Monday, April 26, 2010

Well, what do you know?

Sometimes my mind wanders here and there and I can never predict where it will end up. Did I say sometimes? Well, this particular mental stroll took me to a place that made me think a midweek quiz would be fun. I'm not talking about a Jeopardy level brain workout. It's more like a, let's see if anyone else thinks of stupid stuff like this, quiz.

Now don't worry. I won't think you are stupid if you ace the quiz. Conversely, missing a question or two will probably land you squarely in the middle of 'normal' intelligence.

Here are twelve questions that I found hiding in the couch cushions of my cranium. Please choose a question and leave your best guess in the comments. I am looking for only one correct answer per question, but being the all powerful quiz judge that I am, I welcome any and all creativity.

I have one last request though. Since this is my quiz, and I know a few of my friends that will easily get all of the questions, I am limiting participants to only one correct answer. Which means, you may leave as many answers to as many questions in the comments as you want, but to make it fun for everyone, you can only answer one question correctly.

That means I need to have a minimum of twelve readers leave at least one comment. Now I don't want this to sound like I'm creating these crazy rules just to boost my comment numbers. That is why I'm doing it, but I don't want it to sound that way. But come on! When you average 2.2 comments per post like me, a rare double digit comment section will send me through the roof.

So spread the word and let's see how many brainy eggheads are out there!

Section 1
1. Guess what! _____ _____.

2.Guess why! _____ ____.

3. Guess where! _____ ___ __.

Section 2
Complete the saying.

4. Red sky at night, _____ ______.

5. How now _____ _____.

6. Whiskey to beer, _____ _____.

7. Beer to whiskey, _____ _____.

Section 3
Complete with a grade schooler's answer.

8. Miss me, miss me, ___ __ ____ ___ __!

9. Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a ____ __ __ __.

10. Made ya look, made ya look, ___ ___ __ ___ ____ ____.

Section 4
Answer these riddles.

11. You have 60 seconds to get rid of what word? ____.

12. What's under there?

That's it. Be sure to stretch out before tackling these mind benders. Next week I'll post the correct answers and maybe even chime in with a few comments of my own. Although, I'm sure twelve very bright people will supply all the answers needed. Right?

Saturday, April 10, 2010

I Gotta Feelin' That Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night

And this night was definitely a good night! In fact, for the third year in a row, it was a great night. I'm talking about the annual Daddy/Daughter dance. Sweet Pea and I look forward to this every year. SP gets the royal treatment by getting her hair done at our favorite bouffant master. Jeanette outdid herself this year. Somehow, she was able to sculpt, weave and turbo-curl SP's hair to create a work of art again this year.

Here's the before.

Here's the during. I can't believe Jeanette could keep that bunch of tangled Christmas cords straight.
And here's the after. A masterpiece! She even has flowers in her hair to match her dress. Thanks Jeanette for three straight years of beauty. I hope we can book you for next year's dance. And thank you Lady Di for putting the whole ensemble together. Not everyone can match hair to dress to shoes to corsage to tie.

Now I had the challenge to spruce myself up enough to be in SP's league. It wasn't easy, but with Lady Di's help and a matching tie, I was able to clean up enough to qualify to be SP's escort.
We started off the evening by having a fancy family dinner at our favorite restaurant, Applebee's. Even though, Number One Son and Lady Di were woefully under dressed, we still let them stay at our table.

Once SP and I ditched our third and fourth wheels, we sped to the dance. As we were signing in, I could hear the music from the Black Eyed Peas thumping and SP started dancing in the hall before we even entered. Surprisingly, we bypassed the snack table and immediately started to shake our bootys.

But after two or three songs, SP said she was hungry. Never mind that she had just eaten a plate of Applebee's shrimp less than twenty minutes ago. Oh well, what the lady wants, the lady gets.

We dined on Goldfish crackers, M&M's and punch before returning to the dance floor. I couldn't believe how good the DJ was too. It was like he had a copy of my iTunes account. He played all my favorite songs from Miley, Taylor, Beyonce and some guy named Bieber. It was kind of cute when Beyonce's song 'Single Lady' was played, because there were about a hundred plus single ladies dancing with their dads.

We also had the requisite YMCA, Hokey Pokey and the Chicken Dance. The DJ even slipped in some Michael Jackson. Thriller, Beat It and Billie Jean. My moonwalk muscle was very sore the next morning.

I think this was during the 'Put your head in' verse.

The evening ended with a raffle for various toys which, once again, we didn't win.

Even so, it didn't damper our evening. SP got to twirl her dress a lot and squeal with many of her girlfriends. I got to jump around with my daughter and act like Prince Charming. I can't wait for next year.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

A Juggling Act


An interesting development has surfaced recently and I'm not quite sure how to interpret it.

As most of you know, Number One Son and Sweet Pea both were rewarded with parts in the upcoming children's theatre production of Willy Wonka Jr. This means they both get to practice every week with kids they don't normally hang out with.

In N1S's case, with his experience in past plays, he has formed a few really good friendships and looks forward to renewing them every time they get together for a performance.

Many of you also know that N1S's Asperger's has required him to work very hard at making friends. Asperger people take things very literally and have to learn many interpersonal skills in order to not annoy people. Non-verbal cues that we recognize naturally, like eye rolling, sarcasm and subtle facial expressions, need to be taught to a person with Asperger's. Even with instruction and practice, many Asperger's people only maintain a few good friendships at a time. In many cases, it's just too much work to have to decipher social cues from a large group of friends. More often than not, Asperger's kids are usually not in the 'most popular' group.

Which leads us to our interesting development. As I said before, play practice has started which allows N1S to renew some old acquaintances. One friend he has from past performances is a girl three years his senior. "G1" is very outgoing and greets everyone with a loud hug. N1S seems to be her favorite though and always goes out of her way to say hello or goodbye. Three performances ago, he informed us that G1 was his girlfriend.

His second close theater friend is "G2". She has shared the spotlight with him for three productions and is cute as a button with a great singing voice. Well, apparently, at the last practice, N1S was passing notes back and forth with G2. Lady Di and I instantly grew rabbit ears and tuned in to N1S's story.

LD asked first, "Where are the notes?". She wanted to gather the evidence.

"G2 has it. We just passed the same piece of paper back and forth. Like texting, only with paper.", he very accurately answered.

"Well, what did you guys write?", I inquired, trying not to sound too eager, or too calm, or too get-on-with-the-details, boy!

"She wrote that she would like me for a boyfriend and I answered that I would want her for a girlfriend.", was his matter of fact answer. I think LD and I sucked all of the air from the room with our gasps. I am so glad he is still at an age where he tells us everything. N1S, however, thought it was no big deal. Like having girls fawning all over him is a daily occurance.

After that he asked me if he was too young for a girlfriend. I made myself pause for a second before non-chalantly telling him that he probably was too young, but they could still hang out. What I wanted to say was, "Are you kidding? You're eleven! You can't have a girlfriend for thirteen more years!"

We got another jolt a few days later when G2 invited N1S to the movies with her. LD could barely hold the phone in her shaking hand until G2's parents got on the line and said the whole family would like him to come. Knowing that Mom, Dad and G2's little brother were going too, calmed us down considerably.

All kidding aside, LD and I weren't really that worked up. We know N1S and G2 are good friends we're just going to continue to let them be good friends.

But the next day we did get worked up. N1S got a phone call at home from yet another girl from school, "G3". G3 left a couple of messages telling N1S to call her back because she was waiting for him to call and too hurry up with it. LD and I know absolutely nothing about G3. But N1S sure knows about her. We found out she is in N1S's social studies class and he even wrote her phone number in his planner.

I'm starting to think that maybe all those 'social friendship exercises' N1S has worked at over the years were just code words for 'How to be a Fonzie' classes. I wish I could say that I have some pointers for him about girls when the time comes, but juggling three girlfriends at a time is way out of my league. I'm going to have to find a Happy Days DVD collection to get caught up. Lesson number one, buy leather jacket.

Stuff About Me

My photo
I'm a 40 year old dad of two. My wonderful wife, Lady Di, and I try to keep the kids from blowing things up here in central Minnesota.