Simon says 'Gobble, Gobble'!

It's too bad that Simon can't make up his own commands. If he could, I'm pretty sure that his next would be 'Simon says, go get a haircut, kid.' I mean, come on - look at that boy's head. It looks like a swollen match. If we wait much longer, the barber won't even be able to fit the fashion bowl that we've used to style his noggin for the last two years.

I walked into the bathroom this morning and saw this lovely gem sitting on the counter.

I took this as a sign that Angie had changed her mind about certain things that have annoyed her for years. A few seconds later, Angie walked in and caught wind of my assumptions. Apparently, she only likes 'morning wind' when it comes bottled up in pretty packaging.

On the ride over to Grams and Opa's, Peter and David had an interesting conversation involving Simon, Opa and my manhood.

'Peter, Can I play with Simon?'

'Yes, but don't drop him. If you do, we'll have to ask Opa to fix it because Papa is not so good with tool things.'

Geez, thanks for the vote of confidence, guys. I change the light bulbs when they burn out. What else do you people want from me?

For some strange reason, Germans do not celebrate Thanksgiving. They are weird in so many ways, though, that I tend to ignore their peculiar oddities. It does mean that expats like Grams and I have to wait until the weekend to get our turkey on.

I guess waiting isn't Angie's strong point.

For the first thirty seconds, it was really nice for the boys to see how a normal family can just sit around and hold a nice conversation while patiently waiting for the turkey to be carved. The problem was, Angie and Patience had a falling out a few years ago and, well, let's just say they're not exactly on eating terms yet. Angie won.

Barb, on the other hand, thought it made more sense to start getting everyone liquored up. I normally don't jump on the wine-wagon, but it's not often that Barbara actually makes sense, so I felt compelled to shout 'YES' to her wine-giving. Thanks! At the mention of alcohol, Angie came up for air and realized that the food had not even been served yet. Oh, sorry everyone - mea gulpa!

According to David's brain, the manly thing to do after any feast is to attack one another. In a friendly, thankful kind of way, of course.

Every adult human that has come in contact with a rambunctious child knows this smile. It's typically translated as 'Oh great, everyone is watching this brat trying to strangle me, so now I have to pretend that this is fun, even though I would actually like to drop him to the floor like a sack of potatoes.'

The main difference between the 'smile' approach and the 'mash 'em like taters' method is that grinning just attracts other crazy youths. They smell your indecision from miles away.

As with any frenzied mob, it only takes one crazy punk to chuck a Monchichi before all hell breaks loose.


At that moment, I'm pretty sure that Opa appreciated how Bush felt when he was busy dodging a shoe at Maliki's palace. I never got a chance to laugh at him, though; he suddenly morphed into the role of a secret service agent, charged with protecting mischievous half-pint miscreants from even worse enemies wielding hammers.



From that point, the events unfolded rather quickly. Tom was whisked into protective services with agent Lola who was not so thrilled with her new assignment.


Grams tried to distract the accused until the hearing.

What she didn't realize, though, was that 'hearing', in any grammatical shape or form, is a concept that is completely foreign to animals. They spent approximately ten seconds watching Grams doodle an avocado and then proceeded to fight over and subsequently smash poor Simon.

I looked at the broken plastic bits and mentally added 'Simon II' to the shopping list. I also explained to Peter and David that their toy was dead and that I would have to flush it down the toilet. They ignored me, of course.

'Opa!'

It's probably good that Simon can't make up his own commands, I'm pretty sure that after his Thanksgiving fall, it would be 'Simon says, keep me away from those monsters and let me live here with Opa.'
--------------------------------------------
Ladder Talk:
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: That we ate turkey - yum, yum.
David: We go to Grams and Opa for the thankings.
Tom: When I up-down by Grams and Opa.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: That we can't stay more.
David: I don't had a worst thing.
Tom: I made a owa my foot.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: That my tooth hurts.
David: Play with Tommy.
Tom: I want to eat.