Embedded Files
Doug visited Latvia and London this year. He continues trying to bring about the robot apocalypse. Daniel has been accepted to several universities to study acting, has been in some absurd number of plays, and basically got perfect scores on every test he took this year. We are expecting a baby girl in January or February with the help of our wonderful gestational carrier Amanda. -Doug
Performance Arts
Daniel- I have a new plan. Matthew and I are going to start a Norwegian throat singing band, and we're going to busk on the street. And I'll play the didgeridoo. And that's what I'm going to do when I grow up.
Lesli- Ha, ha. Very funny.
Daniel- Why are you laughing at my dreams, Mommy?
I mentioned the urban myth that Walt Disney had been cryogenically preserved to Lesli who had never heard of it. When I went to Google it, I first tried ‘Disney frozen,’ and then ‘Disney on ice.’ At first I was frustrated with the search results, but then I realized that they must have chosen those names deliberately to keep something hidden from those who were trying to pry too closely into the truth... -Doug
Daniel [about movie they are making for the Scout film festival]- The main character of the movie is Walt Disney.
Doug- Is he frozen in the end?
Daniel- Oh, he is now!
[During a community production of ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ which Daniel was in]
Dogberry- Though it be not writ down, yet forget not, I am an ass.
Elena [Daniel’s 12-year-old cousin, from the audience]- We won't!
Barochio [backstage]- We have a heckler.
Balthazar - A Shakespeare heckler. That’s new.
[Daniel and his friend Jackson were discussing their film project about Thomas Becket.]
Daniel- Well, there’s this person in the Holy Roman Empire who’s saying ‘I’m the pope and whatnot,’ and he’s called the antipope—
Jackson- Wait, there’s an antipope in this movie?!
Daniel [nonplussed]- Yeah, an antipope...
Jackson- I have to play the antipope, and he’ll wear the same size pope hat as the pope, but it will be black and he’ll say everything the pope says, but backwards.
Daniel- I think I'm gonna be eccentric when I grow up.
Lesli- You're eccentric now.
Doug- You worked in a movie theater once. What was the worst movie you've ever seen in a theater?
Lesli- I don't know. I haven't seen many in a theater, even when I was working there. Maybe Silence of the Lambs. One of my brothers made me see it. I don't know why.
Doug- He probably just wanted to feel understood.
While singing, ‘Jesus Once was a Little Child,’ I realized that all the kids around me in Sunday school had misheard ‘meek and mild’ and were singing, ‘He was pure and weak and wild as a little child should be.’ -Doug
Don’t the King’s Singers sometimes sound smug to you? Like, you don't know why, but they seem to deserve a slap to the face? -Doug
I was giving the morning announcements at my school. I ad-libbed in front of all the school administrators, ‘Today’s joke of the day is: my self-esteem.’ -Daniel
Culinary Arts
Daniel [at Chick-Fil-A for the first time in a really long time]- How come they put their fries in a waffle iron? But a really little waffle iron?
Doug- Do you want some [of this for] lunch?
Lesli- No, I’m having second breakfast.
Doug- You know that's not a real thing, right?
Doug to Daniel- ...A drinking fountain you have to pay to use is called a trickleodeon.
Lesli- I've never heard of such a thing.
Doug- You balk at this, but had no problem with the pickleodeon, in which one pays for music with pickle slices?
Lesli- Did you eat your salad?
Daniel- No.
Lesli- I told you to eat it first.
Daniel- Well, I ate the rest of the garlic bread first.
Doug- Garlic is a vegetable.
Daniel- He’s right. Can’t argue with science.
Silliness
Lesli- Is there such a thing as a bear with rabies?
Doug [looks it up]- Bears can rarely get rabies, but there are no known cases of a person catching rabies from a bear.
Lesli- I'm not worried about catching rabies, I'm worried about getting eaten by a rabid bear! No one catches it because no one ever survives!
Alexandra [10 yr old cousin]- Is anyone going to go into the mosquito tent!?
Lesli- It’s a tent to keep the mosquitos out.
Alexandra- I asked uncle Doug and he said that it is like a butterfly tent, except they put all different kinds of mosquitos in there instead of butterflies.
Lesli- He was joking.
Alexandra- I thought that was gross.
Lesli- That’s an entirely appropriate response.
After his school play, Daniel received a card from the kids at church that said ‘From your favorite people.’
Daniel [to the high school friends he was with]- What? Jesus, John Lennon, and Karl Marx were here and I missed them?
This year’s children’s Sunday school manual is perpetuating a controversial interpretation of ‘in those days the earth was divided’— look at Spain! -Doug
Meteorology
Lesli- Daniel, go outside for 5 more minutes.
Daniel- It’s cold outside.
Lesli- Put a coat and hat on.
Daniel- That doesn't help.
Lesli- Why don't you fix your car radio?
Doug- Do you have any idea how cold it is out there right now?
Lesli- Well, why didn't you do it six months ago?
Doug- Do you have any idea how hot it was out there six months ago?
Psychology
From Daniel’s psychology textbook- The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. Look at your 3 best friends. If they're ok, then it's you.
A friend shared this on Facebook—
My eyes were tired so I scanned it and what I read was: ‘You are too old and it is too late.’ I knew that couldn’t be right so I reread it, but this time I read, ‘You are too old and it is not too late.’ -Lesli
Daniel- You know what I realized, mommy?
Lesli- What?
Daniel- I realized that Psych is basically the same show as Monk, except with ADHD instead of OCD.
Bureaucracy
[Daniel and Doug were arguing politics]
Lesli- Daniel, I already told you to get ready for bed!
Daniel- Just a minute, I have to solve the problems with Communism first!
Youth conference sign up form, which Daniel filled out himself:
Are there any medical, physical, emotional, etc. concerns you have about your child? Any considerations leaders need to make? Provide details here:
Daniel can't stare too long at the dust from whence we came without slipping into a deep nihilist trance, contemplating the relentless crushing of life and spirit that we, but meager mortals, christen ‘life,’ for the most part blissfully unaware that it is all for naught, for it is true the equilibrium state of the cosmos is death and death. And death creeps at the petty pace it does for death knows the only aim of life is death. And so it creeps from day to day to the day there are no more days, and every day we’ve ‘lived’ has been that day for someone else: someone also led inexorably to the dust. Out! Out, brief candle.
Daniel was filling out something for Scouts.
He asked me, ‘Why am I important to the family?’
I thought hard about it, and trying to articulate a complicated and heartfelt emotion, said, ‘You give me a reason to live.’
He brushed it off. ‘Oh yeah, I already got that one.’
He had written ‘actualization of parents.’
-Lesli
Daniel- Nobody will publish my engaging kindergarten workbook, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phonics.
Daniel [coming downstairs from working on college applications]- Poppy, can you come bastardise my beautiful essay down to 2000 characters?
Doug- Politicians can only change the world by getting enough people to agree. But then things shift and it gets undone again. When a scientist solves a problem, they can permanently improve the world.
Daniel- What about artists?
Doug- An artist is someone who thinks they can change the world by changing the people in the world.
Library Science
Lesli- Who left an antique book in the living room?
Doug- I was just going to ask that.
Lesli- Did you Daniel?
Daniel- No.
Lesli- I didn't. that means you must have, Doug.
Doug- Lesli, life is not a murder mystery where the job is to find out who did it.
Doug- Squirrel Girl is by Ryan North. He wrote that Shakespeare Choose Your Own Adventure that Daniel really likes.
Lesli- Do you own a copy?
Daniel- No.
Lesli- Shouldn’t you want one?
Lesli- Doug, the DoD keeps calling with an automated call.
Doug- It's an idiotic new mass alert system they're trying out. They called me twice at my number here, as well. Expect more calls. Do you remember ‘WOOF’ [actually WUPHF]from ‘The Office?’
Lesli- No.
Doug- www.dailymotion.com/video/xde1y8
Daniel’s history teacher sent this poll out to his students regarding the last two days of school:
Will you be at school next week?
□ YES - Both Days
□ YES- Monday only
□ NO- I recognize the complete and utter futility of coming next week given how the system has final exams (PARCC/HSA/AP) weeks before the end of the school year and I feel like I'm being babysat by professional educators.
Toys
[We had car trouble on the way home from a visit to Lesli’s non-insurance-participating Dr. Mozayeni.]
Doug- I hate cars.
Lesli- You like being able to get places.
Doug- I wish I had a Tesla. No exhaust system, no transmission, nothing but a battery and motors.
Lesli- Dr. Mozayeni has a Tesla.
Doug- Yeah, that’s because we gave him all our money.
Doug- I think we should all agree to refer to the time period of the Star Wars prequels as the ante-stellabellum era.
Lesli [about telescoping coat rack]- That’s not a toy.
Doug [playing with said coat rack]- It’s an awful lot like a toy.
Anatomy
[Daniel plotted his BMI after checking weight and height.]
Daniel [excited]- I'm not even in the red!
Lesli [coming over to look]- Daniel! you're still really low! You’re the lowest it's possible to be and not be in the red.
Life Hacks
Doug- I've decided to follow Marie Kondo's advice and only have 30 books next to the bed that I haven't finished yet.
Daniel- Golf caps are tricky. They can say ‘working class driver’ or they can say ‘retired bourgeoisie.’
Doug- Or Scottish lord. Fedoras are the same way. You go for ‘adventureous archaelogist,’ and you come across as ‘guy sitting in his basement criticizing women online.’
Daniel- Or double-brimmed caps—you could be ‘Sherlock Holmes’ or ‘Canadian moose hunter.’
Doug- With a beret you try for ‘Central American revolutionary’ and come across as ‘sophisticated French woman in the 1930s.’
Doug- Or a baseball cap—you want to say ‘professional ball player’ but it comes across as ‘illegal farm laborer.’
Daniel- I'm so cool—basically a minor deity.
Lesli- What happened?
Daniel- Something fell off the desk and I caught it.
A student in Drivers’ Ed. today said to the teacher, ‘So if someone is driving high on the road, and the police pull them over, how can they tell if I'm high, I'm mean, if they're high?’ -Daniel
Doug- I need to take a piss first.
Lesli- Just say pee!
Doug- OK. I'll come upstairs after I take an S.
Lesli- You're being rude!
Doug- I used a euphemism! That's the opposite of rude!
Lesli- Daniel! Stop laughing!
Lesli- We’ve been married 20 years. Can you believe that?
Daniel- Yes.
Lesli- We’re becoming old.
Lesli [realized I shouldn’t say that to Daniel when we are in our 40’s]- I mean, we're becoming middle-aged.
Doug- Becoming middle-aged?
-End-
Merry Christmas!
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