have to lean way over, and for another thing I'm putting my weight on to one side of the boat. A rowboat. It's about to tip over. Anyway to sum it up: No flags. Bigger boats.
Doug- You know what you should do if you are an artist? You should take a hand-crafted, artisanal globe made of plaster with gold inlays, and mash peas all over it. You could call it—
David- World peas?
Doug- I was thinking Peas on Earth, but yeah...
Lesli- But the peas would rot.
David- That would be part of it. It would be a kind of performance installation piece.
Daniel- Have you ever seen the Anne Geddes where the kids are dressed up as a rat – with disease?
Lesli- This show sure has a lot of commercials.
Daniel- No, this is the actual show.
Daniel- I wonder if you could make a marionette of a puppeteer working a marionette?
Emily- Daniel, your shirt is inside out and backwards.
Daniel- I know.
Emily- Why?
Daniel (joking)- I'm making a statement.
Later Daniel’s cousin Merrick [8] went into the bathroom. When he came out he had his shirt on inside out and backwards.
When Merrick's mom Kelli came to pick him up she asked him, ‘Merrick, why is your shirt inside out and backwards?’
Merrick replied, ‘I'm making a statement.’
Misunderstandings
Alexandra [4 yr old cousin]- Where's Daniel?
Lesli- Right there.
Alexandra- Did he get a shortcut?
Lesli- What do you mean?
Alexandra- You know, where you short your hair [gesturing at her hair]
Lesli- Oh, you mean a haircut? Yes.
Lesli- I was tired and misread a quote shared on Facebook as ‘Some people tend to forget that kindness and madness are free.’ I was staring at it for a while trying to make sense of it: certainly madness is free, but I didn’t understand the juxtaposition with kindness, or with the cute drawing, or the purpose of the reminder. It took me way too long to figure out I’d misread it.
[Watching Disney’s ‘Son of Flubber’ where a guy discovered how to make it rain]
Daniel- They could use that at NASA in the weather control department.
Lesli- Weather control department? Really, Daniel. [jokingly] I didn’t know they had that at NASA. Is that what Owen does at NASA?
Math
[after finishing watching a TV show with Lesli, Daniel looks at the clock]
Daniel- What?! Its 12:36! Dang it! I missed 12:34
Lesli-1 2 3 4?
Daniel –Yeah.
Lesli- Well, you got 12:36. 1 plus 2 equals 3, and 2 times 3=6
Daniel [not impressed]- Oh man, I even missed 12:35
Lesli- What’s that?
Daniel- Fibonacci sequence.
Daniel- Why aren't jokes in base 8 funny?
Lesli- Why?
Because 7 10 11.
[In base 8, ‘10’ means 8 and ‘11’ means 9]
Poetry
a poem –by Daniel Summerstay
A cat survived a cataclysmic cataclysm in Catalonia sitting in a catalpa tree reading a catalog about catalysts.
Eccentric elephants efficiently elbowed eleven emperors in an exciting escape from eight extreme eagles.
Incredible imbeciles inhabiting igloos in Illinois illegally ignite ill iguanas in-lightening imbedded imps.
—
Daniel- I used to be bad at poetry but then I realized it’s basically like writing music but without the different notes.
Lesli- What do you mean?
Daniel- So in music you think about the rhythm like in Davy Jones— [piano song] da dd dd, and in poetry it’s basically the same thing, cat and fiddle – dd da da. So if you just think about how the rhythm will sound you’re basically set and now you just have to find the right words and add in some rhymes or some alliteration or something else you want.
[When Daniel asked me to print the following poem for him before school, I originally thought he shouldn't name it ‘I Am From.’]
Lesli- How about you name the poem ‘I Am.’
Daniel- No. Then people would think it’s about the burning bush or something.
[Daniel wrote this poem for a school assignment last May. The visiting author at Daniel’s school told the students to start each stanza with ‘I am from’ and to make it about themselves, but to put some fiction in it, so Daniel’s first stanza is fictional. No one helped him with it. He chose the font. : )]
I Am From
I am from Great Britain
From a hospital
On Inchkieth
I am from the environment
Whenever
I have the chance
I am from cool temperature
And try to make myself
I m from nature
With its life
Air
Space
Rocks
Water
And whatever else
I am from the countryside
Escaping
From the bad smells
And awful noise of civilization
I am from good music
Played on the cello
And piano
I am from fantasy
Able to do anything
I am from history
From the renaissance
To the American Revolution
I am from biting dogs
Their wounds unforgiveable
I am from calm cats
Roaming my house
I am from a hurting stomach
As it burns upward
I am from my mind
Answering any question
That comes my way
Able to get out of any situation
I am from books
And short stories
My eyes engulfed in paper
A typewriter
My weapon
by Daniel Summerstay
(right after Doug passed his dissertation defense)
Religion
Daniel- You know what I was just thinking?
Doug- Tell me.
Daniel- You know how in a lot of movies and fairy tales, ‘love conquers all’? Well, I was thinking, what if it was the bad guy trying to conquer everything with love, and the good guy wins by having hate?
Doug- Hmm. Interesting.
Daniel- So when everyone is being caught up in the whirlpool of perfect love, he could throw a brick at someone's head or something.
So he starts a fight, and everyone starts hating each other, and so breaks the spell.
Doug- That kind of reminds me of the council in heaven. Do you remember what it was that Satan wanted to do?
Daniel- He wanted to tempt people?
Doug- Well, he said, I know how to save everyone, so no one will be lost. That sounds like a good thing right? They just have to give up their agency. And Jesus said, no, let's let everyone do their own thing.
Daniel- So it sounds a little like Satan was the one who wanted everyone to have one mind and one heart.
Doug- You could do it as a Phineas and Ferb episode. Have Doofenschmirtz realize that the power of love always conquers all, and build a love-inator...
Daniel- Sure, and then Perry the platypus could start a fight to defeat it.
Daniel- Heaven created universes so where is heaven?
Daniel started laughing and said he remembered a joke. Then he described this comic strip, ‘Matt and Mandy,’ from the Friend, acting it out for me. He ended by yelling the lines, "I don't care if you don't like my freaking picture!! I'm still a child of God!!!"
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