Serious George

Sonshine asked me why Curious George is Curious instead of Serious. That got me to writing...

"This is George. He was a good little monkey and always very serious.

"One day, the Man With The Yellow Hat took George to the library. George was excited. Here were loads of books on every subject imaginable! George swung over to the nonfiction section and pulled a few philosophy books off the shelf with his feet. It is so convenient to have hands for feet like George!

"George sat down at the table and started reading. He read Kant and Hegel. He read John Stuart Mill. He read Karl Popper. And when he was done reading philosophy, he found the science section. He got a book on organic chemistry and another on calculus. George was so excited! He had never understood Green's Theorem before!

"The man with the yellow hat took George to the circulation desk and they checked out all the books George wanted to read. Then they carried them home to their 17th floor apartment. George skipped dinner and read until late into the night.

"In the morning, George decided he was going to put his new knowledge to work. He got on the internet and created a website where he could answer people's questions. Hilarity ensued when someone asked him to do a very difficult definite integral, and he was halfway through finding the antiderivative by substitution, parts, and partial fractions before he realized that the limits of integration were equal and therefore the integral's value was zero. What fun, to integrate with the limits of integration being equal!"

You can see why Serious George didn't make the cut.

Here are some others that didn't work out:

Furious George
"This is George. He was a good little monkey and always very furious. The Man With The Yellow Hat took George to the department store to get a gift for The Woman With The Black Stockings. George was jealous because The Man With The Yellow Hat was spending so much time with this woman and not with him. So when they got to the store, he went right over to the jewelry counter and started throwing everything he could get all four of his hands on."

Injurious George
"One day Mrs. Needleman stopped by to drop off some muffins for the Man With The Yellow Hat. George saw that they were not strudel-topped muffins, so he got very angry. He viciously attacked Mrs. Needleman, ripping her hair out of her scalp. Then the Man With The Yellow Hat came to the door and tried to pull George off Mrs. Needleman. But George was too fast! He clawed at the man's eyes, then darted away down the hall..."

Meritorious George
"After he rescued the little boy who had fallen down the well, George decided to take a stroll over to the orphanage to entertain the kids. But on the way there, he saw a kitty up in a tree. George wanted the kitty to come down and play with him, but the kitty could not. She was stuck! George quickly climbed the tree as only little monkeys can, and rescued the kitty. Then he bought doughnuts for all the police officers and firefighters."

Now We Have The Complete Set

Guess what? Knuckles is allergic to peanuts.

In an effort to get Bagel to eat something, anything, for breakfast, I made Bagel several different dishes, one of which was an English muffin with peanut butter on it. Bagel left it where Knuckles could reach it, and so Knuckles got himself a nice little schmear of peanut butter.

I noticed it when I walked back in from getting some food out of the garage, and saw that Tony's face was covered in hives and his lips were so swollen that they looked like they'd been pasted on his face from an 1800's-era caricature of a black person. His hands are also swollen, indicating that even contact with peanuts might be a no-no for him. We'll have to be the Peanut Nazi parents that everyone loves to hate. We'll have to instruct his girlfriends (when he has them) not to eat anything with peanuts if they intend to kiss him. We'll have to carry around a large bag everywhere we go, filled with peanut-free foods and an Epi-Pen. Please tell me I won't have to give up my Reese's Peanut Butter Cups too!

He's had a lot of reactions lately to things the kids have given him to eat. We know that he is allergic to either cheese or mushrooms (the kids gave him both and I haven't done a rechallenge). I'm rooting for mushrooms, because if I have to cut out cheese from our menus, my husband will personally murder me.

So now we have another food allergy to add to our family's already extensive collection! Here's what we have so far:

lactose intolerance
all fresh fruits except citrus
all fresh vegetables
peanuts
possibly dairy as well

If you cut out all the fruits, vegetables, dairy, and peanuts, what's left to eat??

If I ever have another child, I'd bet good money he'll turn up allergic to meat.

Tooele Is Full Of Worthless Redneck Trailer Trash

Before you ask, no I am NOT having a good day.

Some worthless, lazy-@$$ teenage three-eighths excuse for a whack-job just rang my doorbell and ran away as soon as I answered the door, jumped in a car and his similarly nutless, witless, hapless teenage trash friends drove him away.

What kind of goddamn redneck tramp-stamped trailer trash idiots raise their godforsaken spawn to think this is an acceptable form of entertainment?

Tell Me What You Really Think

Since I came to the conclusion that I most likely have Asperger's Syndrome, I can finally come straight out and ask a question that's been bothering me for a long time. One of the hallmarks of Asperger's is that you can't pick up on nonverbal language cues and you're stuck with trying to figure out what expressions mean based on how other people react to them. Most common expressions I've heard before and I've had ample time to figure out more or less what they mean and how rude they are. But there's one that I was first exposed to only a few years ago, and that's "Gee, why don't you tell us what you REALLY think?" This is said after someone has just disclosed a forthright opinion. When I encounter it in conversation, I do the best I can to react in a normal way. I've never seen it said to other people so I don't know how they react, but it's been said to me many times. If I could just see how other people react to it, I could copy their reactions.

I cannot for the life of me figure out what this phrase means. Is it a sarcastic way of acknowledging the forthrightness of the opinion? Is it a way to "push back" at someone who has just given out way too much information about their opinion? Is it a reaction to impoliteness? Is it itself rude or polite? Is it a not-so-gentle way to remind people not to say every word that goes through their heads?

Please leave your response in the comments. Thanks.

Life Imitates Art

This could have been an article from The Daily Prophet! (Pre-Half Blood Prince, though.)

To make Potter fans feel better, here is a picture of Dolores Umbridge's office. It's quite... pink. The kitten plates aren't nearly as hideous as I'd imagined; I'd pictured them as being more like Precious Moments or anime style, with way more aw-shucks cuteness and humungus eyes. They would, however, go very nicely with these accessories that are prominently displayed in the back of a drawer in my house. (Those are salt and pepper shakers, a sugar bowl and cream pitcher.)

Of course, I also pictured Umbridge as looking a lot more like a chubbier version of Mrs. J-------, my elementary school teacher, with a lot less retro style and more toad-like features.