I talk too much

It’s been a while since I posted any of my comments from elsewhere.  I’ve started collecting them as I go along, and I’ve got quite the stash (and I don’t even keep them all.  I usually, for example, discard the ones that say, “Cute photos!”)  Anyway, here are a few old-ish ones:

Token Asian Friend admitted that she covers her eyes during kissing scenes in movies. I said:

That’s hilarious. I definitely did that until I was, oh, maybe 19. And, speaking of Ariel and Eric (or anyway of Disney animated romances) the first movie I watched after my mission was Disney’s Aladdin and I was shocked, shocked, by Princess Jasmine’s scanty clothing. And the kissing.

I watch the kissing now, (as long as it doesn’t go beyond kissing,) but I still close my eyes for violence. I’ve watched all the seasons of “24,” but really only “watched” about 2/3 of that. (Then I ask my husband what happened.)

Sometimes that makes things worse, though — I remember watching (or, rather, not-watching) a movie with my mom (actually, it was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) and afterwards expressing dismay that they’d shown a hand being chopped off. My mom said, “They didn’t show that!” I’d seen the swinging axe, covered my eyes, and imagined the rest, while the camera panned away.

(So what are you imagining when you have your eyes closed during the kissing scenes?)

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On Write Stuff, Melanie posted about retracing seemingly random thoughts or comments back through the associative thought bubbles that got here there.  I replied:

I have two stories for this one right off the top of my head (and, wow, this one garnered lots of comments.  Also I’m very late getting here.)

1) You know that game “Compatibility,” where you’re given a noun and you both choose from a deck of images whatever images make you think of that noun, and if you’re compatible you’ll supposedly pick the same images?  That game wasn’t so good for my marriage.  My husband and I got a word something like “marriage” and I chose an image of red rocks in Southern Utah, because my husband and I got engaged at Arches National Park.  He chose something like a couple kissing or a picture of an engagement ring.  And when we didn’t have matching pictures, he said, (although he now denies having said this,) “You’re playing the game wrong.”

2) A couple of weeks ago my mom asked me, “Did you get your hair cut?” and I answered, “Not yet, but I did buy a breast pump.”  She knew exactly what I meant. (Couldn’t leave baby to get hair cut until I could pump enough breast milk for husband to feed baby a bottle while I was gone.)

(P.S. I agree with the other commenters that being able to make imaginative associative leaps is a sign of intelligence.  One of my favorite claims to fame is that in a Child Development class that was held in a large lecture hall, the professor challenged us to write down as many uses as we could think of for a random object in a short period of time (maybe 2 minutes) and I had more uses listed than anyone else in the room.  The object was a nylon stocking and I remember one of mine was that you could use it as a fan belt.)

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On Facebook, my sisters said, “How does 2 am happen?” Her friend said, “Very sneaky like and then it suddenly becomes 4!” My aunt added, “It happens all too often for me!” I said, “This summer I’ve been giving my kids alternating work days/play days (actually we call them “family days” and “friend days” but it amounts to the same thing,) and when I told Dean I wished I got a day off every other day, he said, “Yeah, our day off is from 8 PM to 2 AM.” All too painfully true.
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At “Thou Shalt Not Whine,” Jill managed to get her son’s cowboy costume for school finished a week early.  I shared an opposite experience:

I’m jealous of your being a week early with your son’s costume.  About three weeks ago I had this conversation with my 11-year-old:  “So, when is your school’s dance festival?” Him:  “It was yesterday.”  Me: “Oh, no! I really wanted to see that! And when’s your sixth grade graduation?”  Him:  “That was yesterday, too.”  I’m still traumatized about missing these events.  (He’s my oldest, so I still care about stuff like this.)

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At “Suburb Sanity,” Debbie talked about how nice it would be to have real-life foreshadowing so we can predict our last times to be able to do things.  I said:

My baby #5 is 3.5 months old (oh, how her babyhood is fleetly flitting past) and when I first brought her home I had a big dilemma: I *might* still have more kids if my body can handle it (my dream’s always been 7 kids, yeah, I know, why not choose a dream that doesn’t involve so many sticky household surfaces, but oh well,) but if I can’t and don’t have more kids, she’s my last baby and I would want to mark and notice each last time for everything.  But then I decided maybe it’s good to not be keeping track of every last anyway, because I’d be too much of an emotional wreck.

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Melissa at “Sugar City Journal” shared her baby’s nicknames and asked about readers’ kids’ nicknames. Here were ours:

Isaac (who also goes by Ike) was froggy-boy when he was tiny (and had long skinny limbs and startled very easily,) and I still sometimes call him Ikey-tyke and Zicky-Zacky (which means smart-delicious in Arabic.)

Mabel: Mabes, Mabesy-babesy, and Maybelline

Rose: Rosie-posie, Rose-doze, Roser-dozer

Henry: I could never decide between Hal, Hank, or Harry (I love all of those,) so he mostly just goes by Henry. Also cutie-pie, sweetie, little friend, buddy — all the usual terms of endearment. I think I sometimes also call him Henry-benry.

Hazel: Haze, Hazy, Hazel-bazel. (Can you tell we fall back on the rhyming thing a lot?)

Also, all of our babies get called “little lert” because they’re alert (a lert.) (Dean started this but we all use it.)