I'm the Mustard Girl!

Some of us exist as two dimensional cartoon characters in the minds of our friends' friends.  Your friend shared with their other friends some silly, funny, or endearing story about you.  Something that makes you memorable.  So now these other people know you as simply the character in this story.

For instance, perhaps you have a relative that once answered the question, "Do you prefer chunky or smooth peanut butter?" with a sheepish, "Chunky would be nice once in a while."  And then you shared that cute story with your friend.

Fast forward several weeks (or months, or years) and you have the following conversation:
friend: "What'd you do this weekend?"
you: "I helped my relative Joe move."
friend: "Which one is Joe?  I can't remember if I've met him."
you: "He was the peanut butter guy."
friend: "Oh, yeah!  lol.  He's awesome."

Sometimes these cartoon characters only have a vague physical description and one or two stories.  Sometimes, though, these characters have entire episodes or their own series.  When I was in high school my freshman English teacher would sometimes waste whole class periods telling us about his own teenage adventures with Big Frank.  Big Frank was so clearly a cartoon character.  We had never been shown a photograph of this living, breathing person; but we all had a very clear picture in our minds of this tall, broad-shouldered, dopey-looking, slightly slow minded boy who was always up for any trouble the rest of the group could think up.

As I shared this insight with some friends last night, I wondered if I was a cartoon character in other people's lives and I was curious what was said about me.

That's when Jeff laid it on me: I am the girl who is so ridiculously frugal that I don't even buy French's Mustard, opting instead to save 20 cents by going with the store brand.

To hear him tell the story that he has shared with his friends of the cartoon character of me was hilarious.  I thought I would be more self-conscious about it, but it's too funny!

What's your favorite cartoon character story that's been shared with you or that you've shared?  Are you a cartoon character?

A Missed Opportunity?

I found a dead crow in the backyard this morning (the neighbors' cats are good hunters). As I went to throw it in the garbage (picking it up with a double layer of trash bags) I had this internal conflicted dialogue:

grossed-out me: "Eewww!"

homeschooling me: "This is actually pretty cool. Not rotted from what I can see."

g: "Weirdo. This is so gross! I don't want to touch it!"

h: "I should use this as a learning opportunity."

g: "The kids should stay inside. They shouldn't see this."

h: "But to see the beak and claws up close would be a unique opportunity."

g: "But it's dead and therefore icky."

h: "Oh, wow, it's so light! Hmmm...hollow bones make it easier for birds to fly because they're lighter. Cool."

g: "Ew. Ew. Ew. I'm holding it! Put it in the garbage fast!"

So no, the kids did not get to dissect or even investigate a dead crow today. But Secundus did find a feather and thought it was so cool that in the light it actually looked bluish instead of black. So not totally wasted?

Another fun note:  as I leaned down to pick it up, Secundus was like, "What if it's still alive?" Not helpful!

Can she please just remain this innocent forever?

For our spelling lesson, I was reviewing with the girls when to use "k" and when to use "ck" at the end of a word.  The rule is that "ck" comes only directly after a short vowel.

Primus was being silly and decided to should out various "short vowel-ck" words.

"Stick!  Sick!  Truck!  Duck!  F*ck!"  

Then she stopped, giggled at herself, and declared "Oops!  That's not a word!"

Can she please just remain this innocent forever?